Wood Elves

The Veil of the Green Hunger

Deep in the untamed heart of Morsheck Forest, where the trees grow thick as iron spears and the light of day barely pierces the emerald gloom, dwell the wood elves—the Velkethi in their own tongue. To the world beyond their shadowed domain, they are creatures of nightmare: pale, eerily graceful beings who walk unseen between the trees, who whisper in the dark and lure the lost into their grasp.
To the humans of Clairvaux, they are monsters, predators that live not by plowing the earth or raising livestock, but by hunting, by feasting on meat—any meat. Travelers who stray too far into Morsheck’s depths tell of their unearthly beauty, their strange, hollow laughter, their voices like rustling leaves and murmuring brooks. Those who return speak of their haunted gold eyes, their silent, padded footsteps, their smiles full of too-white teeth.
But the truth of the Velkethi is neither wicked nor kind—it is simply nature in its rawest form.

A Society Rooted in Flesh

The Velkethi are a people of the hunt. They do not till the soil, nor do they keep herds. They eat only meat, the flesh of the beasts of the forest—and, when needed, that of their own kind. This is no cruelty, nor is it some blood-drenched cult of cannibalism. It is a sacred truth, a cycle as natural as the turning of the seasons. When a Velkethi dies, their body is not buried, nor burned—it is given to their kin, consumed in ritual feasts beneath the great trees. In this way, the spirit lingers, the strength of the fallen carried on in the blood of the living.
Their flesh-lore extends beyond mere sustenance; it is a philosophy, a reverence. They do not waste—bone becomes tools, sinew is woven into cords, blood is used in dyes and rituals. Nothing is discarded.
Their hunts are sacred acts, undertaken with reverence and skill honed over centuries. They do not kill needlessly, nor for sport. To take life is to offer a prayer to the soul of the slain, to bind hunter and prey in the oldest covenant of existence.

The Forbidden Fruits of the Earth

The Velkethi will not eat that which grows from the ground. No fruit, no grain, no root, no leaf. To them, such things are not meant for elves. The land is the womb of the world, the mother of all, and to eat of her bounty is to violate her flesh. Only animals—beasts and men alike—are proper food. To partake in vegetation is an abomination, a thing unclean.
This belief sets them apart from all other peoples. Even the beast-tribes of the north, who live as raiders and hunters, eat of berries and roots. Even the druidic circles of the world, who claim harmony with the wilds, partake of the forest’s fruits. But the Velkethi? They do not break the covenant.
This means that their survival depends on hunting, but it also means they cannot farm, cannot store great reserves of food as other civilizations do. They must kill to live. And when prey is scarce, or the forest’s bounty wanes, there is one source of nourishment that never fails—the weak, the wounded, the lost.

The Smiling Death

It is true that the Velkethi sometimes eat travelers.
But they do not do so cruelly, nor mindlessly. There is no savagery in it, no bloodlust, no reckless slaughter. They do not kill all who enter Morsheck. Many leave, forever changed by the encounter, whispering of their eerie kindness, their strange hospitality, their unsettling smiles.
A guest in a Velkethi glade will find themselves welcomed. Given soft, perfumed beds woven from silken moss. Fed roast venison and fragrant broths. Serenaded by music that weaves through the air like mist. And if they are found to be interesting, if they bring knowledge, stories, or gifts of worth, they may even leave.
But not all are so lucky.
Those deemed unworthy—crude men, dull men, those whose spirits hold no spark—find themselves invited to a different feast. Not as guests, but as offerings. There is no malice in this. They are not tortured. They are not hunted for sport. They are merely... harvested. Taken with a smile, lulled into a dream, and then returned to the earth through the stomachs of the tribe.
Their flesh feeds the hunters. Their bones become carved flutes and knife handles. Their hair is woven into ornaments and amulets. And their spirits, if they were strong, if they were worthy, are remembered.

The Unsettling Beauty of the Forest’s Children

The Velkethi are not cruel, but neither are they kind. They are otherworldly, both beautiful and terrifying in the way that a wolf or an owl is beautiful and terrifying. They do not hate humans or dwarves or halflings, nor do they particularly wish to make war upon them. They simply do not see them as equals.
To an elf of Morsheck, humans are creatures of the outside. Loud, clumsy, blind things that foul the land and bring with them war and metal and flame. And yet, for all that, they are intriguing. Humans burn too fast—a brief flicker of life, gone in an instant. But in that instant, they are so bright.
This is why some Velkethi find themselves fascinated by them. Why they lure travelers into the woods, why they sometimes take human lovers (though such unions rarely end well). And why, when a human proves boring, they are consumed instead.
They move with unnatural grace, their steps barely disturbing the leaves. Their golden eyes glow in the dark, reflecting light like a beast’s. Their voices are soft, airy things, like wind through branches, like the sigh of the trees themselves.
They are never loud, never brash. Even in battle, they are eerily silent, fighting with smiles on their lips, their movements too fluid, too perfect. And when the battle is done, when the bodies of the fallen lie cooling in the dirt, they do not bury their dead.
They eat.

The Whispering Glades and the Blood-Touched Rites

The Velkethi do not build cities. They do not raise fortresses. Their homes are woven into the very bones of the forest—high, twisting canopies of interwoven branches, delicate bridges that stretch between trees, shimmering dwellings crafted from silk and leaf and bone.
At the heart of their society are the Whispering Glades—sacred clearings where the spirits of the dead linger, where the greatest hunters are given their final feast. To eat the flesh of an honored ancestor is to take their spirit within you, to carry their wisdom, their strength.
Their rites are dreamlike things. Murmured chants, songs that seem to echo through the trees long after the voices have fallen silent. They do not mourn death, for death is simply another turning of the cycle.

The Covenant of the Forest

The Velkethi believe that all things have a purpose and a spirit. The beasts exist to be hunted, their flesh to be eaten, their bones to be shaped into tools. But the trees are different—they are the keepers of Morsheck, the watchers of the deep woods, the whisperers of ancient secrets. To take from them is not a right, but a sacred act that must be done only under strict conditions.

The Law of the Trees

A Velkethi may only take wood if:

• The tree has already fallen—A storm, a flood, or the natural passage of time has brought it low. Such wood is a gift, freely given.
• The tree is diseased or dying—If it is beyond saving, its spirit must not be wasted.
• A great sacrifice is made in return—To cut a living tree means offering a worthy price—a hunt of great significance, a ritual of blood, or the burning of a hunter’s flesh in the sacred glades.

This is why the Velkethi never have great wooden structures—they do not fell trees in great numbers. They do not clear land. They do not burn forests. Instead, they build only what is necessary, and even then, they do so with care.

The Reality of the Legends

The humans of Clairvaux fear the Velkethi. They tell stories of demons in the trees, of hunters with golden eyes and smiling mouths, of those who go into the forest and never return.
Some of the stories are true.
But for every traveler taken in the night, there are others who walk the same path and emerge unscathed, forever changed by the experience.
For the Velkethi do not kill for cruelty. They do not hunt for vengeance.
They simply are.
And in the end, to them, all flesh is flesh.