Prologue: To Boldly Go Where People Have Not Been in a Good

...Alright. A gnoll "shaman" is still a sorcerer, and sorcerers can use magic that would help them find a place of power they otherwise couldn't stumble upon. But how did they know it was here for it to enter their heads to look for it?

Also I forgot for a second my guy is lawful. Sorry about that. A little Rory ogre crept inside him. But just know that he's trying real hard to be the shepherd.

Sorry for my lack of activity. I want to be ready for Arch's stream.

The history of the Nentir Vale is the history of the Winterbole and Harken Forests. But they were not always two woods. In a long ago era, before man and dwarf, this land was one forest, and it's rulers were the treants. They feared little back then save dragon fire, and from that they were protected by the archfey Malorunth the Eternal Ash, and their fellowship, their Circle, was strong. But it was not to last.

One spring evening Malorunth inexplicably fell silent as withered leaves fell in droves from his brittle, petrified branches. With Malorunth's passing so too fell the Vale's protective mantle. Scores of dragons infiltrated the woodland, triggering the first of several titanic confrontations between wyrm and treant that would become known as the War of Endless Branches. Great swaths of the woodland were burned to ash but the war's true cost would only be known after."

With the end of the War of Endless Branches the great wood stood divided. Even though dragon's fire had razed large swaths of woodland, it was festering suspicion and doubt that ultimately divided the treants. With little evidence to back their claims, some deciduous treants openly blamed the conifers for the Eternal Ash's demise. Soon, heated words bred violence, and civil war engulfed the forest. The treant fellowship ripped apart, creating a deep rift that endures to this day.

In the wake of the treant civil war, most conifers migrated into the northern wood, known today as Winterbole Forest. Reaffirming suspicions of their betrayal, the Winterbole treants turned their veneration to the archfey, the Prince of Frost, even allying with an elder white dragon named Bitterstrike.

The deciduous treants continue to revere Malorunth, whose petrified trunk stands enshrined in the heart of Harken Forest. The Harken treants believe that the Eternal Ash will return to them, but only if his murder is avenged.

Though frequent by the treants' own reckoning, the great wars between Harken and Winterbole typically occur only every century or two. When one faction or the other decides to mount a Great March, the treants move swiftly against their enemies--but the attacking force must first make a sixty-mile-plus trek across the Vale to reach enemy territory. The last Great March happened nearly two centuries ago, when Harken treants moved against the northern treants near Lake Wintermist. It's likely that the Winterbole treants will strike next, but it's not unheard of for one side to strike twice in succession.

In the Nentir Vale's earliest days, when elves and the eladrin separated, many elves settled in the lush and lively Harken Forest. A handful of elves quickly developed a strong connection to the living forest's primal power and became the land's first druids. Over the centuries, the druids became wholly attuned to the forest's needs. This band became known as Harken's Heart, named after its symbolic position in the great wooded land. Many of the forest's other elf residents came to view Harken's Heart with a growing combination of distaste, disapproval, and fear, believing that the druid's obsession with the primal power drawn from the ancient wood was dangerous. Their fears were well founded.

When war broke out once again between the treants of the Harken and Winterbole forests, it was natural that the Harken's Heart druids leapt to their defense. However, the group's ruthlessness toward its foes and its central and violent role in the fighting shocked the valley's other druids. Their crimes are as follows:

1. They unleashed destructive blights that targeted the conifer's and their allied human tribes, curses they unleashed with impunity upon foe and neutral parties alike. Many starved to death including women and children that had nothing to do with the fighting.

2. They lured a troop of conifer treants into the Old Hills and there riled up the seven goblin tribes that lived there, timing it so both parties would meet in the Starfall Valley. After both parties were committed to battle the Harken's Heart druids sealed the valley and rained lightning upon both sides. The goblins and the treants both perished in the blaze. These goblins weren't like the others you've likely dealt with. They had lived peacefully in the hills for years. Our Circle had been guiding them towards the Spirit Way and the rejection of Bane and Maglubiyet. With their numbers and their influence, the Old Hills would have been a settled land, not the wild and dangerous place that it is now.

3. They purposefully unleashed the barrow wights of the Sword Barrow into the Winterbole Forest. Though they were eventually destroyed or driven back into their holes, their necromatic magics still blight that area. Undead haunt that area and unnatural things grow within. Two Circles to this day are still trying to repair the damage they did.

When the fighting came to an end once more, Eyton, the founder of our order and himself a former member of the Harken's Heart Circle, had had enough. Beseeching the great elder spirits, Eyton asked that the Harken's Heart druids be severed from their primal power source. After much consideration, they agreed, and Harken's Heart found themselves unable to touch their magic.

Angered by Eyton's actions, yet fearing the intense power required to accomplish the severing, the Harken's Heart druids appealed to the goddess Melora for aid. If Melora heard the call, she only partially acceded to the druids' pleas. The spell was altered and became known as Harken's Curse. While within Harken Forest, those of Harken's Heart retain their full powers, including their ability to defend themselves and the forest. However, their primal powers quickly decline when they leave the forest's boundaries, and dissipate completely a league outside its borders. Thus, the druids' overzealous tendencies cannot harm the surrounding lands and people. Or so they hope.

The leader of a Druid Circle is usually called a Hierophant and the Harken's Heart druids are no exception. The Hierophant for the last 137 years has been the elf Nesme, whom you've met. She served as second to the previous Hierophant, Norpetor, and has continued many of his policies concerning protection of and travel through the Harken Wood. Officially travelers are welcome but a series of disappearances over the last 30 years has all but cutoff the overland route through the woods. We've never been able to prove it but we suspect the Harken's Heart of luring travelers to their deaths. Even Rangers and other druids have been known to disappear at times.

But always--always!--they search for a way to end the Curse and they have tried many questionable ways of doing so. Why not 5 years ago they attempted to cut a deal with a coven of hags that almost got them, us, and the rest of the Woodsinger elves killed. If it hadn't been for a group of adventurers that happened to wander by things would have been a lot worse.

And don't get me started on Allinandra! She creeps me out, she does! Always sneaking around ready to do whatever her mother tells her. Watch your back around her, she's silent as a mountain lion when she wants to be and twice as quick.

I Didn't realize what "treant" really meant until now.

Also, can I get some advice? I'm trying to play Lawful Good, but I'm having a hard time as Hunter justifying going out to plead with the heirophant and her daughter and then murder them when we fail to change their mind. As me, I see the two of them as gravely troublesome and too dangerous to be left alive, and I'd just go out and take care of that without any due process. Is that still "lawful" in a way?

I have no idea what "Lawful" really is, so I can't really comment on that. Why not just roleplay Hunter according to his priorities? Kathryn is not the smartest girl there is, but she has a big heart, and that's how I've been roleplaying her so far. I don't try to stick to one alignment in particular.

Carlos will signal Jojo to keep quiet when examining the pendant. If the thing is bugged, the last thing we need is Nesme knowing that we know.