LANTERN OF THE THIRTEENTH WORD
The Unfallen Host of Mirithar
THE ELVES
The Elves are commonly called immortal, which is an imprecise kindness. They do not age, and time alone cannot kill them. Steel, sickness, and corruption remain perfectly capable of finishing the work. An endless life is not the same thing as an invulnerable one; it merely gives grief longer to accumulate.
They first descended from the heavens out of pity for Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Humans, whom they believed ill-equipped to resist demons, devils, and the darker inclinations of their own souls. Pity is a dangerous foundation for any mission, particularly when accompanied by certainty.
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Soon after their arrival, the Demon Lord Bael corrupted the greater part of the Elven host. These became the first Dark Elves. They retain the outward appearance of their unfallen kin, but their descendants entered the world as Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, and the other peoples now gathered beneath the deeply inadequate term “goblinoid.”
The surviving Elves were sheltered by the Dwarves of Mirithar. With Dwarven aid they recovered, rebuilt their numbers, and eventually came to rule the archipelago. No uncorrupted Elf of the First Descent remains. The whole of Elven civilization now numbers only in the tens of thousands—an entire celestial people reduced to a population that some human cities would consider modest.
They worship Galadwen, Goddess of Light, and among them goodness is more than a virtue. It is the boundary of their continued identity. An Elf who abandons the Good has not simply changed allegiance; corruption has begun, and what emerges may retain an Elven face without remaining truly Elven.
Their society is built upon memory, sacred responsibility, and offices that may be held for centuries. Elves possess no inherited family names. Each bears a distinct personal name, sometimes joined to an earned epithet, a remembered sacred image, or an ancient charge: Warden of the Silver Wood, Rememberer of the Fallen Host, Keeper of the Western Gate. Among shorter-lived peoples, titles outlive their holders. Among Elves, the holder may outlive the language in which the title was bestowed.
They came into the world intending to teach mortals how to resist their lower natures. It is perhaps the cruelest lesson in history that they were required to learn it first.
—Lantern of the Thirteenth Word
