Characters / The Arts Of Dark And Light The Elves

The Arts of Dark and Light General Character index
Mankind | The Elves | The Goblins | The Witchkings | Others

This page is for any and all Elves in The Arts of Dark and Light.

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In General

• The Ageless: As is typical for elves, they do not age, but can be killed. This raised a society of very skilled elves, but is sapping their ability to replenish their society.
• Blue Elf Blood: As described in Birth of an Order, the elves have blue blood like crustaceans.
• Dying Race: As they do not age, they naturally have a low birth rate. Elvish women must permanently sacrifice all magical ability in order to have sex, which amplifies the problem. Add in many years of disastrous wars against the Witchkings that destroyed entire kingdoms and you have a very advanced kingdom with hardly anybody to maintain it.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: The go-to strategy of the Elves, as they have magical cloaking, few numbers and can tolerate few losses. It tends to work pretty well, but it can only work for so long. In the end, they frequently must make alliances to get other nations to help them fight big battles.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: When visiting Elebrion, Marcus notes that the elvish women wear clothing that is ornate, but held together using magic. It is held together using magic as it could not be kept together otherwise and tends to reveal a lot of skin. Most of them also have very ornate but impractical hairdos kept together with magic too.
• Inhumanly Beautiful Race: They are tall, very fair-skinned and thin. Though they also have bizarre proportions that make them appear strange to humans at times.
• Lack of Empathy: Not to truly sociopathic extents, but elven culture is noticeably not afraid of the suffering of those who are guilty of crimes against the elves. The cruelty is notable even by the humans' somewhat ruthless standards.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: According to Lodi the Dwarf, they very briefly joined the Dwarves in the Siege of the Iron Mountain. Key word would be briefly, as King Caefall Everbright and his 25,000 troops literally took one look at the opposing forces, then turned right around. If you assume that Lodi is being honest.
• Uncanny Valley: Though elves physically resemble humans that are tall, pale and fair haired, they have proportions that make most of them look a tad strange to humans.
• Utility Magic: Used extensively to give them a modern standard of living against the medieval standards of their contemporaries. Corvus even acknowledges that the magic allows them to produce excellent wine while in the Elvish Embassy.
• Virgin Power: Female elves lose their magic should they ever have sex, though this isn't a problem for male elves.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Elves won the war against the Witch Kings and everyone knows this, most of all the elves, many of whom are veterans of that war. However, it left 4 out of 7 Elven kingdoms destroyed and the elves are down to the aimless remnants and everyone knows this, most of all the elves.

Kingdom of Merithaim

Lady Lithriel Everbright

• Brought Down to Normal: After her experience as as a sex slave in Malkan, her magic has left her.
• Career Versus Man: Played with. After her time as a sex slave in Malkan, this ended her chances at using magic. After no longer being able to pursue a career of magic, she happily married her rescuer, but still provides assistance towards Savondir's magical studies.
• Cute and Psycho: She is a beautiful elfess who laughs at some of the darkest things imaginable, including a dragon burning some of the Savondese warmages within her vicinity. It can unsettle those around her, even her husband Theuderic.
• The Dog Bites Back: She emasculates her human captor. This horrifies even Lodi.
• Enemies List: She makes a pact with Nicolas de Mere - he'll kill everyone involved in her enslavement if she provides Savondir with magical expertise, particularly that of controlling dragons. This includes their families too.
• May–December Romance: As would be typical of most Human-Elf relationships, she is older than her husband Theuderic.
• Sex Slave: She was rescued from a sex slavery ring by Lodi.
• Uncanny Valley: Her husband remarks that her breasts are spaced very slightly further apart than they would be on a human woman and that he's still not used to this.

King Caerwyn Everbright

"The elf king drew his sword and said something in elvish. I don't speak none, but I'm pretty sure he was asking if we minded a little help. I nodded and gestured with my sword toward the howling orcs."

— Le Sergent at the end of The Wardog's Coin

• Authority Equals Ass Kicking: He doesn't come to battle until the war is nearly over, but when he does, he is confirmed to kill at least 20 orcs with his battle dancing.
• Big Damn Heroes: He personally marches on the scene to fight the rest of the orcs right as Le Sergent gets overwhelmed. Though its too late for most of his cohort.
• Dance Battler: The King is capable of Elvish Battle Dancing as is typical of the Merithaimi aristocracy.
• Hell Is That Noise: His warcry was described as a high-pitched horror that was heard over the entire battlefield.

Kingdom of Elebrion

Lady Caitlys Shadowsong

• Accidental Heroine: Towards the end of Summa Elvetica, she gives Marcus a kiss offscreen in Kir Donas while escorting him home. Her proceding blush is what convinces the Amorran Pope that elves indeed have souls.
• Action Girl: She is an accomplished warhawk rider and can even maintain two warhawks behind her.
• An Elfess and Her Warhawk: Vengirasse is her warhawk, which she uses throughout her adventures as air support and transport.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Towards the end of Summa Elvetica, she summons a magical knife shower to kill Zephanus, regardless of the fact that the knife storm would also hit Marcus, with no remorse despite overwise being pleasant.
  • In A Throne of Bones, she threatens Theuderic by magically untying his warhawk straps and tilting the warhawk slightly. All in retaliation for using magic around Amorrans who react poorly to the presence of magic.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: After the High King's dinner for the Amorran envoy, she stealthily tells Marcus this and gets him on her warhawk.
• Easily Forgiven: Towards the end of Summa Elvetica, she summons a storm of knives to kill Zephanus, which also strikes Marcus to a degree that would likely kill him under normal circumstances. It doesn't work due to a reliquary he brought with him that acted as protection, but she had no way of knowing that. He doesn't seem to hold any grudge or even bring it up. Then again, it is Marcus.
• May–December Romance: Is more or less Marcus' girlfriend. As he is a human, this means that he is still young, in a relationship with an immortal, who is certainly much older than him.
• Pen Pals: After her adventures in Summa Elvetica she maintains this sort of relationship with Marcus.
• Virgin Power: She is an elfess, but still has her magical capabilities and is thus still a virgin. Acknowledged by Marcus.

High King Mael

"In Elebrion, creature, we expect a certain amount of civility from lesser mortals who have ascended to our heights uninvited. If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, rest assured I shall see that it is removed."

— The High King to the werewolf

• Admiring the Abomination: Subverted. After receiving a living werewolf specimen, he puts one on display over dinner for his guests and remarks about its composition and abilities. This is only a prelude to casually destroying it in a horrible manner.
• Animal Eye Spy: He has animals of the forest as his magical spies. Regardless of how strained Human-Elf relations are, they aren't strained with the animals of the forest.
• Anti-Villain: The High King is noticeably stern and prone to snarking towards mortals, but he is very fair and even returns a much wanted pair of Golden Eagle Statues to the Amorran envoy in thanks of them bringing him a living specimen of werewolf. However, that was for the fun of killing it and he is very willing to do anything to save his people should he think he has to.
• Badass Boast: When a captive werewolf threatens him and his kingdom, he merely uses magic to shut its mouth and tells it that it will talk courteously or lose its tongue.
• Deadpan Snarker: He is not afraid of condescension and very witty. Frequently this overlaps with irreverent statements towards the humans trying to make peace with him. The one time he doesn't make a quip, it indicates just how serious he is.
• Get Out!: After the plot to assassinate him and some of his guests to instigate a terrible war is discovered and thwarted he calmly gathers his thoughts and declares that mankind shall no longer be allowed in Elebrion besides the occasional emissary and the visitors will safely return home.

Bessarias, Magistras Gnossi of the Council

Now that the Witchkings are no more, it is entirely possible that I am the most powerful sorcerer in all Selenoth.

• The Atoner: Played with. He feels terrible over causing a nuclear explosion via magic, but for most of his life he acknowledged it was an honest mistake and helped prevent it in the future. However after executing Herwaldus, he gradually converts to an anti-magic religion and later comes to view his past with much more disdain, whether it was related to the first incident or not.
• Badass Boast: Subverted. He acknowledges his status as probably the most powerful surviving sorcerer, but its with melancholy and by that point he had slowly been desiring to abandon magic.
• Easy Evangelism: Averted. He spent weeks discussing philosophy with Herwaldus before developing an interest in Immanuelism and didn't truly respect it until after being forced to end Herwaldus' suffering before the elves could torture him worse. Even then, he spent over a decade at a monastery studying Immanuelism as an interested elf, not truly converting until after a Crisis of Faith lasting longer than humans live.
• Meaningful Rename: He has changed his name to Nomenlos three hundred years ago after he had overcame his Crisis of Faith.
• Older Than They Look: He is currently wrinkly with wispy, white hair, being so old that even his elven body is showing signs of exhaustion.
• Retired Badass: He was originally the most powerful sorcerer in Selenoth, but he retired after the war with the Witchkings. He abandoned magic altogether some decades or centuries later.
• Schizo Tech: Bessarias has discovered the atom through the use of magic in this medieval setting. He even accidentally released a nuclear explosion from cutting the atom, turning the desert around him into glass.
• Turn to Religion: After the horror of the Witchkings, he became the only Elvish Immanuelite, though he did have a Crisis of Faith that lasted longer than humans live.