Journal of a Dryad Scholar

January 1st, 912

It has been nearly a decade since the formal end of what we now call the Holy Wars. Almost all of the Gods and their loyalists have been purged or driven from the planet. It came as a shock, all those years ago, when the Gods simply fled the planet; in retrospect, it is a possibility we should have seen coming. Given they created the planet itself, it is only natural they have the means to travel through space—and, presumably, to make a new planet, if they so wish.

I am left to ponder, will the Gods that fled simply start over? Will they construct a new planet, populate it with new mortals, and oppress them just as they had us? Will those mortals rise up and enact their own Holy Wars? All of the “good” Gods have stayed—or died—at our side; does this fact doom our distant brethren to failure?

Perhaps it is a topic not worth pondering. Mortals cannot travel through space—the lives of hundreds of loyalist Angels can attest to that fact. If the rogue Gods do create another world somewhere, we may never know, may never see it, may never hear from or of its people. Such is a right reserved for the Gods, I suppose. In any case, this is but a rambling tangent; I must move to the topic at hand.

My name is Kirra Acris—the latter, a name I carry on behalf of my late mentor, and the mother of my first child. We Dryads generally do not have surnames; it is a concept I have borrowed from my Human companions. However, that, too, is a tangent; I have found myself pondering many such tangents recently, and it is why I pick up the pen today.

I was a prominent figure in the events of the Holy Wars. I acted sometimes as a scout, others as a messenger, scholar, or strategist. I have known only war since the day I was born; all of my kind have, as we—just like our cousins, the Undead—were created to serve as soldiers. I was but one of many thousands of tools in the United Mortals’ arsenal, and a rather well-sharpened tool at that.

As I wrote before, the wars have ended. The Gods are gone, their loyalists dead or in hiding. Throughout the decade following General Lexius’s departure, I dedicated myself to aiding in the recovery of nations, to tracking down rogue Gods and loyalist armies still fighting the war they’d lost. Before long, those conflicts ended just as the war had.

With no battle to be fought, I find myself bereft of purpose. I have been left to ponder, to meander—I find that word, “meander”, to be an apt description of life in Yggdrasil following the wars’ end. My people, we do not know what to do with ourselves.

I do not intend to waste away; Acris would not have wanted such a fate for me. So, I have resolved to travel and to study. The world may no longer have need of scouts or strategists—after nearly three centuries of war, even the most foolish and greedy of peoples have grown weary of conflict. I believe, however, that scholars shall be in great demand. I suspect that my people are not the only ones left in a state of stupor. The world, chained beneath the boots of the Gods for nearly a millennium, is finally free. Rapidly it shall change and grow; those changes must needs be documented, and the same goes for the world as it is now.

I plan to travel the world, visiting each of its regions and nations. I shall observe—their cultures, their struggles, the impacts the Holy Wars have had on them, the ways they change now that they are free—and all that I observe, I shall record in this journal.

I returned to Yggdrasil several weeks ago. Before my great journey, I wished to spend time with my son, and to pay my respects to Acris. Now, on the first day of the new year, the time has come for my journey to begin. Cyrus saw me off as I boarded a trade vessel. Its destination is the continent of Kiyona—specifically, it is headed to the nation of Toskila. The voyage shall take roughly a month.

I do not expect the voyage to be an eventful one. I shall write again when we reach Kiyona, I think.

—Kirra