Tree Shaping

The aspect of vegetation as it's also called is along with rock shaping the most common aspect of soul magic among the elves. Tree shaping is magic that lets the wielder manipulate living trees and other forms of vegetation without hurting the actual tree.

The name tree shaping comes from the practice of sculpting trees into beautiful shapes. The tree shaper bends the limbs and branches of the tree to their will while still keeping the tree healthy and thriving, thus making sure the tree retains its new shape once the process is over.

That last bit is the key part of tree shaping. It's possible for any magic wielder powerful enough to bend the branches of a tree, but without also bending the essence of the tree into the same shape the branches will eventually grow back into their original shape. Another consequence may be that the branches take too much damage from the bending and won't be able to continue to grow with the new shape, causing them to wither away and die.

Soul magic aspected to trees and vegetation takes the essence of the plant into account and reshapes it without harming it. The tree shaper is not only bending the branches, they also alter the genetic code of the tree to accommodate for its new shape. This also enables the tree shaper to cause trees and plants to grow at highly accelerated rates, reducing to a mere few months a growth process that would otherwise take decades.

Tree shapers have existed among elves ever since they first arrived on Aua and they are generally highly respected members of elven society. Most elven dwellings exhibit signs of tree shaper activity. These signs can range from a single beautifully shaped tree to entire settlements sunk into the boles of giant tree behemoths.

The work of tree shapers is perhaps most noticeable in the elvenhome parts of modern towns and cities. Here trees and bushes are bent and shaped in ways more extreme and pronounced than anywhere else. It's a way for the city's elves to mark their part of town, to set it apart from the rest and to proclaim that this is where elves gather and live.

Elven dwellings outside of the big cities usually display less flamboyant trees. When not living as a minority within a largely human population there's less need for them to imprint their racial identity on their surroundings. That's not to say there aren't spectacularly shaped trees outside of the cities, there definitely are, they're just not as common.

In modern society tree shaping has turned out to be a lucrative, if still quite exclusive business. As the infrastructure of modern cities expands it's becoming more attractive to relocate to the suburbs and get a house with a garden. Those who do so and who have the money to spare will often enlist the aid of anfylk gardeners or elven tree shapers, sometimes even both depending on how much money they have to spare on such luxuries. Having an “enchanted garden” as it's popularly called is a bit of a status symbol and a sign of wealth and success.