Red Hooded Cloak

The Red Hooded Cloak is a garment traditionally associated with the Lowland Elf culture. But thanks to a hand-me-down cloak worn by Frieda Jacobs during the War of Western Aggression, the garment enjoyed widespread popularity during the 260s.

Manufacturing

Though a red hooded cloak can technically be created with any combination of needle, scissors, fabric, and thread, a true Red Hooded Cloak is constructed without the use of metallic implements. The ancient Lowland Elves preferred needles made of bone and shears crafted from obsidian, but modern-day elven tailors aren’t nearly as picky. As long as there is no metal to be found in their tools, they’re good to go.

In Eden, prior to their expulsion during the Emerald Rebellion, the Lowland Elves of Chelmsdale were fond of submerging their Cloaks in the River Chelmer as a finishing touch. As a result, Cloaks made during that period and in that place render their wearers impervious to most physical attacks—just like Chelmsdale’s legendary Armor of Apathy.

The cloak worn by Frieda Jacobs was one of those manufactured in Chelmsdale.

History

The ancient Lowland Elves who established the Church of the Sky took their pact with the Sky Father quite seriously. And so, some worshippers, believing that the first and fifth agreements of the pact encouraged modesty above all else, began to wear their traveling cloaks whenever they were in public—and always with the hoods up. Over time, a custom developed that one only lowered one’s hood amongst friends or in one’s home.

This custom waxed and waned over the centuries. By the time the elves arrived in Eden at the start of the Second Age, only a small fraction of the Lowlanders still wore their hoods up at all times. And yet, upon arriving in Eden and seeing how refugees of other species reacted to elven beauty, the practice experienced a resurgence. For the rest of the Second Age, especially after the Expulsion of 144, it was rare to see a Lowlander out and about without their hoods pulled up.

During the Red Riding Hood Craze of the 260s, whilst the Lowlanders kept their hoods up, the rest of the world kept them down—treating their cloaks’ hoods as vestigial parts of the garment. Late in the craze, some manufacturers didn’t even bother to sew a hood on at all. Rightly or wrongly, they saw it as a “waste of fabric.”