Anlabban's Grove (pronounced ahn-LAHB-bahn) is a copse of trees, most thousands of years old, in the middle of the city-state of Xelas. The broken, decaying ruins of an Tempest Hall lie scattered throughout the grove, largely buried and out of sight. Latent planar tears to the Abyss occasionally though rarely open within the grove. Thus far these tears have proven impossible to permanently close. For at least eight thousand years the ancient arboreal Anlabban had guarded the grove from any extraplanar invaders, aided in the last two millennia by the people of Xelas. At almost all times the grove appears as simply a tranquil collection of trees and underbrush, though the people of Xelas know it can quickly become much more dangerous.
The trees of the grove are themselves ancient, many having stood for thousands of years. Anlabban tends to them carefully - he sees them as some of the few companions with whom he can truly connect, the lives of younger folk passing by too quickly for him to understand. The entire grove is encircled by Xelas, the trees left exactly as Anlabban wishes while the rest of the city continues to grow outwards.