Drow
The Drow have lived in Draketh for a long time, though their oral lineage puts their origins in central Toven. Within Drow oral lineage, there’s stories of the old court at ta’Ut, where the Drow held the Crown for a thousand years. It was a rich and potent time, and though the memories are dusty, they’re well-loved, and stories of The Drow court at ta’Ut are common bedtime tales. Despite this, they’re rarely shared outside the Drow community. Since this time is lost in antiquity, it breeds contention when the Drow claim royal lineage and connection to ta’Ut and Hellscap in general.
The Empire maintains military outposts throughout Draketh. Once a year they collect ‘taxes,’ and in exchange for this, they nominally maintain the roads, and will drag off anyone who breaks too many of their laws, at least if they don’t know the right people. The outposts vary greatly. Some are run by officers who genuinely believe in the law. Others are run by officers who genuinely believe in making money. Their presence, especially the taxation, causes a lot of resentment. The land of Draketh is steeply mountainous and cast in shadow. Roads are rare and paltry things, travel tends to be either through the vast cavern networks that spread through the mountains, by sea, or both. The Drow are intrepid sailors, though their sea capabilities was drastically reduced during their resistance to the Empire. The land of Draketh would be defensible, but it was not the Drow’s way to build fortifications, so they relied on their skill at sea to keep raiders at bay, and attempted to scale up these defenses against the Empire. The war lasted almost 200 years, but in the end the Empire simply had more ships, and wore Draketh down. So now there is an uneasy peace, where Draketh is peppered with outposts and taxed.
The Drow tend to keep to themselves. Sensitive to sunlight, they tend to live either in the shaded forests or the caves and caverns, and travel the mountains exclusively at night. Preferring cloth of mottled blacks and greys, they have a reputation for being dirty, though this is rarely true.
The majority of Drow categorically despise the Empire, though some will work for them as scouts or guides, and this is generally not seen as traitorous by other Drow.
Dwarven
The dwarves come from Groast. It is very rare to meet a dwarf raised anywhere else, and not terribly common to encounter them outside of Torest. Many dwarves are Druids, and many Druids are Dwarves. Druids are the only people other than Dwarves allowed in Groast these days, generally speaking. (See the section on Druids for details on this.)
Dwarves are secretive and militant these days. There are stories of days past when Dwarves were much more open-doored, but now the approach to Groast is a series of massive walls of hewn stone with doors of the same. The road zig-zags between massive doors and gargantuan fortifications.
Interacting with most Dwarves in the world, one is likely to encounter a similar energy emotionally. They are staunch, militant opponents of the Empire, and they act strategically for the freedom of all people from the Empire’s oppression. That said, one usually gets the feeling that they are first and foremost acting for the continued freedom of Groast and Torest, and that they see freeing the rest of the world as a positive side-effect of maintaining their own liberty. This view exists on a spectrum; the Dwarves who are Druids tend to see things a bit more holistically, and some Dwarves are genuinely motivated by global oppression. On the other side of the spectrum, there are Dwarves who believe Groast should simply seal it’s doors and leave the rest of the world to fend for it’s self.
Elven
Doroneth is a lofty, mountainous land, and her people are often seen similarly. The Elves tend to look far, and seem removed from what is happening around them. At home in their high vallies, they practice old crafts and tend to keep their own counsel.
Since the Empire took Tisane, many of Doroneth’s vallies play host to guardhouses. The Empire views the Elves as inherently blasphemous, and therefore builds their own guardhouses, which are squat, aggressively white and red things compared to the Elven architecture around them, which tends to be lofty and done in more natural tones.
The Elves make little attempt to conceal their disgust for their unwelcome human guests. Since all the Empire demands of the Elves is taxes, the Elves pay their gold and go about their business. Nominally, the Empire guards have the right to enter any building, and at first they did so often, but the Elves sheer disgust has eventually led to a sort of stalemate, where the Empire guards keep to themselves and the Elves don’t do anything explicitly against the law in public.
One thing that remains contentious is the Missionary work. Clerics demand central public space to preach the word of God once a week, and their zeal rings out across most Elvist communities in a harsh counterpoint to the baseline of natural community noise. More and more Elves keep their young away from these displays, which irritates the Clerics.
Elves have become more social since the occupation of Doroneth. There are more Elves in Gwaroon, ale’Keli, and Toven then there ever were before.
Gnomic
The gnomes are a free-ranging mix of people, with a great diversity of lifeways. In ta’Ar, there is a long history of high study of several branches. First there is high magic; wizardry. Gnomic wizards have historically been quite focused and created a great many conveniences and toys for ta’Ar, as well as some truly terrifying weapons and other dangerous devices. One peculiar sub-catagory of Gnomic wizardry is what is often called Clockwork, or more commonly “quirk,” Clockwork machines are usually a weave of wizardry and engineering.
Within the age of the Empire, wizardry has gained a very bad reputation, and is generally seen as ‘evil.’ Alongside this general distrust and dislike of wizardry, there is an awareness that Gnomic wizardry, and Quirk in particular, are the reason that Gwaroon maintained her independence as long as she did, and are central to the ongoing liberty of ale’Keli. So there is both a distrust and appreciation for wizardry.
But most gnomes are not wizards. They live throughout Gwaroon, in largely hunter-gatherer groups. Many live in tents, and travel based on bounty. Many also love in stationary communities, and casually tend livestock or crops. It would be hard to call it “farming,” per se, but they will expand a seaweed habitat that they like, and keep the fish off it long enough to harvest a meaningful share.
Since ta’Ar’s fall into Empire control, and thereby the control of Gwaroon, gnomes have either succumbed to the Empire’s demands of “treaty goods” in the form of shelf-stable crops, or skirted the edges of the Empire by continuing to travel quickly in small groups.
It is rare to encounter Gnomes who are true converts or pro-Empire, but there are increasing numbers in ta’Ar who feel that it is in their best interests not to resist the Empire.
Gnomes retain a mixed feeling about ale’Keli. For most of history, ale’Keli was a pirate plague on Gwaroon. The Gnomes spent millennia trying to either get rid of or avoid the pirates who plagued their coasts from those isles. Now, ale’Keli is the last free land, and holds a symbol of hope for many Gnomes. Being only some 700 miles off the coast of Gwaroon, the Empire has begun building coastal fortifications and shipyards, and is clearly planning to mount attacks on Keli from Gwaroon. The Gnomes have slowed this through heel-dragging, but that only goes so far.
Halfling (the Folk)
Let’s start with the history. According to them, the Folk (or Halflings, as others refer to them) have been in to’Ren longer than anyone else. The hills seem oddly well suited to them; old trees branches are spaced just right for Folk arms to climb, tunnels in the hills are the perfect height for Folk heads. Most of the Folk are very content to live their whole lives in the village they’re born in. They weave and brew, ferment and write. “Better the fields we know” they say. Often home to masters of herb lore or connoisseurs of a particular lark song in the spring, these small communities are frequented by young bards looking to confirm some natural detail in a new ballad and old professors who are stumped by some odd plant trait alike.
Some Folk, however, have a ‘wandering eye.’ It’s often chalked up to some drop of fey blood back the line, or to being ‘barrow-touched,’ but really no one has any idea why some Folk seem to just need to up and go, or sometimes worse, stay and cause trouble.
The Folk towns are not exclusive, and it’s not even that uncommon for gnomes and less commonly humans to live there. For obvious reasons, most humans prefer their own communities, though the ones who stay with the Folk say you get used to ducking.
Baeo is old. Older than people know. People think that they’re part of Bange, but Bange grew up next to the Baeo. Bold Folk who’ve followed them say that the old tunnels of the hills run up into Bange in broken curves.
Many of the Folk also live in the Torgai. Some will travel all the way through the Spine, in the caverns. While though the journey is not a comfortable one, there are Folk who quietly travel it regularly, trading small, very valuable items back and forth between the Torgai and ta’Ot. One or two, it’s known, will hire out as guides for the trip, though this is widely frowned upon by the Folk, who strongly prefer people to think that there’s no passage through Spine.
The Empire’s occupation of Baeo has been brutal. Most of the old ways of craft and song are gone. A thousand years of Atrian Clerics barking damnation and the ways of the One True God have led most of the Folk to convert, though their faith has a very different tone than that of the humans of Toven. The Folk are essentially enslaved. Some know it, and would say it that way. Many just see it as the nature of life to work themselves to the bone for nothing in return. The Empire does pay the Folk, but at this point the Empire owns most of the land and houses, so what the Folk have to pay in rent and for food is far beyond their pay, meaning that there is no apparent way out for them. This has led to increasing rates of addiction, lateral violence, and suicide in Baeo for a long time.
In the last 60-100 years, it has led to something else entirely. Increasingly, Halflings have been at the front lines of the resistance movement against the Empire. It is not many of them, but when a bomb is set off at the Empire offices in ta’Ot, smart money is that a Halfling put it there. Halfling from Baeo in ale’Keli tend to be steely-eyed and their humor razor-sharp. These are people who have watched their entire communities destroyed by the Empire, and they have nothing to lose.
Human
Much of the world sees no distinction between the worldview of Humans and the worldview of the Empire. While this is wholly understandable, the distinctions are important.
The Empire is a political entity built on bank control and religious dogma. Through it’s centralization of banking, it has built a system of debts which hold everyone it conquers to it’s service. This is backed up theologically by the Empire’s devout monotheism. Through this monotheism, the Empire convinces it’s self and it’s subjects that the violence enacted by the Empire is for the good of the Empire’s victims. These pillars are further supported by the rapid, explosive growth of the Empire’s magical technological capabilities. The only magic that the Empire values is replicable, which confines it to Wizardry and other Intellect-based magics. Intuitive magics such as Sorcery, Druidry, and Witchcraft are seen as not just lesser magics, but actively blasphemous against the pure perfection and egalitarianism of Wizardry.
Most of this is rarely said out loud- it doesn’t have to be. It’s embedded in every sentence spoken in every bar, classroom, and courthouse in the Empire. So the average human in the Empire takes for granted the superiority of the Empire, and when they discuss ways to resolve “the troubles,” the perpetuation of the Empire in some form, whether this political entity or another that mirrors it, is taken for granted, because they presume that the whole world is coming to understand the superiority of the Empire. So the perspective about ale’Keli or the Dwarves is rarely hate, it’s far more often grief. Humans within the Empire tend to lament the violence taking place, and wish it would end swiftly and that the Dwarves and Kelians would come to see the great benefit of the Empire. This is not even expressed as a political statement; it is more ontological or axiomatic.
Humans within the Empire tend to be suspicious, though. A thousand years of propaganda teaching them that the “lesser peoples” are jealous and wish to harm the Empire out of spite and ignorance have led them to believe that most non-humans are ill-intentioned, greedy, and malicious. Most of these people are inherently kind and well-intentioned, but they will not hesitate to call the guards at the slightest sign of disturbance.
Despite common beliefs, not all humans support the Empire. Even less well-known is that not all humans supported the Empire long before the Empire began to crumble. The Island People of Perenor and Terenor are perhaps the best examples of this, but certainly not the only ones. Perenor and Terenor fought against the Empire for centuries, and despite being wholly conquered and subjugated, the Empire’s mental and spiritual hold there has never been as firm as it is in the rest of Toven. Traditionally a clan-based matriarchy, the island people are closer to Kelians than the Empire would like to think, both on the globe and ideologically.
As the Empire has crumbled, a broad spectrum of opinions have emerged within the human population. There is an increasing number of human who believe that the demise of the Empire is the only hope for the survival of the world. The loudest of these are often young, but more elders think this than one might realize. These people often seek out the other species as sources of resistance and guidance, and their welcome is tenuous. This is largely because even the best-intentioned of them are still, in their hearts, children of the Empire. They grew up with Empirical privileges and perspectives, and even as they realize superficially that these perspectives are not working, they still carry the value systems of the Empire deep in their beings. This leads them to act and speak in ways that require work from the communities they find their ways into, and often those communities feel that the benefits of their presence do not outweigh their impact and the work they require.
Beyond this, there are a terrifying number of Empirical spies, and the easiest pathway for them to infiltrate other groups is by feigning treachery to the Empire. This has led to the arrest, torture, and murder of more passionate rebels than there are stars in the sky, and given the current resistance movement a deeply grounded skepticism of humans who wish to align with ale’Keli or any other group.
Because of this, many humans who genuinely seek to engage in resistance work do so within the human community. So there are cells of resistance, unknown in number or strength, throughout the Empire.
These people are seen as the worst kind of traitors by the Empire. An Elf who hates the Empire is to be expected- they are lesser people who are learning the ways of civilized life. A human who works against the Empire is an enemy of God, knowing full well that they are practicing evil, and they should be punished as such to purge them of their sins.
Orcic
Orcic communities are notably different from most other communities in to’Ren. For one thing, there are strong gender roles. This is quite rare. Halflings, Gnomes, Elves, Drow, and Elves all have essentially egalitarian societies. There may be different Rites or circles for different genders, but there is no hierarchy. Human societies were similar, though during the rise of the Atrian Empire, a more hierarchical gender system has begun to emerge, with men having more power. Orcs, however, have always had strong gender roles, even if they are widely misinterpreted.
Much about Orcs is widely misinterpreted. For example, humans believe that Orcs have a kill-on-sight policy for adult male humans, and while this is effectively the case, it’s not actually the intention. All status, and even recognition as an adult male, in Orcic culture is based on regular, unarmed battle with other adult male orcs. Any male orc entering a new town, village, or even sometimes home, will expect to be challenged and fought. Sometimes these fights are largely ceremonial, or even celebratory. If your brother returns from many years travel, you would, of course, greet him with combat. While genuinely violent, it would also be joyful and respectful. It is a pride-based culture, and not to greet newcomers with combat would be disrespectful to one’s own community, and to the visitor. Since no human males can really survive regular one-on-one combat with full grown male orcs, this leads to no human males visiting Orcic communities.
Orcs don’t have horns, but they really love horns, and all adult male Orcs wear horns, sometimes small and sometimes quite large. The Rite of Passage to become a recognized adult male Orc is the process of winning combat with an adult male (Horned) Orc, and is called ‘earning your horns.’ This term is also used to earning a place in a new community, or even the respect of a new Orc peer or peer group. Once an Orc is Horned, they do not even have to win the fight to ‘earn their Horns,’ they just have to put up a respectable fight. That said, an Horned Orc who lost too many fights, or didn’t put up a respectable enough fight enough times, might prompt a Horned orc to strip the serial loser’s Horns in disgust. An adult male stripped of his Horns would not be granted any mercy in a fight to regain them by any Horned Orc.
Since ritual combat is a regular part of Orcic culture, most male Orcs die in combat, and this is natural. More powerful Orcs get challenged less, and tend to challenge less. The only male Orcs who live past 50 or so are magic users, who are dangerous to fight. They still get challenged by younger Orcs, and the old Orcs are generally merciful with them, but not always. Those with even a pinch of wisdom leave old male Orcs alone.
Though not required to, many female Orcs have recently started to go for Horns, and the exact same standards apply to them. In fact, since many male Orcs think it’s inappropriate for females to go for Horns, they will often try and bully them out of it. Because of this, Horned females tend to be absolutely ruthless, and combat with a female is much, much more likely to result in grievous injury.
For very different reasons, human communities often kill approaching Orcs on sight, which makes no sense to the Orcs and feel extremely dishonorable, especially since it’s usually done or attempted with bows. The Salt Fields along the coast of Ke’tal are a bit of an exception, with most workers being more open minded. They’ve learned over time that refusing to trade with the Orcs simply leads to the Orcs taking the salt anyway, so it seems wiser to just take their coin.
Even if they don’t kill them on sight, human communities are not comfortable for Orcs. They are not welcome in businesses, shunned and occasionally attacked in the street. This often leads to dead humans, which often leads to a dead Orc. Male Orcs who attempt to live in human communities have pretty short life expectancies. Females, while uncomfortable and uncommon, do live in human communities occasionally.
The Orcs have stable, stationary communities in ma’Resh, many very well-established. They are generally hunter-gatherers, though they do often have orchards and fishing grounds which they guard jealously.
Orcs have a very split relationship with the Empire. Many Orcs liked the violence and the Gold the Empire offered, so there are a lot of Orcs working for the Empire, all over the world. Many Orcs also hated the organization and presumption of the Empire, and will kill anyone wearing Empire colors on sight, human or Orc. As the Empire has gotten less consistent in feeding it’s guards, more and more Orcs have defected and returned home, or just defected and stayed wherever they are, raiding and getting by however seems fit.
The only known Orcic community outside of ma’Resh is Kroi, in the Torgai hills. Kroi is a group of Orcs working to live alongside other people, generally halflings, in peace. It is an experiment many find curious, and few wish to visit.
Orcs are, at their core, honor-bound. It’s their sense of honor that confuses people. For an Orc, there is nothing dishonorable about killing someone and taking their food; if they were weak enough to be killed, then the Orc sees themself as doing the community a favor. While Orcs will fight as groups, they also see no insult in a comrade being killed, depending on the circumstances. If a dwarf jumps out of the bushes and kills an Orc with an axe, that’s fair play, and nearby Orcs may not even retaliate, unless it appears that the group is under attack or the Dwarf intends to fight them as well. But if an Orc is killed by an arrow fired from a bush, the surrounding Orcs will kill anyone in those bushes, because that’s not an honorable fight; the Orc wasn’t given a chance to have an honorable death.
Orcs will use ranged weapons, but only against enemies they have decided are already without honor, an Orc will never shoot another Orc without cause.
Other
There are many, many other sentient species in to’Ren. For example, there are Dragons in Bange, the Spine, and occasionally through the Dusky Peaks. There are Tengu in central Toven, and occasionally elsewhere. There are Goblins in the Bla’Cliffs and Trolls above the river Rush and occasionally in the northern Torgai. There are fey scattered throughout to’Ren, though certainly more of them in Torest and the Dusky Peaks. There have been Djinn in Toven in the past, though it’s been a very long time since anyone claimed to see one.
Then there are all sorts of suspected creatures, everywhere. The most likely of these are the rumors of Duergar in Bange. Dwarves seem to take the Duergar as an unpleasant fact, and many other folks who live near Bange seem to feel the same, but they are not often seen. Merfolk are also often taken for granted by sailors, but then many things are taken for granted by sailors.
Then there are rumors of all sorts of creatures in Forge, the Burning Sands of the north pole. From Phoenixes to Tieflings, there are stories of all sorts from those lands. Same for Everdark, where for a pint anyone in a bar will tell you all about what lives in the Everdark.
Druidic
The Druidic Order is probably the least understood group in ta’Ren. There’s a lot of factors in the confusion; the first is that Druids are inherently autonomous, but all act in accordance with the natural law. To people who don’t follow the natural law (or aren’t part of an intact, natural community with oral histories dating back ten millennia) this almost always appears as coordinated action. Druids are coordinated in the same way that a flock of sandpipers or a school of minnows is coordinated. This leads the free peoples of to’Ren to understand the Druids much better than then Empire, who remain wholly ignorant of what the Druids are or how they function. Regardless, once people start to understand that coordinate like sandpipers, then it’s very hard to convey that Druids do also coordinate with one another, and have, to borrow the military language, something like a central command, though in fact it’s more like a data hub that relays pertinent information for storage and review for action. Druids neither think nor speak like this, but they’ve found it useful to be able to translate their structures into common language so that allies can understand what’s going on. “Data storage” is, for Druids, writing a good song, poem, or story. If they start off by describing it that way, however, people fail to understand that they carry the most comprehensive, accurate history in to’Ren; hence the translation.
At any rate, Druids coordinate both in loose cells in the field, and through the Holy Grove in Torest, depending on what’s going on. There’s an old saying “A Druid is never alone.” Within the Empire, this is often said in spite, as though to warn potential victims of Druid malfeasance that any Druid might have unseen allies nearby, but despite the misinterpretation, it’s accurate at its core. Druids listen to the natural world for information. Novice druids focus on animals, because they’re loud. Soon, they start listening to the trees as well, because they’re faster, and more broadly connected. Later, they start listening to everything all together, which is by far the best and most accurate.
Despite some minor variances, Torest has been at Balance for many thousands of years, largely due to the tireless efforts of the Druidic Order. When the dwarves started digging at the feet of the mountain 4,400 years ago, there was Imbalance. It was a painful time, and many dwarves and druids died. Eventually, however, as always happens when people live nearby, a druid and a dwarf fell in love. The child of their union, Daresh Telerig, was seen as an abomination by both, and never made welcome in either sphere. Growing up angry and hurt, she eventually left when she was 17, but before she did so she stole the seed from the Order’s Elder Tree and used to to break the dwarf Queen’s throne, leaving the sapling in the ruins. Since Holy Trees only seed every 4,200 years, and the saplings have immense innate power (Read as: more than capable of effective self-defense), this left both dwarves and druids little choice. More importantly, after Daresh left, both her families felt terrible, and missed her. Daresh’s parents, through their rage and grief, and over the sapling now growing underground in the fresh-hewn throne room of Rost, were able to forge a lasting union between Dwarf and Druid, which became the most stable in to’Ren. Now dwarves comprise most of the Druidic Order, and given the long memories of both dwarves and druids, their alliance is unflinching. These events of course gave rise to a series of songs, the most famous of which was The Seed of Telerig, the ending of which never leaves a dwarf or Druid eye dry.
into the mists
her silver hair
behind her lay
the shattered throne
it’s power broke-
gone with Daresh
nothing now
but shards of stone
dust in air
and tears on face
but through the salt
look, look and see
a single leaf
on silver bark
a Spark of Peace:
The Holy Tree
The Druids have learned that the Dwarves are not interrupting the stone, they are of the stone. They now offer valuable insight and guidance, with all Dwarven delving planned and conducted with Druidic input and veto. Through this, the Dwarves have come more fully into their own ways, and have a far deeper connection with the earth and stone. It is impossible to overstate the value that the Dwarves put on this. The Dwarves offer full support, both military and financial, to all decisions made by the Druidic Order Council of Elders (Doce). This rarely manifests, since the Doce decide to take some overt action perhaps once a millennia. Perhaps their hesitance to act overtly is in part because of the immense power that they wield through their alliance, and the gravity with which all Druids approach the exercise of power. Generally, the Druidic Order appears passive from the outside, though this is the basis of many jests within the order, since their ‘passivity’ is in fact a constant, subtle, often exhausting maintenance of Balance.
Doce is a council of 13 Elders. Elders are ordained through a pretty intense community process, and not all Elders are on Doce. When an Elder on Doce dies, public nominations are made for a new Elder, and something like a public vote is called. Doce takes many perspectives into account when making decisions. It’s called a ‘natural hierarchy’ wherein those with the most experience/wisdoms voices are given the most credence, with Doce acting as a hub or chair for all the pertinent data, consolidating and analyzing it, and deciding what decision best follows the natural way. The system works pretty well, overall. There’s not a lot of resentment, and little accusation of corruption or abuse of power. This is likely because Doce rarely does anything noisy; most of the time they just drop a sparrow to one or several individual druids, alerting them to a situation that might benefit from some intervention.
The fact that Doce is generally ‘passive’ has drawn sharp criticism from younger Druids for as long as anyone can remember. Especially as the Empire rose to power, young Druids were absolutely outraged by what they perceived as the inaction of Doce, and many left the order entirely and became rogue. This is expected. Youthful anger is not silenced, but rarely has any overt effect, though there are some notable exceptions in history.
How Doce makes decisions internally is not clear. When asked, they tend towards answers like: ‘we listen.’
Druids in the field are expected to act in accordance with the natural way. From the outside, this looks like total personal agency/freedom. In many ways it is the exact opposite.
It’s extremely rare for Doce, or any Druids, to take umbrage with another Druid’s actions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that trust in other Druid’s best efforts to follow the natural way IS the Druidic order. This isn’t to say that Druids don’t expect each other to make mistakes; that’s totally expected. It’s simply a matter of course that all Druids are doing their best to follow the natural way, all the time.
The alliance between Rost and the Grove did create one tension between the dwarves and druids, however. The Dwarves see the Grove as an extension of their Halls, and lavish unrestricted wealth and craft on it. It took centuries for the Druids to allow any of this, and there is still an extreme, good-natured tension between Queen Rugora’s court at Rost, who would see the Grove framed in marble, glittering gold, and bedazzling jewels, as they believe is fitting, and the Druids, for whom simple, clean huts and log benches have served perfectly well for much longer than the Dwarves have been here, thank you very much. For better or worse, however, with regard to building Dwarves are nothing if not patient. So, every time a Dwarf visits the Grove, they bring some pocket chisels or a little crooked knife, and surreptitiously work on detailed carvings on every bench, post, and spoon handle they can find. Sometimes they will sneak in gems that camouflage well, and set them into dark but prominent corners. The Druids fought this for a very long time, and nominally still do, but they saw the writing on the wall, and there was really no going back. If 28 of the 30 spoons have the same knotwork on them now, it might as well be a matched set. They did, however, retaliate in kind, and started seeding more and more plants in Rost. At the same time, they started talking loudly in court about how all living plants are Sacred, and some more than others. This effectively put a ban on cutting any plant, anywhere in Rost. The Druids are as polite about plant placement as the Dwarves have been about jewels, so Rost is tastefully done, but some rooms may as well be greenhouses, and the Dwarves dare not cut a single one. Since the Druids would never plant a seed without a Window that channels true, natural sunlight into the room, this also means that Rost is a brilliant, cheerful place. Some ambitious but run-of-the-mill plantains, crabgrass, and dandelions also began to make their way into the mortar of the entryways, which the Dwarves weren’t quite sure were safe to remove. With uncommon tact, the Dwarves keep hinting the question of whether they can clean their mortar, and the Druids continue to feign obliviousness, so the weeds stand, which the Druids think is absolutely hilarious.
The Order learned long ago that attempting to maintain natural balance without interacting with the politics and powers of the day was impossible, so while it grates against their nature, they will, and often do, go into the broader world and exert some influence, almost always subtle, on the ebb and flow of political, martial, social, and often most importantly, technological and “scientific” power. Druidic influence has been the largest check against the speed with witch the Empire has been able to expand it’s magical technology, though it is unlikely that the Empire knows this.