Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 6422144" data-attributes="member: 4936">Alright, here's my thoughts on Things and Stuff. Apologies for the long silence. Not much time to post the last couple of days.I envision a rift between the High elves and the Wood elves; a cultural divide that defines them from one another. Given the tumultuous history of elves on the island, I think a logical place for such a rift to develop is the catastrophe that nearly ended their civilization.So! Let us postulate the following, and see if it works with everyone's conceptualization of elves in this world; past, present and future.The Elves first came to this world from the Feywild (or whatever it's called here) on the continent of Lunarial, now known as New Lunarial, over two thousand years ago. At the time, depending on who you ask, they had either been exiled or had left by their own will...either way, they gradually lost their immortal nature and gained a greater ability to reproduce, though still by glacially slow pace compared to other natural beings. They were one civilization then, deeply magical and fascinated by the strange world of mortals that they had entered. Slowly, as befit a people whose generations are measured in centuries, a faultline sprung up between elves who were more interested in pursuing magical power over the world, and elves who believed they should adapt to the world on its own terms. This was not a deep cultural division at the time, merely something intellectuals would gleefully debate over for weeks at a time. Most acknowledged that each paradigm had useful things to offer.But when the cataclysm struck, and tore the elven citadels apart, scattering the people and putting them on the brink of extinction, what had been a philosophical difference suddenly became a stark black and white choice. The elves now known as 'high' isolated themselves out of sheer self-preservation, and feverishly studied magical protecions and defenses to guard what was left of their people and lore. Those elves who scattered into the island took up shelter in the forests on the east and stayed in small, mobile groups...their nomadicism eventually faded but their preference for arboreal life never did. They learned to hunt and to stalk, to watch and to hide, and to use the natural world to their own advantage. The two elf 'races' are not enemies by any stretch, but the wood elves still nurse dark suspicions that it was high elf magic that invoked the great cataclysm, and they have not forgotten being turned away from the mythals that warded them in the chaotic aftermath. The high elves, in contrast, tend to see their wood elf kin as simpleminded louts who have turned their back on their traditions and heritage to muck about in matters that ought to be beneath them. In matters of importance they cooperate, but elven pride never letting each other forget the old grudges.Other races came to Lunarial after the destruction, and in their weakened condition the elves were powerless to prevent it. The continent became known as 'New' Lunarial, and the influx of people wound up helping the elves far more than hurting them. The high elves maintain their warded enclaves, within the city and without...special sanctuaries that no one but they are allowed to tread, to shield and maintain the old lore that they believe defines who they are and who they will become. The wood elves live in their suspended villages deep in the heartwoods of the eastern forests of New Lunarial, and while there is no wall or magic barrier shielding them...there is a line. The people living at the forests edge can tell you of it. A line no hunter, or logger, or trapper should ever tresspass over. Sometimes an arrow finds them, along with a terse, vaguely accusing apology for the family. Sometimes they return with muddled eyes and missing memories. And sometimes they just vanish and are not heard from again. The wood elves will barter for rights to the spoils of their domain, but only up to a point. Inside that invisible line, the forests grow wild and untamed, and there is more to fear in them than just the paranoia of the elves.Wood elves often venture beyond the forest to explore, trade, and see the world and its people...but they do not speak of their settlements. Not to name them, and certainly not to reveal their location. As such, no map shows more of their presence than simply a forest circled and noted 'Wood elves here.'In the years following the cataclysm, both sects of elves sent pioneers across to the Central Marches, and other places. There can be elf enclaves nearly anywhere given their adaptability and magical prowess...but New Lunarial is still unquestionably the center of their civilization.</blockquote>

Verification