Elves
"From the Darkness, Light"
History
The elves are one of the youngest Kin, and therefore don't have a lot of history and are still seen with some suspicion by other Kin. Especially since some people do not see much of a difference between them and their sister Kin, the Drow, which are universally disliked in the north continent due to their staunch worship of an old god: Myrakka, Goddess of Darkness. An elf is human like in their appearance, but with a slender tall build, pale skin and hair and pointed ears.
When Lunara, Goddess of Dreams rose, she saw fit to give pleasant dreams to all Kin in the land, including the drow in Rootheart Isle . But a drow revels in darkness and nightmares. It is said that a drow who only has pleasant dreams will quickly die or fade away, becoming soft and less connected to his material self over time. Most importantly, when ready to produce offspring, a drow couple will have a shared nightmare wherein they will shape and teach their newborn about the difficulties of the world and how to overcome them. At the end of the night, when they awake, a new baby drow will lay resting between them.
When giving pleasant dreams to the drow, that made it so the resulting offspring was not a drow as expected, but an elf: Kin not dissimilar to the drow, but bound to light and cheer, instead of darkness and strife. The first elves were viewed as aberrations, and were few and far between. But with the birth of Seraphina, Goddess of Light, and the defeat of the old gods in the Heavenly Clash , they soon outnumbered their predecessor Kin as pleasant dreams became much more common than nightmares. And so, a rift was born and two disparate communities formed in Rootheart. The Drow migrated to the thickest parts of the forest, and the Elves built their settlements closer to the ocean and the brightest parts of the forest.
These Kin are still intrinsically linked, despite the tensions between them, as elves still produce drow when they have a nightmare and each Kin views it as unnaceptable to completely close ties to each other. And so, every year they meet near the Erdtree, and commune and swap children so the drow can be with their own, and the elves can bask in sunlight.
The elves need a pleasant dream when sleeping to truly rest, and only when dreaming do the events of the day truly settle in their minds and form into learned experiences and lasting knowledge. If an elf spends a long time without dreaming, he will become increasingly detached and forgetful, possibly leading to depression, paranoia and actual death. It is natural for elves to sleep together and have shared dreams as well, and it is common for them to wake from a shared dream with a new boon amongst them: a field of iridescent flowers, a twisted high tree or an intricate artifact now rests along side them as they awake.
Now
After the Sundering, the elves remained relatively unscathed in Rootheart Isle, but plenty had migrated to the sunnier lands of the north continent and suffered the same as the other Kin there. In fact, they might have suffered more, as it is said the sun shines less brightly now, and nightmares are increasingly common, causing the elf population to decline.
Elves are seen as unwanted inhabitants in most settlements, as with elves there is the inevitable fact that drow will come eventually. Elves also find it hard to connect to other Kin, and are said to always have one foot inside of Lunara's domain, constantly in a state of dream like wonderment.
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