Tel'Quessir

The Tel'Quessir is the collective name for the ancient Elven peoples of the Crystal Dimension. Roughly translated from the Mithrandic Elven tongue, it means simply, "The People". The Tel'Quessir, a mystical race thought to be Gods by more primitive creatures, were tall, slender, and possessed of an otherworldly grace and beauty. They dominated prehistoric Crystal in the far mists of antiquity, long before the coming of Humans. The Tel'Quessir were tied in a profound way to nature, and their religion, art, and very lives revolved around living in harmony with the natural world. They raised great cities in the mountains and treetops, taking great care to not disturb the natural environs or to displace the creatures therein. There were several subraces of Tel'Quessir, and each evolved to live in better harmony with their particular environment. However, there are certain shared similarities between all the Tel'Quessir: a deep and abiding love of the natural world and of the arts (of which they count magic as one), a certain distrust of humans, and extremely egalitarian societies.

Sub Races

Cala'Quessir

The Cala'Quessir, or High Elves, were the most numerous of the Tel'Quessir, making their homes amongst the plains and grasslands. They tend to have fair skin and dark hair. Possessed of a fairly restless spirit, these Elves traveled far and wide and were known for their tremendous sense of curiosity. They were by far the most outgoing, and according to Tel'Quessir legend, it was the Cala'Quessir who first made contact with humans, teaching them the secrets of magic and helping to nudge the fledgling race out of barbarism. Because of their willingness to adapt, they perhaps fared better than the other subraces in the wake of the Sundering Wars. At war's end, they led the retreat to the last standing Elven stronghold in the world, the kingdom of Kavan deep in the Forests of Tro, and made overtures of alliance to the Xanthyr Nation, an alliance that would prove critical during the rise of the Xsia.

Lai'Quessir

The Lai'Quessir, or Wood Elves, were those Elves who made their homes in the woodlands. All Elves feel an affinity for the woods, but Wood Elves were perhaps the most quintessentially fae of all the Elven races. They were shorter, and of swarthy complexion; Wood Elf hair colors tended to resemble the colors of foliage. Wood Elven society was much more tribal than that of other Elves ("primitive", according to the Grey Elves), and while they worshipped the Elven pantheon, theirs was a more shamanic society. Isolationist and deeply suspicious of humans, whom they saw as a rapacious virus on the planet, they kept their own counsel and were even mistrustful of High Elves. The Lai'Quessir were hit very hard by the Sundering Wars, as many of them lived in the forests of Vallithyre, and when the kingdom was destroyed a great many of them fell. It was that more than anything that forced them to follow the retreat to Tro, and while they were suspicious of the Xanthyr, they eventually came to respect the warrior women as kindred spirits, due to the many similarities between their societies.

Mith'Quessir

The Mith'Quessir, or Grey Elves, made their homes in the hills and mountains. The tallest of the Elves, they were marked by very pale skin and light colored hair and eyes. Easily the most conceited of the Elven subraces, many (most?) Grey Elves considered themselves alone to be the "pure" Elven people and were contemptuous of every other subrace. They held themselves as supreme masters of magic, intellect and the arts, and their cities were the most elaborate, encompassing great spires of stone. It was the Grey Elves who invented the Elven language (Mithrandic Elven, dialects of which are still spoken even in the modern era), and who held themselves as the keepers of Elven civilization. The other subraces mostly found them intolerable, and Wood and Dark Elves in particular felt that they were so obsessed with their own superiority that they'd lost touch with what made them Elves. It was the Grey Elves' insufferable sense of superiority that would prove to be the Tel'Quessir's downfall. They were the ones who started the Sundering Wars, seeking to once and for all prove themselves the true Tel'Quessir, attacking cities unprovoked. The Grey Elves were decimated by the destruction of Vallithyre, and while Elvendom recoiled in horror by the atrocities against nature committed by the Dark Elves in their bloodthirsty quest for vengeance, many of the surviving Elves believed the Dark Elves were not the only ones who should have been banished. Only a tiny handful of Grey Elves survived the destruction of Vallithyre. A few isolated clans remained in the mountains east of the Forests of Tro, and they locked within their mountain fortresses, too shamed by their people's actions (or too afraid of retribution) to reveal themselves to the world.

Mori'Quessir

The Mori'Quessir, or Dark Elves, were the most infamous of the Elven subraces. They were also the most markedly different in appearance, with white hair, and their skin tone encompassing varying shades of black that they might better withstand the burning sun of the jungles they inhabited. They also tended to be shorter than other Elves. Even before their banishment, they were regarded as the most Machiavellian of the Elves; they were a people made hard by what it took to survive in the brutal environment in which they lived. They regarded other Elves as soft, and had the closest affinity to the Wood Elves. When the Grey Elves attacked a Dark Elven kingdom unprovoked, the Dark Elves struck back in a righteous fury, joined by their Wood Elven allies. There were several Sundering Wars, some lasting for hundreds of years, and it was during this period that the Dark Elves struck Faustian deals with the Spider Goddess Sindrai'el and her evil brood, who were banished from the Elven pantheon eons before for their own perfidy. The Grey Elven atrocities were answered with even worse ones on the part of the Dark Elves, thanks to the newfound powers they possessed, and this culminated in the destruction of an entire Grey Elven kingdom (and the large forest in which it lay), creating the Great Desert of Damk. The Elven gods intervened in the wake of this genocidal crime against nature, finally answering the prayers of Elven priests who'd been praying for an end to the bloodshed for centuries. They banished the Mori'Quessir to the reaches of the Underground, naming them dhaerow, or "traitor"--a word that would eventually be bastardized into the word "Drow", which the Dark Elves became known as ever since then. After what came to be called The Descent, which ended the Sundering Wars once and for all, the Drow wandered the Upper Underground and came to master their new home, turning what was for all intents and purposes a prison into a mighty empire that would eventually rival anything on the surface.

Religion

The Tel'Quessir worshipped a large, complex pantheon of deities known as the Orlythae. Elven legend states that, before time began, civil war broke out between members of the Orlythae. Sindrai'el, then known as Araennia the Weaver, the consort of the Elven Allfather Larenthia Brightblade, attempted to wrest rule of the pantheon from him. Aided by their treacherous children, Vhaeraun, Selvetarm, and Kiaransalee, Sindrai'el raised a host of demons and made war upon Larenthia and the other Orlythae. Eilistraee alone refused to join her mother and siblings in rebellion, siding with her father; however, in the heat of battle, Vhaeraun altered the course of one of her arrows (meant for him), and it struck Larenthia in the heart. The Orlythae were eventually triumphant despite this, and Sindrai'el was banished from their number along with her brood. Eilistraee was spared their fate, but facing guilt over her gravely wounded father, she voluntarily chose banishment (also, she sought to be a balancing force of good among her evil kin). Celestine Silverheart, Goddess of Dreams, who secretly loved Larenthia, cradled his broken body and wept, and it is said that when her tears mixed with his blood, the Elven race was born, singing lamentations for their dying father. It was Celestine's tears that revived him, the Elves believe, and ever after the Elves worshipped them and all the Orlythae.

While each subrace had its own patron among the Orlythae, the pantheon was almost always worshipped as a whole by all Elves (excepting of course the Dark Elves, who during the Sundering Wars turned to the worship of Sindrai'el and what came to be known as the Dark Orlythae, never looking back). Depending on the subrace and the deity, Elven places of worship could be as simple as a rustic shrine or stone circle in a forest, or elaborately designed temples of marble and stone. Larenthia was particularly adored, as it is he who was worshipped as the Lord of the Art, who taught the Elves how to harness the magic in their very blood.

Military

The Tel'Quessir, perhaps reeling from the Sundering Wars, generally hated bloodshed and never sought conflict if they could help it. However, if their forests were under threat, they turned incredibly vicious. They were ferocious fighters, masters of the sword and bow as well as the spell, and arguably used the environment to their advantage more so than any other race. Xsian soldiers who ventured into the Forests of Tro reported "ghosts" materializing seemingly out of thin air to slit men's throats, or snatching them into the trees--that is, those samurai who lived to tell the tale, which were few and far between. Their Beorn counterparts fared no better, but learned very quickly to stay on their side of the mountains, lest the "faerie folk" claim them.

Relations

The High and Wood Elves that survived the Sundering Wars formed a kingdom in the Forests of Tor named Kavan, and refusing to capitulate to the Xsian conquerers from the East who came to rape the forests, the Elves of Kavan engaged in a protracted guerrilla war. Along with their Xanthyr allies, they proved to be quite the thorn in the side of the Empire. At the same time, they had regular raids from the Drow to contend with. They proved resilient in the face of such overwhelming odds, however, largely with the help of the Xanthyr.