Fellowship of Woodsrunners
The Fellowship of Woodsrunners is open to anyone with an interest in camping, bushcrafting, or wilderness survival who wants to learn, practice, and improve their skills while experiencing them in a medieval manner.
The Fellowship exists to encourage and develop the skills needed for outdoor living and survival, including camping, campfire cooking, wilderness skills, and period bushcrafting.
What Does “Period” Mean?
Eastwind is a historically inspired organization with some fantasy elements. Because of that, we use the term “period” a little differently than a strictly historical organization might.
For the Fellowship, period refers to the skills, tools, and equipment that could plausibly have been available to someone living during the Middle Ages or within a medieval-fantasy setting.
That can include learning how people might have:
- Built and maintained a camp
- Cooked over a fire
- Worked with natural resources
- Made and used traditional tools
- Practiced wilderness and survival skills
- Traveled and lived outdoors
- Adapted to the environment around them
Modern camping equipment—such as hiking boots, nylon, plastics, modern tents, and similar gear—is not considered period equipment.
But that doesn't mean you need to own a complete medieval camping kit before you can participate.
Start Where You Are
We recognize that building a period impression takes time, research, and money.
Not everyone starts at the same place, and not everyone has the same resources available to them.
Modern equipment is allowed during a member's early stages. As you progress, however, members are encouraged to transition toward more period-appropriate equipment.
When modern equipment is necessary, members should make an effort to disguise or conceal it as much as reasonably possible so that it doesn't detract from the experience.
The goal isn't to create a barrier that keeps people from participating.
The goal is to give people a path to grow.
You might start your first weekend with modern camping equipment. You might spend the next year learning skills, researching equipment, and gradually replacing modern items with period-appropriate alternatives.
Everyone's journey will look different.
Learn. Practice. Progress.
The Fellowship of Woodsrunners is about more than simply camping in historical clothing.
It is about learning to be capable outdoors.
You will have opportunities to practice skills, learn from experienced members, try things for yourself, and discover what works—and what doesn't.
You don't need to know how to start a fire with primitive methods.
You don't need to know how to cook an entire meal over a campfire.
You don't need a historically accurate kit.
You don't even need to know where to begin.
That's what the Fellowship is for.
Come learn with us, practice your skills, and gradually work your way toward experiencing outdoor living as someone in a medieval or medieval-fantasy world might have.
There is no expectation that everyone will reach the same point at the same time.
We are each at a different place on the path. The important thing is that we keep moving forward.
