History[]
Elves are The Land's second fully intelligent race, created in secrecy by a Sorreter named Roderick. This secret project of his culminated, in LY 752, in the creation of the First 50 Elves. Roderick raised the elves in South Sorret Forest. In 773, when they turned 21, their leader, Eller, asked Roderick if they might finally go into Sorret and meet the people there. To Roderick's surprise, Grand Sorreter Cazzul was furious that Roderick had kept such a major project a secret from him all these years. Cazzul banished Roderick and the elves from Sorret, and "strongly suggested" they leave human society entirely, though he didn't have the authority to enforce this suggestion. So, Roderick and the elves took a ship and set sail to find a new home. They eventually came to the Isle of Freedom, where they settled the village of Woodstockade.
Roderick, who was merely an adept, became the elves' High Sorcerer, while Eller became the first Elf Chief. The elves quickly developed their own society, of which nothing was known by humanity until 903, when they joined the war known as the Coming of the Order on the side of what would later become the Second Order. (The elves had been secretly contacted the previous year by Durell of Sorret.) This was the first time most people outside of Sorret had ever even heard that elves existed on the Land. When the world government was established after the war, Woodstockade officially joined human society. A number of elves began emigrating to human villages, and humans to Woodstockade. In the years since then, a great deal has been learned about Elven society. It should also be noted that elves had been using surnames since their third generation (starting in 824, around the time that generation became adults), a fact which is partly responsible for inspiring the surname law. Most elven surnames incorporate the names of first-generation elves.
Inspiration & Description[]
Elves are one of countless types of mythical creatures from fantasy stories which originated on Earth, but which have been told to people of The Land by spirits, over the years. They apparently came in many different types, depending on the stories. They have also sometimes appeared in stories written by Landian writers, most notably Tooblan, who wrote of elves in his comedic play, A Midsummer Night's Speaking Contest. This play is often cited as one inspiration for Roderick's creation of elves on the Land, and many elves hold this belief to be a fact, though there is no clear record that this is the case. It is known that when Roderick was deciding on certain physical traits with which to imbue his elves, the main question was one of height. In Earth stories, some elves were the same height, on average, as humans, or perhaps even taller; in other stories, they were quite short. Roderick chose to set the average height for elves slightly less than that of humans, though it's still possible for some elves to be taller than humans of average height. The only other major distinguishing characteristic of elves is their ears, which are gently pointed. Otherwise elves are physiologically identical to humans, as well as being genetically compatible. However, it is also important to note that elves possess a slightly different psychology than humans, as they are not subject to the punishment of The Fall. In this respect, they are more like humans of Earth; however, this difference still allows for certain individual elves to have personalities which are much the same as Landian humans. The most notable psychological difference brought about by elves not being subject to the punishment (that is, the feeling of loneliness, or more accurately, of "not belonging"), is that elves tend to marry earlier than humans, because Landian humans' psychological condition often requires them to spend more time getting to know a person before feeling safe in deciding they're truly in love. Elves, by contrast, find love to be a much more obvious thing, and have greater trust in their feelings than most humans.
Additional Information[]
Roderick was a member of the Experimental Linguists' Club until being banished in 773. Because of this, many elves throughout the generations have themselves taken an interest in alien subwords, and it even became common practice to give ships alien names (whether from Earth or other worlds). Also, when elves reintegrated into human society, many elves soon joined the ELC.
See also[]
- Race
- Humans
- Merfolk
- Battle of Elves' Ambush
- Elven genealogy
- mythical creatures
- sorcery