Arboreus Ūnicornis; The Arboreal Unicorn

Though historians scoff, pilgrims whisper this fragment as proof of the Arboreus Ūnicornis — a beast whose tears once drowned a sea, and whose silence birthed a forest.

Welcome to a piece of the shard. This is no single tale, but a thousand pieces of one. Each page is a shard, set beside others, until a world begins to take shape.

To piece together the Codex, see here.

The following entry is compiled by Historian Septimus Ravdern, of the House of Wisdom, who is– while chronicling the final pilgrimage of Nettlerund – recorded the existence of a great many beasts.

Though a great many creatures have been fabled to walk that strange wood we call the Arboreal Sea, perhaps none are quite so mysterious as the Arboreus Ūnicornis — more commonly called “The Unicorn.” While a great deal of ink has been employed in the description of this creature, its accounts are all too oft’ the mere fanciful stuff of bedside stories.

One however, is widely upheld as true by a great many Arboreneers of the Casper Cape: the lost ballad of Ulrich Honeytongue, recounting his journey to the mythic Piney Deep.¹ Titled, “The Cautionary Tail,” this was to be Ulrich’s magnum opus. However, the great bard perished immediately upon the completion of its inaugural performance. Now, the description lives only in the memories of those present that dreadful night in Nettlerund’s mead hall, and in the far-flung scraps of Ulrich’s poetry.

In the ruins of that great hall, I have come upon a number of these waterlogged pages, upon which we have our description of the Arboreus Ūnicornis:

The Unicorn was not a horse, but dragonlike in size,
Its equine head beset with glowing, globe-like, turquoise eyes.

The creature's horn was not of bone, but bark and moss of gold,
A tow’ring tree whose height rivals the steeples of Freehold.

Its fur was matted meadowgrass that glistened in the light
That shone from Ludolf’s lantern, that we may drink in the sight.

His smell was like the restless air before a springtime rain,
And all the place was sodden ‘neath his waterfall-like mane.

Imagine my surprise when wondrous silence then did break,
No not myself, nor Ludolf, but the beast itself did spake.

–Excerpt from “The Cautionary Tail,” by Ulrich of Ulderland

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Unfortunately, several connecting verses have been ruined by water damage. From the few legible words, I believe this missing passage describes the moments in which Ulrich first addresses the Unicorn, and requests the creature grant his wish.²

“I might yet grant your wish dear bard, regardless what you ask,
If you should first regale me with a tale that suits this task:

“This forest was an ocean once, filled with my salted tears,
Spilled for the sin and suffering that spanned the untold years.

“I cried down here for aeons on the sunless seabed floor,
Until the dreadful day I learned that I could cry no more.

“My heart still aches, but lesser now; a phantom kind of pain,
A thorny, rigid, wooden thing which I cannot explain.

“Your struggles, though I see them still, with empathy removed;
From mothers’ cries to lovers’ lies, all leave me here unmoved.

“And over time, ‘neath blist’ring light, the sea began to dry,
Remaining unreplenished as I did my best to cry.

“Within the dying ocean then the forest here did grow,
A sunless canopy above where waves of yore did flow.

“I bid you now dear traveler, that I might cry again,
You take my tail within your hand and share with me your pain.

“Mayhap a special kind of woe from all your lives before
Could break my weary hardened heart, that I may feel once more?”

–Excerpt from “The Cautionary Tail,” by Ulrich of Ulderland

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There is some disagreement about whether Ulrich Honeytongue embellished the details of his encounter; Ulrich is the sole Arboreneer to suggest the Verdant Doom may have been caused by a creature, and not some ghastly alchemical accident.

1. Arborneers largely agree that the creature lives in the Piney Deep, a region far beyond the ancient shores of the Casper Cape. Confoundingly, there is currently no documented route to safely descend below the continental shelf, making such claims difficult to verify. I posit that earlier verses may be used to locate a navigable route.

2. While fantastical in nature, several corroborating accounts agree that the Arboreus Ūnicornis bestows a single wish upon any traveler who can make him weep (See Solomon Eckhard’s account of the crossing at Anselm’s Ridge.)