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 350 feet tall and had a base measuring 50 feet in diameter. Around the tree are two rings of raised earth. The innermost ring has 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 affects of these wards included:
 * Negating any detection or location magics trained on anyone within a 100 yard radius of its branches.
 * Negating any use of teleporting or gating magic within a mile 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.

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 deities. These deities included Eldath, Mielikki, Rillifane Rallathil, and Silvanus.

History
This arakhor was summoned in by the Elves of Aryvandaar to guard the site, after they had discovered the Hall of Mists, which now lay beneath its roots.

An Uthgardt tribe, the Blue Bears, also considered the Grandfather Tree sacred and the site of their ancestral mound. But they 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 became the tribe's shaman to get closer to it. She would take a piece of the tree with her and plant it to establish a new ancestral mound, Stone Stand. 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.

On the day of Shieldmeet, in the, the Tree Ghosts finally rediscovered the Grandfather Tree and established a camp close by it. Over time, members of various other Uthgardt tribes would find found 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.