"An Early History of Oakstone, by Farret Wildfang"

"An Early History of Oakstone, by Farret Wildfang", By Lady Greyda Corten (Page 1)

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            ~~ AN EARLY HISTORY OF OAKSTONE ~~
            ~~      by Farret Wildfang      ~~
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The Founding of Oakstone and Early Concerns .............2
The Problem of Hashan's Expansion .......................3
Notable Citizens and the Development of Oakstone Laws ...4

 (-10 Mana)
You read what is written on a journal made from pressed leaves:
"An Early History of Oakstone, by Farret Wildfang", By Lady Greyda Corten (Page 2)
The Founding of Oakstone and Early Concerns
-------------------------------------------
Imagine a time long ago, in Sapience. There were only two cities then,
Shallam and Ashtan, good and evil. As you can probably guess, these two
powers had their share of wars and conflicts, and there were those in
the Druids who felt that their guild was not taking as active a role in
these conflicts as it should, in order to protect the forests. Thus, in
202 AF, the Sentinels were founded.

Early relations between the Druids and the Sentinels were not the best,
although there was some friendship between the two guilds. They were
both dedicated to Nature, but had very different ideas on how to go
about serving it. Some Druids saw the Sentinels as bloodthirsty
radicals, ready to kill anyone who stepped into the forest, and some
Sentinels saw the Druids as a bunch of pacifists who weren't prepared to
take any real action to defend Nature. Also, there were no clear laws or
enforcement regarding the abuse of Nature. People were overharvesting
and exterminating as much as they wished, cities were claiming forest
land for themselves in the midst of their wars, and no one was doing
anything about it. So how were the Druids and Sentinels supposed to get
past their differences and work together to fix the problem?

A Druid called Zandramas, who would later be elected guildmaster, formed
the first unofficial council of Oakstone in 223 AF. It was originally
meant as a forum for discussion and debate of Druid matters. It wasn't
an official organization until a few years later, when Druid secretary
Mysti La'Saen got together with Treant, founder of the Sentinels, and
organized the official Council of Oakstone, with a lot of help from Lady
Gaia, Goddess of Nature, and Sarapis, the Logos. And so it was that on
the 5th of Daedalan, 227 AF, that the council of Oakstone was formed.

This more official Oakstone was to be a uniting force between the Druids
and the Sentinels, to facilitate the promotion of their common goal,
which was to protect the best interest of the forests and Nature. Its
membership was composed almost exclusively of forestals, which, at the
time, meant only Druids and Sentinels. Its leadership consisted of 5 of
those forestals, called Heirophants, each highly dedicated to the cause
of Nature, and trusted by Gaia, Goddess of Nature to make decisions
about what the best interests of Nature were. The first Heirophants were
Mysti, Treant, Rahl, Mandrake, and Galdrion. Gaia, Herself, was
Oakstone's original Patron, and, as such, she had the final word about
Oakstone's policies.

Early Oakstone policy was still quite unclear to its members. They were
still trying to decide which areas were under their protection. There
were only three known large forests at the time: Western Ithmia,
Northern Ithmia, and Aalen, but there were many forested areas to take
under consideration, as well as any other area where plants grew. Also
they had to decide what acts constituted a threat to Nature, whether it
was okay to put shrines, holy areas, and wormholes in the forests, and
for cities to claim its land, and what the punishments should be if they
were determined to be offensive acts against Nature. Lastly, there was
the issue of whether the forest defenses should be used solely to
protect Nature, or also to protect the citizens of Oakstone. At the
time, it should be noted, Oakstone was structured much more like a city
than it is today, since there was no forest village of Eleusis to serve
as a home to forestals then, so Oakstone was used for that purpose as
well. It had the ranks and government of a city, but unlike cities,
which strive for their own growth and advancement, Oakstone's sole goal
was the protection and enrichment of Nature. It had no real headquarters
to serve as a gathering place, but it did serve to unite Druids and
Sentinels.

In answer to these matters, Lady Gaia stated that wormholes and shrines
were not detrimental to the forests, but the claiming of forest soil by
the cities most definitely was, and would not be allowed to continue.
She also decided that forest defenses should be used only to defend the
forests, because if they were used to defend Oakstone citizens
personally, Sarapis might have seen fit to weaken them. Also the Druids
and Sentinels of Oakstone were perfectly capable of defending each other
without the aid of forest defenses. Lastly, She made it clear that
though all forested areas were under the protection of Oakstone, the
forests themselves would be their primary goal, and among them, the
Western Ithmia the highest priority, since it contained both Her temple,
and the holy cave of Sarapis. The Aalen was out of the way and inhabited
by the Tsol'aa, who kept it well protected, and the Northern Ithmia
already posed quite a problem, because much of it was claimed by cities,
during the course of their wars.
You read what is written on a journal made from pressed leaves:
"An Early History of Oakstone, by Farret Wildfang", By Lady Greyda Corten (Page 3)
The Problem of Hashan's Expansion
---------------------------------
One large catalyst of Oakstone's early growth was problems with the
fledgling city Hashan that destroyed much of the Northern Ithmia,
including the groves of many Druids and Sentinels. This, of course,
angered Lady Gaia, and many of the Druids who, previously, were not
prepared to get involved in policing the forests. Many Sentinels were
also angered, and the incident caused a bit of a rift among them,
because by that time, the Sentinels had moved their base to Hashan and
pledged loyalty there. There was among some Sentinels of the time,
though, a certain resentment for Oakstone, since the original purpose of
the Sentinels guild was to be "the fighting arm of the forest". It soon
became clear to them, however, that the unity of forestals in Oakstone
combined with the power to unleash Nature's wrath made Oakstone much
more effective in protecting the forests than the Sentinels alone could
be.

The problem of Hashan started a few years before the actual expansion,
and lasted many years after. It is not clear exactly when it was
resolved or even if it ever really was. Lady Gaia and Hashan's Patron,
Lord Twilight, had a long history of enmity towards each other, due,
probably, to the fact that in 209 AF Gaia went insane and killed
Twilight. Twilight then banded together with some other Gods and
imprisoned Gaia in a tree. Twilight was reformed and Gaia released, but
neither forgot the incident. In 227 AF, the Druidess Lalayna led
Hashanite troops in the Western Ithmia to protect Hashan from invasion
by Asthan and Shallam. Zandramas, the guildmaster of the Druids at the
time, allowed troops in the Northern Ithmia, but asked that they stay
away from the western side. Lady Gaia became quite incensed with the
Druids for allying with the city of Twilight, and threw Lalayna out of
her order, and immediately ordered the removal of troops from the
Western Ithmia. Oakstone citizens discussed different ways of dealing
with the Hashan problem. One way was to form a treaty with Shallam to
unclaim all of the forest territory claimed by Hashan. It was later
decided that a policy of neutrality towards cities would be a wiser
course. There was a meeting in 228 AF between forestal leaders and the
leadership of Hashan. Not much was resolved there, but it was viewed, at
least, as an opening of relations with Hashan.

Soon thereafter, Heirophant Galdrion organized some reconnaissance
teams, led by Heirophants, to patrol the forests and take note of any
territory that had been claimed by the cities. By Mayan of 228 AF,
things with Hashan seemed to quiet down a bit, more or less having faded
into the background, and little is written about the situation for some
time after.

The actual expansion occurred two years later. On the 13th of Lupar in
230 AF, Lady Gaia declared the Druid Firefox an enemy to Oakstone for
his part in funding what she called "Hashan's rapine actions", meaning
the expansion that destroyed forest areas, and for borrowing money to
finance a statue of himself in Hashan. Apparently, he had lied to people
about what the money was for, as well. In 231 AF, She forced the Druids
into outguilding Firefox for his actions by stepping down as their
Matron until he was cast from the guild. After this point there seemed
to be some confusion as to the status of the situation with Hashan.
Outright war was not formally declared, but there was definitely an air
of tension.

By the early 240's the Sentinels had moved from Shallam to Hashan,
because they wished to be free of Shallam and its politics. Shallam
leadership felt that they should have some say in the part the Sentinels
played in the wars between Shallam and Ashtan, and the Sentinels felt
that they should be free to decide on their own where their loyalties
lay. Many Sentinels felt, however, that they would be in a similar
situation in Hashan, and also were upset over the expansion. The
Sentinels started requiring its leaders and its new members to be loyal
to Hashan, and this caused a bit of turmoil within the Sentinels. It
also caused Sentinels to be less well represented in Oakstone, since at
that time, it was not possible to be a member of Oakstone and a city at
the same time.
You read what is written on a journal made from pressed leaves:
"An Early History of Oakstone, by Farret Wildfang", By Lady Greyda Corten (Page 4)
Notable Citizens and the Development of Oakstone Laws
-----------------------------------------------------
There were a few outstanding members of early Oakstone that bear
mentioning. Among them, of course, are Mysti, who more than a century
later still remains a Heirophant and Druid secretary, and Treant, who
founded the Sentinels, and played a part in founding Oakstone. It is
unfortunate, however, that the same stubborn single-mindedness that
enabled Treant to do these things also ended up putting him at odds with
his fellow Sentinels, Oakstone citizens and Lady Gaia, and so he decided
to quit the Sentinels and Oakstone, and leave the realms.

Also worth noting are the Druids Rahl and Mandrake, who were both
Heirophants and instrumental in Oakstone's early organization. Mandrake
has also been guildmaster of the Druids and the mortal voice of Lady
Gaia. Galdrion and Blackleaf were both Heirophants at one point, and
each has been guildmaster of the Sentinels. Blackleaf left Oakstone to
deal with Sentinel matters when they were still struggling with the
conflict of whether to move the Sentinels out of Shallam and was also
Regent of Hashan for a while after the guild decided to relocate there.
Galdrion played a very diplomatic part in Oakstone, holding many
meetings to keep people informed and unified. Like Blackleaf, he left
Oakstone to return to Shallam.

Oakstone was able to solve many of the problems that sparked its
creation. The council banded together to teach each other the most
effective methods of putting out forest fires, and the forest defenses
served to deal with exterminators and overharvesters and its policy of
neutrality in all matter not regarding Nature served to curb the cities
from carrying their wars into the forests.

Oakstone's rules became very strict, especially with respect to
overharvesting. They were contested early on by quite a few people who
were starting to resent the power that Oakstone represented. One such
person was Portis Kincaid, a rogue Druidess and wealthy merchant with
establishments all over Sapience, the most famous of which being the
Crystal Leaf Inn. She was caught for many counts of overharvesting all
the valerian in many locations of the Vashnar Mountains. What makes her
particularly notable amongst overharvesters is that she was quite verbal
in her feelings about her punishment. She seemed to feel that Oakstone
had no business telling her what she could and could not harvest outside
of the forests. She was well liked up to that point, and managed to get
quite a few supporters until she publicly insulted Lady Gaia, and
continued to try to inspire fear of Oakstone in the general populus. Due
to her behavior towards Lady Gaia and several of the Heirophants, it was
decided that her enemy status would remain, even after her penalty was
paid.

Overharvesting continued to be quite a problem for Oakstone, whose
members had started forming regular patrolling teams by that time to
look for overharvests and exterminations. It became particularly
noticeable in the mid 240's when all the cactus weed, which at that time
could be harvested by anyone, not just Druid and Sentinel classes,
started disappearing from the desert. This frustrated many Oakstone
citizens who were struggling to replant, and irritated Lady Gaia to the
point where she decided that enough was enough. Her decision was to
remove all the cactus weed from the lands, save for her own private
stash, and let the citizens of Achaea see why the harvesting laws were
in effect. Her reasoning was that maybe if they harvest it to
extinction, they'll realize the foolhardiness of not leaving enough of a
plant to grow. Also, the excuse of overharvesting for the purpose of
replanting became quite a problem, and though it was well intentioned,
Gaia put her foot down about that, as well, allowing only Heirophants to
overharvest for that reason.

It was around this time that many of the members of Oakstone started to
become frustrated. It was becoming clear that the punishment for
overharvesting was not severe enough. Many began suggesting that
violators of the harvesting laws be forced to pay monetary reparations
as well as the punishment that was currently in effect, and others began
discussing the tactic which has since become one of the most effective
forestal weapons in enforcing the laws: the herb ban. Lady Gaia disliked
the idea of withholding Nature's bounty as a way of blackmailing people
into complying, and was hopeful that the ban on cactus weed alone would
be enough to get the point across. It turned out that Sarapis restricted
the ability of harvesting weed to those skilled in concoctions, so the
desert was replanted and Achaea's weed supply restored. It is unclear,
however, whether or not the citizens of Achaea got the point that Lady
Gaia was trying to make.

By this point Oakstone had developed some pretty strict laws regarding
harvesting and extermination, which would remain in effect throughout
its history. Many of the members of Oakstone had been calling out for a
codified set of laws for some years. There was a pretty clear policy
regarding overharvesting and exterminations, but some other points
remained unclear, like whether mass harvesting within legal harvest
limits was allowed, and whether or not someone who managed to harvest a
lot of a rare plant should be forced to share with his or her fellow
forestals. In 241 AF, Lady Gaia announced that an official charter for
Oakstone was completed, and almost ready for release. For some reason or
other, however, there is no record of a charter being released until 297
AF, over half a century later. Nevertheless, it is clear that many of
the rules in the charter were already in play by 241 AF. In this manner,
the council of Oakstone was beginning to grow firm roots as a powerful
organization in the world.