The Sovereign Forest and Ranaf Glyn
While the eladrin of Rwd-Parcham founded their displaced kingdom of political dissidents in the north of Medhjaz the middle world, others came to the shores near Lord’s Bay to give rise to the land of Ranaf Glyn. All along the shores north and south of Lord’s Bay and the small hook-shaped peninsula that shelters it lie the great musty bowers of the Sovereign Forest. It was within the halls of those massive trees that the Wood Giants of the coast built their finest and most enduring kingdom. When the eladrin arrived, however, the Wood Giants had all but disappeared.
Between the beginning of the confluence and the coming of the eladrin heresiarchs who founded Ranaf Glyn the Cyclops ran rampant throughout the west. Without the Nybilim (who were in a state of decline, barely able to govern themselves) or the Aegir (who were starving to death in the rapid desertification of the lush Aegir Valley) to protect the other gigantine societies by fighting the Cyclomachy, the raids were just too much to bear.

Beautiful cities of living stone, growing wood, and flowing water were all abandoned as the Wood Giants were pillaged again and again. They fled to the far reaches of the Sovereign Forest and abandoned their settlements in great numbers. Those who didn’t die in the fighting took to living a simplistic life away from the danger of the once-great cities.

When the eladrin arrived they struck a bargain with these ancient noble creatures. The Wood Giants would work as farmers, herders, and grovekeepers for the eladrin. In exchange the great eladrin lords would work such magic that the Cyclops would be a threat no more. It is often said that the ships which left to sink Ker’yis came from Lord’s Bay. This may not be wholly true (many records indicate a fleet composed of bipartial eladrin forces from many colonies) but it is certainly not a lie. After the pact was made, the Cyclops bothered the Wood Giants no more.

Heresy and its meanings
The eladrin of Ranaf Glyn are full-blown heretics in the eyes of Annwnayah and most other eladrin. While middle-world eladrin are far more tolerant of heresy (after all, they are all living in a new place where changes to the old order are necessary for survival) the Jandanese eladrin were never that kind. Ranaf Glyn was founded by theologists fleeing the censure of the Candescent Order and their White Seekers. They have no analogue to the Incarnate Ruler, and believe that the search for solipsistic and recursive paths through the religious experience of the story garden - normally the very paths that are deemed useless or dangerous - is in fact the key to enlightenment, not a useless side-track.

While this may all appear high-minded or confusing to those not versed in eladrin religion, it is quite a deep departure from their ethos. On the surface it may seem to be all the same, but the apparently minor changes in core beliefs have altered the very structure of eladrin society.

The Place of the Wood Giants
While still few in number, Wood Giants have a definite impact of Ranaf Glyn society. They tend to shy away from the elegant cities of the eladrin, rather living rurally and tending to vast groves or farms within the wood. The eladrin honor and respect them but not without a certain snobbishness. The time of the Wood Giants has clearly passed, and the eladrin are not ones to forget that.
Wood Giants in Ranaf Glyn follow no eladrin religion. They still pray just as they did millennia ago before the fall of their lands.

Rule and society in Ranaf Glyn
The nation is overseen by a conglomeration of its great eladrin lords. While the giants have some say (the lords frequently visit their great motes, or meetings) their words must be interpreted for them by their lord-patron. The great eladrin lords are also potent debaters; some of them are the very same heresiarchs who fled Jandana and founded Ranaf Glyn. They are bound by no law save custom to rule jointly, yet they do.

The Forest is dotted with abbeys and cloisters devoted to aesthetic retreat and contemplation. It is likely that the first human abbeys were built on these models. While the buildings themselves are quite numerous, the number of eladrin who chose to follow a lifestyle of utter withdrawal remains significantly low. Those who do are usually members of the uppermost classes.

The three largest cities in Ranaf Glynn are situated around the Lord’s Bay and are called the Three Jewels (Ed: Compare this terminology with the Gems of the Glittering South; a possible semiological connection) and it is here that the great lords hold their court. Síad Tara is the greatest of these three, followed by the city of Baraj and then Glaín.

Outsiders
As eladrin society is strange and confusing to non-eladrin there are very few of these races dwelling in the Sovereign Forest. There are far more non-humans in cities like Aescon and Brandonhall than there are non-eladrin in all of Ranaf Glyn. Outsiders are usually afforded a mixture of compassion and aloof arrogance. While it is possible for them to learn the ways of the eladrin and be embraced fully by them, the occasion is quite rare.