Of all the accursed and hated races
in all existence in Midgard, the Black Elves are the first to be mentioned.
Their names are whispered in taverns and temples alike by men who use them as
threats and curses; or by old women who weave them into frightful tales told to
children to scare them into behaving.
It is written in the books of
Ilmattar, that the Black Elves rose out of the darkness of creation near the
end of the Frostfir war to aid the Tuatha De Daena (True Elves) and thereby
gain victory over the Giant-Kings- driving them out into Jotunheim. After the
war ended the Tuatha offered the Black Elves a place in the sunlit world to
reign forever.
The
Black Elves called themselves the Drowannes after their Queen who perished in
the Frostfir war. For a thousand years peace reigned supreme on Midgard and
both races prospered. Then suddenly the Black Elves were discovered to be
practicing the black magiks and summoning foul beasts from the Abyss. The
Tuatha declared war on the Drowanness and the first Darklight war broke out.
At first the Drow (derivative-see
notes) were winning, shattering the Tuatha Homeland with their powerful magiks.
Chaos ruled supreme as the Tuatha struggled to survive the Drows’ vicious
onslaught. As the Drow marched on the Golden City (the last of the Tuatha
Strongholds), the Tuatha surrendered their immortality in a pact with the Gods
of Light for the power to defeat the Drow. The Tuatha swept out of the Golden
City and crushed the invaders in a terrible and devastating battle. The Drow
surrendered and asked for mercy. The Tuatha spent many years debating the
Drow’s plea- meanwhile the Drow army was sent to rebuild that which they were
destroyed. Finally, the Tuatha sentenced the Drow to darkness in the lands
beneath Midgard. At first the Drow resisted, so the Tuatha gathered the
Drowaness up and marched them into the Mouth of Darkness and sealed the
Drowaness inside.
It is said, though only the
Drowanness know for sure, that the Drow sold their very souls to long forgotten
gods from the lower planes for the power for revenge. A thousand years passed
and the Tuatha De Daena soon forgot the Drowanness as their homeland soon
returned to its original beauty.
Then out of the Mouth of Darkness
came the Drow with new armies. They swept out and over the Tuatha Homelands
as before, except this time there were no Strongholds to stop them. The Siege
of the Golden City was in its tenth year, when the Tuatha realized that their
new power could only match the Drow, so they knew that they must find a new way
to conquer the Drow. Finally after much debate, the Tuatha decided to divide
their power and bestow it into their offspring. Thus in the Fourteenth year of
the Second Darklight War, the Tuatha called forth from themselves the four
offspring-races into existence. The Elolin-mirrors of the Tuathan souls, the
Vanir- the Tuatha heart, the Sylvan- the Tuathan strength, and the Idun- the
mind of the Tuatha. With their new offspring the Tuatha rose up from their
siege and drove the Drow back down into the Darkness. The Tuatha built a great
door over the Mouth of Darkness and locked it with a Wooden key- The Quaalines.
As the days passed after the end of
the Darklight war, the Tuatha tried to summon the offspring races to return to
be reborn again as Tuatha De Deana, but the offspring races refused and the
first division occurred. While the Tuatha and their offspring were struggling
with their newfound existence’s, the Drowanness plotted their ultimate revenge.
From within their new imprisonment,
the Drow called forth to the offspring races with offers of friendship,
promises of power and finally with lies and myths about their betrayal at the
hands of the Tuatha. At first, these rantings brought forth little response; as
the offspring races- though divided- paid them no heed. By the time the Tuatha
themselves had learned of this, the temptations had turned into threats and
pacts with some of the offspring and the Third Darklight war broke out. The
Elolin and Vanir as a whole supported the Tuatha with a couple of individuals
siding with the Drow, the Sylvan at first threw their lot in with the Tuatha
then withdrew to a neutral position. The Idun were split into two factions,
those who sided with the Drow and those who had not made their choice yet.
Unlike the first two Darklight wars, the third Darklight war was slow and
plodding. The Idun remained divided and out of the main conflict. The actual
war, was one of magic and minions (particularly in the case of the Drow who used
every available creature they could dominate to fight for them-as they were
imprisoned.{see Goblyn Wars treatise}). The Faction of the Idun that sided with
the Drow were simply assisting the war effort with weapons and magiks.
Then one leader arose amongst the
Idun, Mallkis, who unified his people by sword and reason. His vision was to
reunify the races and create a permanent peace between the Drow and the Tuatha.
This plan worked initially until the final summit where a squad of Vanir found
out that the Drow had planned to sign the treatise in order to lull the other
races into a false sense of peace then fall upon them and slaughter them where
they slept, and that some of the Idun had sided with them. So the Vanir,
somewhat foolishly, attacked the Idun-suspecting that the betrayal ran deeper
than they originally thought. The end result was chaos amongst the offspring
and the Tuatha, with the Drow laughing at the Vanir for doing their dirty work.
Mallkis collected the surviving Idun and declared war on the Vanir and the
Tuatha. At this point the Sylvan Elves withdrew from the war and declared
neutrality.
The new war went badly for the Idun
and Malkis lost support as a new Idun rose in to take his place. This new Idun
was called Hiisi and many Idun collected under his banner until Malkis stood
with less than fifty followers and was cast out from the Idun Cell. Malkis and
his followers disappeared into the Eastern lands and became a myth unto his own
family. Hiisi was a renegade warrior and was known for constantly for breaking
the rules of engagement. Hiisi managed to collect the Idun forces and create a
stalemate; then in a lull, he stole the Qualiness and unlocked the door over
the Mouth of Darkness. The Drow flooded out and the tide of the war changed.
Like the Drow the Idun made pacts with the forgotten gods and became charged
with power.
At this point the Elolin made a pact
of ReUna-fikashon with the Vanir and brought forth the Rivendell Elves. The
Rivendell were trained from birth to be warriors and granted certain abilities
to give them an advantage over all other elves including the ability to quickly
reproduce. The Rivendell combined with the other elves brought the war to a
stalemate and it was the Idun elves who finally tipped the scales against the
Drow. They became disinterested in ruling alongside with the Drow, so they
betrayed the Drow to the Rivendell and separated their armies. The Rivendell
swooped in a destroyed the Drow advance, driving the remaining forces back down
deep into the Underworld. Then the Rivendell destroyed the path back to the
Mouth of Darkness and then destroyed the Mouth as well. The Drow swore revenge
as they were sealed beyond even magical communication in the earth. They have
not been seen since, thank the Gods.
-end
Chronicle.
Despite their disappearance, the
Drow have remained a part of folklore and myth.
The
fear remains, though many have never seen them. No one has reported seeing the
Black Elves and lived.
The
Hersi of Drowanness
{ the history of the
Children of Mistress of the night }
The First Ones fought
by their great Queen, Drowanness in the Frostfir War and mourned Her loss but
felt pride at her sacrifice for her world. The Others invited our people to
live them, but they did not treat us as if we were their brothers. So while we
trusted them, they pushed us into a point of slavery to their whims.
First we looked to
the bright gods in the sky but they did not look back. Then we looked back into
the night and found our old gods. When the others discovered our old gods, they
declared them evil.
And then after years
of peaceful coexistence, they declared war on us, thus starting the first
War of Expulsion.
The Others sought to
expel us from the Sunlit world, but we fought back with the cause of righteousness
and stubbornness granted to us by our Great Queen. We won the war and as we
begun to celebrate, the surviving Others made a pact with a terrible god and
swept out of the Golden City and killed most of our people not caring about
whether they were old or children.
We surrendered when
we were cut off from our old gods and the Night. They made us slaves again and
took our children to be whores and bedfellows.
Then they came in the
middle of the night and dragged us from our beds and homes into the streets
of their cities and
marched us into the darkness and sealed us in the darkness absolute.
Many of our people
died as we prayed to the old gods in vain. We were starving and blind in the
darkness.
Then our high
priestess made contact with a goddess from the lower planes who called herself
Lolth who promised to
gives us the ability to not only to survive the darkness but to become masters
of it- like we were in the night.
All she asked for in
return was eternal love and devotion. So we took her at her word and she
transformed our eyes and minds. We built a great dome in the high caverns to
her and prayed to her every moment of rest. She made us strong with new magic’s
and then she showed us a way to bypass the seal on our imprisonment. So we
returned to the surface to gain our revenge.
So began the first
War of Vengeance.
Once again we won, we
were newly strong and powerful and the Others had grown complacent and weak. As
we lay siege to the Cursed Golden City, Lolth came to witness our victory. The
Others saw her and
called her a name we
had not heard “Larrin” Then they opened wide their doors and spewed forth
mutations of themselves called the Offspring. They made us powerless and drove
us back into the darkness.
Then the Others’ god
burnt Lolth with his sun and drove her too into the darkness. This time they
sealed us in with the Quaalin-a great door with many locks. In the Darkness
again, Lolth made new pact with us, promising that She would prove to us that
She was worthy of being our Goddess. Then she departed into the lower planes to
gain a great power called Allignos.
In her absence, it
was discovered that some of us had brought back idols of the old gods and many
returned to their worship but all of their power could not free us. At this
time a group of us rose to power because they found a way to contact the
surface. They hatched a plan in which we would tempt the Offspring into
betrayal of the Others.
A new War of
Vengeance broke out with an army of underlings we had gathered, mostly orcs and
golbins who thought us gods and those of the Offspring who came to collect
under our banner. Things went moderately well until one of the Offspring,
Mallkis of the Idun came forth and withdrew almost all of our Offspring allies.
He wanted to unify the Offspring, the Others and us into one race. Many of us
welcomed this, but their were some of us who were not so trusting. We secretly
planned to sign the treaty and once released from the darkness, fall upon the
Others and slaughter them and their allies. But those of the Offspring called
the Vanir somehow found out our plot and attacked the Idun thinking them
betrayers and then all out war broke out. Chaos reigned supreme as the Vanir
and the Evioliss banded together one banner with the Others. Those of the
Offspring called the Sylvan withdrew from the conflict supporting neither side.
Malkis tried to lead the Idun, but thing s went badly in the war-since he had
no allies. He was soon forced out by a new Idun leader Hiisi who would not
follow the rules of engagement and then he allied him people with us. Then he
stole the key to the Quaalin and released us from our imprisonment. At this
point our warriors rose with the Instigators and Wizards to fight as our priest
looked for their gods.
At first we won, but
we underestimated the Evioliss and Vanir who crossbred to spawn a new cursed
race of Offspring. These new Offspring were bred for war and rapid
reproduction- so when they enter the war, they were many and strong. The war
ground to a stalemate until the Idun betrayed us to the Rivendell Offspring who
ambushed our advance and mercilessly killed our people. Then they attacked us
and drove us deep down into the darkness killing all who would not go. They
violated and destroyed the Dome of Lolth. Once they had driven us so deep that
we had forgotten day and night, they left us there and destroyed the path back
to the daylight world.
In the Darkness, my
people cried out in anguish and despair- and in the Darkness, She heard our
cries and returned to us. In the Darkness, our sight returned and Lolth-Larris
made us masters of the Darkness. She led us into the Darkness to the underworld
of tunnels and caverns.
In the Darkness we
forged a new destiny,
but when we returned
to the sunlit world, the light blinded us.
Now we are the
Darkness.
