Aquessa Alflar, Ocean Elves

I remember when the storm struck and the sea devils attacked us, I remember when we thought all hope was lost and then they came through the darkness and the fog. Riding dolphins and whales they tore at the sea devils and faught to protect us! They were elves, tall and strong of the Alflar line, many adorned their half naked bodies in trophies of shark teeth and colorful tattoos. Their skin had a yellow green hue and their hair was such marvelous shades of blues and greens. They asked for nothing for their aid and to this day I always put their traders first to repay a life debt I owe them for a true sea dwarf always honours his debts   The waters call to a wandering soul   We are children of the Second Branching, we are the sons and daughters of the Te'ra Alflar who went beyond the great forest to the islands of the sea for our hearts were not bound to nature of the land and forest but to the rolling waves and laughing wind! Upon the open seas and the many islands we would embrace ship building, trade and exploration of the mysteries of the sea. Like the Borda Elsa we were masters of trade and proud of our navy and its fighting prowess. When the Dark Walker war started we stood with the Nytalf Elsa and for the formation of a centralized empire. We proudly held the coasts and rivers during the war, we slew sea monsters, twisted creatures and the wretched Sea Devils who allied with the goblins were defeated and scattered and they swore eternal revenge on us. We explored our world in the following ages always standing by the empire when they called to us for aid. Never did the Nytalf Elsa lack for a better explorers, merchants or marines in the golden age.   We mastered magics and built great domed cities below the waves and with lost arcane and divine magic we gave ourselves gills and became true children of the land and Sea, Wealth and prestige seemed endless and the Nytalf Elsa Lords praised us and our understanding of the waters. We were the envy of our cousins and our works marvels of magic and engineering our wing ships swift and nimble as an ocean breeze.   Dark Waters   We were loyal Durring the elf-dwarf war, we had voted against it but we respected the democratic nature of the empire, we had shaken our heads in disapproval when the Te'ra Alflar and Borda Elsa had left the empire but we presumed they would return. Often we wish we had listened to them, the elf-dwarf war was ugly and harsh and we lost much of our will to continue spilling the blood of a people we once called our friends. In the wars aftermath we only wanted peace and to embrace the seas but the Tarnishing would see our desire for peace become a fever dream. The Swart Alflar would fall upon our island homes with the aid of sea monsters and our ages old foes. For our credit we battled them well and gave no ground without courage but they and their allies overwhelmed us and forced us to retreat to the far ocean where the domed cities we had built as experiments in living underwater would become our salvation.   As the wars continued we found that our elder foes would not relent and we became locked into a defensive war against the monsters of the sea unable to come to the Empire or lend in its time of need. When at last we had won a hard victory we were beset by the horrors born from the fiend mirrors and pelagic horrors who resented our audacity to survive. We so proud so adventurous were prisoners in our city struggling against an endless tide of evil.   When the mirrors were shattered we thought we were at last free and could return to the world but the curse of the thousand year winter was upon the world and we were forced to become isolationists. When the long winter finally ended we found that we had been forced to become a people who had retreated from the world and learned to expect enemies everywhere. The spirit of the past that drove us as traders and explorers became a dream of a world we once knew. We still knew how to build the ships, we still had adventure in our hearts but we now struggled to embrace it as we once did. Ours is a story of a people who tried to embrace two worlds only to be forced to embrace one, a people who long for adventure but are trapped by the paranoia instilled in us by ages of war and the ever present threats of our implacable foes in the deep sea.   Once more we may take to the islands, once more we may build ships and sing songs of our mastery of the waves and I dearly hope we do for I fear that if we stay too long and become too much of the sea we will have traded our air breathing away forever for our gills and the cold dark embrace of the depths.