Notes on the Ontological Significance of the White Stag

- Taken from “Meditations on the Gristwood” by Grimald of Orvendur

Precious little scholarship exists on the area we have all come to know as the Gristwood prior to the Rivening. Certainly there was already a forest, which was then corrupted into what it is today. Certainly it was a place of tremendous magical potential, which has since been harnessed in the most horrific fashion.

But some fragments yet remain to we intrepid few who still brave the horizons of scholarship in spite of adversity. One such fragment is the White Stag. If rumor and myth are to be believed, the majestic creature has been seen in this region of Enon since time immemorial, and for all of that time it has been a subject of debate; Debate regarding not only the creature’s existence, but if it does exist, what then does the White Stag portend?

For my part, though some accounts are of questionable veracity, the sheer breadth of the collected testimonies down through the centuries leads me to believe this creature not only does exist, but that it may offer us some insights into the nature of the arcane.

In studying the stag, certain patterns begin to emerge across narratives. The stag has never been seen to travel with a herd. It has never been slain by any hunter. It has never been seen twice by a single person. The White Stag calls no other woodland home, only the hallowed environs of old Campyria. Sightings of this elusive creature of the forest persist not only from before the Rivening, but on into the present day.

Are we to assume then that each account is of the very same White Stag down through the centuries? Is it some fae emissary, or a fae being itself? Many fellow academics laugh to hear me speak of my query with such resolute certainty of its existence. How then, they ask, has it never been documented by a credible academic? Do I next intend on studying children’s fables, they jeer? How I long to see the noble beast for myself and solve the riddle of its remarkable transience, but therein lies another conundrum.

The White Stag appears to…well, appear, only as a herald of change. Kings sometimes spy the stag on the eve of battle. Sages claim it to have appeared before them moments before epiphany. Artists credit their masterworks to the providential passing of the stag, here one moment and gone the next. Even lowly farmers give lip service to a white stag, seen just as they began to sow seed, with the resultant bountiful harvest. I wonder if the stag was seen by any of those wise mages who first sealed Fayhaven away from the dangers of the Gristwood a thousand years past? So much has been lost, it is impossible to say…