The Origins and History of the Elvo-Felintark Empire

a very lost elvo-felintark trading party

Before the Tinkers
The earliest recorded histories of the felintarks suggest they lived as bands of nomad several thousand years ago. The structure of their societies bear a striking resemblance to the modern human barbarians of the lower San-Kesh-Brovnajia region. Eventually, the bands settled at the oases which sparsely populate the San-Kesh, leading to the domestication of palms, reeds, and various desert animals for livestock. The settlements grew into a number (scholars speculate anywhere from 6 to 20 such settlements) of stable agrarian city-states. Obviously, as the population of each grew, the availability of resources to support that population grew more and more scarce and began to break out between the city-states.

The establishment of the Felintark Empire is credited to Lord Ralah, the warlord who first united the city-states. Around 4,000 years ago, he and his band of panther-riding warriors overtook state after state, and the brutal takeover led to the suppression of inter-region tensions. Ralah established his seat of government, redrew the boundaries of the city-states in what he believed were more equitable ways, and sent his seven most loyal and trustworthy warriors to rule over the newly created states. Much of Ralah's reign, and the reigns of his next four successors, was spent building up the infrastructure necessary to support the rule of such a large area, and many of the ancient roads, aquaducts, and facilities remain intact today.

Within a thousand years, the Felintark Empire had solidified into a functioning society, despite the great spans of distance it reached across. Each city was connected to all others through a highly reliable, well-maintained network of roads and thoroughfares. The empire had also become extremely insular and highly stratified. The maintenance of such a huge, sprawling empire required an immense amount of record-keeping and procedural checkpoints, and the felintarks had developed an intricate bureaucratic system to manage it. The class system supporting this became largely economically based as a result of this - the education system that trained the clerics who kept the empire functioning charge ever-increasing prices for the preparations and exams needed to obtain more prestigious positions.

The Elvo-Felintark Golden Age
Scholars speculate that silver elves first entered the San-Kesh desert around 2,000 years ago. Not much is known about their migration, but some documents from the period and revealing tinker folktales indicate that a conflict with the dwarves forced the elves out of the Klevarcht mountains. Legend holds that the leader of the tinkers, Mosol Telekson, knowing that the felintarks were a suspicious and insular, but curious people, devised a plan to end their period of Wandering through the Dark Lands. Mosol recruited his five best technicians, and together they devised the most astoundingly lifelike mechanical bird ever created. He then asked the jewelers of his party to embellish and adorn the bird so that it was dazzlingly beautiful.

Bird in hand (as it were), the Mosol left his fellows behind and journeyed to the edge of the empire. The elf initially was not permitted entrance, but Mosol showed the gaurd the bird, explaining that it was a gift for the emperor, and that he had to deliver it himself since no one else knew how it worked or could repair it should it break. When the gaurd balked (since letting in a very alien-looking stranger was most definitely against protocol), Mosol quickly built a tiny, clockwork beetle out of metal scraps that were laying around the gaurd's office. Charmed, the gaurd let Mosol through. Mosol repeated this over and over again, until rumors of a gray-skinned mechanical genius who created marvels out of trash spread throughout the empire - even to the emporer himself. By the time Mosol reached the palace and gained audience with the king, he did not even have to ask permission for his people to enter the empire. The felintark emperor, upon seeing the jewelled bird, exclaimed that anyone who could create such amazing things would be welcome in his lands forever.

Since the agreement between the emperor and the elf, the silver elves and felintarks have lived together peacefully. The entrance of the silver elves also spurred the great Golden Age of the empire - a material, political and intellectual flourishing of culture in the region. Entrance into the empire remained difficult for outsiders, but the tinkers pushed the felintarks to establish outside trade with other nations. The tinkers also suggested establishing political ties with other large nations, and felintark delegates can be found in most foreign bodies, including Elothnin (see delegate at left). While the empire is still ruled by felintarks, silver elves can be found at virtually every level of society.

Modern Life in the Empire
Today, the Elvo-Felintark Empire is ruled by Alphaeston III (see right), who has continued the political custom of sending felintark diplomats to various countries. While few have gained entry to the Empire itself, we now know much more about the daily lives of the silver elves and felintarks through contact with diplomats and trading parties.

It seems that though the elves and felintarks have lived together for the last two thousand years, each has retained their own customs. Felintarks, who consider modesty a point of honor, dress in full length robes with hoods (those in the upper echelons of felintark society also wear a veil which obscures all but their eyes as well). Those who have interacted with them describe felintarks as polite, warm, and generally affectionate, and as concerned with showing the proper respect to others as they with protecting their own. Honor and prestige among felintarks is generally determined by one's education, with the more time-consuming and esoteric disciplines being associated with highly class levels. Subsequently, the traders and explorers who have given the most insight into felintark ways of life are considered quite common within the empire.

The silver elves, in contrast, have one of the most egalitarian societies known to Elothninian scholars. Tinkers generally explain that there are a number of known disciplines that the tinkers' magic manifests through, and that one's class (if it can even be called that) is determined by their reputation of proficiency in a given discipline. They emphasize that no discipline is valued above any other. It should be noted that some of the disciplines show gender disparities, and that females elves are much more likely to become 'shapers' (those who discover and manipulate existing patterns - such as finding trade routes, developing military strategies, or even breeding animals) while male elves tend to become 'makers' (those who take raw materials and create new things from them, such as the clockwork birds typically used to carry messages from one part of the empire to another). Felintarks, in contrast, show very little gender imbalance at any societal rung since the education system is open to both men and women.