Elf
From Illapedia
Contents |
[edit] 1 The Race of the Elves
The elven race seems to be one of the oldest, or at least, it is the race with the oldest written documents. The common elf is taller than a human. Elves have pointed ears, and their faces appear noble and often beautiful to humans.
Elves live close to nature. The most elven houses are surrounded by trees, and somehow they build their houses in a strange way that allows plants and trees to grow on balconies and roofs. It is said that elven cities look more than a beautiful garden than a city. Some elves even build, or grow, houses on and from living trees. Few humans ever saw an elven town, but old traveler's reports speak of hanging gardens, high, almost unnaturally, beautiful formed towers build with incredible hard stones, fountains and springs, beautiful artwork and reliefs everywhere. Somehow, elven streets don't tend to attract dust and junk as normal.
Elves seem to be very talented spell casters, and also have an affinity for herbs and natural things(and spells). Most do not like fighting, but they seem to be traditionally skilled in the use of bows and long, one handed swords. They have sharp senses, acute hearing and smell, and sharp eyes being able to see even in the darkest night.
The reasons for the elven living ways lie in the elven nature. Elves can become very old, in fact, no one has ever seen an "old" looking elf. Since they don't speak of their age often, and don't seem to like being questioned about personal things, most humans will never learn the age of an elf. But there are reports of elves aged six or seven thousand years, still without looking older to the human eye.
Since elves can become that old, ( they count as "adult" with one hundred and eighty years ), they seem to think in other time periods than humans do. To a human, the patience of an elf can be almost unbearable.
Elves ( except for very young ones ) don't become angry easily. They have time. Time to think, and any problem caused by humans, simply solves itself with time. That's why most elves tend to act calm and friendly, they know that they don't need to get into trouble.
In elven towns or cities, elves live with their family clan. The elven society knows no kings or noble leadership, but the oldest members of the family clans are treated with the same respect as nobles, and often decide important things.
With such age comes experience. Elves who have chosen a destiny or hobby work on it, learning and experimenting for hundreds of years to reach perfection. That way, elven work may be the most beautiful and of very high quality, but sometimes takes years and years and much resources to finish. A Human Knight once said : "Order an expensive, beautiful sword from an elven master smith, and the son of your son can use it on the battlefield."
[edit] 2 Religious directions of the Elves
Worshiped Deities:
All of the younger deities are known to the elves. They are worshiped, but generally not as deities. Elves often dub the younger Gods "holy ancestors".
The traditional faith of the elves, most often only called "Path of the Seeker", is complicated to comprehend by a human. This may be accounted for by the fact that most of the elves only seldom exchange the details with members of other races. Still though, some lizard folk, humans and halflings who proved themselves to be tolerant, patient, and possessing a thirst for knowledge, were handed some copies of religious-philosophical scriptures of the elven kind. Overall, the center of the "Path of the Seeker" seems to be comprised of tolerance, personal development of the individual, an all-encompassing balance, meditation, and principal spirituality.
The elves believe that they wander in the tracks of their predecessors and the holy ancestors. They are also convinced that their spirit enters an "ethereal" world of the divine after the death of their body, where the soul merely enters a state of recreation, in order to rest and learn from it, and then after a long time be reincarnated in the world. When such a reincarnation is supposed to happen is completely undefined, and it is said that it could deal in centuries or even millenia (elven kind enjoy using the term "Seven high spans", or "three eras"), but what is meant for sure is defined nowhere. The reason hitherto is presumably that time seems rather unimportant to elves.
Because every soul must be reborn in a predefined "constellation", relatives, friends, the entire personal environment of a soul, and even the constellations of the stars are found to stand in a very similar constellation upon the next reincarnation. In this process, the goal of every soul is to continuously grow and learn, in order to finally attain all-encompassing harmony in the "Eternal Balance of Being". For elves, every encounter and every event in their lives has a direct correlation with the spiritual world and the world of the nature spirits and the elemental spirits; which they call the "ancient spirits". For them, every bush, every stone, and every single object has a soul of its own—they regard life and even existence itself as holy.
In human words, one could say: "A rather alienated perception of things." Dwarves who get hold of scriptures of the elven kind often complain about head-aches and throw the parchments away, shaking their heads, and heading off to drink beer; while orcs who are subject to these words preferably react with an elongated "Uuuh?!" or simply wipe the thread of saliva that hangs from their mouth and then fall unconscious in a controlled fashion. However, there are tales of lizard folk, and astonishingly enough of halfling and very select few humans—mostly magi—who actually succeeded in delving so deep into the myths and philosophies of the elven kind to be considered experts in the area. It comes as no surprise that these experts also are considered to be somewhat eccentric and wondrous, but generally extremely peaceful and patient.
The other races deem the elven creation mythology to be highly abstract, because it contains many odd facets. There are also many different forms of retelling the elven creation mythology. They all only differ in the individual style of the recollection, the meaning and the history however are always identical. Many of these texts are abstract and complex song stanzas or poems—a pure form of art in honor of the creators—only comprehensible to the listener or reader when he or she already knows the history from one of the rather "normal" variations of the texts, or when one is familiar with the elven culture.
An example of the more comprehensible texts if the so-called "Copies of Ilkamar", which is in fact a collective translation from elven tongues by an Ilkamaerian scholar. The Copies are several thousands of years old and ever since have been translated into various human dialects. The following excerpt shall illustrate the complexity of the elven creation mythology. The Copies are a summarizing except themselves, taken from the original, elven texts:
"And behold, 'twas night in the world, and the emptiness held reign. 'Twas night, and the emptiness desired the light. For every being, even the emptiness, strives towards the thought. And yet was the emptiness not able to give birth to the thought, for it was the emptiness itself—but in emptiness, peace and harmony held reign.
And behold, the ancient substance created the source of creation, the spark of life, which once had summoned the creators to life. And so the emptiness summoned the creators.
The creators entered the emptiness and sealed the gates of arrival. For so 'twas how the light entered the emptiness, and they united, and there was only the illuminated emptiness and the creators.
The creators sang into the emptiness, and behold: So it came that every created created an elemental force from the emptiness and light. And so the powers hovered in the emptiness, which was now fulfilled with the five harmonious thoughts:
The Harmony of Stone hovered over the Harmony of Flame.
The Harmony of Water hovered over the Harmony of Stone.
The Harmony of Air hovered the Harmony of Water.
The Harmony of Fire hovered over the Harmony of Air.
And behold: The four Harmonies formed a holy circle, and were infused by the Harmony of Spirit, which sung with the thoughts and also filled the emptiness.
And so the Five connected the Harmonies.
Ushara, Lady of the Harmonies of Stone, placed the Stone in the middle.
Tanora, Lady of the Harmonies of Water, placed the Water about the Stone.
Findari, Lady of the Harmonies of Storms, placed the Air around the Water.
Brágon, Lord of the Harmonies of Fire, however placed the Fire within the Stone and beside the Stone, and so the came the Inside like the Outside, and so was the circle closed again.
Eldan, Lord of the Thoughts, placed the spirit in the center from the Inside and Outside: And so, he came through all the elements, as he came through the emptiness, and he filled them all with Thoughts.
From the Stone and the Spirit, the ancient Spirits of Stone were born.
From the Water and the Spirit, the ancient Spirits of the Water were born.
From the Air and the Spirit, the ancient Spirits of Air were born.
From the Fire and the Spirit, the ancient Spirits of Fire were born.
From the emptiness and the Spirit, the ancient Spirits of Spirit were born.
And they all guarded the new world and served the creators in harmony and honor.
And so the creators sent the old tribe of the ancient ancestors, the Aemon-Aeld, to Illarion: And so they placed themselves as their servants in the world. And in the heads of the Aemon-Aeld were thoughts and emptiness, and they could embrace the emptiness and explore the Harmony, and so they spoke with the creators, and so they built the first city."
The elven creation mythology may be mostly similar to the salkamaerian, although it tends to be worded in a very abstract manner.
[edit] 3 The names of Elves
Elven language makes more use out of vowels than other languages. Because of that, the letters A, E, I, O and U appear regularly in Elven names. Names of the both genders have tendency of beginning with the same letters, particularly with L, D, C, A and S. There are no strict customs concerning syllables. Female names often end to L, a vowel or pair of vowels.
Examples: Cirwen, Andirlion, Anedia, Laetherel.
Amongst elves, there is no actual surname, but a house or family clan name. Usually as Elves perform the marriage rituals both partners henceforth belong to both families or houses and are allowed to accept the family or clan name of their partner as an honorific title. Elven names do not carry any identification concerning their social status, therefore outsiders find it difficult to determine the status of an Elf just by its name. Elves on the other hand do not need such identification through the name, as the status of a house was earned over a long period of time through deeds and the size of the clan and there might be no Elf who has no intimate knowledge about this matter. The Elven family name bears similarity to the first names, with the exception that they may be much longer and often display certain finesse.
Examples: Shandariel el Lysanthrai, Ellivaen Nithalin, Lemarion Erenestareth.
