Wardens of the Wood

Roughly half of the Wardens are human, with the rest made up largely of half-elves and shifters, along with a smattering of other races. They are kindly intentioned and do their work out of a sincere desire to achieve perfect harmony with the world, in the belief that technological advancement and the wild can coexist.

Wardens dress in comfortable garments using leather, skins, and cloth woven from both plant and animal fibers. They have no problem with tailored items and feel no compulsion to make their own goods; a Warden ranger might bring the skins from a hunt to a leatherworker in a village of the Reaches, and while he is in town, pick up an embroidered cotton shirt and enjoy a well-cooked meal.

The Wardens often wear green and brown since they spend so much time in the woodlands. For special ceremonies, they adopt brightly colored robes attuned to the season: yellow for spring, blue for summer, flame orange for autumn, and white with silver thread for winter.

The influence of the Wardens is so widespread throughout the Reaches that most inhabitants incorporate the sect’s principles unconsciously in their day-to-day lives. Most are not active worshipers, but druidic gatherings take place right beside village markets and farmers’ fields, and the Eldeen peoples actively engage their more religious neighbors. Thus the environment fosters the qualities most desired for those who wish to serve nature. Those Reachers who live especially close to the land, such as farmers and hunters, participate most actively in the sect’s activities. They attend seasonal ceremonies, pledge their assistance in times of danger, and make offerings of food. Most new members of the Wardens come from these families. During the cycle of spring observances, senior druids visit the villages to speak blessings over the land, while keeping a keen eye out for any who feel the call to nature’s service.

The young hopefuls are taken to the town of Greenheart, the spiritual and administrative center of the Wardens. There they undergo a special ceremony of mass initiation. After being initiated, the youths scatter to various locales within the Reaches to begin their training. Each travels to an area far from his original home, both to broaden experience and to reduce distractions from family and friends.

Each community has at least one druid to attend to its religious needs; these priests form loose circles numbering ten to twenty members, representing a wide area. One or two members of each such circle travel to Greenheart for consultation with the elders, although during important festivals all the druids are expected to attend. Larger towns are served by small circles of up to a half-dozen druids. Individual worshipers and circles are self-sufficient and rarely deal with the higher administration of the sect. The hierarchy of the Wardens is fairly loose. However, they do have a fixed base of operation at Greenheart, deep in the Towering Wood.

Great Druid Oalian heads the order spiritually and still bestows his immense learning on followers, but in his great antiquity he is largely sedentary. He usually dreams in the deep grove but always stirs to welcome visitors. Faena Graymorn (NG female half-elf druid 13) handles the day-to-day management of the sect. She is assisted by a conclave of elder druids whose number varies according to the shifting population of the town: During high conclaves, thousands of worshipers converge on Greenheart, and the temples and other public places require extra personnel to handle the crowds. At other times, six to twelve administrators suffice. They in turn confer with the leaders of various small circles and itinerant members throughout the realm.

Members of the sect regard their duty in different ways, depending on where they live and their special talents. Although the religion is druidic, most of the Wardens themselves are not druids. Many are commoners or experts, toiling in the fields and forests alongside their neighbors and guiding them in honoring nature as they earn a living. Others are lone hunters, often rangers, who patrol against incursions by hostile creatures and enemies of the natural order.

Circle representatives consult the elders several times a year, usually between the major rites. They report on the situation in their districts and request assistance if needed. They also spend time in meditation on the latest teachings of Oalian, as relayed by the elders. After spending several days in Greenheart, they disperse again to their communities to spread the word. If a serious threat faces the Reaches, the local druids also bring word of the danger and call for aid from the local population. Extremely grave threats demand a grand conclave (see below).

Those who join the Wardens of the Wood are already committed to its ideals, so the concept of falling from its principles is difficult for Wardens to grasp. When someone does abandon the sect, it is usually to follow a more narrow or extreme druidic tradition—particularly the Ashbound. Such people simply depart the Wardens and begin worship in the new sect. Eldeen druids share the same basic tenets, so this is usually not sufficient cause for a former Warden to lose access to her druid class abilities. Even leaving the Reaches entirely to enter a lesser druidic organization need not strip a druid of her powers, if she still holds to the ideals of balance with nature.

Only turning to actively evil worship, such as one of the Cult of the Dragon Below, brings on the Wardens’ enmity. This qualifies as ceasing to revere nature for the purpose of losing access to druid class abilities, and such renegades are considered enemies of the natural order. They are now fair game for rangers and others who protect the Reaches. These ex-druids can regain their class abilities only through the atonement spell and undergoing initiation into their new sect; they are never again welcome among the Wardens.

Quests are not a requirement of most druid sects. Some Wardens set themselves difficult tasks, such as clearing an entire district of aberrations, but they do so to challenge themselves and grow stronger. A few take on the self-imposed burden of bringing the teachings of Oalian beyond the boundaries of the Reaches. For them, returning to Greenheart is a spiritual cleansing that they must perform every few years so that they might return refreshed to their duties.

In addition to the purification ritual of the woodland bond (Player’s Guide to Eberron 60) and the rites of passage common to any religion, the Wardens undertake certain special rites as described below.

Initiation

Initiation into the Wardens takes place in the Great Druid’s grove. The initiates are brought into the presence of Oalian, who speaks to each individually for a moment, then presides over the religious ceremony. Participants wear robes of deep green; at the height of the ceremony they throw back the robes to reveal bright red tunics. This symbolizes the harmony of animal and vegetative life, as well as the initiate’s new awareness of the world. Each initiate then receives a sprig of young bracken in token of her new status. As the fern shoot begins tightly rolled and eventually spreads into a broad frond, so the young initiate will eventually grow to embrace her role within nature.

Major Rites

Ceremonies observing each of the seasons are held on the solstices and the equinoxes. These are daylong observances, beginning at sunup of the seasonal change and lasting until the following dawn. Along with songs and prayers, these days feature great feasts. The participants eat and drink to satiety, the meal consisting of foodstuffs appropriate to the season: young shoots, lamb, and early wines in spring; berries, fish, and corn in summer; nuts, apples, venison, and squash in fall; ale, root vegetables, and smoked meats in winter.

The most important ritual of the year is the ceremony of thanks to Oalian. This takes place during the autumn feast, and the greatpine imbibes a special draft prepared from honey and wine brought by all druids participating in the rite. Each druid speaks words of blessing over the mixture, adding a pinch of soil from his or her native region, and then all the celebrants carry the large barrel to Oalian’s grove. They carefully pour it out onto the ground, some distance from the greatpine’s trunk so that its feeder roots can absorb the liquid. At the same time they sing songs of thanks and ask the High Druid to help them with his wisdom in the coming year.

This draft is only mildly alcoholic, so it doesn’t damage the greatpine’s roots. It does make Oalian even more somnolent, though, for the next few days.

Inhabitants of the Eldeen Reaches live and work side by side with the Wardens. The sect is so firmly ingrained within society that it is barely noticed; rather, the absence of the Wardens would cause concern.

As noted above, most followers of the sect are not druids, and many are not even active worshipers. They live their lives according to its principles because that is how they have lived for centuries uncounted.

The druidic administration also serves as the spiritual capital of the Reaches, but it is no theocracy. Government, just like the sect itself, is loosely organized, with decisions usually made at the local level. People generally do as they wish, but most communities make small offerings in food or goods to the druids at Greenheart. The town is completely devoted to religious duties and has no market, so its inhabitants depend on such offerings to supplement the supplies provided by local hunters and gatherers. Since the Wardens actively maintain order within the Reaches, its inhabitants consider such offerings a small price to pay and make them willingly.

The Wardens are generally easygoing about other druid sects, believing that they all serve the same ends but have different visions. They are relentlessly hostile toward those who deliberately worship evil, however.

Specific Attitudes

The Ashbound: It is regrettable that these servants of nature are so hostile toward even innocuous activities, but their hearts are in the right place. When it comes to defending the world from unnatural invaders, none are fiercer.

The Children of Winter: They too eagerly expect the end of all things. True, death is natural and an end must come, but there is no need to hasten its advance.

The Gatekeepers: Noble Servants of the wild, they taught Oalian itself and thus all druids. How sad that their numbers have dwindled so far; they are the only thing that stands between us and another Age of Demons.

The Greensingers: They are of nature, more than any of us, and like nature they are beyond reason. We honor them for what they are, but we do not understand what they stand for—if anything.

Because the Wardens do not condemn using nature’s bounty to create technology, they are comfortable with buildings, furniture, and other trappings of civilization. For example, the High Druid’s grove remains undeveloped, but Greenheart contains simple buildings of earth or platforms built in trees. A sacred grove is the common location of the sect’s high observances, but local rites might be held in barns, village halls, even manor houses. Each regional circle of druids does maintain a small grove as well, mainly for seasonal rites by those who have not traveled to Greenheart.

The greatpine Oalian is the progenitor of all the Wardens, and many wear a stylized pine tree somewhere on their garb out of respect to the Great Druid. Orcs and half-orcs often bear a scar shaped like a tree.

The bracken fern is another token of the Wardens’ role within the world. Its spreading fronds represent welcome, and its humble status as forest undergrowth emphasizes humility and harmony.