Taken from this thread, an interesting tangent that deserves its own thread:

QuoteYou could always take immortality as a half-metaphor and have them slowly merge into great trees as they age, like in those Robin Hobb books, the Soldier's something or other (or even Avatar), so the wisdom of the elders remains available to the rest.

... what kind of weapons, ships or artifacts could be made from wood like that assuming you could get some? Can elves transfer a small part of their essence to their own bows and arrows, or plants maybe, to control them?


...When the druid introduces you to her weapons as "My grandsire and granddame" it's time to be respectful of the intelligent artifact weapon


...A mighty oaken throne gifted to a line of great kings, to grant them wisdom and power, and cement the friendship between the humans and the people of the trees. But does this potent gift have a darker side, forever whispering in the ears of the lords of men? The rabble rousing demagogue Missionaries of the Sacred Flame coming over the eastern borders seem to think so, and the exiled Prince agrees!


..."The dark whispers of the demons in the trees shall be cleansed by the Mighty Flame of Our Lord! Repent, o soulless heathens of the forest, 'ere you burn eternally in his lake of fire!"
-Inquisitor Errant Malfrose

"No matter where you stand, the smoke always gets in your eyes."
- Illimar the Blind, Executor Major of Dillispar

So what kind of artifacts would you produce from Soulwood? Heartsap mead that makes the next oath you swear binding, at the risk of warping mutation? The keel of mighty ships that will always find their way home? Twin harps which sing in unison regardless of distance for rather cryptic communication?

Health spouts, a small spoutling of the tree tied to a person that shows their current condition by wilting if they're diseased, showing cuts in its bark if they're wounded, or dying when they do.

Along the lines of the keel you mentioned, message arrows that, when launched, unerringly fly back to the tree they came from, where they bounce off (they're blunt) and can be found

A bed or cradle where your ancestors can visit you in your dreams and provide guidance.

Puppets of varying sizes that can be possessed by the spirits from the trees to accomplish tasks from spying to labor to defense.

Quote from: The Traveller;570547The keel of mighty ships that will always find their way home?

The sailing ships would have keels made to create nigh-unbreakable hulls while the maidenhead of the ship made of soulwood could make the entire vessal sentient.

Of course, spelljammers must have soulwood rudders and maidenheads to travel through the ether of space.

The trees providing the soulwood must give it up of their own free will, because if it is taken then you get damned and cursed items when made.

Quote from: jeff37923;570568The sailing ships would have keels made to create nigh-unbreakable hulls while the maidenhead of the ship made of soulwood could make the entire vessal sentient.

Of course, spelljammers must have soulwood rudders and maidenheads to travel through the ether of space.

The trees providing the soulwood must give it up of their own free will, because if it is taken then you get damned and cursed items when made.

Or just possessed.

I like the spelljammer thought.. it's been years since I looked at SJ, didn't the elves have Eldar-eque world ships made out of trees in there?

Quote from: jeff37923;570568The trees providing the soulwood must give it up of their own free will, because if it is taken then you get damned and cursed items when made.

Unless you're a particularly nasty kind of sorceror, then if you're lucky and careful you can lull the tree into believing it is helping someone deserving before tearing out what you need. Innocence and unicorns are usually involved. Of course the spirit trapped within the wood is furious, but what you have then is an angry spirit possessed artifact working for you. Which suits most sorcerors just fine.

A locket worn around the neck, which if one drips three drops of blood into it by the light of the moon on All Hallow's Eve, gains a most peculiar property. If planted in virgin forest soil up to three days after the wearer dies, a tree will sprout up overnight, then die at sunset the next day. The dried and withered branches, when burned, cause the spirit of the departed to appear and answer questions in the smoke.

It is rumoured that a human child conceived in the hollow of a Soul Tree can become the receptacle for the spirit of the ancestor to live again, which may have led to the fairy tales of changelings and child stealing.

During the early burnings carried out by the Missionaries of the Sacred Flame, an entire contingent of Templars was wiped out when the wind changed and the smoke surrounded them.  The screams and cackles of laughter emanating from the smoke left hardened veterans cowering in ditches and clutching their ears.

There were no survivors, no witnesses, and even more eerily, no bodies.

The forest itself regrew quickly, but the trees were dark and foreboding, no birds were ever seen nesting in the trees, which bore uncanny likenesses to screaming human faces.

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"I don't like it, Edmunt.  I swear dem trees is watchin us! Waiting for us to slip up.  I kin hear em whispering behind our backs!"

"You're hearin nothin, Devvie.  The forest just gets t' ya.  Have some more mead and forget it."

-Overheard at a tavern near the Great Road, approx. 5 leagues from Dillispar

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Foresters are a superstitious and generally paranoid lot, prone to carrying small charms and muttering prayers to the Flame when travelling through the Forest.  They refuse utterly to damage living wood, believing it to be cursed, and tales abound of unwary travelers being set upon by Foresters after cutting a limb from a tree or felling a sapling for firewood.  Foresters believe that only blood can appease the spirits of the forests, and usually prefer to maintain their own safety by spilling that of the offenders.
These sacrifices are normally made at the roots of largest tree in the immediate area, or at one of the trees that has grown with a pattern resembling a human visage.  Modern Thaumaturgy has been unable to verify the effectiveness of these semi-shamanic rites due to the Imperial bar on research in the Forest, but some effect would be expected.
-Rico Del Morantar, Scholar of Theological Studies, On the Beliefs Surrounding the Great Forest, Dillispar 1418 CE.

"I was SO wrong..."
-Spirit of Rico Del Morantar, as interviewed by Inquisitor Malfrose using Speak With Dead, Great Forest, 1420 CE

The Brethren of the Silent Song take their vows seriously. Selected solely from amongst the illiterate tribesmen of the Shining Barrens who yet form the bulk of the fevered might of the Empire, from whose loins sprang the Prophet of the Reborn Ember himself, upon joining that most holy order they have their tongues removed and the stump sealed with the kiss of a cherry brand formed into the winding coils of the Glyph of the Sacred Smoke, said member then being dipped into liquid amber in accordance with the oral tradition, that they may forever hold their tongues in contemplation of the eternally rising fumes of worship, humble ash exalted.

Sworn to obey only the High Lambent himself, they in the main copy manuscripts and carry messages they can never have any understanding of, and oversee the manufacture of the languid-sparkling incense known as Haliss, central to the rites and practices of the faith.

The intoxicating breath of the Prophet has been known to drive men mad, to become prophets themselves, and to enact miracles before the gathered. It is used to discern the identity of the next Lambent, and to answer the questions put before the Magi by the faithful. The heathen city of Gisalian was overcome in a day and a night by the burning of seven full caravans of holy Haliss, carried by sisterwind over the eaves and byways of the damned metropolis.

Its secrets are known only to the Brethren, how it is formed and produced is the deepest confidence of the order. All that is known is that once every three years, when the moon wanes to nothing and the howling columns raise their voices, chosen monks wander in mazement to the west after fasting and prayer, returning many days later from their closeted pilgrimage bearing great amounts of silvery white lumber upon their shoulders, taking great care never to allow the timbers to touch the earth.

So great is this exertion that upon their return the Brothers pass immediately from this realm into the embrace of the mighty flames after they are relieved of their burdens, some even before they have themselves extinguished, the imponderable mercy of the Lambent. Whispers in the halls of the Thousand Year Citadel tell of monks desperately trying to communicate something, straining against their bonds as they succumb.

What this mystery might be, only the ashen monks and the Reborn Ember will ever know.