The Formation of the Undying Court and the Start of the Elf-Dragon Wars

Military action

The Elves wield power of their own and must contend with the Dragons to maintain their existence.

The Undying Court first appeared in Aerenal some twenty-five thousand years ago. Over the millennia following their exodus from slavery in Xen’drik, the elves of Aerenal came to revere their ancient dead as incarnate deities, seeking advice from undying councilors and petitioning for their favor. For the elves, following the example of the heroes who had won their freedom from the giants of Xen’drik, death was not something to be feared; instead, it was embraced and ultimately welcomed. Each Aereni family expressed this attitude in a different way. Some wore intricate death masks. Others tattooed their faces with skulls or similar patterns. Members of the family line of Jhaelian went so far as to mimic the appearance of the undying while they were still alive, using magical and alchemical substances to induce rigor and apparent decomposition of the flesh.

Unlike undead creatures whose animating energies were drawn from Dolurrh, the Realm of the Dead, the deathless elves who came to comprise the Undying Court were animated by radiant energy drawn from the plane of Irian, the Eternal Dawn using special necromantic rituals first discovered by Aeren herself. The undying were powerful beings of a generally benevolent cast.

As for the undying themselves, they were concentrated in the great cities of the jungles Aereni interior. An elven family estate might have an honor guard of undying soldiers and an undying councilor advising the living elders of the line, but the majority of the undying gathered in Aerenal’s City of the Dead, Shae Mordai. Regardless of their family origin, all Aereni respected the undying as heroes of their race and always treated them with respect and deference. Many humans who hear tales of the elves’ culture assume that Aerenal is a land of vampires and zombies when in fact nothing could be farther from the truth. An undying soldier or counselor is an undead creature, but it is charged with radiant energy and sustained by the devotion of its descendants. Vampires, liches, and their ilk are abhorrent creatures that destroy life to preserve their own existence and they are seen as a perversion of the undying by the elves. The creation of mindless undead, such as common zombies and skeletons, was seen by the Aereni as an unforgivable insult to the body and soul of the deceased.

Two forces actually governed the island-continent of Aerenal. The Sibling Kings held all temporal power. By ancient tradition, the elven nation had to be ruled by a bonded brother and sister. When either sibling died, the Undying Court selected a new pair to rule. The Sibling Kings were seen as the living embodiment of Aerenal, and the conduit for the divine power of the Undying Court.

The northern steppes of Aerenal were inhabited by a different cultural grouping of Aereni elves called the Tairnadal. The Tairnadal preferred the steppes because there they could better care for the warhorses their ancestors had brought from Xen’drik. The Tairnadal had a more active and aggressive culture than the Aereni elves of the jungle. They sought to honor their ancestors by emulating their heroic deeds in the present. In the last few millennia, many younger elves of southern bloodlines left their homes to join the Tairnadal, and what was once a minor sect slowly became a significant force on the elves’ island-continent.
There were three major groups among the Tairnadal. The Valaes Tairn was the largest; these elves believed that glory in battle was the highest goal, regardless of the nature of the foe. The two smaller groups were the Silaes Tairn, who were determined to return to Xen’drik and reclaim the ancient homeland of the elves, and the Draleus Tairn, who wished to destroy the dragons of Argonnessen after the Elf-Dragon Wars began.

Relations between the Tairnadal and the elves of the Undying Court are cordial. They honor the same ancestors and respect the shared blood that flows through their veins, though the Tairnadal were served by a different clerical order known as the Keepers of the Past who venerated the spirits of ancestors already passed rather than the undying. The southern Aereni feel that the Tairnadal waste their blood by refusing to become undying after death; the northern elves believe the elves of the jungle spend too much time dreaming of the past instead of acting in the present.

Following the rise of the Undying Court on Aerenal, there was the first recorded skirmish between the elves and the dragons of Argonessen, which set a pattern of long periods of peace punctuated by short, devastating battles every few hundred years between the Aereni and small flights of the dragons. The source of this conflict was the emergence of the Undying Court as the primary religious and political authority of the elven nation, for the dragons detested necromantic magic of any kind and came to believe that the undying actually represented a threat to the fulfillment of the Prophecy—or at least to outcomes that favored the dragons’ preferences.

Some scholars claim Aeren Kriaddal’s journal, left for the leaders of the elven uprising, contains more than the secrets to the Ritual of Undying. These whispers imply that the elf was inspired with the gift of prophecy just before the first ritual and sacrifice that initiated the rebellion against the giants, and laid out a plan for the elves to follow once they were free. Supposedly the undying now work to fulfill this prophecy in their own patient way, and this pursuit is what drives a faction of dragons on Argonnessen mad with rage. This prophecy, these same scholars believe, is what has led to the dragon assaults on Aerenal over the course of so many years. These dragons seem to believe that the prophecy of the Aereni conflicts in some way with the pursuit of their own draconic Prophecy.
  The Elf-Dragon Wars   Although the destruction visited upon Xen’drik by the dragons was monumental, some of the continent’s denizens did survive. While the dragons brooded, elven refugees established the nation ofAerenal on that tropical island-continent after fleeing Xen’drik. Thousands of years of research into necromancy and the magical teachings of Argonnessen produced the Undying Court, an alliance of undying elves with a collective magical and divine might that rivaled the fiendish Overlords of the first age of the world. Since that time—nearly twenty-five thousand years before the founding of Galifar—dragons and elves have been at war. The tides of strife ebb and flow, and centuries might pass between battles . . . but sooner or later the dragons return to fight once more. The basis of this age-old conflict, and its conduct, is another of the mysteries of Argonnessen.   Many find it impossible to imagine that the Aereni could stand against the force that utterly destroyed the giant civilizations of Xen’drik. In truth, the elves have never faced the full power of Argonnessen. The strike on Xen’drik was carried out by the full, unified force of dragonkind; the Elf–Dragon Wars have involved only a few flights from the Light of Siberys, the draconic army of Argonessen. The fact that the Undying Court has been able to hold off the dragons remains an impressive feat, but the undying have never faced the true power that ravaged a continent.   Those who study this puzzling behavior ask: Why not? What motivates this seemingly endless struggle? If the dragons truly wished to eliminate the elves, why do they not commit their full forces to the task? If they do not care enough to do so, why do they continue to fight in the first place?   One theory is that the dragons despise the extensive practice of necromancy, even when it draws on the radiant energy of Irian, but do not view it with the same abhorrence or alarm as the giants’ planar studies and blood magic. Thus, they cannot agree en masse that Aerenal should be laid low.   Another possibility is that the struggle is a form of exercise for the dragons, a proving ground for the younger warriors of the Light of Siberys. Conversely, it might be that the wars are fought to test the elves and harden them for some future conflict foreseen in the Prophecy, just as a soldier will sharpen his blade in preparation for battles to come. The dragons might be unwilling to share the secrets of their arcane power with lesser races, but they can still push the lower creatures to reach their full potential. The long struggle with the dragons has certainly forced the clerics and wizards of the Aereni and the warriors of the Tairnadal to master the arts of battle and magic.   The elder wyrms of Argonnessen offer no explanations for their actions, nor do they negotiate. Only two instances of elves and dragons working side by side are known, and both involve the noble line of the House of Vol. Following the appearance of the Mark of Death (see below), a number of green dragons began working with the Aereni family line of Vol in whom the dragonmark appeared. This alliance produced the half-dragon female Erandis d’Vol. Allies of Vol in the present time claim that her birth was intended to forge a bond between the two races and bring an end to the constant wars.   Others believe that the emerald-skinned dragons sought to gain control of the Mark of Death through their half-dragon offspring. In the end, the birth of Erandis d’Vol did unite Aerenal and Argonnessen ... in a quest to eradicate the line of Vol. But this alliance was short-lived and involved minimal communication between the allies. Once the House of Vol fell into shadow, the dragons returned to Argonnessen, and in a few centuries, the cycle of war began anew.