Pale Elf

**Pale Elves** are a species native to the Mortuus Arvum. Originally comprised of corrupted members of the Silverhead Elven clan, whose village was absorbed into the Arvum centuries ago, their numbers now seemingly include slaves who have undergone an unknown assimilation process. Their culture is focused around pain and cruelty, and almost all Pale Elves are aggressive and deadly warriors despite their lack of modern equipment.

## History

An unknown number of centuries ago, the village of the Silverhead Elven clan was absorbed into the Mortuus Arvum when it suddenly and near-instantaneously expanded to cover a larger portion of the Môr o Stormydd. The members of the clan quickly became corrupted, shortly afterwards fighting Captain Jack Ketch and his crew, who had also been absorbed along with their ship.

During approximately 10,000 years of time within the Arvum (but only a few centuries outside), their language diverged significantly from Elvish and their culture became harsher due both to their surroundings and exposure to Arvum energy. They made slaves of many who had been sent or wandered into the Arvum, near-starving them and forcing them to fight for entertainment, with the distant promise of one day joining their number. Furthermore, due to a lack of resources or unwillingness to extract them, Pale Elf technology stagnated, leaving them with crudely forged weapons and substandard armour.

Around Å-622, members of Queen Adalhard's Caravan began to receive visions of Pale Elves when interacting with Arvum-related objects, such as the Journal of Jack Ketch, which also provided the first written account of the Pale Elves.

Later that same year, Pale Elves began escaping the Arvum, first targeting trade caravans and later appearing after failed rituals. After a pair of incursions into the Arvum by members of the Caravan, a full-scale invasion was launched against the Caravan's camp, taking several captives and forcing them to retreat. The Pale Elves then laid claim to the area previously known as Pirate's Cove, and have been expanding their conquest ever since.

## Culture

Pale Elf culture has been heavily shaped by the Arvum, and revolves around pain and violence. Pale Elves commit random and meaningless acts of cruelty against their slaves for their own amusement, and communally watch gladiatorial battles between the strongest of their captives. They further seek to impose this sadism on their slaves through starvation leading to cannibalism, scalping, and other methods of torture. Slaves on whom this is successful are used as guards or cannon fodder.

The Pale Elves seem to worship the Death King, the consciousness within the Arvum, building statues to him and making offerings of 'blood and skulls'.

The Pale Elf language has diverged in significant and unusual ways from Elvish, making it nigh-unintelligible to speakers of the latter language. The language contains extensive vocabulary relating to pain and violence, and relatively little for their opposites; moreover, it has almost entirely abandoned the concept of tense in response to the Arvum's effect on local time.

## Biology

Pale Elves resemble normal elves with unnaturally pale skin and hair. They also each possess a marking of one of multiple colours, though its significance is not yet known.

It is unknown how long Pale Elves live or if they can reproduce conventionally, but the testimony of some slaves indicates that it is possible for a slave of any species to undergo a procedure that transforms them into a Pale Elf, a position to which many aspire.

While in the Arvum, Pale Elves are seemingly immune to all conventional weaponry and can only be harmed by the sword Sorrowfall; however, outside of it, they lose any special protection.

At least one Pale Elf is significantly larger and stronger than normal, striking fear even into Sorrowfall.