The Origin of the Athenorkos Elves

an artist's conception of the mythical Athenorkos

The red elves of the Fethil believe that their existence is proof of the magickal realm meddling in the mundayne realm's affairs. Red elves explain that the magickal realm is far older than the mundayne one, and that the deities and spirits that reside in it, bored of on another, grew increasingly curious about the mundayne realm - a place without magick. As their interest increased, the planes drifted towards each other, eventually colliding in such a way that granted magickal beings limited access to the mundayne.

They came through the plane and saw the wonders of the mundayne realm - solid ground, the firm resistance of stones, the organic patterns of nature - and marveled at it. Wishing to know more, the deities created three elves to explore the mundayne plane and report back to their creators all they saw and learned. They bestowed upon each elf powerful qualities: to Vinkenti they gave great fierceness and tenacatiy so she could explore the darkest and most dangerous places, to Semadra they gave unending curiosity and reason so she could understand and make sense of the uniquely mundayne patterns of life here, and to Athenorkos they gave the gifts of good luck and cleverness so she would be able to discover things not even the gods could conceive of.

But of course, unchecked, these qualities led the elves astray. Vinkenti went into the great forests, but grew increasingly more insular and suspicious of her sisters. Semadra grew more and more fixated on unravelling the patterns around her, and eventually her single-mindedness caused herto lose sight of her duties. Athenorkos, whose cleverness often led her into troubles, always managed to escape from harm through good fortune, and never forgot to thank the gods for her serendipity.

Though the trickiness of Athenorkos and her descendants earned red elves many enemies, every red elf knows that their cleverness and luck will protect them from harm - even as blue and silver cousins have forgotten how to protect themselves.

The Origin of the Vinkenti Elves

a portrait of Queen Svava as the mythical Vinkenti

The blue elves of the forest believe that the magickal and mundayne planes, while generally quite distinct and separate, are inextricably joined in the Erkenheld. This great forest (which was proven by Dr. Phineas Flumpert to be a major source of magick) unites Magick and Reality in a fundamental and unique way, unseen anywhere else in either plane.

The elves of the forest say that seeing the power and ragility in such an intersection, the Green Woman, a deity from the magickal realm, created three caretakers - named Vinkenti, Athenorkos, and Semadra - who were charged with protecting and cultivating the Erkenheld. The three female elves were singular in all the multiple universes - the only beings that were at once mundayne and magickal. In this sense, they were extensions of the surreal forest around them.

At first, the three elves were overcome with wonder and dutifully protected the forest. Vinkenti cared for the plants, Athenorkos helped the animals grow strong of body and spirit, and Semadra catalogued the stones and soil, measuring their various properties.

But the curiosity of the elves got the better of them. Vinkenti felt the temptation to change the plants, but resisted. Semadra, on the other hand, used her magickal gifts to shape the very stones around him - accidentally creating a magickal gate and locking herself out of the forest, leaving her and her descendants to wander the stony mountains and desert without a home. Vinkenti felt pity for her poor sister, and took up the tending of the soil and stones.

Though Vinkenti was once again tempted to overstep her bounds, she resisted. Athernorkos, on the other hand, grew too self-confident and lonely, and began changing the animals into sprites to be her companions. Although vinkenti forwned, thinking her sister to forward, she continued tending the plants and stones. One day, Athenorkos came to Vinkenti and told her to take good care of her sprites. Confused, Vinkenti asked why she should take care of them, and Athenorkos replied that she was bored and still lonely, and wanted to see the rest of the world. Athenorkos left the forest, and Vinkenti was enraged at her sister and vowed never to let her or her descendants return to the Erkenheld.

Thus, Vinkenti was left alone, abondoned by her sisters, to care for the forest in solitude. The burden proved too great and the Green Woman gave her many children to share the duties. The Green Woman granted them long, happy lives as a reward for caring for the animals and sprites and plants and soil, and when she saw her forest was finally safe, retreated into its heart - a place so mystical and so far that not even the blue elves could go. But the blue elves believe that their diligence and firece protection of the forest will be rewarded, and when the two planes finally separate at the end of time, the blue elves will be given a fully magickal existence.

A Short History of the Red Elves

The history of the red elves, as it is known to Elothninian scholars, is a sad one. As far as can be discerned from the various ruins scattered around the northeastern edge of the land, the red elves once lived in the basin of the Great Land Sea. Archaeologists speculate from the placement of the stone structures that the ruins are the remnants of the major town centers - normally equidistant between the Klevarcht Mountains, where the stones were cut from, and the Great Land Sea. Unearthed farming implements and fossilized furrows found in Helletiern suggest that the red elves domesticated wild grains while occupying the area in addition to fishing.

The First Displacement
Otellian's colonization of Helletiern forced the red elves from their stone homes and into the Fethil. Surprisingly little is known about the methods Otellian used to achieve this, but many historians argue that it must have been quite bloody for the elves to move out of the region en masse. Additionally, many traditional red elf songs dated to the period describe bloody battles and mournful losses.

The red elves adapted well to the Fethil, having already developed agriculture, and reformed into an agrarian society. As the Klevarcht Mountains in this region do not typically house dwarves, the red elves relied primarily on the materials at hand to construct buildings. Prabil Worthis described one elvish compound as consisting of many furrowed fields with small groups of thatched houses between them.

The society of red elves altered to adapt to these new environments and new demands. The previously open elves became more insular - even xenophobic. Though highly suspicious of outsiders, they retained their social magicks and often used them in manipulative ways, leading the incoming pioneers of Worthis' era to nickname them Charmers: beings to be wary of since they were known to seduce and trick the settlers for little or no reason.

Additionally, red elf culture prior to Otellian appears to have been loosely based around division of labor, and that each class tended to interact only with its own members unless the entire town was together. After the First Displacement, however, red elf society was drastically reordered, since all elves worked with the wheat and protecting their communal farms. As the old classes fell away, the red elves became highly egalitarian. Elvish marriage customs and family classification evolved as well, and instead of grouping by class, the red elves grouped by proximity.

Surnames, which had previously been related to occupation, were largely dropped except for political marriages. In these cases, usually cross-area matches, but sometimes also cross-race matches, the surname used is the local name for the area. Generally, marriage during the First Displacement period was considered binding, and the only acceptable state that sex could occur within. Therefore, considering the distances between elvish farming compounds, and the fact that participants in such cross-area marriages were still expected to work in their home compounds, the red elves became highly accepting of polygamy.

As more and more human settlers arrived, the red elves eventually began to live peacefully with the Elothninians. It should be noted that while there seems to be no taboo against humans marrying elves on the human side of things, the red elves have discouraged this on several notable occasions.

Second Displacement
The beginning of the Second Displacement roughly coincides with the first skirmishes that evolved into the Border Wars. The onset of the fully militaristic expansion into the Fethil, resulted in a brutal disruption of the agrarian culture the red elves had developed. Prior to the official beginning of the war, many of the elvish arming compounds had fled - either together, into the mountains, or had disbanded and started wandering the Fethil in search of a new settlement or as minstrels. Some compounds refused to move, and were hit the hardest by the first waves of the Border Wars. The red elves were generally armed with inferior weapons, but fought with more cohesive action than the Imperial Army. Sadly, they were also outnumbered in almost every instance, and were sometimes brutally massacred as a result. A particular poignant example of this, one that has in recent years become a rallying cry of the red elves of the Rebel Forces, was the battle at the Alamodour compound.

After the compounds had been virtually destroyed, the more militant elves who had not fled into the Erkenheld or the mountains formed guerrilla bands, and taunted and tortured the badly organized Imperial Army throughout its supply lines. Eventually, these bands joined with centaurs and gnomes to form the Rebel Forces as we now know it. Today, the red elves are the most populous and committed fighters making up the rebels, and it is generally recognized that they have been wronged the most by the expansion of Elothnin.

However, there are tensions within the red elf community regarding their place in the Border Wars. Two perspectives dominate this debate, each of which reflects a different response to the brutality of the Second Displacement: those that fled to the mountains or scattered throughout the Fethil believe that the elves should focus on rebuilding their community, while those that stayed and fought believe that their community can only be truly rebuilt on its own land. It should be noted that these tendencies are not clearly divided, and many feisty youths from the mountain complexes join the army, and many similarly feisty youths leave the army to settle and procreate within the mountain valleys.

The complexes of the mountain valleys are generally comprised of a few fields and a large multistory (usually overgrown) housing complex where all in the valley live together. Other red elves either live in the traveling carts of entertainers, tiny elvish settlements in the North, or with the Rebel Forces. The living conditions of the red elves have once again caused major cultural shifts regarding marriage. Red elves today generally take the need to reproduce as a cultural issue, and place a high priority on it. Given this pressure and the growing tendency for young elves to be constantly traveling, the once stringent morays against premarital sex have relaxed significantly. Additionally, the lack of stable relationships of any kind have made single parenting more acceptable. Marriage, now, is a term used by red elves to describe others with whom they share an additional strong emotional attachment to - often one that crosses great distances. The red elves continue to be polygamous in this sense, and are in fact even more fluid. The process of declaring and dissolving marriages has become looser and less rigid. All in all, these customs create a system where elves are able to move about freely while they attempt to establish yet another homeland, but are still able to reproduce and gain emotional support from others in a culturally acceptable way.

Notable Red Elves
Jellihondor
Rethnaki
Elcrona

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.

Elvish dueling

the great duel between Svava and Jellihondor

Though dueling occurs in most sentient species, elvish dueling refers to a traditional form of conflict management governed by a very specific (and sometimes contradictory) set of ancient rules. Elvish dueling has been documented within each of the elvish breeds, and has also been used to manage tensions between them as well. On very rare occasions, elves will duel with other beings, both magical and not. Unlike the duels of humans, which are often short, brutal, and to the death, elvish duels virtually never result in death and often last for an extended period of time due to the many procedural points that must be addressed before, during, and after the duel takes place.

Step 1: The Challenge
Elvish duels are the mechanism through which most questions of honor or cultural transgressions are solved. The duels have a highly formalized structure, and each step of the process is considered binding. In order to challenge another to a duel, an elf must approach their opponent in a public space with at least five witnesses present. They must then declare the point of contention and explicitly propose the binding resolutions of the possible outcomes. If the opponent declines the duel, an elf cannot challenge them on this point again and must find another way of resolving the conflict. If the opponent accepts the challenge (which is most often the case) the challenged elf accepts the terms of resolution and chooses the kind of magic to be used during the duel

Step 2: Preparations
Because of the almost ritualistic nature of elvish duels, at least three days of preparation are needed before it can commence. To be considered valid and bindings, a duel must occur in a proper arena, in front of at least ten witnesses (one of whom cannot be an elf), and must be judged by three individuals who are considered to have extraordinary magical skill or knowledge. Each opponent selects one judge, and the third is typically a volunteer not affiliated with either side in order to ensure impartiality.

Step 3: The Duel
Once the arena has been established, judges have been found, and witnesses have agreed to attend, the duel can proceed. It should be noted that generally, finding the requisite number of witnesses is not a difficult task as duels are regarded as a sort of spectator sport among the elves. Particularly impressive duels, such as Svava's challenge for the throne, can be attended by hundreds, sometimes thousands, of elves. Most duels are also accompanied by traditional drums, as well.

After a long series of formal introductions (which include, but are not limited to, the opponents introducing themselves to each other, the judges introducing themselves to each other, the judges getting introduced to the opponents, etc.), the original point of contention and terms of resolution, and the type of magic to be used are reiterated. Generally, one of the witnesses is recruited to act as a master of ceremonies, but this is not always the case.

The duel then begins. A duel consists of four rounds, and during each round, one elf uses offensive magic and the other uses defensive magic. The rounds alternate such that each elf is offensive twice and defensive twice, and never uses the same type of magic consecutively. Typically, the original challenger is allowed to choose which position they will take (offensive or defensive), thus establishing the pattern for the duel. The object of each round is to use the most impressively difficult, but still appropriate, form of magic of the round. Skill is primarily determined through the strength and effectiveness of the magic used, but most judges also take the innovative use of magic, the quickness of a duelist's reflexes, and (to some degree) the showmanship involved into account as well. Those who have witnessed elvish duels say that they are breathtaking displays of magic.

Step 4: The Decision
After the completion of the duel, the judges retire to come to a decision. The decision must be unanimous, so, this process sometimes takes a considerable amount of time. Whatever decision the judges reach is considered permanent and binding, and thus cannot be appealed. Once the decision is reached, the judges return to the arena (where the duelists have been waiting in the interim ) and the terms of resolution are immediately enacted.

The finality of these decisions underscores the seriousness of duels in elvish culture. a case in point is the duel of Prabil Worthis, one of the few non-magical beings ever to participate in an elvish duel as anything more than an observer. Worthis was challenged to a duel by a particularly xenophobic elf named Rustletan, who challenged Worthis' right to marry an elf. Worthis (against the wishes of virtually everyone involved) accepted the duel, and as was his right as the challenged party, requested the duel take place as a drinking contest. Worthis won, and in the process, was awarded the northern Fethil. Rustletan and his fellow stuck by their word despite the strange circumstances, and have never uttered a bad word against Worthis since.