In ages long past, the world was ruled not by the humans of today, but by the Immortal beings known as Elves. The Gods of Creation viewed the Elves as the pinnacle of their work. Elves were beautiful, intelligent, civilized, and not susceptible to famine and disease like the Demons, Demis, Humans, Ogres, Dwarves, Trolls, Centaurs, Hydras, Pyro-Tenchuus, and the myriad of other creatures the Gods considered as “rough drafts.” The Elves excelled in the Magic Arts and were well-trained in combat. Horseback riding, archery, and swordplay were only a few of their many talents.
However, the Elves possessed unseen flaws. True enough, Elves could not die of natural causes. Elves avoided any possibility of war, as they could only be killed if by another being. Elves were even unfamiliar with the idea of suicide because the Gods wanted to ensure that their perfect creations would not inflict harm upon themselves. With the spell of self-preservation cast on the Elves, an Elf could not die even if suicide was attempted. And so, the Elves were blessed with virtually eternal life. Immorality, however, can also be a curse, even within the utopian society the Elves had built for themselves.
When Elves were first created, they were split into three sub-races. The first known Elves were known as the Geros. The Geros were the Gods’ first attempt at the perfect race. However, their creation was a fluke in that the Geros were a race of primarily females. The Geros had light brown to black skin and either silver or white hair. Their ears were quite large and their eyes golden yellow. Their stature was generally small and they had little skill in magic; instead, the Geros picked up horseback riding and short-range combat with ease. With these skills, they became impeccable thieves and raiders, earning themselves the nickname “Land Pirates.” The Gods were upset by the destructive trouble their first creation caused, and sent them to live in a society separate from the rest of the world. The Geros now reside in a fortress set in the heart of a desert wasteland. Traps, dehydration, sandstorms, heat exhaustion, and slow death await any who attempt to search for the Gero Fortress, for only the Gero women themselves know the secrets to safely traverse the endless sand dunes.
The Gods moved on in a second attempt to create the perfect race of Elves. However, they again faulted, in aiming to be too much to opposite of the Geros. The Mystiks are a race of nearly all men, with the occasional female birth. Tall in height, ranging from six to seven feet tall, the Mystiks also have black hair, pale skin, medium-sized ears, and silver or green eyes. The Mystiks are incredible magic-users and pride themselves as mages of the highest caliber. Masters of both black and white magics, they are, however, virtually useless with a weapon. Discouraged from their struggles and their first two mistakes, the Gods took a decade’s rest before again attempting to create the perfect Elf. Finally, on the New Moon of the Eighth Month, the Gods created the Kerrai, commonly known as Woodland Elves.
Woodland Elves were unsurpassingly beautiful. Their hair was flaxen blonde to golden in colour, their skin a pale white, not unlike a china doll. Their Elven ears were the most petite in size compared to the Geros and the Mystiks, and their eyes a glassy shade of ice blue. The Kerrai were the epitome of the jack-of-all-trades. Excellent skill in magic, sword combat, and horseback riding, they also were masters of archery. Able to hit a moving target hundreds of feet away while atop a galloping horse, the Kerrai were formidable fighters, beautiful and deadly.
Nearly a century passed and all three races of Elves lived separately but peacefully together. They even set up a safe trade route between the three established cities of Crystal Grove, Serte, and the Gero Fortress. Whenever a Mystik or Kerrai merchant ventured to the Gero Fortress, a Gero scout would be waiting at the outskirts of the desert wasteland to safely guide the traveler to the fortress. The era was friendly and without war. The Elves held respect for each other race and avoided violent confrontations. Soon, however, this era of peace would be shattered by an unexpected prejudice.
Kerrai Elves knew and understood that they were the final, the “perfect” race of Elves that the Gods had created. While this was merely a trivial detail in the beginning, it was not long before vanity seeped into their minds and their egotistical nature conceived odious thoughts towards the impure races that had come before them. One century and approximately three decades after their creation, the Kerrai cut all ties with the Gero and Mystik races, citing superiority. The Kerrai changed the name of their race from Woodland Elves to Pure Elves and forbade contact with Mystiks or Geros, which they collectively grouped as “Drow.” “Drow” was Elvish for “dirty” and the term became a cruel racial slur used hatefully towards any non-Kerrai Elves.
The Pure Elves became obsessed with the perfection of their own appearance. They ritually kept their beautiful golden-yellow hair long. Once and Elf’s hair reaches down to the lower back, it stops growing, and thus, if it is cut, it remains short. The Kerrai and the Mystiks adopted the punishment of exile for the worst committed crimes, and this also entailed the cutting of an Elf’s hair. An Elf with short hair was like a human brandishing a scarlet “A,” as it admonished your crime and banishment from civilized Elven society. The Geros never took to the shame of hair-cutting, instead choosing the harsher punishments of torture and execution to dissuade potential criminals from acting. Because of this, Geros were exceedingly loyal to their comrades and followed their leader faithfully. But I digress.
The Mystiks and the Geros were shocked by the sudden coldness the Kerrai exhibited towards them. The Mystiks and the Geros decided to temporarily join societies to band together and demand the Pure Elves re-open trade routes and communication. While the societies were melded together, an unexpected phenomenon occurred. During this time, Gero women had been having open affairs with Mystik men. When the Gero woman gave birth, however, she either had a male or female Gero, or a male or female Mystik. It was soon discovered that one in every thirty-two births was neither Mystik nor Gero, but an odd looking Elf with the Gero’s mud-brown skin, and the Mystik’s ebony hair. This new race could be male or female, had various sized Elven ears, and purple eyes. The Gods were not prepared for this little “oversight.”
The birth of one of these “Shadow” Elves, as they were called, was quickly dubbed appalling and obscene. However, unsure of what to do with the newborn Shadow Elves, the Geros and the Mystiks chose to ignore their initial feared reaction to the births and raise the children as their own. Once this first generation of fifteen Shadow Elves reached Elven adulthood, their true powers were discovered. These Shadow Elves were natural masters with the sword, horseback riding, and even archery, which was once thought to be solely a Kerrai skill. The Shadow Elves also had a certain talent with magic. Although it seemed white magic was virtually impossible for them to learn, each Shadow Elf had a special knack for one particular element in black magic, such as water, earth, or wind.
By this time, two decades had passed since the Geros and the Mystiks had joined societies, and finally, after much deliberation, it was decided to go to war with the Pure Elves. An Elven war had never been heard of, and practically considered a taboo idea at the time, but even after years of pleading with the Kerrai, the Pure Elves still refused to associate with the “Drow” and the Geros and Mystiks were left with no other choice.
The War, known to the Elves as “The Immortal Massacre” and to all other races as “The Elven War,” was one of disastrous proportions. The Gero and the Mystik army, along with the fifteen Shadow Elves born twenty years before, attacked the great Kerrai city of Crystal Grove in the heart of Riddell Forest. The Kerrai warriors greatly outnumbered their attackers and had the upper-hand in combat. The tables turned with the Shadow Elves began fighting. Their dark lilac eyes changed to a horrific shade of blood red, and each Shadow Elf sprouted black dragon wings from their backs. The wings painfully split the skin of their backs, and with crimson spilling from open wounds, the Elves flew above their fellow soldiers. A terrible occurrence followed. The Shadow Elves were consumed with what is now known as “Darken Bloodlust.” With their swords and bows drawn, the Shadow Elves swooped down on the Kerrai, hacking, slashing, and shooting their assailants. They even utilized their powerful elemental magic to decimate the Kerrai troops. When most of the Pure Elf soldiers had been brutally slaughtered, the Shadow Elves, whose hunger for blood had not yet been satiated, turned to their fellow soldiers: the Gero and Mystik warriors. The massacre did not cease until every non-Shadow Elf had been maliciously murdered and their blood stained the countryside.
When the Shadow Elves awoke from their Bloodlust spell, they looked around at their fallen comrades and the vermilion landscape. They looked at their own blood-soaked clothing and slowly began to grasp what had happened. Grief overcame them and tears streamed from their violet eyes as they realized the atrocity they had committed. Incapable of killing themselves and unable to bring themselves to killing one another, the Shadow Elves fled in anguish, leaving behind them the mangled bodies of their fellow Elves.
When the rest of the Kerrai, Mystik, and Gero societies learned of the massacre, they mourned the loss of their warriors. Several Kerrai had seen, from the safety of the city’s inner walls, the Shadow Elves, painted with blood, fly away from the bloody battle on their black wings.
While the Kerrai continued to relent from trading with the Drow, it was mutually decided between all three races that the Shadow Elves were a serious threat. Scornfully labeled as “Darkens,” it was resolved that all Darkens were to be killed on sight. Also, to avoid further procreation of the Darken, the Gero and the Mystiks resumed a separate lifestyle, splitting up into their own societies and returning to the Gero Fortress and Serte, respectively. A law was passed that any Gero or Mystik known to have had relations with a member of the opposite race were to be put to death. This law against Gero-Mystik affairs was to prevent the slim chance of a Darken birth.
After the passing of this law, the Geros and Mystiks rarely communicated with one another except in dire circumstances. The Kerrai, Gero, and Mystiks kept very much to their own societies and the fifteen first-generation Darkens that had wiped out the armies in The Immortal Massacre were never seen again. Although the Gods were mortified at the disaster that had befallen their perfect creations, the time had fortunately again come to one of relative peace.
Many centuries passed from The Immortal Massacre that although the atrocity was burned in the minds of the Elves that had survived it, those that had not been born at the time considered Darkens to be an extinct race of legend. It came to the point that, although The Immortal Massacre was a factual historical event, the existence of the Darkens was put into question. Mothers would tell their children to behave or the Darken Demon Elves would come and eat their flesh. The usage of the Darkens as a tool to keep children in line showed the doubt surrounding the Darken’s existence. They had become akin to the human conception of the boogeyman.
This was about to change, however, as neither time, nor fear of death can keep two people from falling in love. A Gero and a Mystik had secretly broken arguably the most significant law in Elven history and there would be substantial consequences. The odds were against them both; a Darken was soon to be born.