The Gentle Pledge

Leadership & Oversight

• Circle Liaison: A senior druid appointed by the Circle Unbound (often from the Greenheart Branch) serves as the official connection between the Circle and the Gentle Pledge. They guide priorities to ensure the work stays aligned with the Circle’s broader philosophy of balance and respect for all living things.

On-the-Ground Structure

• Wayward Hands: Regional coordinators responsible for organizing supply caravans, healers, and ritualists. They liaise with local leaders in beastfolk settlements to assess needs.
• Heartwardens: Senior volunteers or staff who oversee specific villages or traveling aid routes. They lead rituals of comfort and distribute goods.
• Kindroot Medics & Herbalists: Specialists who provide medical and magical healing, trained in remedies particularly effective for beastfolk physiology.
• Field Companions: General volunteers — often a mix of young druids, lay members of the Circle, and compassionate townsfolk — who assist with construction, carry supplies, or simply lend a listening ear.

Core Ethos

• The Gentle Pledge was founded on the Circle Unbound’s principles of earth magic, deep understanding of nature, respect for beasts, and the sacred power of symbiosis.
• Its members believe that helping beastfolk is not charity out of pity, but restoring rightful harmony after centuries of exploitation and marginalization by larger cities and empires.

Practices & Day-to-Day Values

• Listening before acting: Volunteers are taught to spend time in communities, learning local needs and customs before offering aid.
• Rituals of Gratitude: Even small projects like digging wells or rebuilding shelters are opened or closed with short rites, asking local land spirits and the symbiotic ties of nature to bless the work.
• Sharing stories and meals: Volunteers live among the beastfolk during their missions, building bonds over shared food, seasonal songs, and fireside tales.

• Support marginalized beastfolk communities, many of whom are nomadic, live in border forests, or dwell near lands increasingly encroached upon by human or elven settlements.
• Provide medical aid, food, and safe water during harsh seasons or after disasters.
• Offer legal advocates or mediators when beastfolk are wrongly accused of crimes, or when their territories are threatened by expansion.
• Create small educational gatherings, teaching literacy and simple magical wards that protect livestock and homesteads.

• Founded roughly 70 years ago by Archdruidess Thylar Mossbraid, who watched the slow devastation of a foxfolk enclave from plague and decided the Circle could not stand idle.
• Since then, the Pledge has grown into a respected auxiliary of the Circle Unbound, with dedicated coordinators stationed in major towns to organize aid convoys.