With
a creaking, cracking gate, the animate oak strode forward at an easy pace. It
seemed little worried about the dozen gnolls arrayed before it, and hardly
noticed their arrows. But once one buried its axe in the ent’s thick bark, the
treebeast croaked with rage and sent the loathsome fae sailing through the air
with a single swipe of a branch.
Ents are ambulatory, sapient trees who tend the most ancient
forests. They serve as gardeners and
wardens, although they rarely pay any heed to any member of the animal kingdom
unless a reasonable threat is posed.
Ancient by mortal standards, ents are extremely slow to action, do
things slowly, and are very slow to embark on any endeavor. Only a threat to the forest can readily
mobilize the local ent population with any
degree of rapidity, and "rapid" for an ent can take weeks.