High Druid Cennedig the Stoneborn
The mountain teaches by standing
High Druid Cennedig the Stoneborn is a figure of immense presence and quiet command — not because he demands it, but because he embodies it. He is the spiritual pillar of Clan Arthfael, a man of few words and deliberate motion, whose very silence feels heavier than most men’s speeches.
Cennedig is said to have been born during a landslide in the Vale of Moar, the only survivor of a collapsed druidic outpost. Rescued as an infant from beneath shattered stone, he was raised by the surviving priests of the Dolmen of Braith, where he grew not only in body but in spiritual depth. His affinity with the land was evident even in youth — stones that would not yield for miners gave way when he passed; wild bears paused and lowered their heads in his presence. Now in the full weight of his years, Cennedig is not a frail elder. His broad frame is wrapped in fur-lined robes dyed with ochre and crushed slate. His great oaken staff, known as Tirnach, is carved with the runes of every High Druid before him — and he is known to meditate beside it for hours, days even, unmoving, listening to the tremors of the world.
He governs not with decrees but with expectations, and that is enough in a land like Arthfael’s. His judgments are carved in stone and left at crossroads or cairns for the people to find. When he speaks, it is in low, firm tones, always once, never repeated. And when he joins his warriors in ritual, he chants with the voice of avalanches. Unlike the more mystical leaders of the other clans, Cennedig's connection to nature is grounded. He speaks not to wind or bird but to the deep rhythms of the earth: to stone fractures, to the scent of iron in water, to the tilt of frost along a pass. He has foreseen earthquakes before they struck. He once stopped a siege by calling upon a sleeping mountain, causing the path beneath the invaders to simply disappear. While his clan holds him in awe, outsiders often underestimate him, mistaking his stillness for slowness and his age for frailty. Such mistakes rarely happen twice.
To his people, he is more than a man. He is a cairn that watches, a cliff that remembers.
“I asked him if the gods had abandoned us. He looked at me and said: ‘Do you see them move when the wind howls?’ I said no. He said, ‘Then you know how they answer.’ ” — Young initiate of Clan Arthfael
