Dark elves

Dark Elves

Dark Elves are an off-shot of Celestial Elves that have retreated to the depths of Undercity. Together they make up the True Elves.

Origins & History

During the destruction and chaos of The Fall of The Old Imperium The Celestial Elves retreated to the highest levels of The Worlds Tree and a small contingent of elven technicians and engineers stayed below The City of Eleva in its underbelly to keep its life giving machines in working order and to wait for rescue from off-world. That rescue never came.
With only desolation and barbarism above and cut-off from their elven sistern in the highest reaches of The Worlds Tree this society of mechanics, technicians, and engineers focussed on one goal: survival.

One Purpose

The Dark Elves have one purpose: survival. All actions and decisions are judged by how it will advance the survival of the Dark Elves. To that end, the Dark Elves have reshaped themselves into castes through iterative cloning, technological enhancement, and bioforming. Mirroring the function of the lesser races that retreated to The Worlds Tree with the Celestial Elves, each breed of Dark Elf serves a specific function in their society. Together they form a hive mind.

Queens

At the center of the hive are the Controllers, also know own as Queens. These are heavily modified clone descendants of the original Celestial Elves that retreated into the Undercity during The Fall. But, where the Star Elves seek to preserve themselves with their cloning, the Dark Elves sought to "improve" themselves and make themselves more fit to survive below the surface. With each technological enhancement, cloning, and consciousness transfer they augmented their psionic abilities and their intelligence, while diminishing hinderances such as fear, guilty, compassion, and mercy.
Biology Queens are the sessile heart of the living machine of the Undercity. After each iteration of cloning, a queen has her consciousness imprinted into the new body and the newly born queen melds her body into the machine, where it will remain for the rest of her life. She will join the hive mind of the hive and through its psionics it reaches out into the world and interacts with it through their various servant subraces. The physical body of a queen is a highly modified version of its original Celestial Elf clone ancestor. They are albinos with atrophied limbs and oversized heads, holding greatly augmented brains. These limbs only work once to take a Queen from her cloning chamber to her interface with the great living machine. Once integrated with the machine, her physical form will slowly meld into it and become indistinguishable from the machine. Eventually only an undifferentiated mass of brain tissue and a pair of eyes will remain. 

Psychology With greatly enhanced psionics and the instrumentality of the great living machine of Undercity they form a hivemind, each a player in a chorus. While their bodies remain forever integrated into the living machine, queens interact with the world through their servants races and through their psionics. Queens communicate either by projecting their thoughts directly into the minds of others or by speaking through their avatars. Avatars are often used in situations when queens want to disguise their true nature

Avatars

Avatars are created to be embodiments of a queen's consciousness. Although they can be engineered with any appearance, they are most often designed to resemble the original appearance of a queen's original Celestial Elf progenitor-form. Avatars are empty vessels in and of themselves, a queen projects her consciousness into the avatar when it is being used. Otherwise it remains dormant. Avatars are the main means that queens have to directly interact with outsiders and the world. They cannot leave Undercity or beyond the area which the queens can project their conciousness. 

Drones

Acting as the hands of the hive, drones' are give enough programming and skills to complete their assigned tasks such as maintenance and agriculture. Biological automatons and barely sapient, drones have little in the way of self-awareness. They are controlled through the Queens' psychic reach and send their sight and senses back to them.

Warriors

Warriors, too, start as empty shells, but their bodies are given superior speed and strength and their minds are loaded with combat and tactical skills. They have one purpose, to protect the safety of The Queens and to attack their enemies.

Scouts

Scouts are avatars of the queens that are bred to leave the Undercity to infiltrate the surface world. A scout is a modified copy of a queen with the same goals and intellect, but with lesser psychic powers and a specific set of memories, knowledge, and skills to meet their mission goals. Scouts have the greatest amount of autonomy of all the lower castes, able to operate away from the hive for an indefinite period of time.
When scouts have completed their missions, they return to the hive and have their memories and knowledge assimilated into the collective consciousness of the queens. After this, their bodies are consumed and the biological materials repurposed. As a result, it is rumored that several scouts have indefinitely extended their missions or abandoned them entirely, assuming new lives in the surface world.

Hunters

Hunters are a special breed of scouts sent to the surface to retrieve wayward scouts and eliminate enemies of The Queens. Often they are created as copies of their target, with the same physique, memory, and personality so best to understand them. But, the curiosity and adaptability of the scout is replaced with one focussed goal, to find its target. It will do whatever it needs to do to find its target, be it the use of of charm and guile or exacting violence.

Description:

Dark Elves are largely indistinguishable from their Celestial elf sistern in appearance. Although they are often called “dark elves” due to the nature of their subterranean home, they have lighter skin, boarding on albinism, due to their years of lack of exposure to the sun. Dark Elves have fine gray or white, bluish tinted skin and hair most often of sliver or white. Dark elves typically have blue, black, or grey eyes often with a liquid or sparkling appearance. The have slight frames, with long and nimble arms and legs, standing slightly shorter than the average human. Dark Elves fashion is efficient and utilitarian. They wear whatever clothing is best for their task, without adornment or insignia.

Almost Immortal

Dark Elves are no longer born. Like their Celestial Elven sistern, they periodically resurrect themselves using cloning and consciousness transfers. As a result, they are facing the same problems of replica failure and possible extinction.





Personality, Culture, & The Struggle for Survival: Dark Elves society is geared towards one goal: the survival of the True Elf Race. Any decision made by any individual is measured against that one goal. Anything or anyone outside the True Elves is a resource to be used in furtherance of that goal or an obstacle to be cleared. This ethos was instilled into the Dark Elves through the long ages following The Fall. Trapped below the surface with only their machines and their wits, the Dark Elves built themselves an efficient and ruthless society.
Art and music were abandoned as frivolous, with focus put into the workings of the machines of the Undercity, development of their mental abilities, and the shaping of their servant races. Their society is run as a machine, with each member as a functioing part

A Dark Theocracy

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Relations with Other Races:

Dark Elves view other races as either enemies to be eliminated, chattel from which to harvest slaves, or as benighted savages in need of elven wisdom and civilizing. While Dark Elves are able to make tactical alliances with other races, if it is in their best interests, they will abandon such an alliance the moment they figure that it is not to their advantage. Dark Elves view no other race as their equal.
One exception to this are the star elves. Of all the races in the world, however, the one that dark elves hold the strongest feelings for, both love and anger, are their brothers and sisters of the Celestial elves. Dark Elves, being a break away race of immortal true elves, are the celestial elves only true brothers (as the lesser elves are their children). Both races view the other as wayward brothers, and while both both races work over the course of millenia to out maneuver the other, neither is willing to commit violence against the other. And secretly both hold out hope that the other will join them, and abandon their false gods.

Your elf character has a variety of natural abilities, the result of your celestial nature.
Ability Score Increase: Dex +2, Cha +1
Size: 5 to over 6 feet tall. Size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Superior Darkvision: Superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 120 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, shades of gray.
Keen Senses:  You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
Trance:  Elves don't need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually menatl exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Languages: You can speak Imperial, Celesti, & one extra language of your choice.
Sunlight Sensitivity: You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
Drow Magic: You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once per day. When you reach 5th level, you can also cast the darkness spell once per day. Charisma is your spellcasling ability for these spells.
Drow Weapon Training: You have proficiency with rapiers, short swords, and hand crossbows.
Favored Classes: Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Rare Classes: Artificer, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Monk, Ranger
Life Span: Immortal
Homeland: Cradle Island & Underdark

Parent ethnicities

• True Elves

Related Myths

• Lolth - Queen of Spiders