Living ENWorld:Wyrwood Monastery
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[edit] The Wyrwood Monastery
History: 600 years ago, a noble elven family fell from grace. The nobles had been known for two things: their wisdom and their inherited blindness, but inbreeding and politics tore the family apart. The last heir, reduced to a blind beggar, left the city of his birth to find enlightenment. He traveled east, into the massive Silverwood, where he used his skills of scent and taste to forage fruit and roots. As a shelter, he used a large natural hollow made of soft but sturdy material. Unbeknownst to him, his shelter was actually part of a huge fungus, with many caps, hollows, and a vast network of roots that spread for miles around. In the forest, the elf used his innate wisdom and lack of sight to his advantage, focusing on non-visual senses and physical prowess. He trained his body and mind in methods not unlike those of the monastic monks, though he was not held back or helped by tradition and his blindness guided him to focus on different skills.
During his time in the forest, the blind elf planted many trees and fed animals. His quiet deeds and intense dedication attracted a small, young circle of druids. The druids made contact, and a friendship was formed.
After a century of seclusion, the elf decided to return to the cities and find individuals like him: blind in the eyes but keen of mind and body. It took him decades, but he found two candidates, an elf and a human. The three returned to the elf's mushroom home and honed their skills together. The human had been a musician in the city, and he brought his string instrument with him to the forest. United, the three could spend less time on survival and more time on study and practice. The human taught the others to play music, and the druids offered them wood from one of their trees to make new instruments. After a few decades, the human became restless and felt the need to spread their teachings before he passed on. He returned, like the first elf before him, to the cities to find promising blind candidates. Again he found two, and three became five. The size of the group grew as the decades passed, as did their skills and methods. The druid circle also grew more powerful. The sundering of the Silverwood barely affected the region in which the mushroom and the blind ones live.
Today, the local humans call the ancient forest the Wyrwood, in part because of the mystical, ghostly protection it seems to have. The blind trio has grown into a sizable school of martial, musical, and philosophical training. They now call the giant mushroom in which they live "the Wyrwood Monastery", and they are known for their heightened senses, musical prowess, and physical form. The druids and the monks are still friendly. The druids have given the monks a magical goodberry tree, which provides the monks with most of their sustenance, and yearly the druids supply a single tree to the monks for crafting into instruments in return for the planting of new trees throughout the Wyrwood.
Membership: All Wyrwood Monks are called "Brother", regardless of gender. The monastic order currently has 28 brothers of both genders and several races. Every brother wears a dyed leather blindfold, of any color, across his useless eyes. The vast majority of brothers have been blind, most from birth, but a few rare exceptions have worn blindfolds for years at a time to become voluntarily blind. No such monks exist today. Of the original three founders, only the second elf remains. He is now Grandmaester Vagrant, abbot of the Wyrwood Brothers.
The Monastery: The Wyrwood Monastery fungus complex has countless hollows which serve as rooms. Living quarters are mostly above ground, in hollows with many perforations for light and ease of breathing. There is one large teaching room, located above ground, completely covered by a humongous cap. It has a large, gaping entrance to the outside and entrances to several subterranean tunnels leading to other rooms. Certain areas are accessible only by smaller monks, like gnomes, due to the narrow tunnels leading to them. Only a few of the rooms are in recent use by the current monks. Recruitment has been dry for many years, the attitude of the world has changed since the founding of the Monastery, and the resident monks no longer need as many rooms as they did centuries ago. No current Wyrwood monk knows the entire layout of the Monastery, not even Grandmaester Vagrant.
Wyrwood Oak: The liveoaks of the Wyrwood are incredibly ancient, but they have recently been under the close watch of a druidic circle. Wyrwood Oaks, having spent centuries practically saturated in druidic magic, now have special properties unlike the trees of any other forest. When a great oak's life comes to an end, the druids cut down the tree and use its supple wood for many purposes. One in particular is the construction of instruments. Wyrwood Oak is magnificent for resonating rich tones, and Wyrwood instruments are coveted for their unique sound. A musical instrument made out of Wyrwood Oak from a tree felled by druids grants its user a +1 alchemical bonus on all Perform checks made with that instrument.
