Circle of the Deru-Weid

The Deru-Weid, known as druids in the common tongue, pay homage to the innumerable and unnamed spirits of nature dwelling in water, rock, wood, and sky. They hold these spirits to be more ancient than either the Nine Gods of the Empire or the One God who supplanted them. They seek to preserve the eternal balance of the world and ever oppose those who attempt to dominate or overturn it.

Structure

The Circle of the Deru-Weid has a hierarchical structure based on knowledge and understanding. Any who hear and heed the call may be taken on as Aspirants. Those who show real talent are further trained as Ovates, and taught the practices of prophecy and true seeing. The few who are found worthy are in turn inducted as Initiates of the Nine Circles, where they deepen their knowledge of the druidic mysteries until the greatest of them attain the rank of Druid. Each Druid is the leader of a Circle. From these the three Arch-Druids are chosen. Overseeing all is the Great Druid.
While the Deru-Weid retain this structure in theory, the suppression of the order by the legions of Augusta has left them shattered and divided. The Order has been all but rooted out from the Merovingian Kingdoms, except in the area of Ar-Coad, where the Empire held the least control. In the Brythonic lands, the Deru-Weid are divided by region. In the west of the island is the Cymbrian Circle, the Circle of Fódhla across the Eriuish Sea, and the Circle of Ar-Coad across the Channel. But the Circle of Bràghad Albainn north of the Wall has been lost, thought to be devoured by the evil creatures of Iuz, while the Great Druid of Ynys Môn disappeared without a trace after the Empire destroyed the Sacred Groves--taking with her the sacred knowledge shared only by the highest members of the Order.
Of the remaining five circles, there is little knowledge. Rumors tell of an ancient druidic order the forests of Saxony, where the members had renounced the old ways and turned to the worship of Taal, a primitive Lord of Beasts. Another was said to be centered in the timberlands that darken the fjords of the Sea-Reavers of Skan, and a third deep in the frozen wastes of Pojohla. Stories persist of the Boreal Circle that lies even further east and north, while the fifth, held to be in a primitive land in the far west over the Atlantean Ocean, can be little more than a myth.

Public Agenda

There is a strong belief among the druids that the Circle cannot be fully restored until the sacred groves on Ynys Môn have been reclaimed. But that is a perilous undertaking, for those who have gone there to seek for the tomb of the Great Druid have returned mad and filled with despair--if they have returned at all.

History

The Circle of the Deru-Weid took shape in the mists of prehistory. The human tribes that had formed during the Ice Age, struggling for survival, knew nothing of the power of creation. But the elves of the forest had a natural, intuitive grasp of that power. At first these primitive humans thought the elves spirits and gods, and they left them gifts and solicited their wisdom. For their part, the elves saw the humans as younger siblings, and taught them to commune with those spirits that animated the material world by using the language of creation, which became the first human language. Most humans had only a rudimentary grasp of this language, but some few heard the call of the material world and answered. These used that language to speak to and solicit the aid of the innumerable spirits of forest, stream, field, and sky, those that huddled in stone, those that dwelt deep in the heart of the oak, and those that spoke through beasts. The power the elves had wielded by nature their human disciples learned to invoke by ritual, repetition, and sacrifice. These few individuals were simultaneously feared and respected in their societies, but their social isolation compelled them to seek out others with similar powers in other tribes. These came together for protection and shared knowledge to form the Circle of Deru-Weid, the "Tree-Seers" in the ancient tongue.
Over the centuries, the Deru-Weid began to surpass the knowledge of their elf-mentors. The tribal languages evolved and changed, but the Deru-Weid maintained their original language as a source of power. They enjoyed a privileged position in their societies. Meanwhile the human tribes grew stronger, strengthened by the art of smith-craft the elves had shared with them in return for their support in the elves' unending war against the orc and goblin hordes that constantly troubled them. As the human tribes grew strong in the art of war, they inevitably clashed with each other. But the Deru-Weid ever spoke to their common heritage, standing against the innovations that divided them from their origins in the natural world, such as metal work, stone masonry, coinage, and writing. While the Deru-Weid could not halt the progress of human innovation, they could temper novelty with restrictions meant to minimize the extent to which they distorted nature.
In many respects, the Deru-Weid were at the opposite end of the spectrum from the elves as well, who, with some few exceptions such as the wild grugach, sought to beautify nature rather than embrace it. Although they owed their origins to the friendship of the elves, the Deru-Weid opposed the early alliance between human and elf, especially as the elves began to teach the human tribes the arts of metallurgy and magic. Some speculate that the Deru-Weid were jealous of their privileged status in human society and opposed the rise of those heroic classes that could challenge it. But others say they foresaw the corruption the human world would take from its fascination with elfin magic--something the elves, for all their longevity and supposed wisdom, could not understand, for they were steeped in the corruption themselves (though it took a different form).
Yet the Deru-Weid lacked foresight as well. In opposing the expansion of the Augustan Empire into the lands of the Old World, they wrought their own doom. The final stand took place on the White Isle, in the sacred groves of Ynys Môn. There the Iron Legion of the Eternal City despoiled the groves and through down the Great Druid, although not without cost and with the aid of certain dark forces which were themselves part of the terrible price the Empire paid for victory. Now shattered, the Circle of the Deru-Weid has regressed into what it was at the dawn of its history--scattered and isolated and unable to control the ambitions of those who see universal chaos as an opportunity.

Mythology & Lore

Before the gods there was the Horned One, source and embodiment of creation, eternal and omnipresent, without purpose and without limits. It is not known whether this mysterious figure preceded the creation of the world, or took form as an emanation of creation itself. When the gods were given shape by creation, they were seduced by their own forms and delighted in the exercise of their will. To restore its own balance, the material world gave birth to humanity, and the gods were filled with despair, because human life was so fleeting. But instead of learning the truth about themselves from the example of humanity, the gods offered humanity the illusion of continuing their own momentary existence through death, in which they followed the self-styled Lord of Death into his moribund Gardens rather than to the core of creation out of which they could be reformed.
Knowing the selfish plan of the other gods, the Horned One called to humanity before they even understood language enough to be seduced by the gods. He called them in the sighing of the wind, in sound of running water, in the cool of the trees and the smell of the earth and the unfolding of the plants and the cries of the beasts. And some heeded the call--and these were the first of the Deru-Weid, the seers of the tribes of humanity in the first flush of their youth.

Divine Origins

The Deru-Weid were the first humans to open themselves to the living spirit of the material world, embracing its wildness, its natural balance, its savagery, and its beauty. Unlike those later communities who called upon the name of the Aerth Mother to imbue their fields with fertility and growing power, or the formal priesthoods of the early city-states of Kish and Agaddu, the Deru-Weid trusted in the spirit of the world itself--that mysterious, terrifying, and inspiring figure called the Horned God, whose staglike antlers spread out like the branches of the World Tree and whose hooves rooted into the ground, whose voice appeared in the innumerable spirits of wood and rock and stream but who was both many and one. It was the Horned God who came to the first of the Deru-Weid in dreams, and the Horned God who taught that first Deru-Weid the art of language.
With the tongue of the Horned God, the first of the Deru-Weid was able to lead the people to great prosperity--but that forgotten Oracle never spoke the true words of power the Horned God had conveyed in the dream. Still, those words, which were the first words of human speech, have become the sacred language of the Deru-Weid, preserved despite the ways the people have fallen away from it. Those words, together with ritual practices, gestures, vocal intonations, and material sacrifices, enable the Deru-Weid to wield their spell power. Such power is not magic, which is anathema to them. It is simply spirit unleashed.
The Deru-Weid hold that their origins were from the east, but in most recent memory their most sacred place was in the groves of Ynys Môn between the Cymbrian Kingdoms, Eriu, and Caledonia. It is not known whether Ynys Môn had been held its sacred position before the legions of Augusta ever arrived, or whether represented a last stand against the invaders. But the island held a deep and untapped power which the Deru-Weid attempted to wield against their oppressors. Of what nature this power was, or how it was connected to the spiritual life of the Deru-Weid is unknown. But no one goes to Ynys Môn today.
The Deru-Weid began its recovery in the White Isle immediately after the Empire departed. It was further supported by the ascendancy of Aurelianus Ambrosius, who defeated the wicked forces of the Demigod Iuz. The newly reconstituted druidic order is less antagonistic to the world than the ancient order it supplanted. Although its initiates must lead lives that are as close to nature as possible, and not always in accordance with the needs and desires of human communities, they are less prone to separate themselves from those communities and more apt to find ways to live with the world as it develops.

Cosmological Views

The Horned One found himself alone in the Void. He bellowed three times, and from his bellowing sprang creation. With his first bellow he called the earth forth from the Void as the material upon which all things are born and to which they all return. With his second bellow he brought forth the plants from under the earth, in turn shading the ground with the dark from which they came or flowering in the sun. And with his third bellow he brought forth all creatures, those which swim and those which fly and those which creep upon the ground, including humankind. Some say that he is not finished, and that he will bellow a fourth time--but what will come of this bellow, no one knows and the Deru-Weid do not speculate.

Tenets of Faith

In the ancient beliefs of the Deru-Weid, all beings spring from the material world, which creates the multiple forms that inhabit it for companionship and understanding. But of all the forms to which it has given rise, the most restless are those free-willed spirits of gods and mortals who have ever sought to separate themselves from their origins. The spirit world calls them to return in the sighing of the wind, the babbling of the brook, the rustling of the leaves. The Deru-Weid hold that mortal life is a struggle to escape from slavery to the will, which urges mortals to separate from the world and dominate it rather than allowing it to sustain them. Quiet contemplation is the way to extinguishing the desire to dominate and lead a life of instinct and action without will.

Ethics

The following are some of the principles of the Deru-Weid:

• Hunt and kill only what you need to sustain your life
• Whatever you take from the world must be returned to it
• Never force nature from its true shape, only release its potential
• Become the animal you befriend, learning from its nature
• Embody the power, never channel it
• The struggle is not between action and inaction but between action and will
• Excess is the mirror of control

Type

Religious, Druidic Circle

Deities

• Cernunnos

Divines

• Cernunnos