Wood Wardens

Sacrifice that with which you cannot live without

"It was his last wish, ya hear? He just wanted to be part of the forest again.."

Left devoid of anything but their will to protect their corner of the Eight Lands, wood wardens are the epitome of natural communion. If you see one gaze upon you on your travels, greet them only with reverence, as they gave up their souls to the natural world.

Creation

Wood wardens are created by sacrifice. A person must give up their life to become an eternal guardian of the woods of the world. Encountering one of these wardens can be seen as a blessing from the woods to guide your journey.
This ritual is a closely guarded, primaeval secret of the Druids. Very few non-Druids have been able to complete this ritual. The ritual isn't necessarily an act of evil, as the victim can have entered a bargain that requires it to be a willing sacrifice.
To become a wood warden, the heart of the sacrifice must be removed and a seed pushed into it, then the heart is to be placed inside a tree. A hollow or crook will do, but special cavities can be carved for this purpose. The tree is then watered with the blood of the sacrificed and the body buried amongst the roots.
After several days, a sprout will rise from the base of the tree and grow into a new form for the sacrifice to take. This form can be an armoured humanoid form or that of an animal resident to the woods. The form doesn't seem to have any correlation to the person sacrificed.
Those who become wood wardens trade their free will and all sentimentality for supernatural strength and a deathless duty. The one who performed the ritual sets the wood warden to its task and the creature follows those orders unceasingly.

by Theiket (via MidJourney)

Behaviour

Wood Wardens exist only to protect woodlands and the people who tend them. A wood warden has very few displays of emotion, except when scaring off potential predators and their eyes are sparkles motes of light.
When they are not called to action, they root themselves into the earth and stay there until called upon, taking in the sustenance they need. Like a tree, wood wardens only need sunlight, air and the nutrients from the earth to survive. Because they are undying in their duty, some wood wardens outlive their original purpose.
If a wood warden does lose its purpose and is freed from specific duties, it will wander the natural world to find another place of natural beauty to watch over. Wood wardens are drawn to creatures that have a close bond with nature and respect the land and what it gives, such as druids and treants. Some treants even have wood warden servants per some ancient binding pacts or free-roaming wardens who find their new purpose in the treants domain.

Unknown by Unknown

Lifespan

Immortal

Average Height

5'0" - 6'6"

Average Weight

100 - 200lbs