Against the Shadow

Almost two thousand years ago, a shadow crept from the South and slowly drew all light from the heart of Greenwood the Great to its farthest eaves. People began calling the forest Mirkwood, and learnt to fear its deepest recesses. In spite of the darkness, many lingered along the forest's borders, fearless sons of Men who defied the menace of the Necromancer in his dreaded abode. These Woodmen have fought the growing darkness for as long as their oldest tellers of tales can remember, and they will continue the fight now that the Shadow has deserted its lair.   The Woodmen of Wilderland are frontiersmen of the North, having a shared ancestry with the Bardings. They live in sparse, isolated villages and homesteads surrounded by wooden stockades, built along the borders of the great forest, or in the valleys to the west of the river. Threatened by the shadow of Dol Guldur and what lurks in the depths of Mirkwood, the Woodmen are hunters and trackers of wild animals, battling Orcs and Spiders in self-defence.   Traditionally, women fight and hunt alongside their men, or even alone if unmarried or widowed, in their struggle to survive in the hostile environment. The Wizard Radagast, one of the Wise of Middle-earth, has chosen to live amongst the Woodmen since time immemorial, taking residence in Rhosgobel. A master of shapes and a tender of beasts, his teachings have proven invaluable to the hunters and animal-tamers among the Woodmen.