This human-shaped amalgam of wood, leather, and forest debris lumbers forward on uneven legs._ In remote villages plagued by evil spirits, locals erect wood and straw people to ward against the spirits in much the same way farmers use similar figures to ward against crows. **Animated Protectors.** When great danger threatens the village, ancient rituals that are passed from generation to generation can be invoked to awaken the wards to defend the village. Wood wards aren’t awakened lightly, however, as the villagers rarely possess the rituals to return the wards to their slumber. **Implements of Terror.** Unknown to most villages that possess them, wood wards were originally created by evil druids to sow terror in logging villages that were encroaching on the forest. The druids circulated wards around these villages, spreading rumors of their protective capabilities. Most of the druids succumbed to age, heroes, or other forces before getting the chance to enact their schemes, and the villages continued on with wards that did exactly as rumored. Some druid circles still possess the knowledge for awakening the true nature of the wood wards, and stories have surfaced of villages in the darkest depths of the forest going silent, possessing nothing but empty houses and a wall of silent wood wards. **Construct Nature.** A wood ward doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.