Grandfather Tree

The Grandfather Tree was an arakhor, an elder form of treant, which appeared as a monstrously large, gnarled oak tree located deep in the heart of the High Forest.

Description
Grandfather Tree stood over tall and had a base measuring  in diameter. Around the tree were two rings of raised earth. The innermost ring had four normal-sized oak trees, healthy and mature, growing out of it. These trees marked the quarters around its base and acted as monolithic boundary marks for the inner cairn.

Beneath the outermost ring the bones of long-dead Uthgardt barbarians lay buried, most of them belonging to members of the Tree Ghost tribe. Before the Tree Ghosts settled near the tree there were a number of totem poles around it that had belonged to the Blue Bear tribe.

Abilities
Grandfather Tree had many natural and magical wards protecting it from evil.

The effects of these wards included:
 * Negating any detection or location magics trained on anyone within a radius of its branches.
 * Negating any use of teleporting or gating magic within a of the tree's central trunk, but only if the caster's intent was to get closer to the tree.
 * Those who attempted to heal beneath its great bough, whether through magical or natural means, would do so twice as fast if they were protectors of the tree or worshipers of forest deities. In the years following 1370 DR, this affect seemed to change. Now, creatures tasked with protecting the tree gained the effect of a bless spell, while those who finished a long rest beneath it gained the benefit of greater restoration.
 * Finally, the wards would attempt to dissuade individuals of evil alignments from getting closer to the tree by means of bad omens.

The tree was also able to manifest itself as guardian spirits in times of need, which the Uthgardt referred to as "tree ghosts." They were similar to a dryad or hamadryad, though their appearance varied. They were often noted as having a mixture of elven, human, korred, and satyr characteristics. They could assume either a corporeal or non-corporeal form and were as powerful as an archdruid. If destroyed these tree ghosts vanished, leaving behind only a puddle of sap.

Relationships
The Grandfather Tree was considered hallowed ground to both the barbarian tribes of the north and other inhabitants of the High Forest, such as satyrs and wood elves. The tree was also considered sacred to a number of forest spirits, such as dryads and treants, and a number of deities. These deities included Eldath, Mielikki, Rillifane Rallathil, and Silvanus.

History
This arakhor was summoned in by the gold elves of Aryvandaar to guard the site, after they had discovered the Hall of Mists, which thereafter laid beneath its roots.

An Uthgardt tribe, the Blue Bears, also considered the Grandfather Tree sacred and the site of their ancestral mound. In the, during one of their annual Runemeets the Grandfather Tree tree inexplicably burst into flames. However, it and the forest were somehow left unharmed. Noticing the strangeness of this phenomenon, the tribe's then-shaman began to cut the sole low-hanging branch untouched by flame. As he did so a shadowy male figure garbed in green &mdash; a tree ghost &mdash; was said to have emerged from the branch and fled into the forest, a trail of bear prints left in his wake.

Sometime after 1311 DR, the Blue Bears were banished by the tree's guardian spirits after becoming corrupted by Tanta Hagara, an evil annis who coveted the magic artifacts within the Hall of Mists and had became the tribe's shaman in 1311 DR in an effort to get closer to it. A significant number of Blue Bear tribesmen grew to reject the annis and splintered off into their own tribe, the Tree Ghosts, and both tribes would devote themselves to searching for their lost and abandoned ancestral mound.

In the, Mintiper Moonsilver and his companions discovered the Grandfather Tree, wherein they discovered the fabled Spear of Morgur and then ventured down into the Hall of Mists. He would go on to write an account of his discovery in a narrative epic titled Tree Ghosts, releasing it in 1344 DR.

With the help of their tribe's oral history and clues to the tree's location in Mintiper's Tree Ghosts, the crippled shaman Chungred Ghostheart led the Tree Ghosts tribe to rediscover Grandfather Tree on the day of Shieldmeet, in the. They went on to establish a camp close by it, which was given backing by Alustriel and aided by several green elves. A few months later the tribe held their first Runemeet in generations and the chieftain, Gunthar Longwood, forged alliances with the forest's various inhabitants, including the elves, treants, satyrs, and dryads.

Over time, members of various other Uthgardt tribes would find their way to the Grandfather Tree and gain some measure of enlightenment. This would lead them to forsaking their tribal allegiances and choose to live among the Tree Ghosts as pledged protectors of the tree. At some point in time a shaman of the Tree Ghosts went mad and wandered into the innermost chamber of Grandfather Tree's root network. While there he partially buried a large electrum nose-ring, formerly belonging to a hill giant chief.

At some point after 1486 DR, the Red Tiger tribe began searching for Grandfather Tree in hopes of laying claim to it themselves.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Storm King's Thunder
 * Novels
 * Son of Thunder