About Caerroil Wildwood.

[KAY1]

Sorry to butt in here, but I don't think they were Elohim as it was explained in 2nd Chrons that they select one Elohim to meet the World's need and in this case the one who was chosen went to teach the forests how to defend themselves. They then used this knowledge to bind the Elohim into the Colossus and create the Forestals. So though the Forestals may well have been formed from the essence of this one individual Elohim (remember they were beings of pure Earthpower) they were not all separate elohim.[/i]

[Cail]

Right, right. OK sorry, I'd forgotten about the Colossus.

[variol son]

Ok, after going through The One Tree, we know that:

-A female Elohim was Appointed to aid the One Forest against the hate that rose against it (the Ravers).
-She merged among the trees until they had gained the knowledge they required.
-They used this knowledge to bind her instone, thus creating the Colossus, which barred the Ravers from the Upper Land until it was weakened by the destruction of the One Forest by human migrants.
-The trees used what they had learned to create the Forestals in self-defence against the humans.

Nothing in the actual text refutes Taiga Tzu when she says that different Forastals were created from different creatures.

[Fist and Faith]

Yes, that's my point. Nothing refutes dlb either. For that matter, KAY either. (Although Caer-Caveral proves that a Forestal can be made without any Elohim essence. So, since the story seems to say there's a stretch of time between the creations of the Colossus and the Forestals, and it doesn't say the Appointed's essence was used for the Forestals also, I believe not.) So I don't think we can safely make any assumptions.

Personally, I'm going to have to take the word of the only Forestal who's given an answer.

[tonyz]

One thing to keep in mind -- the Old Lords knew the words to the Forestals' song (it was written in Kevin's Lore, which is where Mhoram learned the words), and they knew that it was very very dangerous. So there must have been at least some limited interaction between the humans and the Forestals way back when.

I suspect that more than one human probably got turned into a Forestal at some point. (The trees and the Colossus might have taken humans originally to make the first Forestals; I doubt that Caerroil Wildwood was the first.) And it wouldn't surprise me at all if some Unfettered ended up that way too.

[Fist and Faith]

Hmm, I'll have to get back to this.

[variol son]

One thing to keep in mind -- the Old Lords knew the words to the Forestals' song (it was written in Kevin's Lore, which is where Mhoram learned the words), and they knew that it was very very dangerous. So there must have been at least some limited interaction between the humans and the Forestals way back when.

I suspect that more than one human probably got turned into a Forestal at some point. (The trees and the Colossus might have taken humans originally to make the first Forestals; I doubt that Caerroil Wildwood was the first.) And it wouldn't surprise me at all if some Unfettered ended up that way too.

I seem to remember that Mhoram knew the words to the song because it was part of the knowledge he gained when he was touched by samadhi Sheol in the body of an ur-vile on the marge of Hatosh Slay. When Mhoram speaks of the One Forest to Covenant in The Illearth War, he does so in the context of this experience.

Hmmm, will go look in my books.

[Warmark]

One thing to keep in mind -- the Old Lords knew the words to the Forestals' song (it was written in Kevin's Lore, which is where Mhoram learned the words), and they knew that it was very very dangerous. So there must have been at least some limited interaction between the humans and the Forestals way back when.

I suspect that more than one human probably got turned into a Forestal at some point. (The trees and the Colossus might have taken humans originally to make the first Forestals; I doubt that Caerroil Wildwood was the first.) And it wouldn't surprise me at all if some Unfettered ended up that way too.

I seem to remember that Mhoram knew the words to the song because it was part of the knowledge he gained when he was touched by samadhi Sheol in the body of an ur-vile on the marge of Hatosh Slay. When Mhoram speaks of the One Forest to Covenant in The Illearth War, he does so in the context of this experience.

Hmmm, will go look in my books.

That was my recolection aswell.

[drew]

I'm pretty sure that the Forestalls were created by the Colosus, not coverted by the colosus.

I doubt if the trees in the One forrest were overy fod of the people in the Land, so to make one of them a forestall seems kind of weird.
I'd say, they are just psirits, that can take on any number of forms..so of course when talking to Hile and Mhoram, Wildwood looked like a man.

[Rane Ja Burn]

The Forestalls were not created by the Colosus. The One Forest created the Forestals from the knowledge they gained from the Elohim that came to them when they were being ravaged by the Ravers and humans of the Land. And they didn't actually create the Forestals untill after the One Forest imprisoned that same Elohim into the Colosus.

[dlbpharmd]

Agreed.

[IrrationalSanity]

What if the original Forrestals were, in a sense, offspring of the collossus. This would essentially make them land-based merewives, which could explain their general distaste for normal humans...

(P.S. Edit - not a well thought-out idea, just a random thought before having my coffee this morning)

[[Syl]]

Been meaning to get around to this for a while. Guess I should stop putting it off.
All of the available info:

LFB

I have even heard it whispered that some Unfettered follow the legend of Caerroil Wildwood of Garroting Deep, and become Forestals.

At the end of that time, there were only four places left in the Land where the soul of the Forest lingered -- survived, and shuddered in its awesome pain -- and took resolve to defend itself. Then for many ages Giant Woods and Grimmerdhore and Morinmoss and Garroting Deep lived, and their awareness endured in the care of the Forestals. They remembered, and no human or Vile or Cavewight who dared enter them survived.

TIW

even before the dim time of the coming of men to the Land, and the cruel felling of the One Forest-the Colossus of the Fall had both power and purpose. It stood on Landsdrop like a forbidding fist over the Lower Land, and with the might of the -' Forest denied a dark evil from the Upper Land."
Abruptly, he broke into a slow song like a lament, a quiet declining hymn which told the story of the Colossus as the Lords had formerly known it, before the son of Variol had gained his new knowledge. In restrained sorrow over lost glory, the song described the Colossus of the Fall -- the huge stone monolith, upraised in the semblance of a fist, which stood beside the waterfall where the River Landrider of the Plains of Ra became the Ruinwash of the Spoiled Plains.
Since a time that was ancient before Berek Lord Fatherer lost half his hand, the Colossus had stood in lone somber guard above the cliff of Landsdrop; and the oldest hinted legends of the Old Lords told of a ' time, during the ages of the One Forest's dominion in the Land, when that towering fist had held the power to forbid the shadow of Despite-held it, and did not wane until the felling of the Forest by that unsuspected enemy, man, had cut too deeply to be halted. But then, outraged and weakened by the slaughter of the trees, the Colossus had unclasped its interdict, and let the shadow free. From that time, from the moment of that offended capitulation, the Earth had slowly lost the power or the will or the chance to defend itself.

In particular, he narrated some of the old tales about the One Forest, the mighty wood which had covered the Land in an age that -was ancient before Berek Halfhand's time, with its Forestals and its fierce foes, the Ravers. During the centuries when the trees were still awake, he said, the Forestals had cherished their consciousness and guided their defenses against turiya, moksha, and samadhi.

"I know nothing of Lords. They are nothing to me. But I know men, mortals. The Ritual of Desecration is not forgotten in the Deep."

The One Tree

In the nigh-unremembered past of the place which you deem the Land, the life was not the life of men and women, but of trees. One wide forest of sentience and passion filled all the region-one mind and heart alive in every leaf and bough of every tree among the many myriad throngs and glory of the woods. And that life the Elohim loved.
"But a hate rose against the forest, seeking its destruction. And this was dire, for a tree may know love and feel pain and cry out, but has few means of defense. The knowledge was lacking. Therefore we met, and from among us Appointed one to give her life to that forest. This she did by merging among the trees until they gained the knowledge they required.
"Their knowledge they employed to bind her in stone, exercising her name and being to form an interdict against that hate. Thus was she lost to herself and to her people-but the interdict remained while the will of the forest remained to hold it."
"The Colossus," Covenant breathed. "The Colossus of the Fall."
"Yes," Findail said.
"And when people started coming to the Land, started cutting down the trees as if they were just so much timber and difficulty, the forest used what it'd learned to create the Forestals in self-defense. Only it took too long, and there were too many people, and the Forestals weren't enough, they couldn't be everywhere at once, couldn't stop the many blind or cruel
or simply unscrupulous axes and fires. They were lucky to keep the mind of the forest awake as long as they did."

I think there's some contradiction there, but according to Kastenessen the timeline would look like:

One Forest - Ravers (who taught the once friendly Demondim to hate the trees like they did) - Appointed/Colossus - Men - Forestals - Berek - Kevin - new Lords and the Unfettered

I seriously doubt that Wildwood was ever human, though. And if so, I believe it would be more along the lines of Kenaustin Ardenol, a kind of proto-human. I say this only because of the idea of "following the legend of Caerroil Wildwood." I'd give a fortune to actually know that Legend.

As far as the rumors of the Unfettered go... I can see them trying to follow the roots of Earthpower that lead to the Forestalls, I can see a few of them, like the healer, being allowed to dwell in the forests (except Garroting Deep), but I don't see them becoming Forestals. If anything, I think they'd have to give their humanity up first before it was ever considered (if the Trees were ever aware enough to consider it at all).

[Rane Ja Burn]

As we all know, the Forestals did not lead immortal lives. And in saying that, "in my opinion", it is not within the realm of doubt that a Unfettered or two could possibly have been transformed in the same way of Hile Troy. To take the place of a dying Forestal. At least somewhere within the ages of the Land.

[Fist and Faith]

*bump* for jwaneeta

[jwaneeta]

Oh, thank you for bumping this thread, I must have missed it/forgotten it!

Wheee, Taiga Tzu DID say something about Caerroil Wildwood's origins! That's straight from the Forestal's mouth, then. I'm taking that as gospel unless SRD himself says otherwise!