The Seldarine
The elves are not rich in terms of the size of their lands (most kingdoms are no larger than a city-state), but they stretch across a vaster distance than any other nation. While Arkhosia is a continental stretch of continuous steppes, and Bael Turath has its feet in hell, its spires grabbing at heaven and its roads tying the whole together like a spider's web, the elven people spot reality entire. They stand in the Feywild, in climates across the mortal world and in crystaline enclosures deep in the Underdark. Because of this, unlike the dragonborn and the tieflings, the elves are not a single nation. Rather, they are a series of disparate, independent kingdoms united in confederation. They hold ambassadors from each other close, and though they bicker at times they will stand as one.
A character knows the following with a successful Nature check:
- DC 20 - Though they maintain cordial relations with all other races, the elven confederation does not allow non-elf-kind to live within any of its city-states for more than a year and a day. After this time, such residents must move elsewhere for at least another year and a day before they will be allowed to return. Recently, some of the city-states have begun to quietly break this law. The mountain-top retreat of Sa'Mikael has played host to a band of dwarven refugees for nearly two years now. In Harth, the verdant river-valley's Princess will not hear of expelling her human lover, though his allotted time is well past. For now, blind eyes are turned to these infractions, but unrest grows amongst the council of rulers, as many wonder what tradition will be the next to fall.
- DC 25 - Every three years, on the third day of autumn, one of the major elven city-states hosts the Festival of Open Doors. This week-long occasion is a gathering of the majority of elf-kind and serves to keep the people of the disparate and separated principalities aligned and familiar with one another. Major trade agreements, art showings, competitions, marriages, and important declarations are often carefully planned to coincide with the event. Beginning at sunrise on the first day of the festival, all elves and eladrin, as long as they are in the mortal world or the feywild, may rap on the lintel of any door three times and then step through the door to find themselves in the city in which the festival is occuring. Doing so drains a small amount of magical energy from the travelers, which The Sages of Avaellor store in the crystal Arthenkey to aid in powering their magics for the next three years. On the final day of the festival, lots are drawn to determine where the festival will next be held.
- DC 30 - Elves and eladrin are two rivers that flow from the same source, and often cross and mingle. Children of the Seldarine are neither elf nor eladrin at birth; it is not parentage that decides their paths, but acclimation. Those who spend the majority of their formative years in the Feywild become eladrin upon reaching maturity, while those who spend them in the mortal world become elves. The distinction between the two "races" is the magic they carry in their blood, not physical form; elves and eladrin are virtually indistinguishable from one another to anyone who is not an elf or eladrin.
- DC 30 - The term "drow" is an epithet in the elven coalition, synonymous with "traitor" or "heretic". There are unfounded rumors that small groups of elves, discontent with the confederation and its rulers, have embraced the term to refer to themselves. If such groups exist, it is impossible to determine, as these so-called drow are no different in bearing or appearance from any other member of elf-kind.
The Anauli Empire[edit]
- DC 20 - One of the few elven homes that does not typically move from place to place, Mithrendain, the Autumn City, is built on a gaping hole in the surface of the Feywild that leads deeper into the Fomorian Feydark than any other. Mithrendain is famous among elves and mortals alike as the site of The Autumn War, the last great war between the Seldarine and the Fomorians. The scarred giants pushed up out of their tunnels, and elves poured in from every quarter to drive them back down. In the end the elves won, but the storied might of Mithrendain is now as fragile as an egg shell, and sages wonder if it will ever stand strong again. Or, indeed, if it will stand at all when next the Fomorians marshal their strength.
- DC 25 - Jenn-Tourach, the Moon's Twin, is the very opposite of Mithrendain; the city is almost never still, and yet it never stands within the Feywild. Instead, this city-state cycles through a dozen locales in the mortal world in the course of a year, ranging from a frozen tundra that stands at the edge of Arkhosia to a trackless desert deep within Bael Turath to a tropical forest where nothing civilized lives at all. Because of this travel Jenn-Tourach is a city known for its never-closing Market, where smart merchants buy common goods in one place only to sell them a month later, when the city arrives where they are rare.
- DC 30 - Shinaelestra
Cendriane, the Twilight Kingdom[edit]
A large city-state, Cendriane exists simultaneously in the mortal world and the Feywild, and controls the land surrounding it in each. Free travelers who leave Cendriane can choose which of the two worlds they come out in; those who look over its walls see both admixed in their sight, with only movement to tell the difference between the two. Its double-population, and the access granted by its dual existence, makes Cendriane one of the most influential and connected of the elven kingdoms. The city's nobility are also its administrators, with rank based on crafts and trades rather than land-holdings; each is responsible for managing production/artisans, controlling wages and working conditions and overseeing training for one area of Cendarine's skilled labor. Titles include the Lady of the Horses and the Ladies of the Weave, Forge and Scrolls. Their court is as raucous as the floor of a trading house or university, ruled by a Princess. Her title, like all in the city, is matrilineal and matriarchal.
A character knows the following with a successful History check:
- DC 20 - Cendriane is famous for its seven bridges, each of a different fabulous material, which cross the river Alph. Symbolic of the link between the mortal and fey realm, they are frequently the site of processions and festivals. They vary in size, from the slender walking bridge of glass dubbed the Strand of Memories Unshared to the fifty-foot wide span of the jade Causeway of the Lords of Summer.
- DC 25 - There is a growing division in the council of Cendriane as to their relationship with the mortal realm. The minister of Sunlight and Music is opposed to any involvement beyond trade, while the minister of Dreamtime and Ceremony argues that it is the burden of the elven races to guide and correct the short lives of mortals. The princess has kept her opinion to herself thus far, but has not forbade action by her subjects.
- DC 30 - Avaellor, Cendriane's Spiral Tower, is home to nine Sages (and their various apprentices) gathered from across elven lands who use powerful magics to keep open their kingdoms' paths. It is they who allow Cendarine to span the planes, they who move Jenn-Tourach, they who keep Shinaelestra's portals from falling to ruin. The Sages are the elven lifeblood; without them, the planes-spanning confederation would shatter.
The Realm of the Twin Queens[edit]
The cavernous cells ruled by the Twin Queens' stretch for miles throughout the underdark. Tiny pockets of life, carved from giant, beautifully carved, hollowed-out stalactites and stalagmites. By the blessing of some god (Corellon? Sehanine? Araushnee?), this kingdom has, and will, always have its Twin Queens to rule it; in each generation, one of the pair proves barren and the other gives birth to her own set of twin girls.
- DC 30 - The Twin Queens, Kiaransalee and Zinzerena, lead their people in aiding Bael Turath in their war against Arkhosia. Is it their nearness, in the underdark of the mortal world beneath Vor Kragal, that gives them sympathy? Has the Hell-Born Emperor promised reparations, or the dragons made some insult? Do the Queens, themselves, traffic with devils? No one can say. But a few know that, in strictest secret, the Queens give what aid they can. Never elven soldiers - this would tip their hand to their kin - but swift transit through the Feywild, enchanted steel, and even the dross to pay ogre mercenaries all aid the Turathi war efforts thanks to them.
