WHERE DID THE ELVES GO?

    (This is a legacy post from my old website, so there may be some formatting issues. Feel free to email me if you notice anything out of the ordinary. Thanks!)

Before the sun, before the sky, they came by moon and star.

Before the earth, before the land, they sailed the ocean far.

When daylight sprung and birds first sung no brighter eyes had shone,

But the elf was born before the man, and so they were alone.

Excerpt from Margaret Rico's 'Against Rain', 233 TA

Elfdom is distinguished from the other races of the Heddark solely by their near immortality and minor but incredible psionic abilities.

In modern times elves are known mostly for being unknown. Few mortals alive can claim to have ever glimpsed an elf, let alone the majesty of an elven garden realm. But they were not always this way. When the world was young the elves are said to have been born as a sea-faring race, before Heddark had been made, to guide the free peoples of the land and to be keepers of wisdom and peace. They took on this mission, and the four elven counselors, the leaders of their people, breached land upon Heddark for the first time.

All elven knowledge, all elven experience, is stored in the dream-like world of Avarland, and all elves can tap into this state. Elves have the power to "remember" things beyond the scope even of their own lives, rich histories, old conflicts, and ancient hatreds, all drawn from this shared memory-dream. It is because of this power that elfdom is rich with history and song, and why the elves are among the wisest of all beings to walk on this earth.

Therefore it is natural for them to recall and to long for, the time when Heddark had just become. For in this time the summers were long and the winters short, kingdoms and baronies spread across the land like spilled wine.

When the earth and trees were young, the magic of the elves was strong and full. It was with this magic they wove their beautiful groves and created wonders of craftmanship.

By J.R.R. Tolkien

The world was beautiful. But soon the light of Heddark's genesis began to wane, and the land grew to rebel against the peoples. The seas frothed in rage, the mountains drew close, and the forests grew wild and untenable, even to the elves. Months of rain fell from the heavens, and plague had come upon the likes of men.

The people who could survive the changing world huddled in walled towns, keeping only the meager products which they could subsist upon until next season. The prideful dwarves returned to their halls and burrows and their war with the dark creatures of the earth became a slow crawl of attrition. Soon many great beasts and monsters, even dragons, were allowed to make homes of the mountains.

In the eyes of the immortal elves they were trapped now as the captains of a sinking ship, so they too returned to their hideouts, guarding their hallowed lands with enchantment and sorcery. Now elves will nary leave their garden cities and forest retreats. They remain hidden, melancholy and resentful. Most elves today are content to sleep away the days, after all Avarland is a much safer hiding place than any city dreamed up by the likes of dwarves and men.

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The Drow Clan, contrary to popular myth, is not evil and never has been. In fact, they were quite friendly in comparison to the three other elf clans that made up the Council of Elfdom, the Yew, Nowi, and Berei. When they came to Heddark in the before-times they did not differ much from their elf relatives, but just by stepping onto Heddark for the first time they would be changed by it, though none of the clans would feel it for many years.

In these friendlier times, Lord Gemyrias, a celebrated scholar as well as sole counselor representing the drow kin, became intrigued by the work of dwarves. Utterly infatuated by their ability to thrive in extremely harsh environments and to build masterful structures at such incredible pace. He became obsessed with their intricate craftwork and admired their dedication to the intimate knowledge of stones and caverns.

So he parleyed, which folk often did freely and openly in these years, and together much business was done. The dwarves would use the elven timber to feed their hearths and erect great pillars in their guildhalls, as well as find home among the drow groves and share in the deep elven stocks of wine and liquor. In exchange the dwarves would share with the drow that which the earth had taught them.

So it became that the dwarves entered the drow kith, and that the drow carved their first mountain strongholds. But where Lord Gemyrias differed from the other elven nobility was in his drive for knowledge, so it was in these strongholds that the drow built their first academies and libraries, the greatest of which was Kavernus Prodentia, a university dedicated to the study of techniques and technologies they had learned from the dwarves. But also to the strange new arcane wells the underground had given them, for the drow were able to draw new and unusual magics from the caves beneath the surface. Magics which the counsel would grow to disapprove and disdain.

To Gemyrias, the earth was a frontier, a wealth of unexplored caverns and untapped knowledge lying in wait. To his fellow counselors it was merely a distraction: his objective, to compile, to gather knowledge, to ponder without direction, was pointless, for the elven mission was to fight for the world, and for all the free peoples of Heddark. The elves saw before anyone else the beginning of the world's change and Gemyrias, in contrast to the rest of elfdom, saw little point in resisting the flow of history.

Soon Gemyrias would discuss with his inner circle a plan to cut himself off from his elven siblings. So it came to be that Gemyrias, with kindness in his eyes, bid farewell and the dwarves collapsed the Grand Atrium, entrance to Kavernus Prodentia. The drow had left behind the light of the sun to seek quietude and perfect knowledge, deep within the stone.

This was the first omen, foretelling the fall from grace that the elves would experience in the centuries to come. After years and years of demands from the Elven Council the dwarves finally unearthed Kavernus Prodentia, only to be met with decades of dust. The libraries hollow. The halls empty.

Today tales are told of a dark and vicious people, masters of poison and black magic, but these have all been dismissed by scholars as the twisted fables of humans. Likely derived in part from despisal for the elves for the perceived abandonment of humanity.

None, even among the bravest dwarves and elves, have ever delved so far as to uncover what actually became of the honorable drow.

I think my creative writing can definitely use some work, but I'm happy with how this turned out. This just my take on Elves and how their history and culture is defined in my Torchbearer setting. It makes elves way more sad, which I think is a good thing, I think elves at their core are always meant to long for something. Its a tacky and annoying thing to say but traditional fantasy is good for a reason, its just that most people fuck it up, or think it is good for the wrong reason. I really dislike the whole "each race was created by a specific god and so they embrace and represent that god's purpose and alignment" but I have to admit I just love the idea that elves really were created for a purpose and they just truly fucked it up. I was going to write a longer thing about each of the four groups of elves (Wood Elves, Dark Elves, High Elves, Sea Elves), and about how and why they each departed from their mission, but it was too much so I just decided to stick with the drow and berei because I thought they were most compelling.