Dark Elf Race Packet
“Stand above or stand apart, for beauty is timeless and we shall bear witness.”
Dark Elves are a race whose origin is cloaked in clouds and shadows. This unknown history drives them to be distinct and distinguished from the rest of Fortannis’s inhabitants. Their morality is informed as much by elegance as by virtue, seeking the graceful as much as the good and true. Civilization is a brutal and disheveled thing at times; Dark Elves often chose to stay in the shadowy fringes or looming heights to stay detached from the everyday grimness of life. They surround themselves in elegant things and ideas so that they may live beautiful lives, and leave in beautiful death. Their detachment from shorter, uglier experiences gives them the supernatural ability to deny effects that cloud their judgment, as well as denying the short lived and instantaneous nature of magic itself. Still nothing connects them to the current and ugly present quite like the ever bright and ever consuming sun, leaving them in clumsy discomfort until the clouds and shadows return.
Make Up, Prosthetics, and Roleplay
Dark Elves must have their face and exposed skin colored with gray, dark blue, or dark purple tones. They must also have elf ears with similar or complementary tones as their skin make up.
Dark Elves must express some level of discomfort while in the sun or exceptionally harsh light. This discomfort does not affect or influence In Game skills, and can vary from person to person. This discomfort ends whenever a Dark Elf is in shade or shadow.
Dark Elves express joy in elegance and detest sloppiness. These feelings are not simply based on physical qualities, but can refer to the words, music, poetry, ideas, even combat. Dark Elves strive to find and express elegance in all things.
Racial Benefits
Dark Elves have the ability to purchase the Resist Command and Resist Spell abilities. Their timeless, reserved nature allows them to train their mind and spirits to reject the fleeting effects that would influence their self control. More powerful still, this detachment lets them resist the forces of magic itself in its many forms.
Dark Elves pay half cost when purchasing the Archery weapon skill. A further byproduct of reservation from the more short lived and uglier aspects of society, Dark Elves find it easier to strike from a physical distance as much as an emotional one.
Racial Drawbacks
Dark Elves do not have any mechanical disadvantages as part of their race.
Lifespan, Separated Societies, and Other Races
Dark Elves are a long lived race, capable of living hundreds of years to nearly a thousand. When living among their own people, Dark Elves often choose to live in areas and enclaves that are physically separate from non-Dark Elves. These communities may be deep in the earth, high in the mountains, or isolated within a shaded forest or body of water. Upon reaching adulthood, Dark Elves may choose to venture out from these enclaves. This decision is not one made lightly, or commonly. The choice to gracelessly flit between the isolation of home and the nastiness of the outside world is looked down upon by other Dark Elves. When living amongst other races, Dark Elves prefer privacy and shade amongst beautiful things as that is the closest thing to mimicking the trappings of home.
Dark Elven detachment often leads to the perception of aloofness and superiority amongst other races, especially shorter lived ones. While Dark Elves are not universal in their disdain of the short and brutish lives of most other races, dispelling that myth is not one of the Dark Elves’ higher priorities.
Dark Elven honor and traditions are meant to be just as isolating as the Dark Elves themselves, with the expectation that other people rise and meet the Dark Elven level of decorum and not the other way around. This further reinforces that Dark Elves interact with society on their own terms as opposed to more common traditions of local society.
The Dark Elven Aesthetic
The grace and elegance that Dark Elves seek in nature and civilization transcends physical qualities. A troupe of dancers can be just as beautiful as a verse of poetry, or a well kept garden. The crash of drums can be as much a song as the clash of steel. The flourish of a celestialist’s wand is as much appealing as the movements of a calligraphy or paint brush. Important acts of life and death are often found beautiful in the eyes of a Dark Elf, though if it involves Dark Elves personally, such beauty is often experienced with an air of privacy.
Suspicion from the Shadows
Dark Elven distaste for the sun has fueled rumors and speculation of association with creatures of shadows and darkness. Rumors and speculation of Dark Elves finding beauty and decadence in cruelty and debauchery are common and a stain on the otherwise impeccable reputation of Dark Elven kind. Individual Dark Elves living among more common societies are often confronted with these questions, but to question a Dark Elf’s integrity is a graceless thing indeed. The sun is merely an ugly thing to Dark Elves. Any beauty from it can only be found when it is obscured with clouds and rain, or at the edges of dawn and dusk. Like all “ugly” things, Dark Elves detest its presence, though reluctantly admit it is a required necessity for life to exist. Any doubts of the morality and viciousness of Dark Elves are issues best investigated and answered by the Dark Elven people themselves.
