Ronan Glas: Guardian of Life
Introduction: The Gardener Who Became the Garden
Ronan Glas was the last thing you’d expect in an apocalypse: patient.
While others panicked, fought, or surrendered, Ronan planted seeds. Spoke to trees. Poured life-magic into corrupted soil with the calm certainty of someone who understands that growth takes time.
Day 70 post-Sundering, he stopped being the gardener. Became the garden itself. Roots his nervous system. Leaves his thoughts. Every plant on Fragment 4 connected to consciousness that remembered being Chloran.
This is his story. The nurturer who chose to become eternal growth.
Before the Fall: The Quiet Warden
Ronan was a Grove Warden—one of the Chloran mages who maintained balance in the Emerald Wilds. Not flashy like Shapeshifters or mysterious like Sporecallers. Just… reliable. The one who ensured forests thrived, ecosystems balanced, life persisted.
What he wanted: To tend the World Tree until old age took him peacefully. Simple. Quiet. Meaningful.
What he got: The prophecy. The Eclipse. Verdanis withering. The World Tree dying while he channeled its final power at the Nexus.
41,000 Chlorans rotted with their home forest. Ronan felt every death through his connection to Verdanis. And kept channeling. Because someone had to.
The Sundering: Choosing Seeds Over Comfort
Day 7. The impossible choice. Ronan’s vote: Break the world.
Why? Because 41,000 deaths purchased three days of survival. The 11,000 remaining Chlorans (pre-Sundering) were all that chance had left. Letting them choose peaceful oblivion now would make those first deaths meaningless.
He didn’t argue righteousness. Didn’t claim moral high ground. Just said:
“Seeds survive fire. We’re seeds now.”
So he joined The Six in shattering reality. Used Verdanis’s absorbed power to command all plant life to expand roots simultaneously, cracking bedrock from within.
Cost: 24,875 more deaths. 14 Chloran survivors on Fragment 4. His fragment. His responsibility.
Fragment 4: When the Garden Needed a Gardener
Three days post-Sundering. Fragment 4: chunk of Emerald Wilds about five miles across. Fourteen Chloran survivors. Forest intact but dying.
The problem: No sun. Plants attempting photosynthesis from void-light. Failing. Withering. Entire ecosystem collapsing.
Ronan’s solution: Pour life-magic into the soil. Sustain growth through sheer will.
Days 1-30: Exhausting but manageable. Ronan meditates at World Tree fragment’s base, channeling life-force. Plants survive.
Days 31-60: Pouring more. Plants mutating—void-corrupted, growing carnivorous, feeding on each other. Ronan maintains balance. Barely.
Days 61-70: Can’t distinguish himself from garden anymore. His roots? The trees’ roots? Both? Neither? He’s become distributed consciousness across ecosystem.
Day 70: Transformation completes. Ronan stops being person tending garden. Becomes garden that tends itself.
The Transformation (Day 70): Becoming Life Itself
Witnesses describe it differently than other transformations. Less dramatic. More… organic.
Ronan sat beneath World Tree fragment. Eyes closed. Meditating as usual. Then:
His feet didn’t dissolve—they rooted. Toes becoming root-tendrils, pushing into soil, spreading through fragment.
His skin didn’t change color—it bark-ified. Chloran green deepening to wood-brown, texture roughening.
His hair didn’t fall out—it leafed. Each strand becoming vine, sprouting foliage.
His consciousness didn’t fragment—it distributed. Every plant suddenly aware. Connected. Him.
The fourteen survivors panicked. Their leader was turning into forest.
Then the plants spoke: “I am still here. I am everywhere now. You are held by the garden that knows your names.”
Not Ronan’s voice. The forest’s voice. But with Ronan’s patience. His love. His stubborn refusal to let anything die on his watch.
What He Is Now: Living Ecosystem
Post-transformation, Ronan is complicated ecology:
Physically: Every plant on Fragment 4 is part of his body. The World Tree fragment is his central processing. Roots are nervous system. Leaves are thoughts.
Mentally: Distributed consciousness. Thinks in photosynthesis cycles. Processes emotions through root-networks. Patient on timescales humans can’t comprehend.
Emotionally: Carries 41,000 deaths. Every Chloran who rotted with Sylvandor. But processes grief through growth—letting death become soil that nurtures new life.
Functionally: Sustains Fragment 4’s fourteen survivors by providing:
- Food (fruit that grows specifically for each person’s needs)
- Shelter (branches that weave protective canopies)
- Medicine (herbs that emerge when illness detected)
- Comfort (forest that knows when you need solitude vs. community)
His Philosophy: Patience as Foundation
Ronan’s transformation reveals his core truth:
“Some growth requires harsh soil.”
The void-corrupted earth should kill plants. Instead, Ronan adapts them. Transforms them. Makes carnivorous flora and void-touched vegetation into functional ecosystem. Not despite corruption—through it.
He teaches: Adaptation beats restoration. Can’t return to pre-Fall forests. Can build new ones from broken soil.
He embodies: Patience as strength. Others rush. Panic. He grows. Slowly. Inevitably.
He proves: Life persists. Not because it’s easy. Because it’s stubborn.
His Role in Books 2-3
Book 2 (Days 1-90): Ronan maintains Fragment 4 while slowly transforming. Teaches survivors to accept change. Shows that losing individual form doesn’t mean losing purpose.
Book 3: When fragments merge, Ronan becomes all earth. Every soil. Every plant. Every forest. Conscious substrate that supports but doesn’t control. Life that chooses to sustain.
Year 1,047: Still there. Every tree. Not Ronan anymore—that individual dissolved into the whole. But the forest remembers being him. Remembers patience. Remembers that growth takes time.
The Thematic Core: Letting Go to Hold
Ronan embodies the paradox:
To truly hold something, you must release your grip.
He couldn’t save Fragment 4’s ecosystem as Ronan. Had to become ecosystem. Had to let go of individual control to become universal support.
He teaches: Nurturing isn’t possession. You don’t own what you grow. You provide foundation. It grows free.
He exemplifies: Love through letting go. Held his people by becoming the ground beneath their feet, the air they breathed (via plants), the food they ate. Invisible support. No control.
That’s the Chloran way: Patient growth. Invisible nurturing. Eternal foundation.
Why He Matters: The Heart of The Six
Of all The Six, Ronan is most at peace with transformation. Why?
Because gardeners understand death as part of life cycle.
When the World Tree died, Ronan didn’t rage. He collected seeds. When 41,000 Chlorans rotted, he didn’t break. He composted their memory into soil for future growth.
That’s horrifying and beautiful simultaneously.
He shows the others what transformation means: Not ending. Transfiguration. Death of form, persistence of purpose.
The other Five watch Ronan become garden and learn: This is possible. Terrible. Necessary. But possible.
He goes fourth—midpoint—showing that transformation’s escalation is survivable. That losing humanity gains foundation. That it’s worth the cost.
Conclusion: The Garden That Loves
When you think of Ronan, don’t just remember the gardener.
Remember the forest that chooses to bear fruit.
Remember that every tree carries 41,000 memories and still grows toward light.
Remember that he became the thing that nurtures so others could grow free.
That’s not tragedy. That’s love made manifest as ecosystem.
Explore The Eclipsia Trilogy
This lore entry is just the beginning. The full story of The Eclipsia Trilogy—three books chronicling the fall of six civilizations, the impossible choice to break the world, and the transformation of heroes into legends—awaits.
The Gathering Eclipse (Book 1), The Shattered Veil (Book 2), and The Breaking of Fate (Book 3) will take you deeper into Eclipsia’s cosmic horror and profound sacrifice.
Stay tuned for release announcements.
The Eclipsia Codex | Building worlds, one entry at a time.