Land of the Elves
The Elves in URSA are modeled after the elves in the DRAGONLANCE series. Meaning, Grey elves, High elves and Wood Elves are Silvanosti elves, Qualinosti elves and Kagnosti elves...respectively.
Silvanosti elves are the nobles of the race. They are the only ones to hold high up positions, such as:
High Priests, Wizards, Scholars, and the 'elven king', or Speaker of the Trees. Silvanosti are the shortest of the elves and tend to have silvery hair, to grey and light brown. Their eyes range from green to hazel.
Qualinosti elves tend to be the tallest of the elves and have hair ranging from blonde to light brown as well. Their eyes have a wide range, from brown to blue, yet favoring the browns.
Kagnosti elves have dark colored hair and green to dark brown eyes. Their skin is very tan, from being in the sun all day, and don't live in any community.
The 3 subraces live together in harmony, each honoring the next...but holding the Kagnosti above all. After all, that is what every elf dreams about. To live, run through the trees, love and worry about if the squirrel and rabbit will get along with you playing with the raccoon. Silvanosti and Qualinosti both will bow, more or less than a head nod, to any Kagnosti(Qualinosti will tend to 'bow' deeper...though again, nothing more than a nod.).
The Silvanosti does not, and will not mingle with other races. Why? According to the elves...the Elves were the first race to appear on URSA...after the dragons. It is very rare that a Silvanosti will venture out of the "Home Land". Only on special quests or certain types of "Character Kits" will a Silvanosti go out. After all, why would you want to leave the best place on URSA?
The Qualinosti are like the ambassadors of the elves. The see the advantage of Dwarven strength, human creativity, and so on. They are the 'buffer' between the 'outside' world and their Home Land. Though the majority of the Qualinosti race lives outside of Silvanost...they still call it their home. AND are always welcome. (A Silvanosti will deny this to his grave, but secretly, they understand the importance of other races, and thank Corellon Larethian for making a race of elves which can tolerate lesser races).
Kagnosti are the 'ideal' elven race, as stated before. They are carefree, and seldom care about anything but elves. They act as a militia for Silvanost. They will leave you alone as long as you leave the land alone. The other two races look upon and act as if the Kagnosti are children....though noble children.
The land of Silvanost is magical and unique. Though Silvanost lies over 1000 miles south of Dnaleri, the land is 10 degrees cooler, yet the trees are greener.
The heart of Silvanost, well-more than 82% of the land, is a Rain Forest....called Deep Forest. NO NON-ELF IS ALLOWED NEAR DEEP FOREST. The Silvanosti and Kagnosti will defend this to death. Deep Forest is thick, moist, and alive. From birds to wildlife to the insects, the forest is alive...and very dangerous. Even at young ages, elves know not to adventure out into Deep Forest because of the magical and exotic animals living there. Yet an elf of age would know how to navigate throughout Deep Forest...staying away from territories.
The mountains to the north are not like the Rocky Mountains of the Great Divide in Notirb, but more like green and living mountains.
There are 5 major rivers is Silvanost. Looking at the MAP:
The left most river is called:
Silvana...the River of life.
The right most river is called:
Qualina....the River of hope.
The center river is called:
Sehaniera...the River of the Spirit.
These 3 rivers flow together into the large lake called Jarelael.
From here, Silvana and Sehaniera flow together to form, Arvana...the River to Arvandor, while Qualina flows on southward.
Between these two rivers is the elven capitol and 'king' lives, The Speaker of The Trees.
When elves live to become very old they board tall white ships with large square sails and sail down Arvana....the ship never returns. This happens once every 1,000 years. Elves which have died, are placed upon the river Arvana...never to reach the South Sea. Some say, that on Arvan is a door to Arvandor.
Kagnosti will never allow any non-elf to bathe in any of these rivers, to the point of combat. Silvanosti share the same view, while Qualinosti will be firm with friends and deadly to enemies.
(For some reason the elves don't have problems with crossing them...though they better have a good reason and have tried everything else.).
The language of the elves is like a song. If one would hear two elves talking, it would sound like a song. To hear an elf sing...especially for the Minstrel...enchanting.
I have searched the internet and came up with the Elven Dictionary. It is a large collection of various words. A large part of the elven language has words similar with the Drow. Regardless of what the two think of each other, the still have some words which are similar. Some..that is. I send a special thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien, the majority of the words have come from this wonderful man's mind. I also have gotten many words from the great R.A. Salvatore. Then the few words left, I derived or made up from close or similar words. Download this dictionary HERE. This is in the form of a microsoft Word document. If you have any problems, please e-mail me.
Notirb
Dnaleri
Download the Elven Dicitionary
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