Half-Elves River Elves / Khoravar

Despite their name, the “river elves” of Scions Sound are half-elves. To the surprise of everyone, elves who found themselves romantically entangled with humans produced unique, viable offspring. These “half-elves”, far shorter-lived than their elven ancestors, were left to wander the sound and live at the edge of both human and elven communities. Not long after Karrn the Conqueror’s attempted annexation of Daskara, the Mark of Storm emerged amongst a legendary duo— Lyran and Selavash. These two preached a united identity — Khoravar, meaning “people of Khorvaire”—that recognized “half elves” as a distinct community, not reducible to the contributions of their dual heritage. Traveling amongst the river elf communities of Daskara, Lyran and Selavash found others who shared their gifts. Even after Lyran and Selavash passed, the heirs of the Mark of Storm were known as the “people of Lyran”—Lyrandar.
House Lyrandar considers Sigilstar its ancestral home, although the acquisition of Stormhome transformed the enclave from the heart of the House’s operations to more of a museum. Still, the house has significant operations throughout Thrane, with the vast majority of captains in Thrane’s ports licensed through the Windwrights guild.
The War of the Mark had broad-reaching effects throughout Khorvaire, as the disparate dragonmarked families formalized themselves through the guild system. For the River Elves, it resulted in the split of House Lyrandar from the nomadic communities they came from. Ambitious heirs of the storm played politics in Korth with the fledgling Twelve and founded the Windwrights Guild — a formal system of managing and licensing ships and captains. The river elves chafed at these systems of economic domination, preferring the freedom and independence they had so long enjoyed. Over the millennia, House Lyrandar forced most river elves to bend-the-knee, becoming licensed Windwrights Guild captains, but a culture of independence remains.