Overview

“Your target’s mind is your greatest weapon. Nothing you can possibly do will ever be more terrifying than what nightmares their imagination will bring forth.” - il Libro del Camminare Completamente

“The target of a true assassin is already walking dead, all you have to do is make them realize it.” - il Libro del Camminare Completamente

For countless ages, stories have been told of the things that go bump in the night. Tales of boogeymen, monsters in closets and under beds, and hosts of other legends abound in virtually every culture. In reality, these creatures are a culture in and of themselves and aren’t nearly as magical in nature as commonly believed. More frequently, these apparitions are merely nightmare creatures dreamed up by otherwise rational individuals to explain the existence of the dark elves.

The Dark Elves are possibly the most civilized of the dark races. They have defined rules that they adhere to, they seldom engage in fratricide, and they frequently exhibit honorably behavior rivaling even the paladins and clerics of the “good” races. Their society is well organized, and wars of succession are virtually unheard of. This belies their true nature, for although civilized the dark elves are incredibly sociopathic. All non-dark elves are merely viewed as targets for torture and murder, or at best the playthings of a superior race. And like a cat, the dark elves play with their prey by inflicting terror before laying down the killing strike.

Dark elves generally prefer the heat of the desert to any other climate, and have set up an extensive labyrinth of structures underneath the sands of the Desert of Night. In the center of the desert lies one of the largest cities in the known world, although whether the city was built by or found by the dark elves is a hotly debated topic in intellectual circles. Outsiders are welcome into this city, but nowhere else in the lands held by the dark elves.

HISTORY

The past of the dark elves is an uncertain thing. What has created their hatred is unknown, although legends amongst the other races have their say in the matter. The only ones who could possibly know are the dark elves themselves, but for whatever reason they either don’t know or won’t share with the “inferior” races.

Legend suggests some form of relationship between the dark elves and the “normal” elves, although few reputable scholars believe this is true. The main reason for this is the pointed ears they share with their “cousins” along with evidence that leads to the very real possibility that the cultures of the elves and dark elves are roughly the same age. By these same legends, the dark elves were cast away from their cousins and sent into the desert to meet their doom.

Regardless of the truth of these legends, what is known is that the desert has shaped every fiber of the dark elves’ being. The arid, waterless climate has made life hard for the dark elves, to whom a small amount of water is considered a divine favor. Because of this dryness, plants and animals are also incredibly rare, so food is almost as scarce as the water.

After some time, the dark elves learned to tame the desert, building underground shelters to protect themselves from the scorching heat. Ways to increase the water supply were developed, and special underground farms were created to provide food. Several centuries later the dark elves have created a civilization able to support itself in the hostile environment and began pursuing other trades.

First on their list was revenge. No one is sure what they’re avenging anymore, perhaps not even the dark elves themselves. What is known is that from birth every dark elf is trained in the ways of death and torture. Virtually every member of dark elf society is either a member of one of the assassin’s houses or a member of the dark clergy - frequently both. Several more centuries of training in the dark arts has made the entire race incredibly lethal, particularly on their own ground. The dark elves don’t have the training or weaponry to engage in an all-out war against any other species, but their talents in deception, assassination and psychology give them an edge inside their own lands or prowling in the depths of night.

As far back as anyone can remember the road has existed. No one is sure how it became, although some scholars believe it was made by a society that predated the dark elves. The City of Night is similarly mysterious, since the dark elves are not known for any craftsmanship other than the creation of various weapons and implements of torture. What is known is that roughly four hundred years ago the city was found by the first non-dark elves. The city, largely unsettled, became the home to a series of “aliens” to the desert much to the chagrin of the dark elves. The dark elves soon realized the value a large city could have inside their “empire”, so they allowed the foreigners to remain under the condition that they remained inside the city or on the road, but they were never allowed onto the sands of the desert. It is interesting to note that the city is relatively crime free; acts of dark elven violence against innocents are virtually unheard of within the city walls. Amazingly, unlike other “peaceful” cities, the City of Night has no standing police force, militia, or court system. Troublemakers just “disappear” in the night. Whether there is any organization to this is unknown; if there is not then the dark elves who wish to “hunt” are simply eradicating the people no one - including the city’s rulers - will care about.

Society and Culture

The dark elves have three major subsets in culture, the desert dwellers, the city dwellers, and the wanderers. Most dark elves share traits of all of the above, depending on how much time they have spent in any of those places. Almost all dark elves are at least born in the desert and spend some time out of it, although it varies with the individual.

The dark elves are predominantly tribal in structure. Small familial groups dominate the cultural, organized into groups called “cabals”. Each cabal is a community into itself, some have little or no interaction with other cabals anywhere else. Each also has a distinctive marking to identify it, although members of a cabal do not always choose to display it.

In the desert is where the cabals show their truest form. Each member of the cabal is responsible for helping the other members with day-to-day tasks. In each, there are perhaps 15-40 members actively living in the cabal’s “lands” at any given point in time, which is due mostly to practicality. The desert isn’t well suited to house large groups, and the larger a cabal gets the harder it is to find resources to sustain it. There are roughly 150-200 cabals spread out amongst the entire desert, and an almost equal number of dark elves “out in the world”.

In the desert, virtually the dark elves’ entire existence lies underground. Techniques to gather water work best the lower you get, the temperature is less extreme due to the natural insulation of the sands, and exposure to the elements is drastically reduced. Sprawling underground structures house each cabal, and most are completely self-sufficient. Elaborate melding of magic and architecture keeps the cabal’s structure from collapsing in on itself. Most cabals have at their minimum a small smithy, underground farms, living space, a small temple devoted to one of the dark gods, and training space for dark elves to learn the arts of war. Many, especially those close to the desert’s borders or near the road also have armories and interrogation/torture facilities. Several cabals maintain slaves so their structures have some form of slave pens as well, although many cabals prefer not to take slaves in favor of having more victims and sacrifices at their temples. Some cabals have other facilities; poison brewing areas being a favorite.

While the cabals don’t often interact, there is not usually any ill will between them. A dark elf traveling through other cabals’ lands is unlikely to be harmed, and can usually stay with any other cabal they come across unless they are actively engaged in a feud with that cabal. Even feuds of this sort are rare, dark elves simply just don’t attack other dark elves unless the situation becomes necessary. Their anger and aggression are taken out on the other races, not each other.

“City” dark elves are exclusively those who inhabit the City of Night - the term is never used in conjunction with a dark elf outside that city, even if they are in a city somewhere else. This is because the culture of the City of Night is so different from that of other cities that the comparison would be useless.

The City dark elves are generally the least likely to kill a non-dark elf. As a general rule, the inhabitants of the City are extremely tolerant of almost all cultures, and are as a rule non-violent during their stay within the City. This is not to say that they are pacifistic, once taken outside the City they become every bit as sociopathic as their brethren. Because the founders of the City, for whatever reason, opened it up to the world as a place of safety, the other dark elves are honor bound to maintain that sanctity while inside those boundaries. Step outside the City and incur their wrath.

Wandering dark elves are the stuff that nightmares are bred from. These are the dark elves who have left their cabals in order to wreak havoc upon the other races. Their sole purpose for being outside the desert is to continue the dark elves’ “war” on against the world. For many, it is a chance to right perceived wrongs against their people, for others it is simply to practice and hone skills they aren’t allowed to use at home. Regardless of motive, it is known that once a dark elf leaves the desert, they are nothing but ruthless killing machines. Many find ways to blend into the society around them, some even manage to become pillars of their community in order to make it that much more interesting when they finally strike. Many find it to be a game to see how many people they can make trust them before betraying them. A rare few dark elves, once out of the desert, actually start to believe in whatever act they put forward, and truly aspire to live a life outside death and vengeance. However, this is one of the few situations which can turn a dark elf against another one, and usually results in the “reformed” one’s death by other dark elves. It is a point of honor that a dark elf try never to attack a dark elf from another cabal, since correcting a member of another cabal shows that the cabal was unable to take action against the offending member itself and causes the cabal to lose honor. In these situations, if the member of another cabal finds themselves having to “correct” someone, it is usually done as discretely as possible, and an attempt is made at leaving evidence that a non-dark elf did it so that the cabal can regain it’s lost honor by avenging against the implicated party.

Physiology

Dark elves are physiologically similar to humans. The main obvious differences between the two races are the dark elves’ pointed ears and their blue skin. Dark elves also tend to be slightly taller than humans, although this is minimal in most cases. Short dark elves are far from unheard of, although even then the shorter dark elves are still usually taller than their short human counterparts.

Dark elves have slightly improved hearing, and they have an additional series of hollow bones in the upper ridges of their outer ear, giving it a pointed shape, similar to a cat’s ear. This allows them to hear into more frequencies of sound than a human, although produces very minimal enhancements in practical areas such as range or the ability to hear quieter sounds. Their native language also uses sounds in different sound spectrums, which the hollow bones pick up far more readily than humans, who generally can’t hear the sounds at all. These bones are extremely sensitive, and generally they try to avoid things coming in contact with them.

No one is quite sure what exactly causes the dark elves’ skin to be blue. The dark elves say that they once were the same color as the elves and humans, and that the skin is a result of whatever crime against their people caused them to relocate to the desert. Most scholars believe that it is some form of adaptation for desert life, and others believe that it is caused by some of the underground plants that grow in the dark elves’ structures that has altered their physiology. Some of the less reputable scholars believe it to be a magic curse (and frequently claim to be able to cast such a curse) and many theorize that they are marked by the ice goddess Isikil and have been chosen as her favorites.

Government

The desert dwelling and wandering dark elves have no true government to speak of. Each Cabal is led by an individual, and groupings of Cabals frequently interact through messengers with each other, but no formal system of government between the Cabals exists. Marriage between the Cabals is encouraged not for political reasons but to reduce potential inbreeding inside a Cabal. As a general rule, a smaller Cabal will back down in a confrontation to a larger one, although the truth of the matter is that the Cabals rarely put each other in that position.

Wandering dark elves show loyalty to other dark elves when out of the desert, with minimal regard for Cabal or position because there are so few of them outside the desert. For those that marry outside of Cabal, this is usually how a dark elf meets his prospective bride. Courtship is usually a series of cooperative homicide campaigns followed up by the partial eating of the dead - less for nutritional value than for the terror of the person who finds the bodies.

In the City, the dark elves are loosely ruled by the Cabal known as the Hands of Stone - unlike the other Cabals, this Cabal lives in the City and practices little of the dark elves’ culture inside it’s walls. It administers the City and maintains its unseen police forces, but in most other respects is an invisible presence inside the City. Taxes are virtually unheard of since the Cabal doesn’t sponsor any public systems to keep the City in operation... the dwellers are largely responsible for pulling their own weight. Some fairly enterprising individuals within the City have formed a loose government of their own to help maintain the City - it is currently being allowed by the Cabal, but will probably be stopped if they deem it a threat to their rule. For now they are content to have their city manage itself.

Role-playing, Costuming and Make-up

When role-playing a dark elf, the most important thing to remember is you are evil. This doesn’t mean to be outlandish, destructive, lawless and stereotypically “villainous”. Just keep in mind that all of your actions should be a lead to some nefarious purpose later on. Honor is the second most important characteristic. A dark elf will not break his or her word of honor, and loyalty to your people is paramount to a dark elf. Out in the world, it’s you against them.

Dark elves tend to be loners or “pack” creatures - generally they operate either solitary or in small teams of less than ten. However, when it doesn’t spoil their purpose, they generally help out another needy dark elf. When dealing with other dark elves, making sure to properly respect them and their Cabal is critical, and both people must take caution not to offend the other. Impinging on one’s honor is a good way to get one’s throat slit, and the acts of vengeance that follow could lead to a feud between Cabals. Since none of the dark elves want that, they maintain respect for each other.

Dark elves have a tendency to dress in dark colors. Darker colors are generally thought of as scarier, and in the night they blend better to provide a natural camouflage.

All dark elves also have pointed ears. The easiest way to do this is with stage ears; Woochie produces an excellent line of “space ears” that work well for playing a dark elf. This is somewhat expensive, although usually a single pair of ears can be acquired for less than $10 and they can be used for years before wearing out if taken care of. Ear tips can also be made with liquid latex or other substances to save money, but usually this is more difficult than the money you save by doing it (and if you mess up more than a couple times it costs as much as if you’d just bought the woochie ears in the first place) but if done well they can look better than any other type because they’re custom molded for you. Liquid latex also tends to wear out faster. Most ears and latex are a white or light flesh color, blue dye or makeup generally needs to be added to turn them the same blue as the rest of your skin.

All dark elves have blue skin, and blue skin make-up is probably the way to go with this. With make-up, try to buy it from a costuming store, as most other stores not only sell lower-quality make-up, but it is also often a seasonal item. I recommend getting a person at a costuming store help you find the right shade of blue, and not to buy anything that comes in a tube. Some tube make-up can’t stand up well vs. weather conditions and it may be the wrong color. No one wants to play the neon dark elf. When applying the make-up, be careful about making the face look good. I wouldn’t worry too much about non-face areas in general, as most people care more about seeing the dark elf’s face as blue than his arms being a little pasty in that area. Don’t worry about any parts of your body that won’t show at all. Lastly, but most importantly, look at the directions for applying the make-up before you use it for the best and safest effect.

Many dark elves adorn themselves with tattoos. These are usually done in reds, whites or neon colors so they stand out more against the blue base of the skin. This is not a makeup requirement, just something that many dark elves choose to do. Tattoos can be easily formed with grease pencils, stage makeup, magic markers or many other methods. The tattoos usually have some form of personal significance to the dark elves; many make markings for particularly impressive kills or to denote Cabals. Some Cabals start tattoos on young dark elves at an early age, and dark elves continue to add to their tattoos over their entire lifetimes.