Wealdfolk

• Very little is known about the wealdfolk who live in the Wildweald, along the eastern boundaries of Ilbarych.
• They are of the same blood as the wrightfolk, though they seem to grow a bit taller and are rarely as heavily muscled.
• They tend to prefer long hair for both sexes, which is often intricately braided and beaded.
• They are also known for their extensive tattooing, the patterns and designs of which apparently communicate something about the individual.
• According to the wrightfolk, those of the weald worship wicked, bloodthirsty forest spirits fed on sacrifice. There are sorcerers, the wood-wise or weald-wise, who act as intermediaries between clan and these spirits.

The Weald-Gods

The Gallowlin

• The Tree. Deep black bark, with stark white wood beneath that yellows to a bone-like color. Tree associated with death and the underworld; short, wide, strong branches and strong root systems that often tear up the ground to form caves said to be the passages into the Underworld. Used to hang criminals from, as sacrifices to the Weald - the last person to be hanged from that tree is traditionally left there until the body falls from it naturally, at which point its skull is said to speak with the voice of that tree and the spirits of those who died upon it. Only one such skull is considered “active” at a time, with all previous skulls being interred within the root-caves.
• The God. Galgalynn. Galgalynn is a quiet, bone-pale god. His movements are stiff and scarecrow like, for he has hanged among the condemned for too long, listening to their death-whispers, and he speaks no word himself, preferring to let the dead talk in his stead. Galgalynn wears the tattered, dirt-infused funereal shrouds wrapped around the condemned, and bears a noose around his neck, its end trailing away into the trees.
• The Wood-wise. The gallowlin’s wood-wise are ashen pale, and deathly themselves, for each of them has been hanged: those who think they hear the call must risk all by being hanged from its boughs. If they are truly one of the gallowlin’s wood-wise, the rope comes undone from the tree. Their Mysteries are tied up in the gallowlin trees they are connected to, and they frequently sleep among the skulls within the root-caverns thereof. A gallowlin wood-wise who bears the tree’s skull may not only know what all who’ve hanged at that tree know, but may even call upon the skills and talents of those hanged there as well. Gallowlin wood-wise are known to be able to whisper to their skulls, who pass messages on to the skulls (and thus wood-wise) of other gallowlin, and to journey from their bodies by lying as dead among the roots.