Dark Elves

Dark elves are one of the most feared races in the world, known for reaching into the void and pulling out horrendous monstrosities. Their large northern empire Rivals that of Devron and Zao, though they are much more feared due to their dark magics.

## Physical attributes

There are two Subraces of Dark Elves, the Coastal Dark Elves and the Dread Elves. The Coastal Dark elves are a result of Human and Dread elves interbreeding along the boarder of Haeldir and Leiesluth. They have dark tanned skin and more often than not white hair. Shorter than their Dread Elven Brothers, they also gain void corruption at a slower pace. Due to their void-tainted blood being watered down by human blood, it takes them until they're 1000 years old to even get their first mutation if they're in Leiesluth. If they're outside of the empire it takes even longer, up to 1500 years. They typically have green or blue eyes and white scelara's.

Dread Elves make up the majority of the Leiesluth population but are also less likely to be seen outside of it. Dread Elves are tall like their High Elf Cousins. Their skin are often ashen grey or purple and hair white or black. Their eyes can be blue and green but are more often Red, Purple or Yellow with black Scelara's. In Leiesluth it only takes 400 years for them to begin seeing mutations in themselves and outside of the empire it takes around 900.

### Voidal Mutations

Due to the Dark Elves blood being seeped in the dark energy of the void, they develop mutations as they grow old and slowly go insane. These mutations can be beneficial but always come with the side effect of losing their sanity. Coastal Dark Elves gain a mutation every 200 years after they turn 1000 or 1500 and Dread Elves gain them every 100 year after turning 400 or 900. Each mutation follows a path that eventually leads to the dark elf becoming one of the types of Dread-beasts that roam Leiesluth. Most of the Dread-beasts are completely incapable of interacting with others, though Lustful Witches and Envious snakes can think somewhat clearly and talk to others.

## Culture

Dark Elves have a very complex culture and even more complex religion that involves a mixture of vice worship and void worship or death worship as some call it. The Dark elves government is run by a council of seven dark elves who were from the original Dark Elf empire in the south. They have managed to stave off the void mutations that the rest of their race suffer due to connecting themselves with the nature within Leiesluth, spreading the void corruption away from themselves. It is theorized that eventually the corruption will catch up with them, but it hasn't yet. They do look quite grotesque either way due to their advanced exposure to the void, despite there being no normal mutations from it. These seven rulers have ruled for over 5 Millennia and are worshiped by their subjects as the original Dark Elves and physical embodiment of the seven holy vices. The Seven, as they are called still have names and they are:

* Jeishiuk The Prideful: Male: Head of the council.
* Ellana The Lustful:Female:
* Jekarta The Wrathful:Female:
* Quencar The Glutenous:Male:
* Grelara The Avarice:Female:
* Jeenarti The Envious:Male:
* Pelincki The Slothful: Male:

These Seven work and discuss issues 24/7, not requiring sleep. Even Pelincki is involved, though begrudgingly. He is often the deciding vote if the other six can not come to an agreement as he rarely contributes otherwise. This council make all of the decisions regarding war, political relationships and laws within the empire. These Seven can be ruthless in their acts and punishments towards their citizens but can also be very rewarding to those who follow their orders.

Dark Elves society is very much survival of the fittest and due to this there are no laws against murder, however there is a strong social repulsion to those who kill randomly and without any reason. Their actions are seen as weakening the empire as a whole and the person themselves are seen as weak, grasping at power. If someone kills a rival, however, it is seen as acceptable but the person must also understand that the family of the rival may come after them and kill them in return. Due to this mutual understanding, violent killings aren't as common as one might think, the killings are only 1.5 times more likely in the empire, however, killers are much less likely to escape than in the rest of the world.

Funnily enough, Dark Elves have very strong family structures and familial love is very strong, dark elven mothers being very passionate about teaching and protecting their children. Dark Elves are also largely a polygamous society, it being legal for men to have up to 5 wives and women 3 husbands. Everyone in this structure is considered a part of the family of the strongest individual in the family. It's a very complicated structure and there are very complicated family structures, but they remain close-knit all the same.

The Dark Elves have a powerful naval fleet and raiding parties who terrorize the world and take slaves, though they never conquer land. These raiding parties cause tension between Leiesluth and other nations but no one really wants to go to war with the Dark Elves, fearing what sort of dark powers they may posses.

### Religion

While Dark Elves worship the Council of The Seven, that is not their primary god. They primarily worship the Void, the middle realm between Haeven and Naether. This is often referred to as Muerta's realm and the Dark Elves draw power from the void for their dark magics. They worship Muerta as the Goddess of Death and Power, despite her only being the Goddess of Death. While the real Goddess is surely annoyed by their sapping of her power, they see her power as a gift unto them, her chosen people.

## History

Five-Thousand years ago a cult of High Elves arose around the south pole, found power there. At the time the High Elves were still looking for a way to regain their control of the world, and this power became very inciting. Those who became the Council of Seven found that there was a tear into the void at the south pole and enacted a ritual that tore it open even more and began studying the creatures and energies that came from the void. Leading this cult of Elves, they began worshiping the void instead of Dragons and this was the first time that the group was targeted by their peers. The Dragon Priests labeled the void worshipers as heretics and in turn, the void worshipers fought with the High Elves and created the first nation of Leiesluth. This nation lasted for a thousand years and created the dark region of the world that the ice and snow elves now guard and keep imprisoned. Ironically enough the wall that the snow elves keep manned was not built by them to keep the void in but by the dark elves to keep the high elves out.

After that thousand years the Dark Elves were officially a new race and reports of them mutating into beasts gave another reason for the High Elves to consider them tainted and heretical. This lead to a second war between the two species of Elves. For the first time in the history of man and elf, Human nations worked with the High Elves to take down the Dark Elves. Out manned, the Dark Elves manned their fleets and left their home before the High Elf and Human armies could even breach their walls. Knowing that the South Pole and such power, they moved all the way to the un-inhabited North, finding that indeed, the North Pole too had the same tear as the South Pole.

At this time the Dark Elves quietly built up their resources and their new empire. It took until the year 4400 for humans to spread up to the portion of land known as "The Throat" to touch the boarder of the New Leiesluth. Having grown their powers exponentially, the Dark Elves were much stronger than before. Along with this what was left of the Elven Empire of old that fought the Dark Elves in the last two wars, was now broken and shattered into multiple nations, leaving the humans alone if they chose to fight the Dark Elves. The humans tried no such thing. The nation (Placeholder) even traded with the Empire and began interbreeding with the Dark Elves, leading to the creation of the Coastal Dark Elves who were less tainted by the void and had dark tans instead of the grey or purple skin of the Dread Elves.

Despite no war being waged with the Dark Elves sense then, the Dark Elves have been a nuisance to the world as they have raiding parties and pirate ships who raid villages and take slaves. Complaints sent to the Empire are met with the same response "The Pirates and Raiders are individuals who do not represent the Empire" despite the fact that the Empire has no laws against the raiding and even trade with said raiders. This has lead to many nations who allow slavery to take dark elves as slaves as a slap to the face of the empire. The empire, however, cares very little about this as a whole.

In recent times, the Devron Empire has strongly considered going to war with Leiesluth and even had a few naval skirmishes with the Leiesluth fleet. Devron has largely decided against declaring war on Leiesluth is that these naval skirmishes have more times than not ended in Devron's defeat.