The Root is what the Rootbound call the vast, dreaming consciousness beneath the Heartwood — not a god in temples but a living presence whose slow thoughts shape the forest and whose awakening is heralded by the Pulse Below.
The Rootbound teach that the Root was awake in the first age, the "Before the Root" era, when it walked the world in forms unknowable. Then came "The Rooting" — three centuries when it sank into the earth, planted itself, and grew the Heartwood above it as a body. Now, in the Aurean Age, it dreams. The Rootbound believe it must be gently awakened — that imperial greed will startle it into wrath, and that only the faithful can prepare the world for what comes when it opens its eyes. Orthodox Aurean scholars dismiss the Root as pagan superstition; the wiser among them simply say they do not know, and fund expeditions to find out.