Introduction |
Charybdis |
Enemies |
Culture |
Movers & Shakers |
Specialties |
Enemies
The beastmen of the Mirendil
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Since before the dawn of history, the great forest has served as the battleground for wars between mirdain and beastmen. The very oldest elven songs tell of victories against the beastmen, and fighting this ancient enemy remains a true test of valor for mirdain warriors.
Like the mirdain, beastmen are children of the Mirendil, who prefer the forest to any other habitat. But while the mirdain venerate the trees they live among, the beastmen see them as valuable resources waiting to be harvested. They cut down the forest surrounding their villages, then move on when nothing is left but a scarred wasteland. Predictably, local mirdain will try to eradicate new beastmen settlements before too much damage is done.
Beastmen stand close to three meters tall and their powerfully built bodies are covered in thick black fur. Trunk-like arms and legs indicate their awesome strength, and their feet are clawed paws, resembling those of a bear. Their hands, however, have five flexible, hair-covered fingers, and beastmen are capable of using wide variety of tools.
The Forest Prophets
According to these fundamentalist druids, the Mirendil belongs to the animals and to the creatures which have co-existed with them since the days of the first trees, such as centaurs, dryads and the faerie. In essence, the Forest Prophets want to rid the Mirendil of all civilized, house-building cultures, such as the beastmen and the mirdain, and they will not rest until the forest has been cleansed of every last farmer, woodcutter and city-dweller.
The Forest Prophets build their sylvan armies using a curse which shatters the sanity of normal animals and fills them with an implacable, suicidal rage. Animals bestowed with the Forest Prophets' curse will attack any humanoid creature they encounter. Slowly but surely, afflicted animals are consumed by this curse, until they are little more than undead husks kept moving by the hatred which courses through their decayed bodies.
Unbeknownst to the majority of Prophets, their real leader is a huge and ancient dragon, who dwells in an earthen cave deep under the Mirendil. The dragon's ultimate goal is to establish himself as a prophet-emperor of Mirendil when the Republic has been sufficiently weakened.
