An Riav

In the region where the foothills of the Besaila range begin to dream of calling themselves true mountains, the long-abandoned halls of Rindaya's Hold have begun to glow and echo with new residents. The elves of the forest, the Lantarin, have come to take advantage of this ancient place of merriment and the luxurious shelter it provides. Some of the clans who find its halls remain to add themselves to the settled numbers, while others remind the residents of the folly of permanence. They are right to do so. The Wild will not long abide the encroachment of civilization, and bides its time before it reclaims the Hold and its secrets for its own.   On the back of the Mishoun River, called Mother by its sea elf children, the Telerin, a flotilla of ships is called to panic in the middle of the night. As its fathers and sisters and children and grandparents take their rest, pondering on the beauty of the river that gives them life, observing and meditating on the stars they call their ancestors, a cry of murder rises from the command ship upriver. The admiral is dead, and with her the protection of the flotilla against the rusalka with whom they share their life within the Mother's embrace. The mourning keens shriek beneath the stars, given even greater weight at the thought that many, many more may swiftly follow, if another arrangement with the rusalka cannot soon be reached.   The daylight dwindles over the city of Tenemar, long shadows of the sunset laid like dripping icicles across the vast metropolis from the perspective of the Lightkeeper Tower. Everywhere, the city sings and shivers with the life of the high elves within. The Eladrin dance the same dance every day, taking their places through the city to preserve its walls against the night to come. Miles away on every side, the gates are sealed with a clang and a flash more felt than seen throughout the city, a percussive song of rebellion against the Wild beyond its outer walls. The night's chosen Hunters oil their blades within the Defiance, watching the outermost walls of the city and the open killing ground before them to ensure that nothing from the Wild ever finds the inner gates. High above, the Lightkeeper herself observes the last light of the setting sun, and keeps her vows, turning the Keeping stone downward to face the blessed city, bathing all beneath in silver light, the faint but powerful memory of the day now done. The Defiance has been quieter than usual for weeks, and the Hunters who patrol it are growing restless. The Lightkeeper, her duties discharged, sees from the height that they are right to worry, as a flood of darkness moves above the outer wall the likes of which her centuries of life have never seen.   Beneath the sun, beneath the earth, beneath the deepest caverns and foundations of the Outer World, the world within has long since forgotten the name of sunlight. The dark elves, the Dromerin, reach through the Inner World of An Riav, following the life-giving waterways of the depths and carving out their homes from the heart of the word itself. They have no names for their forgotten kin above, nor memory of the stars or sky. Their departure from the surface is buried deeper than their own abodes, millenia beyond memory. To those above, they are thought extinct, led astray by a malevolent god. To those beneath, their divine guide is the key to all prosperity and comfort to be found in the heart of the world. But though both worlds have forgotten the other, there are some whose memories have endured, and the reunion of the two can mean nothing but war.   Through every shaded layer of An Riav, the Wild waits, filled to bursting with an ecstatic consciousness of carefree chaos. The eyes in the dark reflecting the firelight belong to the Wild. The bones of the earth that glitter out of mortal reach belong to the Wild. The sand upon the shore that erodes to reveal the ocean's secrets belongs to the Wild. Some dedicate their lives to its embrace, others to its defense, others still to its subjugation. All belong to the Wild, in their way. An Riav is a world of elves and the wild magic that sustains them. It gives them identity and purpose, gives them power and prestige among themselves, and brings substance to all their nightmares.