The Elderlands

The growing antipathy between humans and non-humans is a source of pointless violence every day in the North. Human and elf con ict goes back to the legend of Lara Doren and Cregnan of Lod, and the destruction of the elvish palace at Loc Muinne by Redania just a few years after the elves there had agreed to educate human children in the magical arts. Loc Muinne started a human/elvish war which culminated in the battle at Shaerrewedd. This is not to say that humans have been the only offenders. It was a Scoia’tael massacre at Fort Leyda in Kaedwen that prompted the pogrom in the capital of Ard Carraigh that killed many assimilated elves and dwarves.   King Demavend of Aedirn and King Henselt of Kaedwen, were rabidly anti-non-human. Such racism looms over the assimilated non-humans in the human cities at all times. They have no idea when a crowd of angry, intolerant humans will come to their door or burn their business. It is only a matter of time before humans manufacture an excuse to destroy the dwarvish banking families that underwrite business in the North, solely out of greed and self-righteousness.   The people of Nilfgaard, including their Emperor, seem not to hold these same feelings. It is difficult to know what life is like for non-humans in Nilfgaard as very little information about it comes to the North. We do not know of any non-human strongholds in the South with the exception of a gnomish enclave in the Tir Tochair, but we do know that there are assimilated elves and dwarves living in Nilfgaardian cities, probably under the same terms as humans of those provinces.   Humans hate dwarves less virulently, probably because they produce things that humans want and often live under mountains on lands humans do not want. Unfortunately this does not exempt the dwarves from human harassment and violence. One of the few known dwarven retreats in human lands, the city of Vergen, was recently attacked by Kaedwen, and the outcome is as yet unknown. Can anything ever stop the animosity? If the elves retreat to Dol Blathanna, letting their rage die with the Scoia’tael, if the dwarves retreated to their underground world where they are not second class citizens, until the humans no longer vent their wartime fear and loss as hatred, could the races start over again? I’d like to think so.