Elves of Elysium

An overview of the history of the elven involvement in the affairs of Malex and elven society.

Founding Elysium
While the origin of elvenkind is shrouded in mythology, they hail from the great continent, the garden island of Elysium. Elven natives, the Sylvani, originally began as a number of tribes along the coast and in the woods that cover that the island, and eventually began to exchange ideas and members. While many elves chose to continue their lives intertwined with nature and tribal living, the Sylvan Elves, one sect who came to be known as the High Elves settled permanent towns and cities on the slope of the mystical Elysium Mund, settling into the great families and intellectual innovators of Elysium.

Elven scouts to the Malex mainland discovered rough settlements of humans, lowly savages, vicious, though mostly harmless. Less so were the dwarves of Malexian Munds, who had great Underholds within the mountains, and matched elven cleverness with technological prowess and metalwork.

Despite the insular society of dwarvenkind, the elves and dwarves established a functional, if frosty, diplomacy between the two great nations, doing a brisk trade of elven luxuries and art for dwarven engineering and metalwork. This exchange culminated in great dwarven stonesmiths of the Silverstone Family carving Elysium City out of the side of Elysium Munds, creating palaces, homes, cultural centres, businesses, the likes of which couldn’t be found outside of the Holds, setting up the seat of the Elven Republic.

The work of the Silverstone Family set off a small civil war among the dwarves, cautious about sharing their great works with the elves. After this the dwarves largely removed themselves from the goings-on of Malex beyond their Underholds, though some manage to leave their homes permanently, plying their trades on the surface.

5 Century War begins
600 BEE, during the reign of the House of Heasinddrae, the elves lived peacefully on the great continent. While harmonious with their meditations, gardens, forests and animals, humankind from the mainland moors had, of late, gained language and a greed for the riches beyond their own crude hearths. Humankind began to swarm to Elysium in great numbers, pillaging the rich lands and ancient cities of the Elves.

The humans, though not significantly advanced and quite short lived, had grown in numbers, and were barbarous, with many worshipping evil gods and committing unspeakable acts against their kind, the elves and other races. When the elves could no longer overlook the human blight because of the sheer numbers and brutality of the human raiders, the elven leaders gathered in the city of Elysium in 520 BEE and, after an uncharacteristically short 20 years, decided mankind’s ascension was its only salvation. A great military mind, Thosel of the House of Cyrendathem, later known as Thosel the Conqueror, retired the pacifist House of Heasinddrae and convened the Elysium Directorate, a governing body that would assimilate mankind for their own good. This was the beginning of the 5 Century War.

The Directorate subjugated humans who had settled on the great continent. Lead by Thosel, the Directorate created a military strength unprecedented in Elven history, and unmatched by the humans. The Directorate traveled to the mainland, systematically conquering and civilizing humankind, resettling many in the verdant lowlands. The Directorate helped set up a system of mostly benevolent ruling families who worked with Elven Magistrates throughout the mainland. While autonomous human rulers from ancient bloodlines remain to rule over mainland provinces in day-to-day business, major decisions go through Magistrates.

This led to the displacing of the rebellious halflings of the Nepenthe Lowlands, who fought against both humans and elves, choosing to living in exile in the great Exiled Convoy of the Red Wanders desert than coexist peacefully with the other races. Inferior races like the orcs and goblins of Malexian Munds were easily eradicated from the Directorate lands, mostly the Hadriaca Highlands, and were pushed back into the mountainous territories of the east.

“Elysium” is an Old Common word, which probably means “land of peace.” In elvish, Elysium becomes “Edhelrim’sérë” (Ehd-el-reem-seh-ree) roughly translating to “the place where elves rest.” Edhelrim’sérë’orod is Elysium Munds.

The land beyond Elysium is called Malex, a human word in Old Common whose meaning is long forgotten. The elves call the mainland “Gondocaranuin,” which roughly translates to “land of red stone.”

Pantheon Treaty
At the beginning of 1 EE, to remove the land of evil sorcerers, insurgents, necromancers and worse, the human and elven leaders created the Pantheon Treaty, a pact legislating religious worship, denoting the gods it is just to worship within Directorate land. Any other worship is considered blasphemy, cult activity or, in the case of the Orc god, Karuuk the Red Hand, or the halfling Matriarch, Vitalia, treason.

The Directorate Pantheon consists of Elven gods Elvyseon and Elvaeon, and the human Just Pentacle Gods, Apexion the Champion, Maxium of the Hearth, Xelion the Arcane, Excelsion the Strong and Libexion the Just, whose worshippers and temples can be found in most Directorate controlled land.

Tolerance and worship of some gods outside the Treaty depends on where and how openly it takes place. The road- and dock-side shrines to the God-of-Wander are rarely treated as anything serious. It is generally accepted that dwarves worship their ancestors in the Underholds, though the worship of other racial and minority groups, like the Desert Folk sit less comfortably in Directorate controlled lands.

Directorate Accord
Simultaneous to the signing of the Pantheon Treaty, the Directorate Accord was created, legislation denoting the power of the Directorate in the human provinces, the instalment of magisterial forces and the worship of the acceptable pantheon, officially ending the 5 Century War and beginning a period of peace and relative prosperity for humankind. While some humans chafe under control of the Directorate, the lands have generally seen great leaps forward in culture and cultivation.

Aside from the governing body of the Directorate, an arm of the Republic charged to oversee the lands of humankind, the elven government functions much as it has thousands of years before the appearance of humans. The Elysium Senate of Five deliberates law and procedure; the Legislative Assembly is made up of the Civic Assembly, the Assembly of Tribes and the Magistrates of the Directorate Provinces. Recently the Assembly of Humankind has been added to the Legislative Assembly, lead by a hapless human ambassador.

Elves in EE
In modern times, elves can be broken up into two distinct ethnicities, the High Elves of Elysium and the Sylvan Elves.

Sylvan Elves most closely resemble the ancestors of all modern elves, and have wilder, untamed look compared to the High Elves. Both groups, over time, are influenced by their surroundings. Sylvan Elves generally have dark, earthy brown skin and matching coal black or dark brown hair, though variations exist, and their hair falls in tight curls or thick, cascading waves. Their eyes run the gamut from leafy green, to ocean blue, to shining onyx. Sylvan Elves are a more guarded people, private and cagey. They live in tribes on the island continent and its surrounding archipelago, although there's no clear demarcations between different tribes, though its generally believed that Sylvan Elves know you're in their territory long before you do.

High Elves are paler than their Sylvan compatriots, their skin having taken on a more bronzed hue. Their hair is generally straight and well kept, and more diverse in colours, though gold, ash or platinum is a sign of good breeding. High Elves are renowned for their piercing, crystalline green, blue or silver eyes, arching eyebrows and high cheekbones. High Elves fall within the hierarchy of their Republic's nobility, or within the Directorate. They live in Elysium, the island continent's port town of Cyrendathem or within Directorate controlled land, though High Elven families who tire of the intrigues of Elysium often retire to small, comfortable cottage communities on the mainland.

Elven influence on mainland culture
Directorate edifices and elven homes are often built in the High Elven fashion. Circles feature heavily in this style, which favours domes, ornate arches, huge, round columns and spindly minarets. While human architecture is more humble and blocky, the High Elven style has influenced some of the more ostentatious human homes and cultural buildings.

Bards, especially human bards, have also been heavily influenced by sensual and serene elven art. Many travelling bards will learn elven songs and poems to impress nobles.

The Elven calendar is also used throughout Malex.

Great Houses
A House is formed when an exceptional accomplishment of an elf is recognized by elven society and brought before the Senate. If the Senate recognizes the accomplishment, the leader of the House is allowed to take a House name, and any of their children may take the same name. While there are dozens of offshoots, smaller, more recent Houses, some healthy and prosperous, others withering and passing, the courts of Elysium can be broken up into four main houses from which all High Elves can claim heritage:
 * House of Heasinddrae is one of the oldest elven houses. Although the initial gathering of the High Elves is shrouded in mystery, their leader is supposedly an elven philosopher of Heasinddrae. While still considered a Great House, since the founding of the Directorate the House has grown significantly weaker. House Heasinddrae was blamed for their inaction towards humans in the lead up to the 5 Century War, and they were removed from executive power over Elysium. They have maintained relevancy by producing exceptional artists and thinkers.
 * House of Kennyrghymn harkens back to the founding of the city of Elysium. As the story goes, when a tribe of Sylvan elves looked on the works of Elysium, they proclaimed the city holy and settled permanently while vowing to protect the spirit of elvenkind. They consider themselves the keepers of the old way, and have populated elven temples across Malex, while also concerning themselves with elven magic, lore and tending to nature.
 * House of Cyrendathem was a prominent House leading up to the 5 Century War, but cemented its place as one of the great houses of Elysium when Thosel the Conqueror united Elysium into action against the human threat, the Directorate. The founding of House Cyrendathem supposedly centres around an elven warrior of legend, and the house has turned out soldiers, warriors and military minds throughout the history of elves.
 * House of Auvraeheal is the newest of the great houses, following a long line of elven merchants, diplomats and stewards. Much of the dealings with the dwarves went through House Auvraeheal. They are considered subservient to the Houses of Cyrendathem and Kennyrghymn and sometimes even below the concerns of the fallen Heasinddrae, but this is often revealed as the House's ambitious long game to accrue more power. They rose to prominence following the first diplomatic contact with humans, since many of the members assimilated far more easily with human society, and now most elven Houses that have direct contact with humans through trade or diplomacy, or those who serve Magistrates, descended from Auvraeheal.

Elven Politics
Elysium was founded on the principal of elves taking their place as shapers of the world, and for that reason all matters of power and politics in Malex extend from Elysium... or so the elves want to think.

The Directorate cemented the relationship between mainland Malex and the island continent and for that reason is the most impactful and contentious organization of elvenkind. Although elven politics is never a simple matter with ever-changing alliances and (polite, civilized) House power struggles, current positions on humans and elvenkind's involvement in the mainland can be roughly broken down into four camps that split the Senate evenly. In early 1499, there were rumours abound that the Elysium Senate of Five (made up of four hereditary seats and High Directorae) were planning to call a mandatory assembly to vote on the future of the Directorate, although any decision would require a majority vote from the Senate, which many see as impossible as the split is almost evenly four ways amongst the pacifists, militarists, isolationists and assimilationists. If this was the case the deciding majority vote would go to the Senate of Five, but such a vote would likely fail as well given the family ties of the four hereditary seats and their political affiliations, leaving Elysium without a plan.
 * The pacifists believe that Directorate should dissolve and humans should be left to their own devices to whatever end. This position was once the most popular but also brought the downfall of House Heasinddrae. Most of the pacifist members are drawn from Heasinddrae, although a number of members of House Auvraeheal maintain this position as well.
 * The militarists are from the old guard houses, mainly those who worked towards creating the Directorate under the direction of House Cyrendathem. They believe that humans should be brought to heel through a show of military might not seen since the days of the 5 Century War, else humans return to their barbaric ways. They are criticized by their opponents for un-elven warmongering, but the results of the Directorate sway many who fear a return to violence against Elysium.
 * Isolationists are mainly from House Kennyrghymn and the Assembly of Tribes who represent the Sylvan elves outside of the city. They advocate a return to the old ways and an unmerciful position towards invaders of the homeland that the Sylvan elves currently maintain in the eastern forests of Elysium.
 * Assimilationists are largely from the newer, mercantile Houses who have made their names on the mainland. House Auvraeheal form the bulk of the assimilationists, but many of offshoots from the Great Houses have ties to the mainland. The human ambassador and a couple of sympathetic Magistrates have been working with the assimilationists to limited success.

Tree Dreaming
Like all mortals, elves die through the usual means; blooding and age--though elves seem strangely resistant to disease.

While a blade may dispatch an elf in the typical fashion, elven aging is unique among any mortals in Malex. Physically, elves don't gather wrinkles or loose their bodies to time, but they do begin to appear "thinner," taking on a brittle-looking quality that seems to come with age and wisdom, although they are likely as powerful as ever.

Elves can live to be hundreds, even thousands of years old, but usually by the time they reach 750 elves begin to tire of the tedious routine and disrupting chaos of waking life, and so choose longer bouts of trancing, the time elves spend in deep meditation in the place of sleep. This choice helps them attain higher levels of wisdom, but the cost is that they find they prefer a trance state to waking life.

This is called "tree dreaming," as through their trance they begin to experience time and awareness as the trees around them do. As their tree dreams extend their bodies require less and less in terms of food, water and normal bodily functions. Early on in the process these elves can still wake or be awoken, but the more and longer they tree dream, the harder it is for elves to return.

Elves can tree dream anywhere, but for obvious reasons it is only safe to do under ideal circumstances. For this reason aged Elysium elves retire to the Primordial Plateau, a natural forest shelf above the great elven city tended by acolytes of Elvaeon on the side of Elysium Mund, said to be the origin of all life in the world. The acolytes keep tabs on elves who tree dream here, and when elves reach the final dream, the eternal trance, an acorn from the primordial oak that grows on the plateau is planted in their lap. The tree grows around them, engulfing them entirely, sustaining them.

The tree is a marker to the life of the elves, but does not carry the same mournful connotation as a tombstone, as elves know that the lives of their forebears continue in the tree dream. Some myth claims that those with mystical powers can commune with theses dreaming elves. Other legends have elven heroes coming forth from their primordial oaks in times of need, and returning to their tree dreams when they're done.

To elven knowledge, no oak of a tree dreaming elf has ever been cut down--the very suggestion would be distasteful to the point of blasphemy. Primordial oaks are sacred symbols to the lives of all elves, and destroying them would be the same as desecrating a grave--worse, because it would be the ultimate act of taking an elven life.