Beyond the village there stands a tall hedge
To keep the Blackwood at bay.
Kept safe from danger, from pagans and elves,
If only we follow the Way.
It was the Elder King who raised the first hedges, who showed his people the strength of their ancestors. The wisdom of his Way taught family and friends to place their ancestor shrines in harmony with each other. We learned to push back when wilderness wanders and elves are about. In safety, we are able to settle families, to harvest crops, and to craft things of beauty and wonder. We come to prosperity only through the strength of arm and spirit found in fellowship.
The Way of the Elder King, narrow and true,
A guide to law and life.
With aid from our ancestors overhead
We’re saved from peril and strife.
Within the hedge we are safe but sundered. It is only by braving the paths under bough that we enjoy friends and knowledge from distant quarters, and those paths are full of many dangers. Since the Elder King disappeared fourteen years ago, towns and villages have begun to stray from his Way. Hedges collapse, and refugees flee to fill walled cities to the brim. The nobility forget their duties, and even the learned and valorous fall prey to greed and cruelty.
But there are those who falter,
Or those who choose to turn
From fellowship and order,
Who want the Wood to burn.
Outlaws prey upon merchants and refugees alike on every forest road. They pillage because they are not content to waste away after the condemnation (or, lately, abandonment) of the Elder Kingdom. Pagans lurk in the deep woods. Under the power of the strange and malicious elves, their schemes are many and their mercy is rare. All these–ourselves included–contend against the Blackwood itself, where beasts roam and monsters hide.
In the face of this darkening world, we answer the Call of Errantry. As the Elder King decreed in his wisdom, “just as there will ever be those at the margin of my kingdom, so shall there ever be champions among them.” Errants submit to the Elder King’s sovereignty, but we are exempt from certain laws amongst each other. We walk the Way’s Margin to live for glory, duty, and personal passion. We alone are free to take vengeance on the guilty, and to bring back the lost riches swallowed by roaming wilderness.
But if you would stand against these trials
A life of errantry calls.
To walk the Way’s Margin, to seek out its faults,
For self or for us all.