Stunghelm Elkheart

A genuine high-level archdruid of the great woods, mentor to the apprentice Clover, who calls him "Stungy." Humourless, brusque, and self-important about his time; he treats feeding whole villages and saving groves as a long to-do list. His power is the elder grade of every druid spell — he conjures watermelon-sized great-berries, calls hurricanes from clear skies, casts a cooked-up Enhance Ability, opens Tree-Stride portals, and channels his magic through a mistletoe sprig that unfurls into a full staff. Wary of the Valewood and the things that come from it.

(Name a best-guess spelling, given only secondhand before this session.)

Session 45 (mentioned)

• Vanished ~two weeks ago. Travelling with Clover, he told her "you go that way, I'll hold them off," charged off against an unknown threat, and said he'd find her — he never has. Clover insists "he's very alive and well."
• The forbidden grove. He told Clover she was not trained enough to visit a druid grove (the one marked on the party's map, identified by Daewynn) until ready.
• The party agrees to help Clover search for him; the source of the woods' undead blight, or the "scary militia" of New Halfwood, may be connected.

Session 46 — met

• Found fleeing a horde. The party meets him on the road to the Druid's Grove: injured, limping, and leading a horde of plague-spreaders away — not actually running, but drawing them off so he could slip back into the grove. The party heals and protects him; he repays them with the full elder-druid arsenal (booming-voice cantrip, a hurricane doing 10d6, held actions, flinging Silithane's healing-bird up the road).
• The food crisis, solved. Once the horde is snared, he conjures a tree-full of great-berries for New Halfwood in one casting — ending its starvation (~4 weeks' food); the vet Borgish hauls them home. Confirms Clover is safe back at the village.
• The Valewood scare. Examines Lash's moon pendant, is impressed by it, then unnerved to learn it (and she) come from the Valewood — "the Valewood is scary, as are the things that come from it."
• Jacking up Thalia. To fly into the grove, he casts an elder-grade Enhance Ability on Thalia (Strength set to 15, carry ×4); she flies for ~20–30 seconds — the closest she's ever come — before tiring. ("Too much juice makes them pop.")
• Into the grove. Lays a blood-trail to walk the horde in a wide circle, then Tree-Strides the party to the corrupted edge of the Druid's Grove, which he means to cleanse. Finds it sealed under an archdruid lockdown barrier and assigns the party roles to break in. Mistakes Silithane's crow for a fellow druid and gives it a 15-minute battle-briefing in Druidic.

Session 47 — his ruthless edge

• The goat key. Heals the giant goat snared in the grove wall (head-to-head "talk," 8 HP), enabling Thalia's Speak-with-Plants parley that opens the gap the party slips through.
• Sunbeams the necromancer. Detect-Evils the disguised teen Dreadweaver Corpsefortune, then elbows him unconscious and Sunbeams him to dust without warning — appalling the party, then proven right when the grove's amalgam-monster rises.
• The buffer. Through the boss fight he stacks buffs on the party — Sprout (a safe tree-ring for Thalia), an upcast Fire Shield on Lash (the 48-damage retaliation that ultimately kills the amalgam), flinging healing-birds — then casts Stone Shape on himself as a guaranteed-revive fail-safe when he fears a wipe (vowing to bring everyone back in 3 hours). Fenric un-stones him early.
• Pro-dome, and judged. Refuses to lower the dome or steward the dead grove ("no people live here; there is no grove here"), promising only to evacuate its cabbages. The slain archdruid Vedanis the Evergreen names him the sole reason no grove will accept his apprentice Clover — the gulf between druidic pacifism and Stunghelm's "fuck you, you die."

Session 48 — repaid and on his way

• Tree-Strides the party out. Opens a tree portal from the sealed Druid's Grove to the great tree at New Halfwood, reuniting with Clover, then turns into a bird and flies off to bury the woods' ~2,000 dead zombies (Clover sprinting after him on foot — "he really isn't a very good teacher").
• Solves the bird mystery. Met again at the zombie pile on the party's first travel day, he Speaks with Animals to Songbird's flock and relays the answer — a witch-woman tried to harvest the birds' eyes, Songbird freed them, and they've serenaded their hero since — addressing the solution to the party more than to Songbird.