The Elves

For 10,000 years, the elven races had lived in harmony with nature. Balance was maintained, never taking more than Nature could give, and tending to Her needs with magic and love. The lesser races were of little consequence. In truth, the elves were pompous and arrogant.

Then, suddenly, the forests turned against the elves, and rejected them — physically, spiritually and violently. It began when the spiritual backbone of elven society, the druids, began going insane. They demanded more and more. The people grew worried. Harvests got poorer, and the land itself seemed to be withdrawing from the elves. When the druids began sacrificing children to the forest, it was the final insult.

First, the druids were torn apart by the Nature magic they were misusing. Next, the elven people who had allowed the druids to go too far were thrown out of their paradise. They were killed by the thousands. Their majestic, forest-top cities were splintered and shattered by branches and vines.

The sight of hundreds of druids, hung by vines, creaking back and forth high above the ground, would be the last sight for many elves as they fled their homelands.

From that day on, Nature was no longer a friend to the elf.

In the 600 years since the last elven city was destroyed, the elves have wandered as refugees, expelled from the forests not by people, but by the land itself. They became a vagabond race for the most part. Most don’t stay in one place for long because Nature continues to reject them. Crops fail, winters worsen, summers intensify, and the land forces them to leave. Many consider elves to be cursed, and do not suffer their presence for more than a few weeks at a time. Penury was their only permanent refuge away from the scorn of other races. It was a depressing place, filled with hopeless elves, many of whom spent the money they had begged and stolen on alcohol and narcotic plants.

Small elven communities existed in larger cities, where Nature’s curse affected their everyday lives less. The elven quarter of Ascondea, for example, contained hundreds of elves. Their graffiti covered the city walls with scenes of beautiful woodlands. Small clans of elves also existed outside of city walls, in places not fit to farm. Many of these, unable to sustain themselves from the land, became artist communities where elven craftsmen and artisans would create beautifully melancholy works of art. Such beauty from such a pitiful race was highly prized by wealthy city dwellers.

Playing an Elf
Even after the Banishment, you still revere Nature. Elves mark the first days of spring as a holiday, though instead of a celebration it has become a commemoration — more akin to showing their respect for a long-lost relative than rejoicing in a rebirth. Your people surround themselves with crafts made to look like natural objects, such as trees, woodland animals and flowers. Elves often embroider their clothes with stitched representations of leaves, vines, nuts, berries and animals. You may constantly battle depression or retain hope that Nature will accept you again. Unlike many other survivors, you are accustomed to begging to survive.