"Long ago, before even the eldest Sylvan Trees had taken root, our clan, the Sylrowen, fled the fall of Liraethal—a shining kingdom brought low by greed and the wrath of nature. The land we once ruled turned against us: storms screamed, rivers rose, the earth cracked, the animals and trees grew abundantly and overran us. So we wandered, seeking not a new throne, but forgiveness. At last, we came to Fanewick, a wild and sacred forest. But we did not claim it. We listened. We learned. And in time, the Great Owl Nikta spoke—not with voice, but with knowing: 'Be not rulers. Be forest.' So we became its keepers. Not lords, but limbs. Not masters, but servants of the great being that was the forest of Fanewick. Thus do we remain—Sylrowen of Fanewick, children of the wild, sworn to the balance between sowing and reaping."

-Legends of the Sylrowen Clan’s Origin Told within the Clan

Living in giant trees called Sylvan Trees that have been moulded with druidic magic to be hollow on the inside but remaining sturdy on the outside, is—or rather was—the Elves of Fanewick’s Sylrowen Clan. It was said that the elven clan of Sylrowen was the first group to settle in Fanewick. Prior to the arrival of clan Sylrowen in Fanewick, the bogged forest was a true untamed land, inhabited only by the lush trees and the varied animals of the forest, as well as the various Faint Divinities dwelling in Fanewick. Legends told of how the Sylrowen Clan arrived escaping the destruction of the Kingdom of Liraethal—a mythical elven kingdom—seeking to ingratiate themselves into Fanewick, not as masters of Fanewick, but mere members of the superorganism that was the forest of Fanewick. And thus, the Faint Divinity of the Great Owl Nikta accepted them into Fanewick, making them an extension of his will, keepers of the balance between reaping and sowing.

As an extension of the Shepherds of Seasons, the elves of Clan Sylrowen, too, divided their life cycle into two, just as how the Great Owl Nikta represented the cycle of growth and decay, sowing and reaping. The younger elves are hunters, slayers whose job is to maintain balance by taking from the forest, killing animals for food and foraging from the trees, acting as the apex predators of the forest, keeping a ‘check’ in the population. When there is are certain population of the forest that has grown past what is healthy for the biome, such as the case in invasive species, hunters of Clan Sylrowen enact what is known as a sacred hunt, a massive hunt targeted at a specific population to trim their numbers. In turn, once they turn 150, they retire from being hunters and start learning the druidic arts, and henceforth become nurturers who care for the forest’s trees and animals. Where the hunters participate in the sacred hunt, druids are keepers of sanctuary for the forest denizens to safely reproduce and grow their numbers.

As more and more people of all ancestry arrived in Fanewick, the role of Clan Sylrowen extended to that of an arbiter and enforcer. Only those, who agreed to live as part of the forest, not masters of the forest, were allowed to settle, while the rest were driven away. Clan Sylrowen did not actively involve themselves in the dispute between others living in Fanewick, however, children of any clan are welcome within their sanctuary, where they are guaranteed protection. In turn, any clan that has grown too large to the point they are disturbing the balance within the forest and ignoring the warnings given are exiled from the forest, should they defile the order to vacate the forest, they become a target of a sacred hunt, where hunters of Clan Sylrowen descend on them and cull their numbers, a rare occurrence where the sacred hunt targeted sapient denizens of the forest instead of flora and fauna, only five such occurrences has been recorded in the long history of the clan.

This was the clan Arnannel was born into, one where he grew up expecting to follow the path that had already been laid out for him, and he probably would, if not for the invasion of Haven’s army into Fanewick. When Arnannel was 18, the nation of Haven invaded Fanewick in search of a cure for the Serpent’s Sickness, their Haven fire laying waste to the natural defences of the forest and Sylvan Trees while their organised standing army swiftly triumphed over the resistance forces of Fanewick, which had neither the number nor the discipline of their adversary.

Before long, Haven’s army managed to scatter the resistance and reach the heart of the forest, where they took the Reaping Eye from the Great Owl Nika. Clan Sylrowen, who was leading the resistance, turned to guerrilla warfare as the situation turned more and more desperate. Arnannel’s first hunt, which was supposed to be a rite of passage, where elves on the cusp of adulthood were assigned a beast within the forest to hunt as a target, instead had a member of the Haven’s army as the target. Arnannel never found out the name of his target, he was merely a soldier leading a squad who was getting too close to their hideout. By this point, though still trying to adhere to their traditions, the Sylrowen Clan had other pressing issues than hunting beasts, and thus had turned to making soldiers from Haven as the targets of their children’s first hunt. And so it was that Arnannel ended up killing the soldier as his first hunt. The hunt was quick, yet nearly deadly for Arnannel, the soldier was more skilled than their clan had expected, and had he not hesitated for the briefest of seconds, Arnannel was sure that the soldier’s blade would have severed his head from his body. The soldier died holding a locket he held tightly in his bloody hands, apologising to his daughter and cursing himself for not being able to steel his heart and cut down someone the same age as her. The soldier's dying words were something that weighed on Arnannel, not only that he had killed a father, but also that it was only the soldier’s kindness, so to speak, that spared him from death. It was customary for a hunter to take a trophy of their first hunt; thus, for Arnannel, the locket with the picture of the man’s daughter made as good of a trophy as any.

In the following three years since the start of the invasion, what resistance was left continued their guerrilla war, raiding settlements and military outposts Haven had set up, killing what patrols they could, and any poor fools who wandered too deep into the forest. Despite having proclaimed that they had ‘conquered’ Fanewick in the second year since the invasion, in truth, even with many losses, the resistance army still managed to make life hell for Haven soldiers and citizens in the newly conquered Fanewick. There had been a point, when many started deserting the resistance in exchange for safety as farmers in Haven, that the Sylrowen Clan considered giving up the resistance. However, with the arrival of the Witherwild, those who favour continuing the resistance among the elders of the Sylrowen Clan gained ground, as Haven, who had caused the imbalance in the cycle of sowing and reaping due to their greed, was seen as making the same mistake as the elves of Liraethal in their legend, and thus they believed that should Haven not stopped and the Eye of Reaping returned to the Great Owl, nature would swallow and destroy all of them up, as the elves of old.

Thus, the resistance continued with more vigour, becoming more and more brutal in desperation. In the fourth year since the invasion of Fanewick, it was not uncommon for the means justifying the end to be the common adage among the resistance. Captured Haven soldiers were tortured for information, spies and saboteurs were sent mixed in with those who defected to Haven, and even abducting children to be used as bait to lure Haven’s army into a lair of beasts engorged by the Witherwild. It was when the strategy to use child soldiers—exploiting the hesitation of many among Haven’s army to cut down children—was being considered that Arnannel decided that they had turned from mere victims fighting to beat back invaders into the villains of the war. Arnannel took as many children in the resistance as he could, leading them to Haven’s army, before negotiating protection for them as farmers, in exchange, he would lead them to hideouts of the resistance. As the child of the high druid leading the council of elders within the clan, Arnannel was privy to knowledge of the major hideouts, those hidden deep within the forest that Haven’s army would never be able to traverse on their own, and thus, after successful negotiation, Arnannel started leading Haven’s armies to said hideouts, and within the course of the year, Haven’s army managed to grain major grounds and had truly conquered Fanewick, there were still some pockets of resistances left, and the council of elder druids managed to make their escape, but for the most part, Haven finally settled Fanewick, the Witherwild notwithstanding.

During that one-year period of helping Haven’s army against the resistance, Arnannel lived among the people of Haven, even visiting their cities close to Fanewick from time to time. While adjusting from living in a thick forest to the more urban and civilised Haven’s towns and settlements was difficult at first, Arnannel found himself fascinated by a new world he had never known his whole life, and in time, came to appreciate the amenities and other benefits of a civilisation that he could never had gotten in the forest of Fanewick. Arnannel never truly absolved Haven of their invasion, but he understood them. To Arnannel, who had lived with the natural laws of the forest, it was only natural that Haven did what it could to survive. The desire to survive and to continue living is the primal directive of all lives. Even within the forest, when his clan conducted a sacred hunt, the target of their hunt did not take their demise lying down; they fought for their lives and their continued existence, and now, to Arnannel who had expanded his worldview by living among the people of Haven, he had come to believe that fighting to live is a more worthy cause than taking up arms against an insurmountable odds for something as nebulous as traditions and the balance of nature. Today, Arnannel felt right at home in Haven’s towns and settlements, enough so that he had lost the leaf foliage as part of his mystic form as an elf who had lived in the forest and dedicated himself to its protection.