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Ardennes Fellowship / ARFELL

  • Organization
  • Casual
  • Role play
  • Social
    Social
  • Freelancing
    Freelancing

Welcome to the Forest of Ardennes. Kings, Commanders, CEOs, Outcasts, Exiles, and Wanderers; all are welcome. Here you may find refuge from the politics and schemes of courts, corporations, and campaigns. We are all fellows here, equal, with no station or rank. Please take a seat and stay awhile.



History

Legacy of Fellowship

From times immemorial, the forest has been a place of both mystery and magic, a place where nature is close and intimate. It has also been a place of shelter for the oppressed to hide and weak to take refuge. Forests can be places of beauty, peace, and healing or twisted places of fear and darkness all depending on your point of view.
The Forest of Ardennes depths have been considered unnegotiable by armies around the world, whether in the time of Julius Caesar, or millennia later in the 1st and 2nd World Wars of the 20th century. Like the Sherwood forest of Robin Hood fame, the Ardennes has its own legends and legacy. Shakespeare wrote of the Forest of Arden saying:

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

The Forest of Ardennes is a magical place where we can be ourselves, a place of camaraderie and fellowship, dialogue and collaboration, far from the machiavellian machinations of courts, corporations, or campaigns. It is a place where hope is alive and friendship is strong. Here Kings may sit with exiles, rebels may sit with commanders, in the spirit of dialogue and connection. Though millennia have passed, the forest remains a bastion and refuge to those who would escape the monotony and grind of daily life and spend a moment out of time in a simpler place.

Manifesto

Hope of Fellowship

We build upon the Legacy of the Ardennes to form a fellowship here in the Stars, a place of healing, solidarity, and refuge. This Fellowship will be a place for all, whether presidents, rulers, CEO’s, exiles, outcasts, or lone wanderers who seek a moments escape from their daily lives far from the hectic and harried masses. Here among fellow brothers you will be free to follow your path without rank or station. All fellows are equal in standing and each vote weighed as great as the other. Each is free to spend his time outside the Forest in pursuits as he will, whether peddling wares, exploring the far corners of the Deep Forest, mining for precious materials, providing aid for those in need, or listening to the whispers that pass on the wind. Within the Forest there is no need for these things. It is this hope for the future that drives free spirits to seek a different life, to seek others who are of like minds, to seek friendship unfeigned, and to seek to aid those whom they should chance encounter. Let this hope be alive here in the Forest of Ardennes, and let this hope be spread as seeds on the wind to those we meet…

Charter

Bond of Fellowship

We sprouted in sundry and farflung soils, we blossomed beneath different suns, we grew into a wide variety of trees, and bore varied fruits, yet here we find ourselves gathered together. Gathered not in some predetermined rows with equidistant spacing, trimmed and pruned, but in the wild manner of nature herself. Here we gather together to share safety, company, and camaraderie. We are a fellowship, a band of brothers, who have gathered beneath the protective boughs of the Ardennes Forest. Here we stay as long as we need. Free to come and go as we please. Our only rules are that of a fellowship, treat others as you would be treated. We do not prey on others, we do not enslave others, we do not disrespect others. If you hold to the bonds of fellowship you may remain within the protective shelter of the Ardennes Forest. If you do not, then you must leave.