Galavir
Galavir is a large collection of simple stone-built houses in a valley in The Sunset Spine, leading to a glowing, beautiful lake.
Demographics
100% Elves
Government
A council of 5 elders meet regularly to discuss the events, concerns and needs of the village. Prime Navara is one of these elders and leads the council.
Industry & Trade
The Galavir are a self-sustaining people by-and-large. The waters of the lake sustain them for all their basic needs, and whatevr else they need can generally be easily made. Very few bother to carry weapons as most have other means of defence.
Recently, however, the encounters with Daring Heights has opened their eyes to what others could provide to them, and they have begun to explore options for what they could provide in trade. Pearls from the lake are particularly beautiful and would sell well. Additionally, a large mithral construct was slain in their village and the body of this is being slowly picked apart for mithral to sell. For a small settlement, they should do very well.
Guilds and Factions
After learning that their entire existence had been subverted to serve a Marid's trade in stories, schisms began to form in the village for the first time.
Some elves took it upon themselves to archive the orbs which still held the souls of their brethren, recording their knowledge and preserving them for the future. They became known as Reclaimers, and they continued to do this until Will, the Sylvan Seraph, freed the remaining souls.
Others saw all that they were, that the tribe had been, was built on lies. As such, there was no tribe in their eyes, and so they left. They rejected their watery heritage and many sought out other sources of power and connection in the world. They turned to Druidism, to pacts with far-flung powers and some travelled all the way to Faerûn. These lost wanderers were known as the Parched.
History
No one remembers the founding of Galavir, and given what has since been learned, it's likely this history was deliberately erased. However it first began, the elves of Galavir have lived in their valley in the Sunset Spine for longer than much of the Sword Coast has been settled.
Their lives were generally simple as they adhered to a simple philosophy: be bold; adventure forth; and bring your stories home. It was a valley of stories, as elves went out in groups to explore the world around them and came back days and weeks later with tales of daring exploits that everyone gathered around to here.
As much as their culture revolved around tales of adventure, it also revolved around their dedication to their life-spring, the lake at the end of the village which shined in the sun with its glory. It was a mana pool, and one drink from it was enough to sustain them for a whole day without further sustenance. As it also granted them their aquatic-themed abilities and kept them healthy, they gave thanks for it regularly. Most significantly, it was also the source of their souls. When an elf was born, a soul entered their body from the lake, and when they died their soul returned to its waters. They were bound to it, body and soul, and the Galavir knew no other way to be.
This did not, however, preclude them from using it for swimming, diving and playing.
Some few thousand years later, the first adventurers from Daring Heights arrived in the valley, and their arrival sent a shock through the whole tribe, not because they were outsiders - they had met plenty of kobolds and bearfolk in their time - but because they had elves with them. It didn't take long for the elves from Daring to understand that something was deeply, disturbingly wrong here, and they asked permission to investigate.
Soon it was revealed that one of the Elders of the tribe, a man named Bergonus, had been working with a Marid - a genie from the Plane of Water - to subvert the natural order of the elves. Marids trade in stories, and so at some point this genie had used its power to bind the Galavir elves to this mana pool, which happened to flow via portal directly into his home. When an elf died and their soul returned to the lake, it was bound within an orb in the Marid's home, The Scheherezade. There he would peruse the soul for all the tales of adventure it had encountered in its long life span, and then sell the tales for great profit amongst others of his kind. When he wanted even greater wealth, he simply sold a few souls as they lay trapped in the spheres. The very philosophy of the town - to adventure - had been implanted by him at the beginning, to encourage them to generate tales for his market.
This news nearly broke the tribe. A group went with the adventurers and slew the Marid in its home, swimming through the Plane of Water, and the Galavir claimed it as their own, though it was built for a being much, much taller than they. After a few months of reflection, Prime Navara took it upon herself to seek out an agent of Corellon to understand what this meant for their souls. With the Marid dead, were they a part of the wider elvish re-incarnation cycle? Would any soul be granted to a baby born of the Galavir? What would happen now if they died?
To this end she sought out Will, the Sylvan Seraph, and the angel's reaction when hearing her story was a mixture of grief and joy. It turned out that millenia ago, a group of elven souls were separated from the rest, and no one ever learned why. Known as 'The Lost Souls', Will was amazed to discover that they had been living mere miles from their forest.
Returning with Navara and other adventurers, Will uncovered an artifact known as The Anchor, which was still tying their souls to the lake. Will fought off a large, crab-like golem of mithral while the adventurers destroyed the artifact. From that point on, the Galavir souls were freed from the lake. They would rejoin the greater soul collective... whatever that meant.
Architecture
Plain grey stone in large unbroken sheets were used to build the houses of Galavir. The standard building is square, though there is some amount of variation in this. The buildings were put together centuries ago and they still stand due to their simple, sturdy construction. Ivy and other grasping plantlife grow up the sides of most of them by now, especially in the derelict parts of the valley.
Many people use the flat part of their roofs for an elevated seating area and sit outside on their roofs when the weather is warm enough. Though painting the houses is uncommon, many are decorated with trinkets and oddities from the many travels that its occupants have been on.
Population
322
Related Ethnicities
Inhabitant Demonym
Galavir
Owner/Ruler
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