Galdrowen: Era of Origins

The Grove does not sleep. It remembers.

Long before kingdoms rose and maps named borders, there was Galdrowen—endless, wild, and alive.

The forest pulsed with breath and memory, its roots woven with ancient magic. Sunlight filtered through vast canopies of silverleaf and duskwood, dappling the moss-covered paths where no stone roads had ever been. Here, the air shimmered with unseen voices—elemental spirits whispering through dew and branch. Few understood them, but those who listened heard more than just the wind.

At the heart of this raw world stood Thornhall Grove, not yet a city but a sacred gathering place. A circle of stone grown from shaped roots marked the seat of the Verdant Circle, a fledgling order devoted to the primal balance. Their First Speaker, Elder Mossbeard, towered like a moving tree, his bark-veined arms heavy with lichen wisdom. He spoke slowly, not for lack of thought, but out of reverence—for to speak over the forest was to invite its silence.

The Circle’s creed was simple: Nature’s will be done.

They were not alone in Galdrowen. Scattered through the glades lived the Beastkin—clanfolk of fur, fang, and antler. Among them ran Thalia Fernstep, a restless young scout with eyes like wildflowers and questions sharper than her bone-blade. She patrolled the forest edges where the green faded to fog, watching the Duskfall Mire, a land neither friend nor enemy—simply unknown.

“I saw it stir,” she told the Circle one dawn, breathless. “A Grove-Wyrm, curled beneath the roots. Its eyes opened in my dream.”

The elders exchanged glances. Nuala of the Grove, wrapped in mossed robes, nodded slowly. “The wyrms dream when the forest dreams. They wake only when the balance shatters.”

Beneath Galdrowen’s soil, five Grove-Wyrms slumbered—colossal serpents of bark and stone, said to have formed when the world first cooled. Protective, not predatory, they were revered as forest spirits, their coils forming sacred sites. To disturb them was taboo. To dream of them? An omen.

Mossbeard placed a hand on Thalia’s shoulder. “The forest stirs, child. Not in fear—but in warning.”

Brambletooth, a massive boar-headed warden clad in rootmail and scars, grunted. “If anything dares threaten our groves, I’ll see its bones fed to the briarworms.”

Yet no army came. No flames licked the canopy. Still, something moved beneath—timber warped without wind, herbs bloomed out of season, animals changed migration paths. Galdrowen whispered of coming change.

The Verdant Circle, though primitive in form, began its work in earnest. They catalogued wild game patterns, learned to bind nature’s essence into healing roots and hallucinogenic dreams, and protected the forest’s harmony above all else. No walls. No lords. Only balance.

In time, a root-carved token bearing their symbol—a circle of intertwined roots—was planted at the grove’s center.

“This,” said Mossbeard, “marks the first binding. Not of conquest. Of communion.”

And though few beyond the wildwood knew their names, the forest did. And the forest remembered.