The Dark Elves

[Songwind]

It is said the dark elves like all elves descend from the fey, and it is probably true; in the case of the dark elves in particular, this descent must be particularly close because all dark elves are able to cast minor magical effects, usually spells relating to creating and extinguishing light, and sorcerers who are able to cast even more powerful effects are a fairly common occurrence.

For some unknown reason, about three times as many males are born as females; in dark elvish society the females are considered much more worthy than the males and live lives of self indulgence. Average dark elvish females are very lustful, cruel, greedy, proud, deceitful and narcissistic when compared to females of other races; still, there are many dark elvish males who never mate with dark elvish females in their lives, with a select few being highly sought after by a large number of females and a large amount being completely rejected.

Average dark elvish males are very chaste, diligent, humble and envious when compared to males of other races. There is no institution of marriage nor anything similar in dark elvish society, the dark elvish females have whatever men they please when they please, and in the very rare instances a female is scorned it usually ends in the male in question being murdered usually through poisoning unless some other more powerful female can protect him.

Most sexual advances are initiated by dark elvish females; the dark elvish males tend to have a more chaste form of love, believing in showing their affection through deeds and self sacrifice, and will often even financially support as many female dark elves as they fancy, even if they do not return their affections.

Murdering is a criminal offense, but even if they discover who did it a female can often get away with murdering a young male and just having to pay a very large sum to his mother. Dark elves have the death penalty, which they apply mostly just to males who kill females and people who commit treason against the matriarch; most other crimes are punished by fines or if you cannot afford it by banishment from the dark elvish nation for a number of years.

Banished males usually leave the tunnels where their survival would be very unlikely and go try to serve their sentences in the surface world, where they will suffer prejudice for being a dark elf, but where they can eke out a living as mercenaries due to their military training. Banished females often are cause of great outrage in the community, all males in her sphere of influence and even some unrelated ones will try to raise funds to avoid her being banished, even if she is guilty, and if she does in fact end up being banished several males will volunteer to go into banishment with her; there were occasions where priestesses were banished and it caused so much commotion and mobilized so many men that whole new villages were founded outside of the dark elvish territory just to house the banished priestesses. The Matriarch may pardon someone who has been condemned for any crime, but it is adviseable to do so sparingly otherwise crime will surely skyrate as people will stop fearing prosecution.

The basis of the female dark elvish dominance are their priestesses. Only dark elvish females are granted divine powers by the Spider Goddess, the only accepted deity in the nation, and the females who dedicate themselves to her worship can become extremely powerful. The tunnels where the dark elves live are extremely dangerous, countless types of monsters dwell in it and a large amount of the born male population dies fighting these creatures. The dark elvish priestesses use powerful divine rituals which must be frequently renewed in order to protect the settlements from monster attacks, and without these rituals the male casualties would be even higher and it is doubtful the life of the dark elves underground would even be possible.

Dark elvish gestations take about twelve months, but often the babies will be born premature as early as nine months into the pregnancy. Dark elvish mothers are very possessive about their children and will seek to manipulate them to control every aspect of their lives for as long as they can; they see their children partly as an extension of themselves and partly as property and secretly dread the day they will become independent. Dark elves reach almost their full adult size at about 20 years of age and remain psychologically teenagers for at least another 30 years; at some point between their 20 and their 70 years, usually around age 50, they become fertile.

At age 70 males join mandatory military service and when they come out of it at age 100 most of them are competent warriors, knowledgeable in managing several types of weapons and handling poisons; from then on they are at the disposal of the Matriarch to be called any time if there is the need until their old age. At age 70 females are often sent to the temple to be educated by the priestesses, even if they do not intend to become priestesses themselves, learning to read and write and being educated in the traditions of dark elvish society so they too can become a matriarch one day.
After military service most men either go work on food acquisition, as fungus farmers or hunters in the dangerous caves, or they learn a trade and become some sort of artisan; few get formal educations, and when they do they do not usually receive it from the priestesses, but from the warlocks, a parallel arcane spellcaster institution of significantly less prestige, more focused towards combat magic rather than rituals, that accepts both males and females within their ranks.

Female dark elves often work as temple workers, scribes and logisticians for the army; there are comparatively fewer female artisans than males, and very few directly involved in food acquisition other than in supervision or logistic roles.
After getting a role in society, more ambitious female dark elves will seek to acquire the funds to get out of their mother's home. They will fleece as many men as they can until they get their own place, and most keep doing it for centuries to increase their power and influence in society while they are young; dark elvish mothers warn their sons against these young female practices but to no avail, as their feminine wiles are too strong for the average dark elf male to resist. Dark elvish females will then choose the best available males and have a large number of children over the course of a few short years or decades, then usually wait several decades to have more children. It is not unusual for these dark elvish households to have one or more resident males to serve as father figures for the growing children, although that doesn't stop the young matriarch from keeping fleecing other men.

Effective birth control substances exist within the tunnels and are consumed in large quantities by the dark elvish females during the times they do not wish to have more children. Dark elvish females remain fertile until they are about 400 years old and can live until they are about 750 years old. Successful older matriarchs tend to live in vast veritable manors carved into the rock with several of their sons, perhaps a few of their daughters, some loyal males and a bunch of slaves; less successful ones have been abandoned by their children and might even need to work to support themselves.

Dark elves keep slaves, mostly captured from other underground races. Most of their slaves are various ethnicities of dwarves and gnomes, but also some kobolds and deformed tunnel humans which are endemic to the area, which the dark elves call troglodytes. Dark elves do not trust the slaves to handle their food so they are mostly employed in the mines, digging for ore. Most of the dwarves and gnomes slaves are males, captured in ambushes or raids, so very little slave breeding occur within the dark elvish settlements; a larger number of female troglodytes and kobolds are captured, as they are not as effective in protecting themselves and due to their low technology are forced to send even their women into the caves at large to gather food and even hunt, becoming vulnerable to slavers.

Entire segments of the army specialize in slave acquisition, and a few private groups also do it; a good chunk of the slaves are property of the Matriarch, and a tithe on the production of all privately owned slaves is also charged as slave tax. The wealth from the exploitation of the slaves is largely used to fund the army and the temple. Some dark elvish males will regularly violate female slaves and this practice is not considered criminal or even particularly morally wrong, although most dark elvish females consider it distasteful and reject males known for indulging in such practices, if nothing else for sanitary reasons. Occasional slave rebellions are usually led by a sorcerer slave born from such intercourses, but they are usually rapidly curbed.Many dark elvish females indulge in tormenting and torturing slaves and that is not considered criminal or particularly morally wrong either, although you do have to repay threefold if you do kill someone else's slaves without their consent other than in self defense or you may face even banishment charges.

Things that do not repeat themselves for long periods of time are likely not to imprint themselves strongly on a dark elf mind; it is not that they have bad memory, far from it, it is just that stimulus that is not repeated enough will not leave deep marks on them. Dark elves are hardly ever traumatized even by horrible events like the loss of children or large catastrophes be them personal or collective; a matriarch may ceremonially grieve a lost child for decades or even centuries, but she will not be crippled by trauma, and a dark elf that has been tortured by someone else will harbor desire of revenge but is unlikely to be crippled by trauma either.

Similarly, dark elves first tendency may be to be lenient with a transgression that occurs just once, and even their justice system allows people to more easily get away with something if it was the first time they did it; however, people who do something considered even merely inadequate for longs periods of time will be harshly judged and even shunned by their peers. A dark elf who is friendly towards another and sees him in error will chastise him harshly, urging him to change his ways; an unfriendly one will let him stay in error, and may even encourage it. However, friendliness is usually only reserved to those of your own family that you don't happen to strongly dislike for one reason or another, or long standing friendships which do form occasionally; but in general dark elves will be very mischievous with each other, just to see how the other reacts under pressure.