Dragonborn Sigil

Elves

Blessed by the sun. Cursed by the Dark.

Overview

The Elves of Skazka are a people defined by duality—beings who embody both shadow and light, beauty and cruelty, wisdom and arrogance. Among all mortal races, none command such respect or inspire such unease. Their lifespans stretch across centuries, allowing them to weave intricate schemes, cultivate vast stores of knowledge, and influence the course of history with a subtlety that others can scarcely perceive. Yet despite their long memories, the origins of the Elves remain shrouded in mystery. They emerged from a schism, one that continues to shape their destiny: a people born of shadow who have chosen different paths toward or away from the light.

At their core, the Elves are seekers. They are driven by questions of power, freedom, and meaning, but the answers they pursue differ among their kindreds. Dark Elves hunger for control and dominance, their desires shaped by Lolth’s cruel web. Sun Elves seek liberation and enlightenment, striving to build communities founded on trust and cooperation. Wood Elves yearn for harmony with the natural world, their lives guided by the cycles of forest and season. Yet across all their forms, Elves are united by an insatiable curiosity and ambition. They cannot remain idle; whether through mastery of shadow, devotion to light, or communion with the living world, they seek to shape destiny—both their own and that of Skazka itself.

The Elves occupy an ambiguous place in the societies of Skazka. Their longevity and wisdom make them invaluable as advisors, scholars, and spellcasters, but their air of superiority and hidden agendas inspire mistrust. Sun Elves have integrated most readily, establishing kingdoms, trading with humans, and spreading their knowledge. Wood Elves maintain selective alliances, offering counsel when it serves to protect their forests but guarding their secrets closely. Dark Elves, in contrast, are rarely welcomed; their loyalty to Lolth and their penchant for intrigue ensure that they are viewed as dangerous adversaries more often than allies. Despite these divisions, all Elves exert an undeniable influence wherever they walk, their presence a reminder that they are not merely another mortal race but living echoes of forces older than time itself.

Physiology & Traits

Elves are fine-boned and long-limbed, all high cheekbones, tapering ears, and eyes that drink faint light so they seem to glow at the edge of dusk—though looks and hues drift by kindred. Sexual dimorphism is a whisper, not a wall: across lineages, males and females stand near-matched in height, agility, and vigor, with differences showing more in carriage than in frame. Their senses sit a notch above mortal norms in quiet ways: sight that reads shape and motion in starlit shade as if the world were inked in silver.

Their birthright is restraint and recall rather than spectacle. Elven minds slip past coaxing—charms falter, sleep magic finds no hold—and they do not truly sleep; they reverie four hours, walking old memories like gardens, and rise as rested as others after a full night. They move with practiced grace: sure-footed, balanced, unhurried, hard to catch unready. What mortals call “darkvision” they know as moon-sight—greys and edges clear where color thins—paired with a lifetime of listening that makes them seem prescient when all they’ve done is notice what others missed.

Culture & Society

Elven society in Skazka is paced by centuries and measured by memory. Virtue means poise in speech, patience in craft and study, promises kept long after witnesses die, and stewardship of what deserves to outlast them—knowledge, living places, sworn bonds. Law is gentle in voice and iron in record: candor tempered by grace, reparations over spectacle, and hospitality held sacred—guests eat before they speak.

Their making marries longevity to grace: work tuned to light, line, and living materials, built to endure for generations. Families form deliberately and root deep; households often span three or four living generations, with fosterage weaving alliances between houses. Rites keep memory close: the Naming Vigil welcomes a newborn while artisans craft a first token to anchor the child in lineage; marriages are sealed by Joined Work, a piece made together and set on the household shrine. In all things, elves prefer what can be tended, repaired, and remembered.

Faith & Myth

Elven faith in Skazka cleaves along a bright, old wound: Aeter the Lightbringer and Lolth the Spider Queen. Their shared origin is told in shadow—ancestors under Lolth’s tyranny in the Underworld, a faction that clawed upward through ruin, and Aeter who received them at the brink, gifting the Everlight that remade flesh and ethic alike. From that exodus rose the Sun Elves, radiant and reforming; below, those who remained with Lolth refined patience, secrecy, and the calculus of webs.

Both traditions keep a lattice of quiet observances and red lines: hospitality formalities, memory-keeping, and taboos like never eating what speaks and never pointing with a naked blade. Festivals mirror the divide. Sun Elves mark Dawn’s Renewal: at sunrise on the longest day, all lights are quenched save one keeper lamp—its flame rekindles every other torch and lantern in silence. Dark Elves keep The Veil of Shadows: once a year the city flares with painfully bright light, a ritual reminder that it is the darkness that shields—and that light, unasked and unbound, can be as cruel as any web.

Subspecies

Elven kind in Skazka branches along three enduring lines—Sun, Wood, and Dark—each sprung from a shared ancestry but reshaped by patronage, habitat, and long memory. All elves are keen-sensed, long-lived, oath-minded, and crafted for grace; from that common spine, Sun Elves turn toward Aeter’s Everlight and civic artistry, Wood Elves fold themselves into living forests with quiet stewardship and rangercraft, and Dark Elves (drow) master the Underworld’s hierarchies, shadowed magics, and knife-edged politics under Lolth’s gaze. What follows surveys their origins, temperaments, gifts, laws, and lifeways—where they agree, where they differ, and how each kindred’s choices echo across centuries.

Sun Elves

The Sun Elves trace their lineage to those who escaped Lolth’s tyranny, emerging into the light of the surface after a harrowing exodus through the Underworld. Their salvation came with the god Aeter, who granted them the Everlight and revealed that magic could heal, inspire, and illuminate rather than only dominate and destroy. Their transformation was profound: their dark skin lightened to radiant golds, their hair warmed to tones of sunlight, and their eyes began to shine with the hues of the sky. Sun Elf society is built upon cooperation, artistry, and trust, their lives devoted to building rather than scheming. Yet their openness can also be a vulnerability, for their willingness to trust sometimes leaves them unprepared for the ambitions of others. Children of the light

Wood Elves

From the Sun Elves came the Wood Elves, who journeyed into the vast forests of Kelos and reshaped themselves in harmony with living nature. With green undertones to their skin, earthy hair, and silent, fluid movements, they became creatures of the forest canopy. Their bond with the woodland is spiritual as much as physical; they read the whispers of trees, feel the tremors in root networks, and commune with the subtle magics of growth and balance. The Wood Elves are guardians of ancient secrets hidden beneath the forest, their philosophy rooted in preservation and seclusion. Though not isolationist by nature, their trust is hard-won, for they have seen how easily outsiders can disrupt delicate balances. Their tree-grown cities remain almost invisible to the untrained eye, living architecture that is cultivated rather than built. They are the keepers of wisdom as old as Skazka itself, and they guard it with unyielding resolve. Haldaja

Dark Elves

The Dark Elves, or Drow, dwell in the deepest shadows of the Underworld. Born from living darkness, they embody both beauty and corruption. Their cities are feats of impossible architecture, suspended from cavern ceilings and paved with whispering stones, yet their civilization teeters constantly on the brink of collapse. Lolth, the Spider Queen, reigns over them with ruthless devotion, shaping their society into a hierarchy of betrayal, intrigue, and fear. Under her priestesses, every interaction becomes a contest of manipulation, every relationship a fragile web ready to snap. Masters of poison, shadow-magic, and deception, the Dark Elves are formidable foes, but their society’s self-destructive nature ensures that they are as much a threat to themselves as they are to the world above.Drow

Shadow Elves

Shadow Elves are an exiled kindred from a parallel dusk-realm, sworn to cross the veil wherever corruption roots and to burn it out with truth. Pale as moon-ash with ink-dark eyes, they carry Ioun’s sigil—the seeing diamond—on veils, rings, and lantern-helms, and hold that ignorance is the first evil: lies, secrecy, and willful forgetfulness are sins to scour. Their creed marries piety to purpose—daily recitations from memory-cods, fasts of silence before a hunt, and the Vow of Three Lights (to reveal, to remember, to resist). In battle they are zeal made graceful: blades etched with scripture, prism-charms that throw radiant lattices through shadow, and a talent for stepping along the rim of darkness without being swallowed by it. They mistrust courts and cabals that hide behind oaths untested, feud bitterly with Lolth’s priesthood, and treat Aeter’s faithful as distant kin who have forgotten the hard edge of truth. When a gate opens, they arrive like a hush before storm—mask-lamps flaring, questions first, steel after—and leave behind ordered archives so evil, once named, cannot take root again.Zorniki