The families of the valley: smiths, hunters, healers, elders. They distrust magic even when it saves them, and they want the north to stay a forest.
People of Thornhaven
Ordinary people in an ordinary valley, which is the point. The epic does not happen to heroes in a vacuum. It happens to a bronze-smith named Kael, a boy with a wooden sword, a woman grinding grain, and elders who would rather not believe.