Mosswardens
The Mosswardens are a circle of fae druids that live deep in the Shandalian woods. Their clan is comprised of various fae races including elves, satyrs, centaurs, harengon, and kitsunes, all dedicated to protecting the woods of Shandalar from unnatural dangers.
Culture
To be a Mosswarden is to be a friend to all creatures, whether beast, fae, plant, or human, so long as it respects the sanctity of the wild. This has sometimes brought them into direct conflict with the Eladrin Kingdom when it attempts to settle deeper in the Shandalian Wood. Oftentimes, these settlements will suffer mysterious plagues of insects or sudden, localized earthquakes that damage buildings but somehow never seem to cause serious injury. Sometimes settlers will find their homes overgrown with creeping kudzu or their streets will be overrun by woodland creatures. This has given the Mosswardens a reputation among the common people of Shandalar as woodland pranksters, since their attacks on civilization always seem to hurt the royal purse rather than the ordinary person.
The village of Drosden is the home of the Mosswardens, built around the ruins of the old Feywild Portal deep in the Shandalian Woods. The early Mosswardens remembered the tyranny of the Seelie Court and saw it as their duty as protectors of the First Forest to ensure the portal remained closed to the Material Plane. In time, druids of the circle forgot the reason they protected and watched the portal, only passing down the tradition that said their home was sacred and needed to be protected. The ruins of the massive shrine still tower over the small village, kept intact by millennia of druids preserving the ancient shrine to a long-forgotten conflict.
Public Agenda
The Mosswardens are dedicated to protecting the forests of Shandalar, whether from the threat of deforestation due to the encroachment of modern civilization or destruction from interplanar threats.
History
In the decades following the banishment of the Primordial Titans from Divostra, druids from the fae races that had fought in that bloody conflict came together throughout Divostra, forming druidic circles sworn to upholding the new balance of nature. In Shandalar, where the portal from the fae realm had first opened, a land that many of the fae races consider the birthplace of civilization, the woods had been decimated by the Titanomachy, with vast swathes of the forest burned or uprooted. A druidic circle calling themselves Mosswardens formed to repair the damage to their woodland home. They took up residence in the central part of the Shandalian wood, in a settlement built around the ruins of the old Feywild portal.
The strong reverence for nature shared by these druid circles, combined with the peculiar magic of Divostra, led to the birth of several nature dieties. Chief among them was Melora, the Wildmother, whom most circles now worship as the primary diety of the druidic pantheon. To them, Melora is the mother of all creation and embodies the natural world's power to fight against threats. Many circles go so far as to reject elemental magic altogether, declaring it a tool of the Primordial Titans who sought to destroy the world rather than share it.
Lesser gods rose up from the belief of each circle. The Mosswardens, with their mischievous nature and reverence for the wilderness, gave birth to the forest gods Pan and Silvanus. Pan, the satyr god, is the embodiment of the unbridled revelry of the natural world, celebrating the joy in all things from creation to death. Silvanus arose from the Mosswardens' belief that the forest should be protected, embodying the antithesis of civilization's encroachment upon the woods.
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