Sylwen Thornshade - The Verdant Warden

Sylwen Thornshade - The Verdant Warden 

The wind carried whispers through the towering oaks of Forend’s Forest, weaving between emerald leaves and tangled vines. Here, amidst the deep roots and ancient thickets, Sylwen Thornshade walked in silent communion with the land. She was one of Silvanna’s chosen, a vessel, a voice, a guardian of Nature. Every breath Sylwen took was an oath to the goddess, a vow to maintain the balance between life and destruction.

The forest was old. Older than the Kingdom of the Free States. Older than Cradlebrook, with its endless sprawl of farms pressing ever closer to its sacred borders. Men saw trees as timber and land as a thing to be tamed, but Sylwen knew better. The forest was not merely alive; it was aware. It bore no malice, yet it would not suffer reckless expansion. It had lost enough, and would give no more.

With careful hands, she pressed a palm against the trunk of an ancient Oak, her fingertips tingling as Silvanna’s presence stirred within her. A warning. A guidance. The balance had been disturbed, the forest invaded.

Sylwen’s amber eyes narrowed. She could feel it. A new diseased nest of horrors twisted deep within the wilds. The chaos had encroached again, its unnatural hunger threatening the fragile equilibrium. But she did not fear. She was the forest’s wrath just as much as she was its mercy.

With fluid grace, she moved through the underbrush, her footfalls silent despite the layers of fallen leaves. The vines coiled around her wrists as she called upon her goddess, reinforcing her strength, her speed, her purpose. As she reached the clearing, the scent of decay clawed at her senses. A nest of gnarled roots had become home to something wrong, twisted, unnatural creatures that had no place in Silvanna’s embrace... Gnolls.

The first Gnoll Ravager lunged from the shadows, its form somewhere between hyena and man, its eyes burning red. Sylwen met its charge with a flick of her quarterstaff, the gnarled wood humming with divine power. Thorns burst from its length as she struck, smashing bone even as the thorny vines dug into flesh, rending and tearing as Silvanna made her anger known.

Another leapt for her throat. She sidestepped, twisting the staff downward, slamming the creature into the earth where the roots of the Forest itself twisted, wrapping around its limbs, dragging it into the earth. The forest obeyed her call, reclaiming what did not belong.

One by one, the rabid Gnolls fell, their forms crumbling beneath the force of Sylwen’s might, their taint erased by Silvanna’s will. As the final beast writhed and fell still, the clearing breathed once more—the scent of rot replaced by the fresh aroma of damp earth and wildflowers as corpses were swallowed by the forest and turned into fertilizer.

Sylwen did not linger. The monsters had been slain, but Cradlebrook remained the greater threat. Even now, farmers and loggers carved deeper into the land, axes striking where reverence should have been shown. The people ignored her words, believing her warnings were superstition, her presence just an obstacle to their ‘progress.’ But progress without Balance was perversion.

Sylwen strode toward the edge of the forest, where cultivated fields met wild brush. She knelt, pressing her palm against the ground. Silvanna’s vines spread beneath the soil, guarding and waiting for her command.

It was not time. Not yet. But quite possibly soon.

If Cradlebrook refused to listen, the forest would remind them of its place. And Sylwen, ever devoted, would be Silvanna's voice.

For balance.