Wave Walker Elves
Closely related to what they refer to as pureblood elves, the Wave Walkers' mixed ancestry and seafaring lifestyle sets them apart.
Semi-nomadic elves who spend much of their lives travelling the oceans of the far north, the Wave Walkers have been distinct from their more traditional kin since ancient times. Though they're officially part of the unified elven kingdoms bound by the Treaty of Six Lands, they've never been close to their kin and retain a wild, warlike reputation that was well-earned. With little regard for most of the other races, Wave Walkers are rarely seen and often the topic of much whispering and speculation.
Wave Walker life revolves heavily around patterns, with the seasonal division of the year reinforcing the ebb and flow of life on and off the waves. As a result they tend to heavily value tradition because it's both practical and what helps bind them together as a single culture even when they live most of their lives apart; routines are a part of their life but also beloved as something that brings them together. At the same time though, they see themselves as a pragmatic people and have no qualms about adjusting their patterns as needed to meet their needs. If a tradition no longer serves, it's modified until it does or is cast aside altogether. LOVE, SEX, AND MARRIAGE
Wave Walkers marry exclusively for love, and generally face little opposition on this front unless their choice is fully at odds with their family. It's rarely a problem, as most choose partners who they've grown up and lived alongside year after year aboard ship and are therefore already have a good idea about their compatibility. Relationships among them emphasize partnership as much as or perhaps more than romance, and some degree of trial and error is normal with few hard feelings between those who don't end up a lasting couple so long as they're still capable of working together; perhaps as a result of this, same-sex relationships and marriage are far more common than among pureblooded elves with their focus on inheritance and procreation. As a general rule, Wave Walkers almost exclusively form relationships within their own race. The rare exceptions tend to be romances between Wave Walkers and pureblood elves serving as ship's mages, or between shorebound Wave Walkers and shapeshifters who live in Fyrenstone Shard. The act of marriage is strongly binding and is considered a commitment for life, undertaken only after a pair is firmly established as a couple and ready to undergo the process of adding one another's personal symbology to their horns and the trunk of the Killing Tree. Marriages are undertaken during the winter season and consist of two ceremonies, pledging loyalty and devotion before both Talosh in the Temple of Waves and the ancestors under the branches of the Killing Tree. Once made, a vow of marriage cannot be broken. Married partners who fall out of love can separate, but are still considered bound for life and cannot remarry in the eyes of the people except in the case of one partner dying. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Known for a wild and strong-willed reputation as a race, the Wave Walkers tolerate a certain amount of casual brawling and conflict that their pureblooded relatives would consider unacceptable. Petty crime in the form of small-scale theft and disorderly conduct is generally left to be sorted out between the parties involved, and often results from good-natured competition and rivalry during the months when the ships are landlocked by winter ice. With that said, serious crime is seen as unacceptable in a race that relies deeply on community. Acts of permanently disfiguring or sexual violence, damage caused to the all-important ships, abuse of the young or old, or premeditated murder are all crimes considered inexcusable and are punished harshly, with no considerations made for societal standing or means. Unlike their pureblooded relatives with a strong focus on rehabilitation, the Wave Walkers have very little sympathy for those who commit their high crimes. Only the most persuasive of mitigating circumstances merit what they consider a 'lesser' punishment of ritually broken horns and exile, which itself carries a heavy stigma; the other races know what a lone Wave Walker with broken horns entails, and they rarely find another community willing to take them in. For the most part, a major crime is punished with execution before the Killing Tree, carried out by the city's ruling king before the eyes of the people. Crimes on this level are rare, and are a matter of great gravity when they occur. DEATH
While it's accepted as a natural risk of a seafaring lifestyle, the Wave Walkers still consider death a significant event in a community that's so closely tied together. They feel it's a natural part of the cycle, but hold their dead close in memory and practice many of the same customs as their pureblooded relatives. Ancestor shrines are a part of this, though they're most often maintained in the family's household in Snowsong with only a small counterpart aboard ship. When at all possible, the bodies of the dead are brought back to harbor; returning the dead home is one of the few circumstances that brings ships to port out of season. They're interred in the Blood Valleys for one year, letting their blood and flesh return to the land, before their bones are recovered and scattered at sea when the ice recedes with the next spring.
Typical Physical Characteristics
The product of mixed elven and shapeshifter heritage in the distant past, Wave Walker elves are still tall and well-proportioned but have a stronger build than their pureblooded elven kin. Their facial features are slightly bolder, sharper and more angular than most elves, giving them a fierce cast to their features that bears some similarity to vampires in their true form. Elven tendencies towards physical homogeny is exaggerated in Wave Walker elves, and there's less distinction between the sexes with female Wave Walkers tending towards androgyny. Though it's accentuated by a life spent in the sun, Wave Walkers are naturally darker in skin tone than most elves and typically range from tan to moderately dark. They have somewhat coarser, thicker hair with a natural waviness that is most often worn in a mixed loose/braided style when on land and in more utilitarian braids when at sea; unlike the wider range of colors found in pureblooded elves, Wave Walkers overwhelmingly tend towards pale ashen hair, with a minority having dark hair that's seen as quite desirable. Most have gray eyes, though some have tawny/amber eyes that are more similar to shapeshifters. Setting them apart from their pureblooded brethren, the most distinct physical feature of the Wave Walker elves are their horns. Individuals grow a pair of prominent backswept horns, sprouting along the hairline just above each ear during childhood and generally reaching up to nine inches in length at their full size. Thought to be a result of their part-shapeshifter ancestry, the Wave Walkers are intensely proud of their horns and carve them in elaborate patterns that display their heritage and familial connections. Deeply meaningful and distinct to each individual, horns are an identifying feature and emphasized via decoration and hairstyle. Wave Walkers as a whole have relatively little capacity for magic, and tend to rely more on their natural strength and agility. The rare few who are gifted with magic, on the other hand, are quite powerful and tend to intermarry to produce strong magical lineages. For unknown reasons the capacity for strong magic seems to run stronger in those with dark hair.Life Cycle
Despite a less stable life force than their pureblooded relatives, Wave Walkers still have a similar life expectancy of 200-300 years; however, the inherent risks of their way of life means that far more die from accident or tragedy. They stay hardy until well into their second century of life, though many will subtly show their age more than most elves. Wave Walkers reach physical maturity at approximately thirty years of age when their horns reach full size and darken to their near-black adult color, and are generally considered full adults at this point. As a general rule, they do everything earlier than regular elves; Wave Walker children will often begin accompanying the adults to sea by the age of twenty, and are held to adult responsibilities even at a relatively young age. With different societal and interpersonal priorities than pureblooded elven culture, they tend to form strong bonds in their early lives that often develop into romance and marriage quite early on. Though an average age of marriage and childbirth tends to be between 70-100, it's not unusual for Wave Walkers to marry as early as 50. Perhaps as a result of their mixed-race heritage, they seem to have a higher fertility rate than pureblooded elves and produce children more easily and frequently.Reputation
Even other elves consider the Wave Walkers one step removed from the rest of their kind, and it's a reputation the seafaring race is happy to embrace. They're known for being fiercely self-sufficient, with little desire for close ties with any outsiders; typically passionate and independent, they're seen as far quicker to action than their pureblooded kin despite weighing their choices just as carefully. Wave Walkers are more interested in the deep connection they feel to the natural world than cloistering themselves away within the bounds of their cities, and while their long lives tend to leave them as knowledgeable as any other elves it's often more as a result of perceptiveness and lived experience than a lifetime of study. Though the Wave Walkers don't have bad relations with the other races, this wasn't always the case. In the past they were frequently seafaring raiders, and the long memory of that lingers; both humans and shapeshifters live in careful coexistence alongside the Wave Walkers in their home shard of Fyrenstone, and they're regarded with a mixture of curiosity and wariness on the rare occasion that they're seen abroad. The pureblooded elven nations tend to have mixed feelings towards their cousins, considering them reckless and unknowably foreign while harboring a healthy respect for their martial prowess.Social Structure
The Wave Walkers place a great deal of value on the strength of family and familial connection. They're proud of their ancestry and see living family as an extension of that; most decisions are communal, with authority figures acting more as guides and symbolic arbiters than any sort of absolute ruler. During the majority of the year when they're abroad at sea, Wave Walkers are largely autonomous and govern themselves ship by ship with little overarching organization binding them together except in times of crisis. Though they're largely left under their own governance, the Wave Walkers do have a royal bloodline that has continued unbroken since the time of the city's founding in the distant past. The ruling king or queen holds the Red Leaf Crown and is seen as making the sacrifice of forgoing a life on the waves in order to maintain the safe harbor of Snowsong; as a result, the Wave Walkers see the position as one to be respected but not envied. The king rules over the city's fulltime population year-round and oversees the entirety of the Wave Walkers during winter harbor, providing a voice of authority over a council of the city's families. When the need arises they can recall all ships to port, and it's understood that their will overrides their people's fierce independence only when the wellbeing of the kingdom is at stake. Wave Walkers mostly govern themselves on a house-to-house basis, though their organization within those houses is far less hierarchical than pureblooded elves. As a general rule each house captains and crews several ships with only a few of their young or infirm staying in port, and as a result they rely closely on one another to tie them together in a vital way. Any authority comes from a house's captains, who are generally the strongest and most capable of a current generation, but their decision-making relies fully on the trust and support of their kinsman crew. Due to their strong genealogical traditions, marriages and the intermingling of houses are considered with great gravity. Wave Walker houses are large and encompass many branches of an ancestral bloodline, and as a result typically have enough genetic separation that marriages within the house is more common than not; in many ways, it's seen as a more practical and appealing choice, considering that there's little contact between different houses except in the winter season. Marriages between members of differing houses tend to follow patterns, with certain traditional bonds and allegiances being reinforced over multiple generations.Societal Norms and Values
For more specific racial customs, see Wave Walker Customs. TRADITION AND CEREMONYWave Walker life revolves heavily around patterns, with the seasonal division of the year reinforcing the ebb and flow of life on and off the waves. As a result they tend to heavily value tradition because it's both practical and what helps bind them together as a single culture even when they live most of their lives apart; routines are a part of their life but also beloved as something that brings them together. At the same time though, they see themselves as a pragmatic people and have no qualms about adjusting their patterns as needed to meet their needs. If a tradition no longer serves, it's modified until it does or is cast aside altogether. LOVE, SEX, AND MARRIAGE
Wave Walkers marry exclusively for love, and generally face little opposition on this front unless their choice is fully at odds with their family. It's rarely a problem, as most choose partners who they've grown up and lived alongside year after year aboard ship and are therefore already have a good idea about their compatibility. Relationships among them emphasize partnership as much as or perhaps more than romance, and some degree of trial and error is normal with few hard feelings between those who don't end up a lasting couple so long as they're still capable of working together; perhaps as a result of this, same-sex relationships and marriage are far more common than among pureblooded elves with their focus on inheritance and procreation. As a general rule, Wave Walkers almost exclusively form relationships within their own race. The rare exceptions tend to be romances between Wave Walkers and pureblood elves serving as ship's mages, or between shorebound Wave Walkers and shapeshifters who live in Fyrenstone Shard. The act of marriage is strongly binding and is considered a commitment for life, undertaken only after a pair is firmly established as a couple and ready to undergo the process of adding one another's personal symbology to their horns and the trunk of the Killing Tree. Marriages are undertaken during the winter season and consist of two ceremonies, pledging loyalty and devotion before both Talosh in the Temple of Waves and the ancestors under the branches of the Killing Tree. Once made, a vow of marriage cannot be broken. Married partners who fall out of love can separate, but are still considered bound for life and cannot remarry in the eyes of the people except in the case of one partner dying. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Known for a wild and strong-willed reputation as a race, the Wave Walkers tolerate a certain amount of casual brawling and conflict that their pureblooded relatives would consider unacceptable. Petty crime in the form of small-scale theft and disorderly conduct is generally left to be sorted out between the parties involved, and often results from good-natured competition and rivalry during the months when the ships are landlocked by winter ice. With that said, serious crime is seen as unacceptable in a race that relies deeply on community. Acts of permanently disfiguring or sexual violence, damage caused to the all-important ships, abuse of the young or old, or premeditated murder are all crimes considered inexcusable and are punished harshly, with no considerations made for societal standing or means. Unlike their pureblooded relatives with a strong focus on rehabilitation, the Wave Walkers have very little sympathy for those who commit their high crimes. Only the most persuasive of mitigating circumstances merit what they consider a 'lesser' punishment of ritually broken horns and exile, which itself carries a heavy stigma; the other races know what a lone Wave Walker with broken horns entails, and they rarely find another community willing to take them in. For the most part, a major crime is punished with execution before the Killing Tree, carried out by the city's ruling king before the eyes of the people. Crimes on this level are rare, and are a matter of great gravity when they occur. DEATH
While it's accepted as a natural risk of a seafaring lifestyle, the Wave Walkers still consider death a significant event in a community that's so closely tied together. They feel it's a natural part of the cycle, but hold their dead close in memory and practice many of the same customs as their pureblooded relatives. Ancestor shrines are a part of this, though they're most often maintained in the family's household in Snowsong with only a small counterpart aboard ship. When at all possible, the bodies of the dead are brought back to harbor; returning the dead home is one of the few circumstances that brings ships to port out of season. They're interred in the Blood Valleys for one year, letting their blood and flesh return to the land, before their bones are recovered and scattered at sea when the ice recedes with the next spring.
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