Long ago, in the time of our ancestors, during an epoch that mankind has since forgotten, a Great Spirit inhabited a forest. Its mere presence imbued everything with life, abundance, and peace. After its given time, the Great Spirit would go away, never to return. A Bitoku spirit, worthy to take its place, would then arise to preserve the harmony of the forest.
 
This primordial forest, millennia old, stretches from the Earthquake Plains to the foothills of the Akaishi Mountains. The mountains are home to the source of the sacred river Kurirakugan, whose mighty flow traverses the forest before shooting out over the cliffs of Sea’s Claw.
 
The Forest has no other name. Indeed, all forests are called such after this one. It is one of the Five Hearts of the World, and it is said that in its deepest, densest regions, the trees and vegetation are so thick that Lost Souls who wander there are able to at last find peace and transcend to the beyond—or become lost forever and cease to exist as the last memory of them is forgotten.
 
There has never been nor will ever be a place like it. Magical and spiritual beings inhabit it, remembered today only in legend and children’s tales…