The Watchers of the Wastes are an ancient and secret order which has existed in the Circle since the time of the Aelves.  With the absence of the Dolotai and the Aelves influnece declining in the world, it was decided that new champions would need to be found among the lesser races guard against the increasing powerful forces of Chaos that had been unleashed in the world and protect the natural order of the Circle.  

While no exact numbers are known, it is rumored that the Watchers are led by a small number of druids (referred to as The Gatekeepers).  The Gatekeepers act as spiritual and temporal leaders of the Watchers.  Far more numerous among the Watchers are its rangers (known as The Wardens), who serve as guides, scouts, and protectors.  The Watchers are strongest among the Sevillan, Rhundalese, and Ugarite outposts that border the Wastes.  Beyond the Wastes, the Watchers are few and widespread but across all of the Circle they work to combat the lingering influence of the Chaos Gods and those who pay them homage.  They seek out Chaos enemies and unnatural threats wherever these appear, working alone or in small groups, and have little contact with each other.  In many ways, the Watchers are more of a tradition than an actual organization.  Only when a great threat manifests itself do Watchers attempt to form alliances with other members of their sect, pooling their resources to drive back the incursion.  Thw Watchers are known to each other by the runic symbol of an eye, either tattooed on an inner forearm or carried on a signet ring.

The Watchers are drawn from many races, but in particular tend to be from the races bordering the Wastes, including Sevillans, Rhundalese, and Ugarites.  The Watchers hold themselves outside the petty political squabbles of the Circles nations, focusing instead on the far greater threat represented by the Chaos Gods and their aberrations.  

The Watchers seek to defend nature against the unnatural.  They particularly abhor aberrations (such as those Horrors infected by the Chaos magics of the Cancer), which represent nature turned against itself.  The next greatest threat comes from Chaotic outsiders and Chaos cultists, whose teaching run against the natural order of the Circle.  The Watchers also battle undead and those similar abominations of nature that are abundant in the Wastes.  The Watchers are ever vigilant and always searching for signs of increasing power among the Chaos Gods and their cultists, the Illithids, aboleths, and other horrors rising from the infection of the Cancer.