Glade Elves

Brief Summary
The Glade Elf people are Elves which dwell in the dense forests throughout Rathnir and Eldham, these forests were sprouted from the main forest called "The Everglade" which is seen as their most sacret ground. While not belonging to a single nation, they do establish tribes around "mother trees" however, the many tribes maintain a near identical culture and tradition with each other. In common tongue they are called Glade Elves but are also referred to as the Waldire in their speech.

The Glade Elves are descendants from the Celestial Elves, Glade Elves condemn the more civilised and high culture of their Elven cousins as well as many civilisations across Rathnir, as they believe to be one with nature is the purest form of life.

Due to living in the unforgiving wilderness they have adapted traits that are unique from their other Elven cousins. Traversing the forests take immense amount of agility, athleticism, and stealthiness, yet it is a part of their daily lives - they do 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 tribal nature, Glade Elves often pursue scholarly fields, and highly value free-market trading as well as the art of magic - they also tend to be quick-witted, and silver-tongued.

Glade Elves usually live to about 300-years-old naturally, though it is not uncommon for them to use magic to extend their life, extracting the life force from the plants around them - you will quite often find some that live forever if they so choose to repeat this process.

Appearance
Glade Elves are quite different compared to their Elven cousins, though much has remained the same. They are humanoid creatures with the traditional pointy ears. The average height is about 5'6" - 5'8", they also aren't as slender as other Elves being quite built as a result of their athleticism, on rare occasions they are able to grow antlers or horns on their head, they also have big hands and feet. Their skin colour varies like other humanoid creatures - though the most common ones are light brown, beige, or a sort of yellow, however they can be brown, black, white, sometimes even light green. Their hair colour is much of the same, most common one being brown, but it is not uncommon to have black, blonde, ginger, red, or even white.

Culture
Living in the forest has branched off into many changes to the Elven culture as most commonly found. As said before, Glade Elves highly value free-market, resulting in bazaars and markets in and around the forest. While coin is vastly important, it is of utmost importance that the Glade Elves produce their products naturally, it is because of this, the Glade Elves regard themselves as the best artisans in the world as no other product around the world is more authentic.

They also do not reproduce frequently, as the belief that their body being a part of nature makes it sacret, and you must find "the one" and get married before allowing yourself to have children - due to their infrequent reproducing, homosexuality is often regarded as immoral, and it is an absolutely heinous crime and is greatly shunned if a Glade Elf were to marry a non-Elf. As the tribes are often small, marriages are usually held in the mother tree with the whole tribe attending, the tribe leader is there to marry the both of them, and after pledging their love for their partner it ends in a kiss.

The males (Mir) and females (Mare) are treated equally within the tribe, old mare are usually seen as motherhood figures to all in the tribe including the leader. As oppose to other states mare often find themselves hunting with the mir of the tribe as well as the mir taking jobs like caretakers amongst the mare. While both are regarded as capable warriors, mare are seen as more quick and agile, while mir are seen as more strong, and tough.

Though it is dying due to the growing relationship with their neighbours, Glade Elves are quite racist towards humans, not only looking down on their more civilised society, but also looking down on their life-span as well as their many conflicts with their own race. It is often a Glade Elf would greet a human with "Why would we grant you anything? You humans destory everything you touch!", or "Don't take much time, I can see you age by the second.".

Glade Elven cuisine is vastly different compared to other food found around Rathnir and Eldham, they are mostly carnivourous and even cannibalistic due to their oath to Eostre and The Waldire Lagu - the most common seasoning with the Glade Elves is tree resin, giving it a nutty, woody, yet tangy like flavour, they can also use things like honey. Meals are often treated like barbeques in the nations of Men, being a communal gathering where few chefs cook for the tribe. Their meals will often only be meat though can also be accompanied by bread, mushrooms, rice, beetroot.

One can actually become a Glade Elf through an intense trial, first and most importantly, you must pledge your life to Eostre, and take the oath to follow the Waldire Lagu. Then you are assigned a partner to teach you the language, and culture, as well as how to live in the forest. You are taught to hunt, kill, move, and live like a Glade Elf, these are tested with intense trails, most feared one being to eat a humanoid creature. After the success of the trials you are sent to fend for yourself in the forest completely naked for 14 days. If you survive you are then met with the "Ritual of Rebirth", where you are put to sleep at the mother tree and Eostre slowly grants you the abilities and the appearance of a Glade Elf - this process usually takes about 3 days.

Religion
All Glade Elves follow Eostre and the Waldire Lagu she is the goddess of fertility who called to the Elves in need of protection. Then setting upon the Glade Elves the Waldire Lagu which translates to forest law - in turn Eostre grants the Glade Elves a safe home, and the most fertile lands, she also gives the Glade Elves the ability to manipulate the plant matter in order to make room for roads, or to build houses, they can also communicate with the nature around then, even the animals, sometimes even able to possess weak-minded animals like birds for scouting.


 * 1) If the Everglade is threatened, all Glade Elven tribes must unite to destroy this threat.
 * 2) Protect your home forest with your life.
 * 3) The only plant matter you may consume is wheat, beetroot, tea, rice, cocoa, sugar, grapes, and berries.
 * 4) Any and all kills must be used in full.
 * 5) Every Glade Elf must enforce these laws.

Is is said failure to follow these laws result in being consumed by the forest.

History
As said in the summary, the Glade Elves are descendants from Celestial Elves who established colonies in Najer a very long time ago. It was at this time Eostre saw a future, her forest burning, pillaged, razed... so she sends a call to the recently established Elves, some rejected it, others ventured into the dense forest. The Elven colonies only barely survived the rapid drop in population, yet managed to keep the colonies established for years - the Elves who ventured into the forest did not return nor did they give any signs of life, they assumed the unforgiving nature killed them all. The thriving nature of the Elven colonies angered the Niedene people, despite the overwhelming numbers of the Niedenians the Elves made them pay for every inch of ground, alas, the Elves were defeated, decimated... in the years since Eostre made the call, she had been training the Elves to live amongst the forest, and now it was time. The Niedenians made their way into the forest, burning trees as they passed them with their torches, the Niedenians were met with arrows from atop the trees, though chaos ensued as they could not see the Glade Elves covered by the dense leaves, the vines picking the men up by the necks and crushing their throats, the roots pulling them from their ankles and underground to be ripped apart, eventually the Niedenian's moral was crushed by the sorcery of this forest and they ran back to their homeland.

Centuries passed as the Glade Elves living in isolation inside the forest, not being able to trust men after the destruction they brought. The new settlers of Najer never ventured into the forest, as any who went in never came out again, the Glade Elves were seen as folklore, given fairy-like stories to entertain the children, eventually an organisation with a logo of a black field with a red staff and a circle around it started putting boxes of things right on the edge of the forest, things like boxes of wine, jewelry, cured meats, jams, cheeses with notes like "for you, forest dwellers". this striked the Glade Elves' curiosity and so they sent parties of 4-6 out of the forest to explore, to their suprise they found cities built of sand and stone. The humans welcomed them, though the explorers were on edge due to hearing about how bad humans are their whole life - trust grew more and more as the Glade Elves sent more envoys to the human cities and eventually grew trade relations and even joining the Emirate of Najer. After some time a man wearing the same logo seen on the boxes outside the forest casually walks into the forest, attempting to traverse above all the roots and weeds, the guards had their arrows drawn but instead ran back to call the King, the King approached the man.

"You're bold I'll give you that"

"What? Couldn't see me coming?"

"You breath so loud I could've shot you with my eyes closed."

They both share a laugh and the man is invited to the tea house to discuss, he introduces himself as "Shooter" and his logo being the logo of "The Order of the Red Quarterstaff" he explains what his Order does and after more tea and eventually wine, they come to an agreement, Elmwood will be a member of the Order. The King passed laws allowing men to enter the forest and even built roads for them and to this day, the Glade Elves have friendly relations with the Order of the Red Quarterstaff, and the Emirate of Najer.