Sunstone: First of the Rueman Hearts

An Overview of the Bleak Boscage and its Inhabitants

The Bleak Boscage is an iron-bark woods that expands along the eastern coast of The Brenaian Holm. It is inhabited by a tribe of women known as the Heer [pronounced Hair]; a race of dark-skinned warrior women who work in harmony with nature.
The Heer are governed by an order of childless women called The Anointed and they each possess a shard of obsidian that they wear around their necks –eight Anointed in total. Obsidian shards allow their wearers to connect with the thrumming web of the very fabric of the Great-Whole. The Anointed call this a Conjunction.
The obsidian shards come from what remains of the Mookaite Jasper which was once the Heart Cristel of the Bleak Boscage, but after some unsuccessful experiments in ‘mage-making’ only obsidian remains.
Similar to the inhabitants of the Brenaian Dunes, the Heer abandon their sons with their fathers only allowing women into their sacred and ancient Boscage as males tend not to exhibit any connection to the Greater-Whole.
The Heer teach their women strength and strategy, adhering to strict training exercises and dietary practices throughout their lives to keep themselves open to the mana of nature. Heer are fearless and born to become a weapon that only nature can truly wield. Heer do not possess thaumaturgy but they are not closed to it –they are something inbetween.
Heer women only eat what they can hunt and forage, the only alterations to food that are acceptable are cooking, ageing and seasoning with spices or herbs. Often times, while the young initiates are training, they can go days without anything more than a handful of berries or nuts until they learn how to hunt and forage effectively, those initiates who die in training are not mourned and are often returned to their fathers. If a Heer dies in battle however their body goes through the Beginning of the Boscage Rights where the Heer is honoured by becoming part of the trees.
From the moment a Heer child can walk they begin learning the way of the woods and at five years of age start their Initiate Training until The Test is taken where a young Heer must survive a whole year on her own in the Boscage before being offered the Heer Oath. Once under Oath a Heer risks being stripped of identity and home if she betrays her Sisters.
The Bleak Boscage is also home to most of Brenaian wildlife such as rhebok, mongoose, a variety of flying-squirrels and rheas; all of which are used to make leather for clothes and decorate battle garbs. The Boscage is the only forest on the Holm.
‘…I count my blessings and appreciate the abundance around me…’’