Children of Winter

The majority of the sect’s adherents (totaling around 1,100) are human, with shifters making up almost all the rest. Those who join the Children of Winter hold to a cruel and unforgiving view of nature, in which only the strongest deserve to survive. They come from harsh environments or have been tested and proven by uncommon challenges. Nondruid members of the sect often have military backgrounds, and some are refugees from Cyre who have seen the rise of winter firsthand. The Children dictate no formal dress, nor do they enjoin members from the use of arcane magic. Whatever serves the ultimate goal of bringing on winter is acceptable to the sect. It even includes a handful of warlocks, including the influential leader Raven, which observers attribute to the touch of the Gloaming. The sect also comprises an abnormally large number of vermin lords (Book of Vile Darkness 73), who enter dark pacts with the twisted creatures of the Gloaming to further the coming winter.

Those who choose to become druids of this sect gravitate on their own to the Gloaming. This dark and savage place is slowly spreading, bringing the cleansing plague to a corrupted world, and they want to be at the heart of it. They usually display disturbing signs of this fascination beforehand, which makes them unwelcome in their communities and encourages their migration. However, the sect is also spreading out from the Gloaming, preparing the world, and so it is attracting new members from other nations. These initiates might never have seen the Reaches at all, but they recognize the coming winter in their own lands and feel the call to join.

The new prospect is drawn into the orbit of the most powerful group in the area (usually the only surviving group) and undergoes a harsh initiation to test his strength. If he survives, he immediately joins the pack and begins the task of bringing on the winter.

Even more so than the Ashbound, the Children of Winter have no formal organization. They exist as independent packs that rove a chosen piece of territory. Each follows a strong leader, who generally has some levels in a fighting class, usually barbarian, in addition to druid abilities. Some leaders are not druids at all but are attended by druid followers. Strength is the sole criterion by which a leader is chosen, whether it be force at arms or conviction of character. A pack’s leader directs it until successfully challenged; the winner automatically earns the mantle of leadership by virtue of nature’s uncompromising standard of survival.

Individuals with the greatest reputation become known throughout the sect, so they lead the largest and most-feared packs. Word of their exploits travels throughout the sect, inspiring some to imitate them and others to warn against their overzealousness. New followers gravitate to the leader whose outlook most fits their own.

There are no grand conclaves, no central pronouncements within the Children of Winter. Each pack undertakes what its leader sees as its duty and sets its own rituals. The only criterion is the pack’s acceptance; a leader who loses the ability to convince or coerce followers quickly loses her position as well.

All the Children of Winter look forward to the coming doom. For a long time, they were content to observe the Gloaming and worship the mysteries of death in this, their most holy place. Some still do so. For them, maintaining what is natural is their highest duty. They do not interfere, even when the natural world is at its most bloody and cruel, and they ensure that no one else does either. Each Child would lay down her life for this principle, for death too is part of the natural order.

Since the Day of Mourning, though, most of the Children believe that winter is nigh. Their duty is to assist in bringing it on, which they do by encouraging the spread of the Gloaming and its inhabitants. This typically involves spreading disease, poisoning wells, or introducing vermin to destroy crops. On rare occasions, the Children use direct violence to cleanse a region. The most powerful druids lay unhallow spells over the newly cleansed areas to speed its expansion. Should an area require immediate purification and no druid of sufficiently high level is nearby, a delegation travels to the closest pack with a powerful leader and exhorts their assistance. In the view of all Children, purification by any means is the highest duty that a druid owes to the world.

For those few who still believe that winter is not yet imminent, the most important task is to show the others that they are in error. If the Children move rashly, inciting disaster in the name of a catastrophe that was not natural at all, they will betray everything they stand for. These druids travel the land, pursuing any clues that could solve the mystery of the Mournland or prove that it is not yet the time of Winter. Finding that crucial proof is more important than anything else to them.

As mentioned above, some Children of Winter believe that the great cleansing is not imminent, but will come only in the fullness of time. This patient outlook, espoused most publicly by the druid Frost, is distinctly in the minority, but it does draw adherents. The common people do not support even these moderate Children, but they fear them less than the more zealous ones, which helps the moderates spread into new areas and acquire more initiates. Proponents of this viewpoint hope that, in the fullness of time, this philosophy comes to dominate the entire sect.

To fall from the Children of Winter is to die. In the severe mathematics of nature, one being’s survival requires another’s death. Any member who does not display strength of conviction is quickly overwhelmed—even consumed—by the others. A pack leader can be challenged at any time, and if the challenger wins out, he is the word of nature’s law from that point on.

Sometimes a fallen Child is driven from the pack rather than killed outright. This is done in times of harsh weather or in an extremely dangerous environment; in this way, nature is the judge and executioner. The exile has no equipment, no means of survival beyond his wits, and usually succumbs quickly. The very few who do survive are now even tougher and meaner than they were before. Such an exile usually establishes a new pack, sometimes challenging (and defeating) the leader of the one that expelled him. The more embittered dedicate themselves body and soul to dark forces, sometimes even giving themselves over completely to the evil of the Dragon Below or the Lords of Dust.

Fallen Children retain their druid abilities unless they completely abandon the winter’s path. Merely falling in with evil beings is not sufficient, but taking actions that threaten the Gloaming instantly revokes a druid’s powers. A few give up their druid abilities to become blighters (Complete Divine 23), consumed with a need to bring as much destruction as possible upon the world.

Besides the initiation quest, which takes the lives of many prospective Children, members of this sect engage in destructive missions that seem suicidal and mad to anyone else.

A common quest is that of the Plaguebird. A Child of Winter volunteers to be the carrier of some deadly disease, then travels into a crowded area to spread this “blessing.” Although Children of Winter have exceptional resistance to disease, taking on this role is still very likely to kill the bearer. They have no fear of such a death, however, since it is in the service of nature’s law.

For those who seek to prove the Mournland is not a natural phenomenon, there is no higher cause than investigating the devastation and bringing back evidence of a mortal hand. Such questers have not ceased their search since the Day of Mourning—unless death ended it prematurely.

A common theme for all rituals of the Children of Winter is imminent risk of death, whether bringing it or surviving it. Along with the ritual of blight’s embrace (Player’s Guide to Eberron 60), the sect performs the following.

Initiation

The Children of Winter know that life is tough, and that only the strong can survive. Someone wishing to join their faith must prove his strength. The candidate undergoes a sort of vision quest, in which he faces nature armed with nothing more than his wits. He is stripped of all clothing and gear, and is kept awake for 24 hours amid a revel of drink and dance to ensure the loss of all spellcasting ability. Then, exhausted and hungry, the candidate is turned out into the wilderness. He must cross the Gloaming, passing through each of its rings. Many prospective initiates never come out the other side.

Surviving candidates immediately undergo the ritual of winter’s heart to mark them as fit to survive.

Minor Rites

The Children of Winter do not engage in much formal ritual outside of initiation and the grand ceremony of the solstice. Those who cannot attend this great ritual perform their own observances in the name of winter. Individual packs might have a specific mode of operation, such as attacking at midnight or targeting a specific sort of victim. Following a ritual attack, the pack leader marks the spot with a token of the Children—typically a gnawed bone.

Major Rites

The winter solstice marks the most solemn ceremony of the Children, the Bringing of Winter. As many of the scattered Children as possible congregate at the edges of the Gloaming for this observance, which is intended to strengthen and spread the oncoming doom of the world. They spend the first week of Zarantyr in macabre chants and dances to invoke the spirits of death. Ritual battles to the death also take place during this festival; it is the favored time for challenges to a pack’s leader. The blood of the loser soaks into the soil of the Gloaming, there to feed the twisted life it harbors, and the winner leads the others in a cannibalistic feast on the loser’s corpse.

For most inhabitants of the Reaches, or anywhere the sect is active, the Children are a dangerous but limited force of nature. Like tornadoes, they are immensely destructive but very few in number; the average inhabitant is not touched by them. Being prepared is the best defense, so people always seek information about the sect’s activity in nearby areas. News of a great plague usually heralds the presence of the Children, whether as observers or carriers. And the Children flock like crows to scenes of destruction visited by nature, perhaps to contribute more of their own. Should an incursion by a pack seem likely, the locals usually try to be elsewhere during that time. Some have established secure shelters in the villages or beneath their houses where they can hide out until the threat has passed.

The governments of civilized nations view the Children as crazed killers and terrorists, a view that is not entirely fair. The unpredictable nature of the sect’s activities and its widely scattered adherents make military responses infeasible, though. The northeastern Brelish border, being fairly close to the Gloaming, sees increased patrols against both incursions by the Children and by the Ashbound. Generally, though, the nations of Khorvaire have more pressing matters to deal with—things over which military might and diplomacy have some real influence.

Droaam’s Daughters of Sora Kell are interested in the implications of the Children’s beliefs. No one knows the hag coven’s ultimate purpose, but the trio might find something useful in promoting the coming of winter—or at least using the sect to further its own ends.

The Children have little patience with most other druid orders, seeing them as hopelessly stuck in the past.

Specific Attitudes

The Wardens of the Wood: Whether nature and civilization can live in harmony is irrelevant to reality. Both are doomed, and the sooner the Wardens come to realize this, the more use they can be to the world as it is.

The Ashbound: Such grim determination to hold back the hands of time. Pathetic.

The Gatekeepers: Their day is past. Perhaps they even stopped the winter that should have come, and doomed the world to thousands of years of needless suffering.

The Greensingers: They at least understand that all things have their place in creation. I wonder how sanguine they will be when winter comes to their twilight groves.

Individual packs do not establish shrines. They consider land they have “purified” to be dedicated to the forces of destruction, laying the way for the great rebirth to come. However, the sect as a whole considers the entire Gloaming to be sacred ground. Numerous packs patrol the borders of the wood to keep out intruders. The very heart of the Gloaming, though, is a dark mystery that even the Children fear to breach. They are aware of the Nightbringers and are suspicious of these breakaway druids, so some packs also patrol the inner ring to watch for activity.

Mabar, the Endless Night, is a realm of darkness and negative energy. Most inhabitants of Eberron see the plane as inimical to life, and its inhabitants as wholly evil. The Children revere the darkness, seeing it as the necessary balance to light and life, and see no contradiction in including Mabar in their worship. And a few, believing that darkness is the ultimate destiny of the universe, work to hasten its conquest of the other planes. These maverick Children call themselves Nightbringers.

Those who follow the Nightbringer path are drawn to the dark places. They are natives of or seek out Mabar manifest zones, especially the Gloaming in the Eldeen Reaches. These druids prefer to operate at night or within a Mabar manifest zone. They remain within the Gloaming as long as possible, preferring to grow closer to the darkness, rather spreading the coming winter into the rest of the world.

Nightbringer leaders call themselves Nyctarch, while the most senior of those who follow take the title Darksinger.

The Children of Winter are not big on ceremony, and so they rarely employ tokens or signs to identify themselves. Many, though, wear bones as part of their garb, and sometimes the image of a gnawed femur (or an actual bone) marks a site of the sect’s activity.

A young woman walks through the sewers of Sharn. The rats whisper to her as she passes, and beetles gather in the wake of her footsteps. Her name is Malady, and she is here to save Sharn. She intends to destroy the mystical stones that cleanse the water and keep the people of the city from becoming sick. Her actions are a gift: Thousands will die, but those who survive will be stronger for their suffering. The Children of Winter are the bogeymen of the western woods. Eldeen farmers are quick to curse the Children when crops fail and plague spreads. These fears and suspicions have a solid foundation. The Children of Winter actively spread disease and blight, and in recent years they have brought tragedy to communities that might otherwise have prospered.

Most believe that the Children of Winter are nihilists who worship death, but little could be further from the truth. Although they surround themselves with vermin and the trappings of decay, the Children see themselves as champions of life. They believe that all natural things have a purpose, even those that seem malevolent. Death clears the way for new life. Disease weeds out the weak.

The Children work to preserve this cycle. They battle undead wherever they find them, because these abominations break the cycle of life and prey on the living. They fight aberrations, which have no place in nature. But they also fight to restore a balance that was broken long ago. Healing rituals stave off plagues that would otherwise eradicate overgrown populations. House Lyrandar’s control of the weather can turn a season of drought into one that yields a prosperous harvest. Sharn relies on magic to sanitize its water, to hold up its towers, to light its streets, and for hundreds of other tasks. The Children of Winter seek to restore the balance between life and death that civilization has upset.

To outsiders, their goals might seem ridiculous and selfish. The Children stand in the way of progress and kill innocent people. But the Children of Winter believe those people need to die. In their eyes, this isn’t just a point of philosophy. Like most druids, the Children see Eberron as the source of all life and the spirit of the natural world. They believe that she had a grand design for nature, a purpose yet unfulfilled. And they believe that if humanity strays too far from the path of Eberron’s design, she will wipe the slate clean and start again.

For generations, the Children have sought to forestall this apocalypse with their actions. Today, most of the druids believe that their efforts have been in vain; to them, the Mourning is a sign that humanity has gone too far. Some still hope that there is a way to avert the ultimate disaster. Most simply do what they can to prepare people for what is to come by culling the weak and showing the strong the hardships they will have to overcome.

As a Dungeon Master, you must decide if the Children are correct. If their beliefs are mistaken, then they are misguided villains whose actions threaten civilization. But if they are right, then clashes with the Children could be a harbinger of the coming fall of Winter—a cataclysm that will completely change the shape of Eberron.