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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 1805164" data-attributes="member: 63">Four thousand years ago, the various Elvish nations ruled the majority of the two continents.  Humans and Orcs lived in wilderness fringes, and the short Jispin folk were nomadic travelers who lived without borders.Then a new group of humans arrived from across the eastern sea.  They conquered the eastern coastal nation of Tundarasne and drove the surviving Elvish people west, to seek refuge among other nations of their people.  Some Tundanesti were able to hide in the cold northern forests, but it was only a matter of time before humans found them.This new human nation, the Seren Empire, grew in power over several centuries, and then it expanded again, using alliances with wilderness tribes of native humans to overthrow the nations of Innenotdarasne and Ragos, driving the Elves back from the northern continent until only Shahalos on the western shore was a haven for them.  And then the Serens conquered that, establishing a new capital to celebrate their conquest of an entire continent.The will of most of the Elves was crushed.  The Serens allowed a few thousand nobles and survivors from Shahalos to settle in the Ycengled forest on the eastern shore, willing to let the Elves keep lands the humans felt they did not need.  But refugees from the entire northern continent fled to Ycengled, hundreds of thousands over the decades.  The final arrival was of those last Tundanesti, finally driven from their homeland, and the Taranesti of the southern continent, who had until then been left alone by the Serens.The small forest nation was divided, light Elves (Shahalesti) and dark Elves (Taranesti), and though politicians provided peace, refugee warriors sought freedom.  In an unlikely alliance, the Shahalesti joined forces with the Orcish tribes and native humans, and managed to sack the western capital of the Seren Empire.Things might have ended there, with a strange unity of Elf, Orc, and Man standing against the Serens, but the Orcish warlord had gained possession of a powerful magic item that let him teleport armies.  The Elves remained uncomfortable allies as the Orcish armies conquered the world, ignoring natural borders, bypassing armies, crushing all resistance until the Serens were no longer able to fight back.Under the rule of this new Empire, the Shahalesti sought to rid themselves of the Taranesti, driving the dark Elves to flee to the only land the Orcish armies could not teleport -- the land below, the caves beneath the earth where the sun never shines.Eventually this Empire passed, as all things must do, but the chaos that followed in its wake divided the Elvish people, scattered them amid struggling human nations and hundreds of Orc tribes reduced again to savages without their leader.  Old grudges keep most humans wary of the Elves.Today there are three major nations of Elves on the surface.Tundanesti is a cold land of tundra, mountains, and forests, where much ancient magic lies.  It is said that the Shahalesti Emperor who allied with the Orcs is hidden in an impenetrable tomb in a grove that never sees sunrise.  The Tundanesti are perhaps the most historically-oppressed race in this world, having been driven from their homeland by armies, taken as slaves in the fall of the Empire, and distrusted by all nations around them.  Yet they endure, though with much less land than what they once held.Tundanesti strongly delineate magic and traditional skills, with only truly gifted Elves training in both skills.  As the symbol of the old Shahalesti Emperor was a straight-bladed sword of light, the Tundanesti favor curved blades, and tend to revere the moon. Innenlesti is a forest nation with an ally on one border, an enemy on its other.  Nozama, a human nation to the south, treats the Innenlesti favorably, while Kequalak, a human nation to the north, seeks to take Elves as slaves.  The Innenlesti benefit from ancient magical defenses created in the time when empires sought to control the world, though today they are more of an agricultural society.  Fire tends to appear as a motif in many of their stories and myths.  In combat they generally eschew heavy weapons and armor, preferring mobility and archery. Aside from a few hundred years after the fall of the Elf-Orc Empire, the nation of Vaneljesti has been relatively stable.  It has generally been left alone on the southern continent, while wars wracked the northern lands.  The Vaneljesti view themselves as the purest race of Elves, and their traditions stretch back thousands of years.  Families are important and complex, with any given Vaneljesti family having almost as much power as an entire human city.  But the Vaneljesti are insular, possessing enough magic and natural resources that they trade for little.  Indeed, many families employ skilled thieves to travel the world and steal things, rather than trade for them; in the right context, theft is a respected artform in Vaneljesti.Though their lands do extend slightly beyond the woods of the great Vaneljesti Phuurst, the Vaneljesti have a strong tie to the trees of their homeland.  Throughout the centuries, mages have shaped trees to act as libraries and spellbooks.  Homes are built around, atop, or within trees.  Some trees are magically animated to defend the nation's borders.  An Elvish life parallels a tree's - very long, often stretching in numerous directions, but firmly rooted in the land that gave birth to it. Additionally, on numerous islands in the Otdar Sea live the Kohalesti, brown-skinned Elves that may have been descended from the Taranesti of old.  They travel all around the shores and islands of the sea, and are skilled stoneshapers, growing new land from the ocean when they need to expand, but they do not live the same culture that other humans or Elves do.  The Kohalesti are the closest thing to tribal Elves found in the modern day, and while the humans of the coastal nations value Kohalesti as navigators and guides, few Kohalesti want to leave their island homes. There is no statistical difference between Elves of different nations.</blockquote>

Verification