Wildwood Rangers

The Wildwood Rangers are an elite group of warriors in the realm of the wood elves of Cythral, ??tasked with protecting family and friends from the spirits that dwell there. Athel Loren is not a safe place, not even for the Elves. Even now, millennia after the first great council, there are these forest spirits who detest the presence of the elves and haunt them with whatever cruelty is in their power.

Banished to the eerie southeast corner of Athel Loren known as the Wildwood, these dark spirits rail against the waystone fence that encloses them and darkly dream of revenge on those who have occupied their homeland. In many ways, the Wildwood Rangers are expert monster hunters, able to dodge the raging fury of battle to hunt these monstrosities with great skill, speed, and expertise honed during their time hunting the spirits of the Wildwoods to have.

The task of guarding the boundary between this shadowy prison and the rest of Athel Loren falls to the Wildwood Rangers. Their existence is at odds with the cheerfulness and splendor known to other wood elves, for just as the creatures of the wildwood do not rest, neither can those who have sworn to keep them in check. The Waystone Fence is under constant attack, and it's being disturbed more often than you can imagine.

Any breach, no matter how small, carries the risk of slaughter as the dark spirits break free from their bonds and wreak all sorts of havoc in the forest beyond. The rangers encounter such breaches within moments of their creation, holding back the tide of dark spirits long enough for Spellweavers to restore the waystone barriers to integrity. Therefore, the rangers must always be vigilant lest their kin live in fear. Few attempt the Ranger's Glaive without suffering tragedy at the hands of the Wildwood's denizens. Most have lost a loved one to a changeling; others have witnessed firsthand the destruction wrought by an insane tree-man's rampage. Some, very few, are specifically recruited by other rangers. There is honor in such an invitation, but pride is tempered by knowing the sacrifices required. Once the path of the ranger has been trodden, it cannot simply be put aside.

Rangers triumph not only through physical strength, but through a willpower that other elves find intimidating. Horrifying beyond measure, many of the spirits of the Wildwood are able to drive sanity out of an unsteady soul with a single glance. Others wrap themselves in glamor and appear in graceful and seductive forms that are no less dangerous. Therefore, for a ranger to survive, he must harden his soul against all emotions. Not all are successful. Each year, some are lost to terror-born madness, or their hearts are ensnared by a wildwood siren. Of the two fates, the former is far preferable. Dread can be overcome over time and a broken spirit can be repaired; but there is no escape for the seduced beyond the waystone fence, only a life of drugged bondage and false bliss, ending only in a too long-delayed death.

Warfare

Although not subordinate to any of the Lords or Ladies of Athel Loren, bands of Rangers sometimes join a campaign. Here, a determined resolve against the denizens of the wild forest finds bloody application against monsters wielding vast and terrible power. Always the rangers meet such foes with stoicism, chopping apart minotaur and dragon, vampire and demon with a calm and discipline few elves, though brave by nature, can match. Wildwood Rangers do not join such battles for glory or even to show common cause with their kin; they are driven by a much deeper purpose. Many dark spirits are shapeshifters or changelings.

Most of these creatures are driven by simple instincts, using their gifts only to mimic those they murdered. A few, however, have the wit of insinuating themselves into the ruling classes of Athel Loren's enemies, or seeking anonymity in the sprawling ranks of a marauding army. Such creatures are what the Rangers of the Wildwood seek when they march to war, though they seldom tell the army commander of their true objective. It would take them many years and countless miles to destroy such a prey