A forest of ancient trees spreading across northern Avalon, where the kingdom's heartland meets the Sestran border. The priests claim this is where time moves slowest in Avalon. Whether that's metaphor or reality, travelers consistently report disorientation in Pathanul's depths.
Character
Pathanul's trees are old. Their age shows in their gnarled trunks, their patient growth rings, their sense of having stood in the same spots since before the Ecclesiarch first sat upon his throne. The forest floor is thick with centuries of accumulated debris, soft and silent underfoot.
The canopy is dense. Little light reaches the ground except in clearings, and the clearings are rare. Sound carries strangely; voices seem muffled even a few feet away, while distant bird calls arrive with startling clarity.
The Time Effect
Whether time actually moves differently in Pathanul is theologically contested. The priests say the forest represents eternity: the moment between one breath and the next, stretched indefinitely. Skeptics say the dense canopy and uniform terrain simply make travelers lose track of time.
The experiences are consistent regardless of cause. Travelers who enter Pathanul expecting a short journey emerge hours later than planned, convinced only minutes passed. Others experience the reverse: hours of walking that seem to take days. Hunger and thirst don't correspond to clock time while in the forest.
The effect is stronger in the forest's interior. The edges, where Pathanul meets cleared farmland, behave normally. But venture deep enough and your sense of duration becomes unreliable.
Religious Interpretation
The Ecclesiarch's priests consider Pathanul a demonstration of time's malleability. The forest proves that duration is not fixed—that the Ecclesiarch's manipulation of temporal forces is a difference of degree, not kind, from what the forest does naturally.
Pilgrims sometimes enter Pathanul seeking visions or enlightenment. Results vary. Some emerge unchanged. Some emerge convinced they've touched eternity. Some don't emerge at all, though whether they died, became lost, or simply chose to stay is unknown.
Practical Matters
The Sestran border runs through Pathanul's northern reaches. Neither Avalon nor Sestros maintains strong presence in the forest; the terrain is difficult, the time effects unsettling, and neither kingdom has reason to push into territory the other doesn't want anyway.
Logging operations work the eastern edges, where the forest is younger and the time effects minimal. The interior is left alone. Whatever lives there has claimed it, and the Temptari are content to let it.
Location
Pathanul lies north of the Honor River valley, spreading from Avalon's settled heartland toward Sestros. The forest is roughly 60 miles across at its widest point.
See Avalon for broader context.