Cyramnor

“D’you know they use corpses for compost? Swear on my mother. Their own or others’, it don’t matter to them. Damn good gardeners, though, I’ll grant you. Best damn vegetables I’ve ever tasted.”

— Teodoros, Belhacinti infiltrator

Unspoiled and resource-rich as the Moranneon is, the leaders of the world were always bound to look to it with a covetous eye. History repeats itself: aetherships arrive full of foreign settlers who take to the ancient forest with torches and saws, and the indigenous tribes of the Moranneon rise up to exact bloody vengeance. To this day, such conflicts have invariably ended the same way: with the foreign aggressor beating a disorganized retreat.
One might wonder how, time and time again, the scattered and insular tribes have been able to defend their home so effectively against such powerful foes. The answer is that practically every tribe in the Moranneon, no matter how scattered and insular, is bound together by the Cyramnor.
The Cyramnor is a religious organization whose membership transcends tribal barriers. Its members, many of whom are druids, venerate and live in harmony with the land. They are holy warriors, armored in plates of living wood as hard as iron. They are the caretakers of the Moranneon, pruning where needed and eliminating pests—if necessary using deadly force.

No Quarter for Tree-Killers

The Cyramnor commands a great deal of respect among the people of the Moranneon, and though it is not strictly a political entity, foreign powers often view it as the splinter’s representative country. Some have even sent ambassadors to treat with it for logging rights—but the Cyramnor is not interested in diplomacy, nor in compromises. Its only goal is to safeguard the forest.
According to the Cyramnor’s doctrine, each of the forest’s trees houses a spirit equivalent to a human soul; thus, the felling of a tree is tantamount to murder. Rather than using murdered wood as a building material, the Moranneon tribes employ druidcraft to shape trees, stone, and earth into living structures. In places where trees have been felled, they erect funeral monuments, which are eventually swallowed when the forest grows back once more.
Foreign loggers who do not share this philosophy are invariably drawn into conflict with the vengeful natives. In each of these conflicts, the Cyramnor is at the forefront of the Moranneon side, organizing guerrilla actions and lending its considerable magical powers to the cause.
Though both Cadh Acaelys and the Andar Commonwealth have tried in the past to exploit the Moranneon’s resources, they have learned their lesson and now leave the forest to its own devices. The Holy Empire of Belhacint has proven more persistent. There have been three wars in total between Belhacinti interlopers and the tribes of the Moranneon; the third, which has devolved into a bloody, attritional slog, is ongoing.

Druidcraft

The Cyramnor has no leaders, no formal hierarchy; decisions are made by common consensus. However, by unspoken agreement, the opinions of certain people are afforded a measure of extra consideration. These people might be elders, or seasoned warriors. However, the greatest measure of respect goes to the Cyramnor’s druids.
While far from all of the Moranneon’s druids belong to the Cyramnor, those that do have a reputation for being especially powerful and wise. They are the spokespeople of the forest, and often act as advisors in matters both spiritual and practical to the chieftains of the tribes.
The Cyramnor welcomes outsiders, so long as those outsiders do not intend to harm the forest. By tradition, only a druid can perform the ceremony to initiate a would-be member, and since they have the final say on who is admitted, it’s important that they be good judges of character.
Far from all members of the Cyramnor are druids. Among its ranks, one may find people from all walks of life: warriors, healers, hunters, and scouts, to name but a few.

The Sacred Grove

To the Cyramnor, the whole of the Moranneon is sacred—every copse, every clearing, every lake and stream is a holy site. Still, there is no site holier than the city known as the Sacred Grove.
Although there are countless tribes in the Moranneon, and settlements both permanent and transient, the Grove is the region’s beating heart—its most powerful and populous city, and its first line of defense against invaders. It is something like the splinter’s unofficial capital; even the most apostate of tribes afford it a measure of reverence.
It is a place of otherworldly beauty, lush with verdure, where druids weave plants into buildings, sculptures, and animate guardians. The scents of incense and blossoms hang in the air, and the city’s human population lives alongside forest spirits, living trees, and stranger beings still.
The Sacred Grove is, in a very literal sense, a living city. Many of its plants are sentient, and its buildings can—with a little urging from the druids—get up and walk around. The city itself moves, ever so slowly, through the forest; in this way, it has thus far avoided destruction at the hands of foreign invaders.
The Sacred Grove is a fully anarchist society. It has no currency and no police force; its citizens share their resources equally and work together to keep the peace. If there is anything resembling a leader of the Grove, it is the Maiathar, an ancient and vastly powerful dryad who has existed since before the city’s founding. She is the city’s patron divinity; she issues no orders, but the citizens heed her words nonetheless.

Death Is Not the End

The inhabitants of the Sacred Grove use corpses to compost the city’s plants. They do not see this as something particularly macabre; on the contrary, rejoining the cycle of life and feeding nature with one’s flesh is viewed as the highest honor a dead person could receive. Ideally, they use their own dead—but they’re not picky.
Not all the Moranneon’s dead remain in repose. Sometimes when a particularly heroic warrior dies, the druids of the Cyramnor perform a ritual wherein they seed the corpse with flowers, armor and all. Eventually the flowers eat away the flesh and rise in its place to continue the hero’s work. Some people regard this as a form of black magic, but the Cyramnor vehemently denies this; its members make a clear distinction between such magic as honors the natural cycle of life, that which perverts it.
The Moranneon is not without the latter. There are dark things in the deep woods, hags and heretics, beings who work fell magics. The Cyramnor works tirelessly not just to repel foreign invaders, but also to root these corruptive forces out.

THE CYRAMNOR

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Capital city: The Sacred Grove
Head of state: N/A
Languages: Mora
Currency: N/A

The myriad languages spoken in the Moranneon are sometimes called Rose Tongues, for their deceptive simplicity—pretty words growing out of tangles of thorny grammar.
Example names: Adren, Cantalin, Elani, Enna, Indra, Irien, Lathellan, Lorhal, Maiathar, Moryn, Myrellien, Nella, Nethyra, Nyssarien, Serain, Siriel, Tarinden, Terasynora, Virian, Yasana.