Genealogy of the Divine Practitioners in Uisneach

Five ancient kingdoms, sometimes referred to as ‘The Five Blessed Realms’ make up the island of Uisneach. These kingdoms have Gaelic sounding names that each pluck at a separate heartstring. Appleduir is the southernmost kingdom, what most of the gnomes referred to as Wellsland. Cedarmara is on the western shore, a land of legendary towering cedar trees that grow from the high mountains of the northeast all the way down to the sandy shoreline, with a beautiful natural harbor that protects the only ocean-faring fleet in Uisneach. To the north, lies Evalon, the land of ten thousand faerie trees. At the heart of Uisneach is Tynan Ibor and here stands, under protective magic, the sacred Uisneach tree. The Dromdara mountain range, with Poet’s Gap in the middle and Art Aron, or Bear Mountain, near the southern coast, separate Tynan Ibor from the Dromdara lands, which contain both Lord Shamwa’s abode near Long River and the Taranian House castle to the north, along the coast. The first Divine Practitioner was Olama, who was brought to Uisneach by Maker (God) from Tir fo Thuirnn. Olama had extraordinary powers, could shapeshift, and was a great healer and poet. He was also known to be very wise and became the second in command to the King of Dromdara. He fell in love with Princess Amuira, the daughter of the king of the region now known as Cedarmara, and they married under the Uisneach tree. Their son, Oirion, inherited the powers of his father and was highly skilled in music and storytelling. Oirion became the first druid in Uisneach. He did not marry but fell in love with the dryad, Duiria of the forest, and they conceived a child, Duirchlann, which means children of the oak. He became the most powerful of the druids because of his mixed blood. He married an Eirien woman named Nieve and they had several children, all of them having strong druidic and dryadic powers. One of these children, the daughter Catriona, married one of the faerie kings, which produced a rare and beautiful form of druidism with strong healing power. These bloodlines were passed down a few generations, but a shift developed, and many druids stopped marrying and instead took on ‘students’ of the druidic arts. Those who were more skilled at healing became the witches, who could marry if they chose and the druids who did not usually marry, although there was no prohibition to it. There was a great witch, Croniana, who did marry a druid from the Uisneach line but moved into the forests of Appleduir. Two children were born of this marriage. Cailleach and Ealga are descended from that line. Three druidic schools developed in Uisneach; one in Cedarmara, which focused on bardic skills. The people there were known to have an innate love of song and story. They created and stewarded the beautiful stories and art contained in the Book of Leaves. The second was in Dromdara and those druids were treated more like counselors or judges. The druids of Evalon, the third school, worked closely with the faeries to advance natural magic and healing arts. In the beginning, the druids and witches held equal power with kings but as time passed, they took a secondary role, the witches retreating to solitary places like forest and sea caves, while the druids became the bards, magicians, and legal counsel; called into service by the kings when needed. Artanin came from the Dromdara line of druids, as does Sigel in a separate line, Briana from the Evalon line and Silas from the Cedarmara line. Sir Thomas comes from the Tynan Ibor line and Cailleach from the Appleduir line.