Druidic Sects of Khorvaire
Five recognised druidic traditions share the continent of Khorvaire, each emerging from a common root — the teachings of the green dragon Vvaraak, who came to the Shadow Marches over fifteen thousand years ago and taught the orc peoples the secret language of the natural world. All five sects honour nature. All five draw power from Eberron herself. But they have arrived at radically different conclusions about what honouring nature requires, and they do not always agree that the others are doing it right.
What unites them: reverence for the natural world, druidic magic, and the rejection of forces that corrupt or consume Eberron from without. What divides them: nearly everything else — how far civilisation may intrude on the wild, whether death and decay are to be fought or embraced, whether the fey planes are allies or threats, and whether the greatest danger to the world is already here, already past, or still approaching.
Common Origins: The Gift of Vvaraak
Every druidic tradition on Khorvaire traces its lineage to a single source. Over fifteen thousand years ago, the green dragon Vvaraak came to the Shadow Marches. She was a member of the Draconic Chamber, and her studies of the Draconic Prophecy had revealed a coming catastrophe that only the younger races could prevent. She gathered followers from among the orcs and taught them what no mortal had known: the secret language of the natural world, the art of reading the future in the Ring of Siberys, and the power of stone, soil, and living things.
She charged her students to remain vigilant. Thousands of years later, that threat arrived: the daelkyr — alien lords from the plane of Xoriat, the Realm of Madness — opened the gates between worlds and poured their aberrant hordes into Eberron. The conflict shattered the goblin Empire of Dhakaan and left wounds across Khorvaire. Vvaraak's students, by then called the Gatekeepers, sealed the daelkyr in Khyber and pushed Xoriat out of alignment — at tremendous cost.
In the long millennia since, the Gatekeepers shared their knowledge with humans, shifters, and others. New interpretations gave birth to new sects. The Wardens of the Wood, Greensingers, and Ashbound all evolved from the Gatekeeper trunk. The Children of Winter emerged last and most controversially. All five are present today; the three sects most concentrated in the Eldeen Reaches share the same forest and must coexist, however uneasily.
Druidic magic is central to life in the Eldeen Reaches. Communities have druidic advisors who help with planning and planting. Animal messengers carry communications between villages. Goodberry wine takes the place of House Jorasco healing. Communities include awakened animals and plants as members.
Comparative Overview
Sect | Core Purpose | Primary Enemy | Sacred Site | Membership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Gatekeepers | Guarding against extraplanar incursion | Daelkyr, aberrations, Xoriat | Planar seals; Siberys observatories | ~1,000; mostly orc |
Wardens of the Wood | Balancing nature and civilisation | Unnatural corruption broadly | Greenheart | Largest (~5,000); mostly human |
Ashbound | Defence of nature from civilisation and arcane magic | Arcane magic; constructs; civilisation broadly | No fixed site | ~1,700; human/shifter |
Children of Winter | Preservation of the death-cycle; hasten the cleansing | Undead; healing; "unnatural" survival | The Gloaming | ~1,100; mostly human |
Greensingers | Mediation between fey and mortals | None fixed; threats to the Twilight Demesne | Twilight Demesne; Thelanis | Small; elf/half-elf dominant |
How the Sects View Each Other
Each sect's attitude toward the others reveals the fault lines within the tradition:
The Gatekeepers honour the Wardens as heirs but consider them dangerously naive about Xoriat. They respect the Ashbound's ferocity. They find the Children of Winter's apocalypticism disturbingly similar to Xoriat's madness. They fear the Greensingers' enthusiasm for planar contact.
The Wardens consider the Ashbound's hearts in the right place despite regrettable methods. They view the Children as too eager for the end. They honour the Gatekeepers as the first druids and mourn their dwindling numbers. They call the Greensingers "of nature, more than any of us — and like nature, beyond reason."
The Ashbound regard the Wardens as appeasers who accept assaults on nature in the name of coexistence. They revile the Children as traitors who would unleash horrors on the land. They honour the Gatekeepers but find their focus too narrow. They dismiss the Greensingers as silly and inconsequential.
The Children of Winter consider the Wardens in denial, the Ashbound pathetically resisting the inevitable, and the Gatekeepers as having possibly delayed the cleansing that should have come millennia ago. They find the Greensingers at least understand that all things have their place — but wonder how sanguine they'll be when winter comes to their twilight groves.
The Greensingers find the Wardens pleasant if too fond of iron. They consider the Ashbound strange for not counting Thelanis as part of the natural world. They find the Children's obsession with Mabar fascinating but dangerously narrow. They respect the Gatekeepers' patience but believe they misunderstand the balance of all planes.