Elves & Dwarves
2023-03-02
Legends of the elderkin abound, especially in those remote parts where stories are ever fantastic.
Tales of the elusive woods watchers nag the imaginations of naughty children. Behave and respect your elders or the elf-folk will snatch you. Not of this realm, it is said they arrived on a massive comet that reshaped the earth millennia ago. Their wide, bulging eyes drink in all light. They speak no language we can understand. Some pay tribute to the watchers--food, trinkets, and children--in exchange for the forests' bounties where they reside. But their desires are queer and uncertain; strange occurrences near their borders are not infrequent: lost time and memories, disappearances, and other strange omens haunt those who stay too close. Especially those who harvest the forests too greedily.
The Great Builders, made of and taken to the earth, are said to be the source of the oldest structures that are scattered across the landscape. Others insist they are the ruins of a once-powerful empire. But the quality is unlike anything that human hands are known to craft. They must be the handiwork of these ancient people who long ago left this realm. The fabled inverted Tower of Highstone, built within the realm's tallest peak, said to provide passage to the Dwarvendelve, the homeland of the Builders where the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. They reshaped every corner of the underside of the world until none more could be built and no life could grow. So they dug downward and up into our lands. What stopped them from turning it into another expanse of endless architecture? Legends tell of a human queen who took the daughter of a dwarven king to wed. Other stories tell of a war and then a plague that can rot flesh made of stone. The odd bit of rock that looks like part of a face, exquisitely carved if not for time's weathering; they must be the bones of the unrivaled masons and engineers of the underrealm.