Eldeen Reaches

I don't have a druid class, and that features heavily in the interpretation of the Eldeen Reaches in the book. A few things will have to change, although in broad terms, the place is still very similar. The Druids themselves are basically the Ashbound sect. I've linked to this place before, and that's a good capsule review of how I see the actual druids from deep in the woods. And they're not led by a kindly old awakened tree; they're led by a radical and quite probably insane wilderness cultist.

The eastern edge of the place is very much as described in the book, except that the Wardens of the Wood aren't a druid/ranger sect; they're just a patrol of something somewhere between game rangers and sheriffs deputies who patrol the area and keep the peace. The shifter communities are also more or less as described. The Gatekeepers are also around here, but they are not orcs (or Atlanteans); they are simply humans of Aundairan descent, given that until recently this was within the borders of Aundair.

I do like the concept that the woods are crawling with all kinds of terrible things; some of them would be "natural" terrors, like dire animals types of things, some of them are Lovecraftian horrors, like the kind that the Gatekeepers are dedicated to keeping contained, some of them are the strange druids and their hatred of anything reeking of any civilization more advanced than a pack of wolves, and some of them are undead and necromancers coming from the dark manifest zones like the Gloaming. Although I don't yet have rules for fey, I do see that as an eventual hole that needs to be filled, although my fey will be even darker than as presented here; much more like the fairy courts of Dresden Files, for instance, or the darker tales of Celtic mythology.

What I will not have is the kind of weird pagan, Wiccan vibe that you can kind of read between the lines. It actually makes no sense to have it, because I don't see that as a valid ideology or identity; it's mostly just a collection of those with low social status trying to create a community where they reject and push back against mainstream society. I've actually come to first cordially dislike that vibe when I can detect it, and more recently, more actively and aggressively reject it. It's not as strong here as I've seen it in some fantasy novels that I've read, especially urban fantasy crypto-romances written by bitter low status women, but still... that's the kind of person that I associate with that kind of stuff, so I don't have it. That means that much of the vibe of the tree-people druids and the fey-loving druids who are like your bizarro box-wine aunt who shows up with chakras and essential oils when something happens, wearing gauzy floral patterns and being kind of pushy and demanding but totally in denial about it needs to be rooted out, and actively avoided. I do realize that in general it genericizes the region a bit to get rid of some of it's specific elements written for it and replacing it with what are little different than farms and ranches of woodmen living on the edge of Mirkwood, but then again, most of the stuff that I'm taking out about the tree-druids and the nature-loving fey and all of that isn't really very original either, and it's objectionable enough to me that I'd prefer generic than something specific that I don't want.

And for that matter, I'd think it's odd that they don't play up anything to do with it's border against the Daemon Wastes, presuming, I guess, that the mountain range keeps the two completely isolated. I think there's a lot of room to posit relationships between the two areas, both for good and for bad.

Eldeen Reaches remixed population

55% Human

32% Shifter

4% Atlantean

3% Seraphim

3% Jann

3% Other