Elvenkind

People of Days Gone By

  Storybooks and nursery rhymes call back to a time when Elves were timeless, ageless, and aetherial. It is said that they once walked with such grace that not a blade of grass would bend under their step, nor could you feel the breeze in their wake as they rushed past. Old elven lore holds that the first elf was born from a dewdrop disturbed by the Divine Wind, the force that caused the creation of all immortal life. The first elf knew himself to be Fethriel, and those that followed seemingly knew their own names as well, becoming the foundation for all elves to follow. The place of their birth was soon named for the wind that caused their birth, Sel Ath Teladar, and within it Ilian Theylas, the first city on Thelekar. This glorious time for elvenkind became known as Elvhenan, and its majesty is something that even our greatest imaginations could not conjure into being.   Eventually, the other immortals that were given life by the Divine Wind would create beings of their own, beginning with humankind. According to elven myth, this was the beginning of the end for Elvhenan, as an elf many generations removed from the Fethriel began to age. His hair became gray, his skin worn and wrinkled, his body weaker and his back hunched. For the first time since their inception, elves were forced to reckon with time, and understand what it meant to die. He was not alone- one by one, elves began to grow old and die, and any elves born after this point would eventually see their own fates conquered by time as well. This has become known as the Diminishing, as the immortality of elves was ripped away from them. A thousand thousand years of culture and beauty, ended by the cold and undefeatable force of time.   All but the first elves would diminish, which first led to respect, then to reverence, then to worship. They were the most powerful and knowledgeable of their people, and they were not abandoned by the Divine Wind like the rest, so it was only natural that something about them was special. They became the Elvhenar, the Eldest Siblings, the elven gods, worshiped above all else. Some factions that held true to the worship of spirits and fae were driven out of Ilian Theylas, to seek safety in far off forests or the Wyldwood itself. Elven society became reclusive and xenophobic, most blaming the arrival of humans and other races as the cause of their downfall.   Eventually, even the Elvhenar became fractured and distrusting. In the midst of the Sundering, Fethriel was branded a traitor to Elvenkind by the rest of the Elvhenar and cast out of Seth Al Teladar, being stricken with the name of Abelas, or Sorrow in old elvhen. The reason for this has not been made clear, but those who worshiped his name or questioned his banishment were themselves banished, being scattered across the planet with little reasoning as to why. These groups would eventually form their own societies free of the Elvhenar such as the Ledian Empire and the Free City of Remnant, and are the source of most elves living in non-elven kingdoms.   Following Fetheriel’s banishment, Sel Ath Teladar was hidden from the kingdom of Ilian Theylas, its mountain range becoming shrouded in thick fog. The Elvhenar would only speak to their followers through magic, citing a number of traitors that sought to kill their elvish gods. The rest of elvenkind spread out through the land, diminishing even further than before. Where they were once a society of high arcana and spellcraft who could grow a fruit orchard with a wave of their hand, they were now forced to till the earth like mortals, establishing roads between their cities to replace free teleportation. The grand achievements of the elves became the subject of paintings and stories, rather than culture and society. From these losses, Elvhenan has never recovered.  

People of Days to Come

Though they still worship the Elvhenar and follow their guidance, the elves that remained split into a number of kingdoms and have begun to develop separately from one another. Those who remained close to Seth Al Teladar have attempted to stay close to their roots as a society of magic, studying the arcane in hopes of embodying what made the Elvhenar worthy of worship. A society of magi and enchanters, dedicated to unraveling the secrets of the Weave and defeating the Diminishing once and for all. They have become known as the Lath Viran, or “the path to a place you once knew”, and are known as Virithian in the common tongue. You’d be lucky to meet one in person, as even the other elven kingdoms rarely see their cousins hiding in the mountains.     The rest of the elves have retained little of their lost arcane sophistication. The kingdoms of Dirthara, Nuvenan, and Ghilas Hanin instead turned to the majesty of the woodlands they now occupied, forming societies in the branches of great trees and in the shade of a number of Syster Trees that had grown here during the Sundering. Staves were traded for bows, grimoires for arrows, and familiars with animal companions. Their human neighbors called them wood elves, but they knew themselves to be Lath Assan, or “the path to a place you must discover”, Illaran in the common tongue.  

Slender and Graceful

  Despite the Diminishing, the appearance of elves has not changed. With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, generally ranging from 4 to 5 feet tall. They are more slender than humans, weighing around 100 to 145 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, with males are only marginally heavier than females. Elves’ coloration encompasses the normal human range and also includes skin in shades of copper, bronze, and almost bluish-white, hair of green or blue, and eyes like pools of liquid gold or silver; their skin produces no hair other than that on the top of their heads. They favor elegant clothing in bright colors, and they enjoy simple yet lovely jewelry.