It took me a bit longer than expected, but here's my faction and some characters.
Faction (Anyone can join!)
Name: Fey’Doriin kor Yordella (They who stride the trees.)
Type: Religious Nomads
Effective Demographics: Elves, Fey, Wargs, Wolves, and various hybrids. Smaller populations of other creatures exist. Some 9,000 total have been estimated.
-30% Elves
-25% Fey
-17% Wargs/Wolves
-12% Elf-Fey hybrids
-8% Were-Creatures
-8% Other Creatures
-3,579 Hunters*
-3,328 Gatherers*
-329 Master Craftsmen
-641 Rangers
-947 Children
-52 Infirm
-123 Druids
-1 the Druid
*Hunters and Gatherers often do more beyond find food. They make up much of the Fey’Doriin kor Yordella’s fighting force and often work as mild craftsmen or apprentices to Master Craftsmen who produce anything from clothes to weapons to textiles.
Location:
South and West from Sinu-Ra. Only some few ten miles, but heading south with great speed towards the mountains. Few know why, for now, but there is rumor of a ruin. A city that spans a region of the low mountains at the edge of the Swordlands. Both under and above the ground. It’s walls, crumbling but still standing, form a barrier that few dare to climb. The only hole is a single gate, still standing and oddly pristine in condition, standing closed. The ancient whispers name this a cursed city. A dread city. Those who entire are foolish, glory-seeking, purifiers, or desiring its power.
History:
The Fey’Doriin kor Yordella, or merely the Fey’Doriin, trace their origins far back into the history of their trees. They wander up and down the forest, stewards and protectors of their forest. Ferocious protectors. Wild as their land, they’ll utilize many methods to drive unwanted guests from their land from simple bow and blade, to turning the land against them. Trees that once produced healthy fruit, turn to poison, docile animals turn violent or into spies. The Fey’Doriin will keep their lands and people protected at any blood price.
However, the exact opposite is true for any welcome guest. Celebration is thrown for them and every bounty they have to offer is shared. They welcome the welcome as if a traveler who has been gone for years. The return of a family member, once estranged, but now forgiven and home. A passionate people through and through who wander the forests at will, claiming wherever they stay as their own, but never staying anywhere for long.
Ancient history suggests that they were once a small nation. A city-state that existed on the edge of the Swordlands. But due to their pride, and perhaps a few dark rituals, they fell into ruin. The Fey’Doriin will make no comment one way or another as to if this is true, but merely claim to not know. Which, for most of them, is true.
Most recent history has shown a people enraged. With the coming of these “adventurers.” These “settlers.” These “tamers.” Has brought about conflict and chaos with them. Even accidental for, when the initial landing came, the settlers felled many trees, great and small, to build their initial homes. Tragically, they chopped down a tree of their old leader, the Druid Dryad Len’Sha while the tribe was away west. So quickly did it happen that they could do nothing to stop it, nothing to prepare for it, and with no tree nearby could hold Len’Sha’s spirit and magical might, she died, horribly and painfully. Enraged, the young Elf Druidess Kairin, new leader and guide to the Fey’Doriin, takes her people towards the Swordlands and the ruins that lie upon them while dispatching several envoys both to the settlers and other tribes. Demanding recompense from the former and support for vengeance from the latter.
Heraldry:
Such few banners that can be found show a green and purple backdrop with a silver bramble of thorns. Written below the thorns are, in silver as well, words declaring “Never Trod Upon.”
Religion:
The people of the Fey’Doriin worship a pantheon of deities and potent spirits who commune with the one titled Druid or Druidess. There may be many druids across the land, but there is only one Druid to the Fey’Doriin. A being who has come into contact and, to some degree, has forged a bond with one or many of the Pantheon deities. The spirits fade into and out of memory, but some remain constant. People honor the Pantheon by trying to commune with the spirits and seek to do their will. This differs from the Druid in that there is no sort of magical bond or tie that seems to channel part of the essence of the deity.
Kor: The wolf. Protector of night and harbinger of death. A spirit of hunting and completion. The hardest to heed.
Cauna: The robin. Heral of spring. Leader of celebrations. A spirit of joy and song. The easiest to heed.
Gorendon: The dragon. Leadership and prideful. Power incarnate. The most dangerous to heed. King of the Pantheon.
Thallion: The fox. Trickster of the Patheon. The most foolish to heed.
Bandor: The stag. Leader of heart and home. Family and simple wisdoms. The wisest to heed.
Kuari: The trout. Helper in birth and the one that leads into an through the flow of life. The most complicated to heed.
Leaders:
Druidess Kairin Shial’Kot, Elf-Dryad hybrid, see characters
1st Ranger Yowena, Elf-Fey hybrid, Field commander of the Fey’Doriin’s military arm and leads their people in battle
Other Important Persons:
Ranger Durdast Era’Moss, Werewolf-Elf, see characters
Lillend Tei, Fairy, Companion to Durdast and planned speaker of Kairin’s ultimatum.
Isador Vor’Tian, Fey, Speaker to the other tribes across the land and will deliver Kairin’s plea
Characters:
Name: Druidess Kairin Shial’Kot
Race: Elf-Dryad with pale tan skin, bright green eyes, green hair, and various deep green and brown tattoos of vines and branches that crisscross her body along with what life grows from her.
Home: SW of Sinu-Ra in the forests that range to the Swordlands.
Biography: At the young age of 52, she took leadership of the Fey’Doriin. Young, brash, hotheaded, she leads her people through the woodlands with brooding plans as to the vengeance that she feels she must extract upon the coming settlers for the death of Len’Sha. It was that death that triggered her bond with Gorendon. He imbued the power of rage and flames into the woman to supplement her natural strength in mind and magic. Southwards, southwards she leads them to the ancient ruins. Why? Many guess, none wish to believe. Kairin is leading her people to the ruins of Rhon’To’Yon. The remains of the city at the base of the Swordlands. There she hopes to revive the ancient, fell magic of her people. Magic she’ll use to defend her home and people while extracting vengeance, no matter the cost. And what a cost it is for, upon wielding such magics, she, the Fey’Doriin, her homeland, and any who come to willingly follow her will be twisted into abominable forms of themselves. Horrors to inflict upon the people who dare settle in owned land as if no one lived there. Who had the gall, the pride, to think, no, imagine they had some sort of right to it.
Her demand is simple, but also a decently clever ploy. The leaders of these various groups of settlers must come forth and submit themselves to a moot of the tribes of the land that will discuss how they will come to exist together and to exact justice for the wrongs that have been done to the native inhabitants. Furthermore, by merely agreeing to meet on Kairin’s terms, she already gains the advantage in the talks. Lastly, should there be any foul play, she’ll have all the cause she needs to work to wipe out the settlers. Kairin’s envoys are on there way, winging to both tribes and groups of settlers. Should she be ignored, then she will follow through in her designs and use the ancient magics.
Description:
Flaw: Angered Beyond Reason – From the tragedy, or murder, of Len’Sha, there can be only be the demanded recompense or vengeance. She will hear no alternative and stop at nothing less.
Flaw: Cannot be Concealed – Her bond with the lord of the Pantheon gives her raw power, but it cannot be hidden. Her passage is obvious as the noonday sun in an unclouded sky.
Strength: Power of the Pantheon – At the same time, the bond that connects her also allows her to severely twist the land to her emotional state to protect her people. Her joy sends all the land she travels in bloom. Her despair leaves it wilting behind her. Kairin’s anger twists the forests into a horror. Haven of ferocious creatures and poisoned brambles with trees that murmur and plot darkly at any who enter their shadow.
Name: Durdast Era’Moss
Race: Werewolf Elf
Home: SW of Sinu-Ra in the forests that range to the Swordlands.
Biography: A solid 157 years old, Durdast Era’Moss has served with distinction for the Fey’Doriin as a ranger of their people. His father passed some seventy years ago. A werewolf and victim to the decay of time. His mother, Fysha Era’Moss is alive and well within the Fey’Doriin. An elf of age and stature who works to weave tapestries within her large caravan of a family. See, Durdast has six siblings, half siblings really, twenty-four nieces and nephews, and an exponentially growing number of other extended family members. To understand this, one must know that Fysha is several millennia old and has continuously married various mortal creatures ever since she arrived from the west to the Fey’Doriin. For each person she marries, she has one child. Eventually, her husband dies, Fysha mourns properly, then eventually marries again. To say that she doesn’t love her spouses is a lie. It would be more apt to say that she loved them for different reasons. Every child of hers has followed a different lifestyle, helping to make them radically different from each other, but Fysha helps keep them woven together and harmonious. Never letting her family emotionally drift away from each other. An Era’Moss family reunion is a sight to behold. It is rumored and believed that Fysha’s children have inherited her immortality. It is certain that her elder children have well outlived what would be natural for hybrids.
Durdast is the youngest of her children and wildest of them. Happiest when he is ranging, he takes great pains to work to be out in the relative solitude of the forest, even as a youth. It was during one of these excursions away from the family caravan that he found his longtime friend and partner, Lillend Tei. A fairy of kindred spirit, the duo sought out every secret the forest had to hid, be it strange bugs under rocks or being able to shoot the smallest apple on a tree. The two have remained close, despite him becoming a ranger and warrior and she turning to being a druid and guide.
Description:
Flaw: Mental and Emotional Scar – A traumatizing even has happened in Durdast’s past that still haunts him. Occaisonally, he gets panic attacks that can strike from nowhere and cripple his ability to do, well, anything productive. Despite the fact that he refuses to speak about it, he seems oddly weary of enclosed spaces.
Flaw: Dangerous Transformation – Perhaps Durdast’s greatest continuous source of self-anger and shame, is that, when he transforms into his wolf form, he becomes completely feral. Liable to attack anyone around him and hunt down those his beast form would consider prey and food. They only one who can help Durdast keep his mind is his longtime friend and partner, Lillend Tei.
Flaw: Illiterate – Cannot read or write.
Strength: Clever Responder – Durdast is known for his quick mind and flexible nature that allows him to adapt to most any nonsocial situation he finds himself in.
