Arboris
Floor 1
Where the roots of the World Tree meet the earth
Rootfall lies where the roots of the World Tree meet the earth: green meadows and woods under roots as broad as hills, with the trunk rising into the haze behind them. Every Seedborn wakes here, by the Hearth of a walled village, and learns to fight on the withered husks that wander the Mosslight Meadow.
The further you go from the Hearth, the harder the Rootlands get: the Thornwood and the Amber Hollows to either side, the still water of Mirrormere, the broken ring of the Old Watch, and in the north the old keep, its Labyrinth overgrown with roots. On its crown waits the Rootwarden.
Rootfall - the first branch of Arboris, the World Tree. Every world that ended was kept on one of its branches. This one is ours now. Above us, a hundred floors climb toward the Heartwood.
RootfallHearthfieldsMosslight MeadowThornwoodAmber HollowsMirrormereThe Old WatchThe LabyrinthThe wilds grow stronger the further you go from the Hearth.
Bramble Matriarch
Thornwood, Level 7
A great hairy-legged spider, dark brown marked with red, that sleeps in Thornwood and wakes from time to time; the whole wood shudders when she does. She slams the ground, sprays rotten sap and hurls roots; her shriek calls bramble brutes, and near the end thorns burst from her hide.
It wakes on its own about every half hour, and the whole floor hears it: The Thornwood shudders: the Bramble Matriarch has woken!
For a party of up to six, from level 5. Every party walks its own copy.
The dark keep north of Rootfall, through which the way to the second floor runs; its door opens once you have freed the wardens of the Old Watch. Withered wardens, ashen wardens and hollow guards hold its halls and crypt, the Warden of the Nave keeps the middle, and the Heart of the Labyrinth waits in the throne room.
The Rootwarden
Level 12
Rootfall's guardian, waiting on the Crown of the Keep atop the Labyrinth: a giant tree in full leaf with a green light in it. It shakes the stones until roots seize every foot, hurls roots and calls rootbound colossi to its side; when it first falls, the Hearth Gate opens the way to the floor above.
Waits in the Crown of the Keep. Everyone who climbs fights it together, and it grows with them. The first time it falls, Emberleaf opens for everyone; then it returns, to be fought again for what it leaves.
Rootfall
