Dryad mythology
Of all the various peoples in the Midlands the Dryads are the least understood. Ghouls were once living men and women. The Chitterlings have wants and needs one can relate to. But the Dryads, people of wood and earth in place of flesh and bone, are unique in their strange ways.
To begin discussing the Dryads one must delve into their mythical beginnings. Their story is recounted as fact and not as an allegory, facts retold to them by their Ancestor Trees. Thankfully their story does not oppose the cult of the sun's narrative. Otherwise conflicting beliefs could cause harmful tension.
According to the Dryads the world was once flat and barren white. An empty world looked down upon by the sun and moon. This changed with the emergence of the sproutlings that would become the seven great Ancestral trees. The seven trees pulled up the land as they grew and spread roots, causing the flat land to ripple and shape. The mountains were drawn upwards and valleys fell in between. Rivers and lakes filled the cracks rent in the shaping. among the cracks. But the land was still blank and bleached. Reaching skyward the trees caught the light of the sun. The seven trees refined the light into a colour and shared it amongst everything they touched. Thus each of the Ancestor Trees brought one colour into the world so it may mix in the wilds.
As all trees will, these primordial trees encouraged more life amongst their roots. Thus the world's forests were created, and from them spread all other plant life. Dryads do not account for animal or human life being created, an omission for the cult of the sun to fill.
With the world soon spreading far beyond what they could sense, the Ancestor Trees yearned to experience it in its wild splendor. Yet they could not move to explore it themselves. From this desire the Ancestor Trees created the Dryads. Each Ancestor Tree gave form to a clan set in their colour that would be as eyes and hands. These clans were granted life to experience and live in the world that had been newly shaped.
Physical Form
A Dryad is a person of stone and wood who is roughly human shaped but always taller than an adult human. Most humans will reach only as tall as a Dryad's chest. Their body has two arms with hands or hand-like graspers that have three to six fingers, two legs that sometimes end in broad flat feet, a central torso, and a head that will have two eyes, if not other facial features. In place of bone they have a heartwood like core of living black stone and for flesh they have varying types of sinewy wood-like material. They vaguely seem as if a tree grew around a man shaped statue.
A Dryad's exact appearance varies wildly. Some are only human-like in the vaguest of terms, looking like trees who have uprooted and taken to walking. Others, particularly the youngest Dryads, have an off, yet statuesque human appearance with smoothed "skin" and prominent features. Most Dryads fall between these two extremes. The only set features among them is the prevalence of their clan colour on their person and in their eyes.
The eyes of a Dryad are strange in that they they are not a different material than the rest of their bodies, but they are the only place a Dryad can see from. On any Dryad the eyes can be seen as two solid egg or water drop shaped domes coloured entirely in their clan colour. In general their eyes see as well as a humans in regard to sharpness, colour identification, and motion tracking. But to add to the mystery of how they function a Dryad's eyes can see clearly in all but utter darkness. A clouded night will not obscure a Dryad's vision, but a deep cave will blind them as any human.
It is not clear how a Dryad hears or speaks, to the point Dryads cannot explain how they do so to a human. They speak clearly in words that sound like they come from inside their chests, but without the need for breath. Voice wise they vary in pitch and tone as a human would, although Dryads lean to a guttural sound. Despite a lack of ears they can simply hear about as well as a human can in the same situation. The last mystery is their mystical sense of direction. No matter where they are a Dryad will always know the direction and distance they are from their Ancestor Tree. While not always helpful finding new locations, a Dryad always knows their way home.
Along with their strange senses a Dryad has little need for many human requirements. If they breath air it is unlikely they could easily be deprived of it. A Dryad can stay submerged in water for a very long time without becoming concerned. Dryads "eat" by mixing water and earth to soak their limbs in or to coat on themselves. They simply absorb what they require from the mud. Sightings of Dryads laying in puddles alongside the road after rain showers are not unheard of.
Dryads lack a need to sleep, although they can become physically tired. Short breaks to rest while eating are often the only interruptions they will take during a task. A non-fatally injured Dryad is capable of complete healing given time. Even the loss of a limb can eventually be regrown over a number of years. They do bleed an ichor the same colour as their clan, which hardens to plug holes that are healing.
In regards to the highly variable nature of their forms the Dryads explain it as such: Before the ancestral trees became aware of humans the Dryads have had far more mutable forms. Many of them closer in shape to animals, or loose amalgamations of limbs. But when the previous incarnations of Dryads witnessed the ways humans were capable of exploring and shaping the world around them, newer incarnations of Dryads took on more and more human-like appearances. A strange occurrence of this is that sometimes the otherwise sexless Dryads will have distinctive sex traits, such as facial features close to a man or womens, or a figure like a broad shouldered man or with a women's curves. When questioned on this matter, the Dryads who have asked their ancestral trees note the trees find the human form appealing. There are mixed opinions, some very strong, among the Dryads on this topic.
It is noted that Dryads do have a Flame of Life, but it is unlike any shared by human, Chitterling, or animal. Where a human's Flame burns brightly behind their breast, a Dryad's flows inside them along their living stone. Where a human's Flame is a hearth's fire, a Dryad's is a stream. Both can be stoked and worked in the same manner, and it is said the Dryads have their own practices of the mystical arts.
Dryad life cycle
Dryads, as a sexless people, are not born in the same way as a Human or Chitterling are. All Dryads are created directly from their clan's ancestral tree In a process that takes about four years. The ancestral tree will bud a pod that, when it blooms, the new Dryad will emerge from. These newly born Dryad are fully formed and aware of who they are. But it is said only a minority of newly formed Dryads are actually new souls, as many are old souls reborn to new bodies.
On this notion of Dryad rebirth, the Dryads say that their souls can be moved from their body to the next in a process the Dryads call reincarnation. Dryads are not immortal, although their bodies can survive for about one hundred and fifty years if they do not come to harmful death. When a Dryad nears death, they can return to their Ancestor Tree and their spirit will be reincarnated in the next body the tree creates. A Dryad who dies far away from their Ancestor Tree will still be reincarnated, but they lose all memories from their previous incarnation.
While a Dryad's spirit lives on in their next incarnation, they do not hold onto all of their memories. The Ancestor Tree collects these memories and remembers what they experienced for them. If asked it can tell them their own story again. But primarily a newly incarnated Dryad simply knows who and what they are, if not what they have done before. A fresh chance to experience the world again. The memories of those Dryads who die away from their Ancestor Tree are lost forever.
Dryad Culture
It would be fair to say from the perspective of a human that Dryads do not share a culture. Each Dryad knows it's identity, where it came from, and even why it was born. It is unlikely a Dryad will require industry on a scale a human settlement would. As a Dryad requires little to sustain itself they are able to explore and learn with a focus only the most devoted or wealthy of humans could match. It is also fair to say a Dryad can learn several human lifetimes worth of skills with their extreme ability to concentrate and lack of sleep requirements.
Individual Dryads will pursue goals that interest them, although most have a sense of wanderlust to fulfill. Some will try and hone broad ranges of skills and knowledge, while others will spend a hundred years perfecting one art form. All of this knowledge is retained by their Ancestor Tree, and could be drawn from again in their next Incarnation if they require practical skills.
Dryads found outside of their forest are looking for something. It could be to learn, to be in a new experience, or to see something not seen before. While this is all done at the behest of their Ancestor Trees, a Dryad will likely seek these things for their own sake. For a people that can effectively live forever it is unlikely to meet one who is jaded to life's simple beauties.
The only unifying bond among the Dryads are their Ancestor Trees. Among members of a clan there has been said to be a sense of camaraderie. But this is not nearly as strong as a family bond. Only the Ancestor Trees can be said to be the idol of a Dryad's devotion. Their reason to live, truly. While a Dryad will only follow the wishes of their clan's Ancestor Tree, any Dryad will come to the defense of any of the trees if the need were to arise. It is unknown what could happen should one of the Ancestor Trees fell, but in my opinion I hope none find out.
The seven clan names of the Dryads are mercifully analogous to their colour when spoken in a human tongue. To say a yellow coloured Dryad is "of the Yellow Clan" is considered acceptable to them. The seven clans are the following seven colours: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Dye makers are envious of just how pure and ideal a Dryad can be of their colour.
The Dryad language is a deep and rumbling affair that can sound as rocks sliding. Without the need to use breath the Dryad's language is a thick and dense sound that packs much meaning in the notes where a human tongue has to stop to adjust our mouths or move air. The language is called Woodsong by humans. A human cannot speak the complex and dense sounds a Dryad makes for the language.
Located in the southern west area of the Midlands, the forest occupies nearly a fourth of the whole Midlands. The Forest of the Dryads is closed to any but the Dryads themselves. A measure for others safety as much for the Ancestor Trees security. The forest is unlike any other in the Midlands, and is deadly to humans. Or any animal for that matter. Where in other forests animals such as wolves, deer, and boar roam, only plants exist in the Dryad's home. Many are as active and mobile as animals, and most have a desire to collect their own food. While these plants seem to know to not bother Dryads, they will try and bring down any animal or human who enters the forest. For this reason, and out of courtesy to the Dryads, most every settlement nearby considers it taboo to even suggest entering the forest.
Little is known of the forests interior beyond what the Dryads speak of. Much of it is untamed and left to the habits of it's moving plants. In some areas Dryads have taken to actively working the land, in what is said to be equal parts farming and ranching. A Dryad's garden is a section of the forest where one has grown it to their desired form. A Dryad I spoke to said it is like how a human might raise and breed dogs. Some Dryad gardens are made to do a task, and others as a form of pet.
There are few structures in the Forest of the Dryads, the exceptions being the Ancestor Trees themselves. As natural growths the trees have hollow spaces that the Dryads enter so they can speak directly with and gain knowledge from their clans tree. The other notable exception is apparently a fairly sizable shrine to the sun, made by Dryads who like humans and wished to who pay respect to our mother.
The last known detail of the Forest of the Dryads is that it contains trees whose wood is as strong as iron. However the Dryads harvest and shape it they can create wooden objects of match to forged iron. A sharpened blade of wood can be a very unique sight, but unlikely found away from the forest itself. Based on it's dull dusty colour the iron hard wood is simply called Greywood.
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