Drycha

Drycha is among the oldest and most malevolent of the tree-spirits of Athel Loren, a branchwraith of the sombre wildwood whose ancient hatred has curdled into something close to madness. Once she counted the Wood Elves as allies, but ages of watching the warm-blooded races hack and burn the forests have twisted her love of the wood into a boundless loathing of all flesh — humans and beastmen first, but elves too, whom she no longer trusts and only grudgingly aids. She commands the darkest spirits of the forest, the spiteful and the wrathful, and leads them in savage assaults against any who trespass, dreaming of a world in which the trees reclaim everything and no warm-blooded creature is left alive beneath them. Even Ariel, the Mage Queen, cannot always bend Drycha to her will, and the branchwraith withdraws for long years into the deep wood to nurse her grievances before erupting once more into violence. Beautiful and terrible, a thing of writhing branch and cold fury, Drycha is the forest's hatred given voice — and she does not forgive, and she does not forget.