Stoneheart Circle
Overview
The Stoneheart Circle was a clandestine organization composed of stonemasons who survived The Great Sundering. According to A History of Rislandia, the group is described simply as "the Stoneheart Circle (remnant stonemasons)," indicating that its membership was drawn directly from those practitioners who endured the catastrophic events of the Sundering and found themselves without the protection of any established order.
The Circle's founding purpose was twofold: to preserve whatever knowledge the stonemasons still possessed, and to ensure the survival of their members in a dangerous and fractured world.
History
Following The Great Sundering, the stonemasons who would form the Stoneheart Circle faced an immediate and severe threat. According to A History of Rislandia, warlords of the era — a period associated with the Wars of the Warlords — actively sought to capture stonemasons, either to enslave them outright or to compel them to use their magic in service of conquest. The fact that this magic had apparently failed or become unreliable in the wake of the Sundering did not deter those warlords from pursuing the masons; the threat of forced exploitation remained real regardless.
In response, the surviving stonemasons organized themselves into the Stoneheart Circle and adopted a posture of strict secrecy. Operating covertly, they worked to preserve what knowledge they could from the pre-Sundering era, guarding it against the chaos and violence of the age.
No named members, specific locations of operation, or dates of founding or dissolution are recorded in A History of Rislandia.
Description
The Stoneheart Circle is characterized in A History of Rislandia by its secrecy and its origins among the remnant stonemasons. The group's name and its association with stonecraft suggest a continuity of identity with the mason traditions that preceded the Sundering, though the exact nature of stonemason magic — and the manner in which it had "failed" — is not elaborated upon in the available source material.
The Circle's activities centered on knowledge preservation and self-concealment rather than any recorded military, political, or openly religious function.
Legacy
The Stoneheart Circle's long-term influence on Rislandian history, its relationship to later institutions such as the Stonemasons' Covenant or the Granite Hand, and the ultimate fate of the knowledge it preserved are not addressed in A History of Rislandia. No further details are available from the current source material.