As spoken by Lorekeeper Eamon of the Stonelore Druids.
When folk speak of druids, they often imagine forests and isolation, as though we were born already apart from the world. That is not how the story begins. The druids were shaped by closeness—between peoples, between beliefs, and between ways of living that never fit cleanly together. To remember our history is to remember a people who refused to choose between civilization and the Green, even when pressed from all sides to do so.
Druids trace their origin to the Druids of Galen, the early leaders of the proto-Breton people during the Merethic Era. These first druids arose among the Nedes of High Rock who lived under the influence—and eventual dominance—of the Aldmer of Clan Direnni. From centuries of intermingling between Elf and Nede came the Manmer, later called Bretons, a people rejected by their elven parents yet elevated within Nedic society. The Druids of Galen led this emerging race, embracing their dual heritage and teaching that nature could be reshaped, guided, and perfected, just as Y’ffre once shaped the Ooze into form.
Druidism emerged as a distinct identity alongside the birth of the Breton people. Its guiding belief, the True Way, holds that people were not meant to abandon the world nor dominate it, but to live alongside nature in mutual endurance. This belief set druids apart from the Wyrd, who rejected civilization entirely and claimed to be nature itself. Where the Wyrd retreated into isolation, druids accepted their place as people, believing that towns, farms, and forests could coexist without one consuming the other.
The origin of the True Way is preserved through story rather than record. Some tales name Queen Galen, a Nedic ruler who first heard the songs of Y’ffre and became the first Archdruid. Others say Galen was an island where Y’ffre’s heart could be heard beating beneath the land. The most commonly told story speaks of a spirit named Galen who walked among the proto-Bretons and taught them how to listen to the Green.
What is agreed upon is that the True Way was born in High Rock, shaped by tension between Nede and Aldmer, reverence and control. As the Direnni sought to bind nature through pacts with the Earthbones, druids resisted attempts to tame the land outright. Over time, their tolerance for outside interference waned, and they found themselves increasingly at odds with both elven overlords and human faiths.
In the First Era, this tension culminated in exile. Persecuted by the Alessian Order and opposed by the Direnni Hegemony, the Druids of Galen followed their last king, Kasorayn, on a great exodus to the Systres Archipelago. Guided by visions—some say songs, others an Elder Scroll—Kasorayn taught the druids to sing trees and plants into living vessels, carrying them across the sea.
Upon reaching the Systres, the druids reshaped barren land into fertile ground, most notably transforming Y’ffelon into a verdant island. Yet unity did not endure. Through journeys beyond the archipelago, prophetic dreams, or both, the druids divided into three circles—the Stonelore, Eldertide, and Firesong—each interpreting Y’ffre’s will differently. Though divided, they retained symbols of shared purpose, knotwork shaped into a triquetra to mark their common origin.
The death of Kasorayn ended druidic monarchy, leaving behind the Dream of Kasorayn, which speaks of two futures: the Green Renewal, where all peoples live in balance with nature, or the Green Scourge, where unchecked druidic rule brings devastation. Leadership passed instead to the Draoife, elders from each circle who guide druids through counsel rather than crown.
Much of what followed is remembered in fragments—conflict with the Sinistral Elves, survival through fire and famine, brief respect during the Green Years, and quiet erosion under imperial return. Still, the druids endured. We remain a people shaped by exile, compromise, and refusal to vanish. In the Stonelore, we still call ourselves Druids of Galen, not as a claim of rule, but as a memory of what that name once meant: solace, home, hearth, reverence, and conservation. The story continues, not because it is finished, but because it is still being told.