Rockseer Elves

The Rockseer Folk

Rockseer elves are the rarest of all elvenkind and have a natural lifespan of +1.400 years. They are far taller than most of their kin, with a few reaching almost eight feet in height. An average weight for a Rockseer is between 120 and 140 pounds, with little gender difference. Rockseers are very pale-skinned, and they have no body hair. Head hair is extraordinarily fine, always worn long, with the appearance and texture of exquisitely fine silk. The hair is silver, and eye color is invariant: a pale, almost ice-blue. They are androgynous in appearance, making it difficult for outsiders to tell males and females apart.
Rockseers have been separated from the rest of elvenkind since mythic times. Their own history tells that they were cowards at the great battle of Corellon Larethian and Lolth, fleeing the combat and taking refuge far below ground. They have little knowledge of surface elves. They know of the drow and hate them, avoiding them whenever possible. They are in general extremly seclusive and shun the company of all other races, including the svirfneblin. The only exception to this are pech, with whom Rockseers sometimes form friendships.
Rockseers dress very plainly in cloaks and garments which blend in with their surroundings, brown and gray being the favored colors. These garments are woven from tough fungal fibers, but such is their craftsmanship that they appear almost to be normal clothing. Treatment with plant extracts renders them waterproof and relatively fire resistant. In contrast with this plain garb, they wear rich jewelry, usually of gold and silver and always set with gems.

Abilities and Powers

Rockseer elves have 240-foot infravision. They do not, as a rule, possess many magical items. Nonwizards have but a 5% chance per level of owning a magical weapon. Wizards have a 10% chance p+r level of owning a magical item of appropriate kind, but these are often powerful indeed. The greatest wizards are reputed to possess special wands of steam and vapor which create acrid clouds of burning, blinding acid (6d6 points of damage the first round, 4d6 the second, and 2d6 the third and final).

Communal Powers

Rockseers are rumored to have communal powers. A group of three or more Rockseers with a total of 10 or more experience levels can create a wall of stone at will, and a group of five or more with a total of 20 or more experience levels can conjure a huge earth elemental once per day (that is, any Rockseer who participates in such a conjuration cannot do so again until the next day). This elemental has 20 HD and at least 5 hp per die, and it cannot be turned back against its summoners. Spell effects are considered to be at the aggregate experience level of the Rockseer group for the purposes of dispelling the elemental.

Habitat & Society

Rockseers believe that all they have is themselves and the riches of the earth. They are powerfully cohesive socially. Chieftains are generally elected by a conclave of the most powerful warriors and wizards on the death of the previous Ieader. A wise Rockseer leader does not give orders without consulting his or her advisors. Rockseers do not tolerate tyrannical leadership, nor do they suffer fools.
The lairs of Rockseers are supremely well disguised and warded. Multiple spells are always cunningly placed to prevent other creatures even suspecting the existence of such a network of caverns and passages, let alone entering them. Spies (usually thieves melding into stone) are always placed to watch out over areas close to the entry points of caverns. Some Rockseers live in caverns accessible only by stone walking or similar magic, where hundreds of feet of solid rock separate them from the outside world, with only small fissures to provide air.
Rockseers are highly unusual among elves in that they have little curiosity. Few among them have any desire to learn the ways of other folk. This is largely the legacy of a long historical sense of shame at their mythic history; they consider themselves tainted and instinctively avoid those who they think would condemn them. Once awakened, however, their curiosity can lead them to act in uncharacteristic ways, as those who stumble upon them will soon discover.
Rockseers are gem cutters and craftsmen almost without equal; even gnomes and dwarves would hesitate to claim they could better Rockseer work. They can almost scent gemlodes deep in Khyber and think nothing of spending ten years crafting and sculpting a single gem. The truly great Rockseer wizard-artisans are able to sculpt a gem with magic into forms of almost painfully exquisite beauty, generating fractal patterns of brilliant color and radiance within the heart of the gem as it grows. (See Artisans Halls)
Rockseers are strange, alien, and fey people even by the standards of elvenkind. They are a serious people with little of the light-hearted, frolicking, bantering ways of most elves. They speak their own dialect of elvish, which high or grey elves can understand 50% of the time and drow 30% of the time. They also know fragments of svirfneblin, and most can speak pech. A few have a smattering of khyber-dwarven and can communicate with derro or duergar (not that they would wish to do so, but it is useful for intelligence-gathering). Above all, they are totally isolated. They generally know little-to-nothing of what has transpired above ground for thousands of years. All Rockseers feel a deep sense of shame for the deeds of their far-distant ancestors and assume that any surface elf they meet would automatically despise them; it will be very difficult for a visitor to convince them otherwise. On the other hand, they long to know what their brethren lost for so many lifetimes do, how they live, what they believe in, what they consider beautiful.

Ecology

Rockseers hardly interact with anyone else in the Khyber. They eat fungi, moss, lichens, and cave creatures such as lizards and eels. They avoid violence and the endless struggle between different factions in the Khyber and keep to themselves. They are calm, enigmatic, and extraordinarily hard for outsiders to understand.