Glade Elves

The Glade Elves, also known as Waldire, are a race of Elves which dwell in dense forests throughout Rathnir and Eldham. They are descendants of Celestial Elves, who ventured into untamed forests during the Elven Migrations 11,000 years ago. They see themselves as one with the forests, and believe their homeland was sprouted from a place called The Everglade, where their goddess the Lady Eostre resides. Glade Elves describe The Everglade as a massive tree with thick roots burrowing down in all directions, surrounded by glowing lime-green symbols around it. The Everglade is their most sacred ground, and only Glade Elves has witnessed it. While not belonging to a single nation, Glade Elves establish tribes around their Mother-Trees, which are believed to be directly connected to the Everglade. Glade Elf tribes are typically very isolationist, with the only tribe attempting to make contact with outsiders being the Glade Elves of Elmwood. The tribes have differences in culture, but they are all built around preserving nature, and obeying Eostre. Glade Elves condemn Celestial Elves as well as many other races around the world - the Glade Elves see living as one with nature as the purest form of life, and will openly insult people residing in stone cities and high towers.

Due to living in the unforgiving wilderness, they have adapted traits that are unique from the Celestial Elves - traversing the forest takes an immense amount of agility, athleticism, and stealth, yet it is part of the Glade Elven way of life. This makes them wider and more built, while being a bit shorter. They tend to not travel on the ground in the forest as using the branches allows for more “3-dimensional travel” - allowing highways to go above and below each other. Though they possess a more primitive nature, the Glade Elves often pursue scholarly fields, magic, or trading. The Glade Elves highly value free-market trading making them very quick-witted and silver-tongued.

The natural lifespan for a Glade Elf is around 300-years-old, though they often use magic to prolong their life by extracting the life force from plants, they even have farms designed for people to use to increase their lifespan. You can quite often find one lives forever should they choose to repeat this process.

Appearance
Glade Elves are humanoid creatures that are descendants of the Celestial Elves, while some generational mutations have occurred between the two elven races much has remained the same. For example Glade Elves have kept the traditional pointy ears, they often have soft silk-like skin, and are quite young looking, and they are naturally graceful in their movements. The things that have changed are their height - the average height for a Glade Elf is around 5’6” to 5’8”, they are also not as slender as the Celestial Elves - being quite built as a result of the athleticism required for living in the forest, they have big hands and feet and they feel more course to encourage grip when climbing, it is said the Glade Elven hands are so course they can latch onto flat objects. They also have longer arms, and on rare occasions they can grow antlers or horns. Their skin colour varies like the other races around the world; the most common ones are light brown, beige, almost a sort of golden-yellow, brown, black, white, or even pale green. Their hair colour also varies with the most common colours being brown, black, blonde, ginger, red, or even white.

Work
It is not uncommon to find a nocturnal Glade Elf; their eyes are naturally better than other races and to be a hunter means going out when the animals are out. At a young age they are trained with a bow, all Glade Elves are extremely skilful with a bow even if you never practically use one it is almost seen as a necessity to live amongst Glade Elven society, they use small bows when they are young and they gradually go up to a longbow with a draw weight of around 190lbs (which is a testament to how strong they are - the average is 90lbs).

While they highly value free-market trading and profit, they also value nature; and so Glade Elven artisans see the best quality product as a product that is most natural. When making things like wines, cheeses, jams or other things, they make sure to use ingredients that are 100% natural - while they can’t mass produce items this way, they regard themselves as the best artisans in the world being to be natural is to be pure in their eyes.

Other jobs for Glade Elves include a Tree Weaver as they cannot harm the trees in the forest they cannot chop them down for carpentry, instead they use magic to weave the tree’s roots into the shape of the desired building. There are also bone carvers/smiths who create various tools and weapons for them.

Music
The Glade Elves also highly value music, the most common instrument used is a flute made out of horn or bone from various animals; usually from rams, and deer. The type of music they play with a flute is described as graceful and peaceful - it makes you feel as if you are lying on soft pillow-moss amongst the forest with the birds chirping and a stream running. Throat singing is also a common source of music for the Glade Elves, though unlike regular throat singing, it is soft, and light. The Najer describe it as the most beautiful thing they have ever heard, and it feels as if they drift off into the air.

Cuisine
As they are quite limited in terms of ingredients from plants, Glade Elven cuisine is mostly around meat - including human meat. One of Eostre’s laws is that you must you a kill in full, so that there is no waste - meaning Glade Elves use cuts regarded as ‘gross’ by other races; things like the hearts, livers, and brains of animals are using in their cooking and the natural minerals in these organ meats compliments the physicality of the Glade Elves. Being cannibalistic, the Glade Elves also eat the bodies of the enemies, to the suprise of anyone fighting on the field with the Glade Elves, they will find in the Glade Elven camp the bodies retrieved from the battlefield being roasted and consumed. They also use things like honey to marinade their cuts, and sometimes even tree-sap, which is described to have a tangy yet nutty/woody-like flavour. Meals are often eaten in a barbeque-like fashion with the whole tribe sitting in the Mother-Tree and the while a few chefs cook. Glade Elves enjoy the meat slow-cooked so it melts in your mouth, though they are not picky, it is not uncommon to find one just eating beef raw.

Architecture
The only Glade Elven tribe who have made contact with the common-folk are the Glade Elves of Elmwood; the homes they reside in are stone cottages with wooden ornaments, and mushroom-top roofs. Though they have a university that is one big giant red mushroom enlarged using magic.

Craftsmanship
Because of their pledge to their Lady Eostre, the Glade Elves are rather limited in their craftsmanship. Carpentry is non-existent in Glade Elven society, and smithing is only done in very controlled environments where plants do not grow naturally (like caves). Their weapons are usually crafted from carved bone, though this makes for a brittle weapon - it is hardened using dried tree sap. The bows are a speciality among them and are exclusively made out of elk horn - an elk horn bow is passed down from generation to generation like an ornamental sword in other cultures, except the bow is used for hunting as well as warfare. The average draw weight of a bow is around 190lbs which is a lot more than the average for a human which is about 90lbs, it is rumoured that because of this the bows are able to pierce plate armour.

Traditions
One can actually become a Glade Elf through an intense trial - first and most importantly you must pledge To Eostre to never harm the Glade Elven forests. You are then assigned a partner to teach you the language, culture, as well as how life is in the forest. You are taught to hunt, kill, move, and live like a Glade Elf. Your partner will teach you these things, the most feared one being to eat a humanoid creature. Once your partner deems you ready, you begin the trial - you are sent to fend for yourself in the forest for 14 days completely naked; if you survive you return to the Mother-Tree and are met with the tribe welcoming you back. They take you to the bottom of the Mother-Tree you undergo the “Ritual of Rebirth” where you are put to sleep at the bottom of the Mother-Tree and Eostre slowly takes your previous life, and gives you the appearance and abilities of a Glade Elf - this process usually takes 3 days.

They do not reproduce frequently as the belief of their body being part of nature makes it sacred - to consummate with another is seen as a ritual of love and should be treated as such. You must find “the one” before getting married then allowing yourself to have children. Marriages are usually held in the Mother-Tree with the whole tribe attending, a marriage is seen as a ritual as well and is important to all of Glade Elven society. After both pledge their love for each other the wedding ends in a kiss. To marry a non-elf is seen as a heinous crime. The males and females are treated equally within the tribe, the elderly ladies are seen as motherhood figures to the whole tribe - even the King. The males and females often find themselves intertwining in the stereotypical jobs for a specific group. The males can be caretakers, and the females can hunt alongside the males. Both are regarded as capable warriors though the males are seen as strong and tough while the females are seen as quick and agile.

Though it is dying due to a growing relationship with their neighbours, the Glade Elves are racist towards humans, not only looking down on them living in big cities, but also looking down on their lifespan as well as many conflicts with their own race. It is often a Glade Elf would greet a human with “Why would we grant you anything? You destroy everything you touch!”, or “Don’t take much time, I can see you age by the second.”.

Religion
Eostre set upon the Glade Elves various laws to protect the forest as well as themselves, in return she grants the most fertile lands in the world as a safe home protected from invaders, she also grants Glade Elves the ability to manipulate plant matter. They can also communicate with the nature around them, talking to animals and such, some even have the ability to possess weak-minded creatures like birds for scouting.


 * 1) Should the Everglade be threatened, the Glade Elves must unite under me to destroy the threat.
 * 2) Protect your home forest with your life.
 * 3) Do not worship or idolise anyone else.
 * 4) Do not swear upon my name.
 * 5) Honour your family.
 * 6) You will not murder.
 * 7) You will not take a taken individual.
 * 8) You will not steal.
 * 9) The only plant matter you may consume are as follows: wheat, beetroot, tea, rice, cocoa, sugar, grapes, and berries.
 * 10) All kills must be used in full.

Should you fail to uphold these laws it is said the forest will take you and consume you.

History
The Glade Elves are descendants from the Celestial Elves from the Elven Migrations 11,000 years ago. The Celestial Elves sought to colonise the lands in the continent of Niedene and succeeded. The colony was a successful one, creating a civilised society away from home and putting the resources to great use, though there was rumour of elves doing inside a dark forest and never coming back and so that forest was avoided. The colony lasted for about 2,000 years before a call was heard to come into the forest, it was said to be so strong some elves were zombie-like in their approach. The elves that stayed thought they were crazy, parents were leaving their children, and children their parents, they cried out knowing that the elves who ventured into the forest would die. The colony barely survived the massive drop in population, as they had too many jobs for too few elves, but the elven persistence allowed them to survive, but not for long as the Niedenians saw the success of the colony as a threat and decided to attack them. The elves fought valiantly with far fewer numbers alas the Niedenians destroyed the colony, they then heard the rumour of the elves that walked into the forest and knew their lands would always be under threat as long as there are elves that still reside in Niedene, so they turned their attention to the forest. As their army approached they used their torches to set fire to the greenery, this hurt Eostre but they had to make sure the army was deep enough into the forest so that their attack was as potent as it could be. Once they were deep within the forest arrows started flying from above, some soldiers caught a glimpse of what was attacking them, it is said that the elves allowed the Niedenians to catch glimpses of pelts as they hid behind the shrubbery, feet running quickly by to encourage the fear. The forest then started attacking the soldiers, the vines picking the Niedenians up by their throat and crushing their oesophagus, the roots dragging them by their ankles before consuming them. Eventually the Niedenian morale was crushed by the sorcery of this forest and they retreated back into their homeland.