RAces
Half-Elves
The Humble Highlanders
- The highest good is love
- The most loving person is the one who can let go
- The most sacred duty is sacrifice
- The most sacred life is the friend
- The most wicked evil is the degradation of soul
- The most heinous crime is devaluing life
Overview
During the Great Elf Exodus, when the human race was first emerging on the global scene, the elves found Sembre. At that time, the lawless wilds of West Sembre had not yet been tamed by the knights from the Ensembre Valley. Rather than throw in their lot with the reckless humans on those shores, the elves followed the trade-winds northward, eventually making port in the untouched mountains of the Northern Glens. On these misty shores, the elves established a new settlement, free from the arrogant trappings of Ëidine. They renounced the stiff and bigoted ways of their ancestors and founded a new city and with it, a new culture.
Cities
Ëobol: the First Settlement
The half-elves first village in the northern wilds went much like any other settlement - it barely survived. When a storm blew their ships off course, the elves were forced to land not in Stormhenge, but in the harsh winter of North Sembre. With nothing but tropic or temperate climates in their blood, the elves would have fallen to the ice and cold in weeks had it not been for the help of orcs from Low Dûrdn who taught them how to weather the frost. Having endured their first winter at the top of the world, the elves travelled southeast along the coast where they found the warm cove that would be their first home in Sembre.
Gallan: the Ethical Frontier
Gallan was founded after the half-elves crossed over the western mountains into the the valley proper. Nestled in at the foothills of valley's western edge, these citizens elected to stay in the shelter of the mountains while others ventured deeper into the east. During the time of the Nautilus Crisis, the citizens of Gallan grew quite fond of themselves for having birthed the champion Sirena L'Mey. Gallan's arrogance grew under a shroud of universal kindness and humanitarian thinking. During the Apocalypse of 1624, the Heroes of Amaura faced significant opposition from the villagers who slandered their efforts to collect Sirena's Nautilus Piece as a "slight of bigotry against the lycanthrope community."
When the Heroes completed their quest, Ceric - Sirena's own son and a werewolf himself - returned to Gallan to return their allegiance to the God of the Sea instead of making accommodations for monsters. Ceric preached his message of reconciliation in the region for three months before his body was found, eviscerated by canine teeth, in the mountains. The Gallanese people celebrated the passing of the wicked bigot and tore down the shrine to his mother as well. From that day forward, Gallan has stood to declare that all peoples of Amaura may find refuge in the loving arms of Gallan and be free to live without the tyranny of Gods or their slaves.
Sionë: the Devoted Village
From the plateaus over Gallan, looking east over the river, you can just spot the little village of Sionë sticking out of the rolling fields like a brown prairiedog. Sionë was founded out of reach of the werewolf populations - protected by water on all but its Eastern side. This citizens of Sionë are well-aware of the role the God of the Sea played in rescuing its founders time-and-again from the threats of the Ëoboline plains while the half-elves endeavored to keep their settlement alive.
To this day, they have not forgotten the God of the Sea, and the citizens of Sionë often use their trips down the river to Ensembre as opportunities to minister to the hard-headed humans living in the Royal Lake Valley.
History
When the humans finally quelled the absurdity that was the Western Shore, they turned their attentions to what they believed were the still-vacant lands of the North. To their great surprise, the expedition parties reported collections of alien creatures with settlements growing in the glens! Shocked, the humans dispatched emissaries in grand displays of pomp and power to intimidate and interrogate these strange and beautiful beings. The elves were more than accommodating and explained that they sought only to live peacefully in the North away from their homeland. At first, the King was outraged by this supposition, but when reports returned that the elves had managed to placate the mermaid pods living in their region, while also fighting off the highland monsters on land, he became more shrewd and reasonable. A deal was made. The elves would be given a sanction of Sembre in return for their promise to maintain open borders with Sembre and to come to its aid in battle should the king ever call on them. The elves gratefully accepted this proposal.
The humans drew up the charter for the new region as the Ëobol Territories. The founding city from which the region derived its name still stands today as the capital of the Territories, but new villages have sprouted up in that region such as Gallan and Sione. As a sign of goodwill between elves and humans, many of the fairfolk took human spouses, resulting in a gradual transition of the population toward a half-elf majority. The humans took this as a sign of not only goodwill, but immense humility as only pureblooded elves can maintain their immortality. By taking human partners, the elves had surrendered their divinity for the sake of doing life with their human neighbors.
Today, the remaining full-elves have either died or departed, making Half-Elves the dominate race of their Territories: a people and a partition both serving as monuments to the possibility of peace and prosperity through integration.
champions of Ëobol
Sirena L'Mey
(Born in the year of the Third Age, Died in the year of the Fourth Age)
Though the humans of Ensembre had already chosen Pax as their continental representative in the Oceanic 8, the half-elves felt compelled to provide one of their own folk to serve in the collective. After abandoning the old home of the elves because of the Harvest Massacres, the half-elves refused to see the Seafolk mistreated again by Terra. In their search for someone who would exemplify the half-elf balance of immortal discernment with mortal compassion, an exceptional sorceress named Sirena emerged.
On their voyage across and into the Accordic Ocean, Sirena supplied an unwavering moral compass to the desperate company.
Svoulwyn of Gallan
(Born in the 101st year of the Fourth Age, Hero of Amaura, Servant to the God of the Sea, Died