Part 56: Regarding the Remnants of the High Elves

Regarding the Remnants of the High Elves

The high elves were those elves who remained in Arcanus, and, in time, became one of the founding races of the Confederation of Wizards. Their skill in magic helped some of the earliest wizard-lords to rise from their numbers, and it was wizard-lords of the high elves who eventually cast down Rjak the Defiler in ancient days. In the days of the Confederation, they pursued a terrible vendetta against their sundered kin the dark elves, which led to the death of many of the dark elves in those days. They were a sophisticated and learned people with knowledge of many arts and of secrets of magic.

These days, the high elves are a race almost entirely extinct, who have lost almost all traces of their former culture. Fewer than one hundred high elves still survive as nobles of the Wind Tribes, a nation of low men of somewhat less savage bent than the Storm Tribes. Their history and culture has likewise been lost, and they have adopted the clothing, language, traditions, and arts of the Wind Tribes, if perhaps having been responsible for moderating the culture of these low men at some point in the past. They have retained some knowledge of magic, and their King or Queen has traditionally been a magician of some skill, although only in recent years has their Queen achieved the skills of a true wizard.

The archaic religion of the high elves was an informal meditative practise with few priests and with only the most nominal honor given to the gods, but rather seeking to find beauty and peace in the world through one's own mental state. The remnants of this religion persist only in a fairly widespread practise of meditation amongst the elves and men of the Wind Tribes in what is otherwise strikingly similar to Storm Tribe religion, if perhaps with slightly different emphasis on different stories.

Although the archaic high elven culture was contemptuous of the dwarves and guilty of great crimes during the years of the Confederation, modern high elves are little more than a noble class of their low man culture, and lack what hostility high elves once had to the dwarves. Indeed, more than anything, their people struggles against the edge of extinction, and their numbers have continued to dwindle over the years.