Conquest Lore Explainer: The Weaver Courts of Eä

I started getting excited about the Weaver Courts several years ago. They were mentioned in some of the very early lore, and a teaser mini was included in an 'organised play' set, and then it feels like four or five other factions were introduced before we got them. Now they're here, they offer more than I was expecting. But, to be fair, I wouldn't have guessed for giant butterflies and even more giant mooses (meese?) Their story is a brilliant one.

The Spires, but Vegan?

The Spires would argue that they are the purest link back to the Exiles that originally arrived on Eä. They are using their innate abilities in lifebinding to somehow find a way to return to their homeworld. But it didn't take long after they originally took root on Eä for some of the Exiles to voice their shock at the application of lifebinding in biomancy.

Oberon, finished! Credit: Rachel

From the perspective of the emergent Weaver Court, however, Eä is a gift to the Exiles, and one that demands stewardship. Lifebinding is a tool that works best in communion with one's surroundings, not in dominion over it. And so they left the Spires, heading west until they found a place more suitable for a moral approach.

The Spires' use of lifebinding looks very much like a dark fantasy version of the classic cyberpunk city. They live in their ivory towers, remotely controlling mindless drones, clones and husks that their consciousness can temporarily inhabit. Unlike that, the Weavers have opened themselves up to be united with the natural world of Eä. They bind themselves to plants and animals, leading to supernatural beings that take aspects of alien sentience alongside characteristics of natural phenomena. It's the ultimate experiment in oneness. But a utopia this is not.

The Circle of Life

As beings that have fully taken on the characteristics of the natural world around them, it only makes sense that they will also see the seasonal cycle reflected in their presence. Every act of life binding has become associated with one of four Courts, each of which has its own governance, culture, religious structures and more.

The Court of Spring had been the primary Court as the land they had settled in - Faerann - began to bloom under their stewardship. But the Courts of Summer and Winter had found a way to tap into the elemental forces underpinning Eä, seeing themselves as superior.

While minor feuds broke out from time to time, the Weaver Courts as a whole united behind the one who had led them to Faerann in the first place - the Voice - and gathered once every ten years in the Dance of Stars, a practical and symbolic act of unity. But the Voice did not attend the most recent Dance of Stars, and the Weavers have become fractious.

The Courts

The four Courts express themselves in distinctive ways. The Court of Spring sees as its purpose growth and colour. They push outside the boundaries of Faerann, hoping to steadily take over the whole of Eä. They are confident, and physically choose to bind with life that brings forth humanoid creatures and something one might hope to describe as cavalry.

The Court of Autumn, on the other hand, are not so expansionist in their outlook. They value strength and cunning, looking to protect what they have and conveniently end up with more by the end of the day. They favour binding with mammals, evergreen foliage and fungi, and are the most likely to be spoken about by those outside of Faerann, thanks in part to their attraction to scavenging and also geographic proximity, as they typically operate from the eastern edge of Faerann.

Credit: Rachel

The Court of Summer is an extrapolation of the on-again, off-again relationship between their king and queen, Oberon and Titania. United as they are with the element of fire, they are consumed with passion for one another one moment and burning with jealousy and rage the next, so obsessed with themselves that they could give the impression that they are barely involved with the rest of the Weavers, let alone the outside world. And yet, their fighting does overflow in unpredictable ways, meaning that plenty of issues experienced by the Weavers originate in the Summer Court, and the world outside Faerann should fear if they ever decide to turn their attention elsewhere.

Finally, the Court of Winter sits at one side of the rest of the Weavers, in a permanent state of not ruling but being consistently influential. Few in the Winter Court favour lifebinding with the natural world and so they more often lean into elemental power. Wind, ice and snow are their bedfellows and they have remained as stable as any group can for as long as history has recorded.

Why Love the Weaver Courts?

In some ways, the Weavers are everything the other factions would like to be. They have elemental power. They have lifebinding. They have diversity. Walking trees. Butterflies. Ghosts. Dragons. Love. Chaos. Stability. Change. Their story is as ancient as any faction's, with equal doses of creativity, order and unpredictability.

Yes, they're the Spires if they'd gotten out of bed on the other side that morning, but they're so much more than that. They open up a new angle on Eä that isn't possible without them, uniting the natural world with that of the Exiles, the Elder Dragons and the elemental shards as well.

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Tags: Conquest | Conquest Last Argument of Kings | Lore Explainer | The Lore Explainer | Weaver Courts