Species and Races > Elves > Desert Elves
Desert Elves
The Serpent’s Fang Dynasty
The most powerful force within the barren landscape of Kelratra is undoubtedly the Desert Elves, known now as the Serpentfolk or the Kulkulk. Though once they represented a more nomadic group than their kin, under the leadership of House Onyxmind they have built a new civilization in their lands, once thought rendered an inhospitable desert by the Spirit War. They have made their way in this harsh land through sheer perseverance and willpower. As with many elves, the Desert Elves have a strong sense of pride, and have a strong sense of physical beauty despite their curse. They pride themselves on beautiful colors, intricate designs using beads, tattoos, or even weapons and stone. Though they speak standard elvish, the Desert Elves have developed a slight variant on elvish scripture, incorporating more flowing runes, and some of the local humans’ literary artifacts.
Relations with outsiders have always been tense, due to the Desert Elves’s less devout stance towards Lith. The curse placed on them— which led to their current serpentine appearance— has caused their relationship with the Children of Lith and the High Elves as a whole to vastly deteriorate, as influential members of the Priesthood disavow them, claiming that the transformation is a punishment for their blasphemy. Meanwhile, the curse has taken a toll on the mentality of their people, leading to a colder, angrier sort of loathing towards outsiders, something that’s not easily forgotten by a people who can live for over a thousand years. Despite all of this, the young Sorcerer-Queen Salvashi Onyxmind has kept a firm grasp over her people, and for now, she keeps her spite towards their Northern kin in check, though the loss of her father still weighs heavy on the young monarch.
Training
Education
The Desert Elves are a people of many talents, like the High Elves, they teach their young to reading, writing, history, and about the world, but unlike many of their fellows, a young Desert Elf isn’t necessarily bound to their House by blood. They have the freedom to pursue their passion, joining another House, Guild, or other organization to learn a specific skillset that they find appealing. Desert Elves are still known to sometimes remain close to their ancestral House, and those who do are often viewed with respect for choosing the path of the community over their own. The Desert Elves often build different areas of various cities around specific kinds of professions, making it easier to locate the specific area to learn a skill or obtain a product. To be recognized as true masters of a craft, or to change professions, Desert Elves seek out the will of their local Sheikh, essentially the Lord or Lady of their Province who will either personally hear their request, or have them give a display of their skills.
Combat
While the Desert Elves aren’t as militarized as their northern kin, their skill and their proficiency shouldn’t be underestimated. In the harsh desert landscape, resilience and fortitude are necessary traits for anyone looking to press on. The elves of Kelratra are well known for their curved blades and unusual fighting styles, especially since their legs were polymorphed into serpentine tails. They utilize khopeshes, kukri, fan-blade axes, composite bows, fauchards, ngombe swords, and shillelagh. This wide variety of weapons often are sharpened on one side in order to facilitate swift, flowing movements, not only to assist their current, snake-like forms, but to be more in touch with the nature of their land. Their weapons an fighting style flow like the sands, and are just as unforgiving, the blades may seem strange, but their design serves as both a symbol of Desert Elven individuality, but also, in their eyes it shows how they are able to make even battle and bloodshed beautiful, yet still very efficient. The warriors of the Sorcerer-Queen are known as the Thueban. They consist of three groups or “Scales”, the Fangs, the Tongues, and the Tails.
The Fangs are the eminent warriors of the Thueban, weapons experts, specializing in guerrilla warfare, and unorthodox fighting techniques to prepare them for any foe. Fully fledged members of the Fangs tattoo their wrists with the phrase “for our Queen, I shall fight till the sands run red with my blood”. They are brave, and act not only as the main fighting force during wartimes, but as the personal guards of the ruler of the Dynasty, a duty they take great pride in.
The Tongues wield the strange sorcerous powers of their barren home. These secretive magi are intelligent and have trained to show restraint, preferring to resolve issues with their magic only when it’s required. In the spirit of their lands, the Tongues are trained as Wizards and Sorcerers with emphasis on elemental magic that works well with the desert. In addition, many of their senior members are taught a technique known as barren casting, which allows them to draw magical power not from the Nexus or its leylines, but from the life energy of creatures and plants that lack the willpower to resist their’s. This allows the most skilled among them to wield seemingly inexhaustible power. The Tongues bare tattoos around their neck that read “for our people, I shall speak with the voice of a howling sandstorm”. They are seen as wise and are often sought out by less experienced Desert Elves for advice.
The Tails are the keepers of peace and the upholders of the law. They utilize quiet, more subtle tactics to not only discover unrest, but to stop it swiftly and efficiently. They act as extensions of the ruler of Kelratra themself, and as the agents of Sorcerer-Queen Salvashi, they are viewed with equal parts respect and fear, as they’re seen as mysterious. While outsides might mistake their tactics for those of assassins or lowlives, the Tails are highly organized, and extremely careful, preferring to gather as much information as they can before they strike. The Tails are selected not from the best warriors or the most talented mages, but from the most loyal and committed citizens of Kelratra. As with the other groups, they too bare a symbolic tattoo. Written along their spines in ink that is only visible under the glow of the setting sun are the words “for our home, I shall serve in silence so other may live free.”
Other Desert Elves sometimes use similar tactics or styles to the three Scales, but these three groups are regarded as the most elite of Kelratra’s warriors.
Medicine
Since their mysterious and undesired transformation into Serpentfolk, the Desert Elves have begun learning what medicinal techniques work best with their new bodies. Quite usefully, they’ve learned that they are not only now immune to many toxins, but that their sense of taste has changed too, so that they’re able to use their snake-like tongues to effectively smell ingredients making them quite adept at creating complex alchemical mixtures based on samples. Due to the state of leylines in Kelratra thanks to damage done during the Spirit War, healing magic is more difficult to practice, so alchemical remedies are their preferred solution, sans an abnormally powerful spellcaster. Due to this, many of the Tongues, one of the three groups of Thueban, choose to undertake the role of healers both on the battlefield, and when they aren’t under other orders.
Daily Life
Due to their home climate, many Desert Elves take on jobs that outsiders might find strange. For instance, one of the most important jobs in their society is that of a “wellkeeper”, or those Serpentfolk who oversee not only the cleaning, upkeep, and distribution of water from the wells and piping beneath their cities, but also those who, in times of need or great drought, travel to the rivers and oases of Kelratra to gather this precious resource. The Desert Elves also sell salt from deposits, just like their human neighbors, and make both fine exotic jewelry, and silks. So although their life isn’t easy, their economy is well able to hold its own.
Their transformation has rendered them almost exclusively carnivorous, hunting large creatures in the desert like desert dragons, sand worms, and any smaller creatures, as well as growing wheat to make bread, drying and salting fish so they can bring them inland, and trading for the foods they require. Their position as a cursed and often distrusted people makes many of the Desert Elves quite bitter, and they often view outsiders with a judgmental bitterness. However, a beacon of hope to many is their monarch, although she is less than 200 years old, Sorcerer-Queen Salvashi is a charismatic young woman, and a brilliant speaker. Not only that, but despite the paranoia and anxiety that has resulted from her father’s assassination, the sovereign of Kelratra remains steadfast when in the presence of her people, and presents a strong image that keeps their hopes and ambitions alive.
Government
The Government of Kelratra is fairly simple, especially for an elven society, as House Onyxmind is the undisputed ruler of the Desert Elves. The House’s ability to innately absorb magic from all around them— even from the life force of other creatures— makes them extremely powerful and exceptionally good at surviving in harsh environments, and has left them the sole House with any major power in Kelratra. The Sorcerer-Monarch rules from the city of Cesh Larshi, and the other cities and lands near them are ruled by their vassals, the Sheikh, nobles from Houses who have proven themselves to their ruler.
The Sheikh of Serpentis is Sethorim Blackfang, a former elite member of the Thueban Tongues under Salvashi’s father, Sorcerer-King Axirôm. When their people were first cursed 300 years ago, Sethorim was one of the individuals who helped Axirôm reorganize the Desert Elves’s government, although since the assassination of the King by a mysterious dark man with fiery eyes and a mask of bone, Sethorim has had his eye on the throne, hoping perhaps to become the new Sorcerer-Monarch.
Ishesha is governed by Sheikh Ravanis. This former Tail was a childhood friend of Salvashi, and the only Sheikh installed directly by her. Ravanis is known for her harsh tactics in suppressing dissent, but also for being by far the most active in protecting the borders of her given province, so she is certainly one of the more controversial officials among the Desert Elves.
Sheikh Hashorth the Undead is a Lich who has been the overseer of the province of Cesh Larshi for over a thousand years now. Although he wasn’t initially affected by the curse, after a failed experiment destroyed his previous form, and his phylactery restored him, he’d gained a skeletal, partially mummified serpent’s tail. As a Lich, and the highest ranking member of the Fangs, Hashorth is committed to ensuring Salvashi’s safety, and finding a cure for the curse. Although his undead nature is extremely unsettling to most Desert Elves, and has made him colder and less compassionate, Sorcerer-Queen Salvashi keeps him in power due to his unwavering loyalty and support of her.
Amira Onyxmind, Salvashi’s older cousin, serves as the Shiekh of Quetzashor, the southernmost city. Though she is begrudging towards her relative’s position as the monarch, Amira is committed to the Dynasty nonetheless. She has been strongly in favor of a hostile and vengeful stance towards the High Elves, who she believes to be responsible for the curse.
Religion & Holidays
After the Desert Elves were cursed the cultural rift between them and their kin widened, breaking many long held traditions and steeping them in bitterness and envy. As such, their love of celebrations soured, and they broke from their old beliefs.
The only holiday still celebrated by the Desert Elves is called Day of the Sorcerer-Monarchs, a day of remembrance and story telling about the past rulers of Kelratra where the gates of the Great Tomb are opened, and offerings are left at altars outside of each Sorcerer-King or Sorcerer-Queen’s chamber. This celebration is unique to the Desert Elves, as a show of support and respect for their leaders, replacing the other elves’ Day of the Three. This holiday also displays a unique tradition among the Kulkulk; that of mummifying their previous rulers and high ranking officials, preserving and entombing their bodies in wealth as a grand show of respect.
Architecture
The Desert Elves utilize ramps and sloping architecture like pyramids and ziggurats for their important buildings, with many of their smaller structures having one story in stark contrast. They build largely without wood, as it’s difficult to come by in the desert, so bricks made of mud, clay, or stone are preferred materials. They also enjoy carvings and statues, though they usually refrain from using many colors in their construction in order to minimize damage done by the erosion of harsh desert storms. Instead, they will more often embed glazed ceramic or, in the case of incredibly wealthy houses, jewels, in order to draw the eye and reflect the scorching sun, creating glittering patterns that change as the day wanes.