Elves - Tuathe

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History:

Tuathé or Elves ruled the western continent for tens of thousands of years in great curated forests that surrounded vast urban settlements set at the base of world trees. These trees were embued with magical energy known as the wyrd, which manipulated and enchanted the wildlife of the region keeping their communities safe. However when human tribes from the east migrated into their lands they despoiled and harvested the forest for lumber, game, and cleared for farming. Elven communities and the human tribes lived in a great tension, however humanity's stone weapons were ultimately no match for the elven crafts and combat prowess. Despite this humans continued to expand and spread, their great numbers and hordes of migrating tribes eventually making contact with dwarven citadels who happily exchanged iron and mithril weapons for gold, food, and lumber. This marked the downfall of elven civilization. With the hordes continually expanding and attacking the vast forests were cut down, the world trees were despoiled and uprooted and the wyrd that was controlled by this system of powerful trees went wild. Elven kind likely would be extinct if not for the corruption due to the multitude destructions of the world trees, humans and animals combined together forming horrific beast-men abominations, mothers gave birth to horrid abominations, and wars of extermination took the focus of human tribes who now fought their own twisted kin for control of the newly conquered west.

Elves are now a diasporic and near extinct people, estimates across the known continents are that about 100,000 elves are currently alive. A single world tree remains in Avis with a saplings and seeds in their possession. In the centuries after the Age of Conquest and of the Corruption, the nations and empires of Elf-kind have collapsed and scattered, the majority of elves now live amongst or under human occupation as wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds in search of community amongst their own. However, such is rare, some enclaves of Elven towns still exist outside Avis in the forests or alpine wood of mountainous regions of human kingdoms out of sight or reach. The last place to openly be in control of elven kind is within the Principality of Avis, and while ruled by their High-Princess Edlyn, and even here the majority of her subjects are humans. The elven people face challenging times ahead, with their extinction all but accepted amongst their people who travel from town to town working odd-jobs, most commonly as adventurers, rather than attempting to rebuild their race. It seems that it is only a matter of time before their people no longer walk the land, and their eternal knowledge is lost forever.

Description & Biology:

Slender and androgynous humanoids with ears ranging from 8in (20cm) to 16in (40cm). Their features are angular and sharp with small turned up noses and delicate features. They are universally beautiful with symmetrical facial features, lack of blemishes or sickness lead to clear skin and healthy growth. Nearly all societies of elves promote long hair that is braided or well cared for, as the length of hair displays the age of eternally lived elves. Elves can reproduce with humans, dwarves, and humanoid beast-men. The gestation of their young takes 12 months and weakens both father elf and mother elf permanently. Half-elves take 10 months to gestate and if from a female elf the offspring become half-elves or Fir Dannen, an infertile race of long lived (two to three centuries) humanoids with smaller ears. The remainder of their appearance is similar to that of an elf, with differences in height being due to the father. By contrast, a male elf cannot reproduce with a female of another race. Reproduction between elves requires a magic ritual to be conducted where both mother and father sacrifice a piece of their own eternal vitality to produce new life. Do to this, most elves avoid the practice of reproduction either completely or until they are very old. The maximum number of offspring an elf couple can have with one another is four before they would die in the process of bringing new life into the world.
  Male elves appear similar to female elves with long hair, slender bodies, and soft features. With the most obvious distinction between the sexes being the males' flat chest and the female elf's often having large breasts and genitals.

Behavior & Notable Oddities:

  Often considered to be vain and arrogant, this is often due to an elf's longevity and wisdom and through sheer time the perfection of their craft. Elves do have a certain chip on their shoulder and are at least somewhat narcissistic. Despite their current state in the world; elves usually believe themselves to be superior due to their natural and uncorrupting innate magical abilities, their immortal lifespans, and their perceived beauty amongst all races both physically as well as culturally. Despite this their reality has led to sweeping nihilism throughout their race with many believing the Elven peoples will not exist in the world in less than a thousand years. They find reproducing with those of significant difference in age, amongst their own race, to be abhorrent and degenerate and the deminishing from the act leads to extremely low birth rates.

The eldest of elves, surpassing a millennium of life often sleep for years at a time. The typical elf under 1,000 years of age only requires four hours of sleep a day. Most older elves are extremely long term thinkers and put off activities or personal goal for decades or centuries with little worry. Leading to a distancing from shorter lived races and as perceived by them, a coldness to other people. Most elves alive are under three hundred years old, and most have had friendships with humans or other peoples lost to the passage of time.

 

Religion

Elven religion does not have an afterlife. They believe that the mundane world is all there is for them, given their infinitely long lives. This makes the typical elf risk adverse, not wishing to endanger themselves with heroics or violence. The elven culture has certain ritual faith practices, which center around nature and inward perfection without devotion to any one god. Instead offering their prayers to ideals or self-affirmations, though they do recognize and respect natural spirits and beings that exist within and of the material world they do not consider them to be gods.

 

Tensions:

Beast-kin: Reviled and feared, they have been the ancient enemy of elven kind before humanity sailed onto their shores. They are considered savage and more beast than man, which they often are, but this history leads to both often getting off on hostile feet.

Humans: As the cause of the elven destruction due to the human heroes of the Age of Conquest, elves do not like humans, but often have no choice but to go along to get along with them. Being treated as second class citizens or hunted for sport by various human peoples does not help with these relations.

Dwarves: Disliked amongst their people, this distrust is built from a complete lack of diplomatic interaction. Rumors amongst dwarves and elves alike about one another have taken the fancy, leading to wicked rumors amongst both. The Dwarven traditionalism often clashing with Elven creativity.