The Darkmarch Elven


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The Darkmarch Elven

 

One of the noble races of Elves.

 

Through our feet and our song, we may yet Unsunder this world of Battal. - Ascribed to Darkmarch conductor Vizz`dir the Soundless.

 

Origins

Shortly after the The Sundering, while the populace wept and cried out in despair over the epic happenings, a group of High Elves became dedicated to music and marching. A thought came to them it seems, all at once, that if they marched around and sang joyous songs over and over, the world might be put right again. So they gathered, created their instruments of joy and song, and set out among the lands of Finkfru. They called themselves "The Marching Elven".

 

The Fall of the Marching Elven

As time went by (actually only a matter of years), the High Elves around Finkfru became increasingly annoyed at the music and song that traveled the land and never seemed to cease. "I don't care if the world is Broken, turn that racket off!", said one peasant elf-girl. Indeed, the Marching Elven played through all hours of the day; they were the first to come up with the usage of "Dark Marchers", a group of sentries who played music and marched around the camp all night long, giving away the group's exact location to anyone within miles. The technique has never been duplicated.

 

Eventually, the High Elves became so agitated that they invited the Marching Elven to a concert inside a large hill. Happy to be appreciated for once, the band, now nearing some five thousand High Elves, showed up in its entirety for the concert. When the time for the concert came, the other High Elves in attendance politely excused themselves for a moment, went outside the hill, and blew the entrance to the cave up. That was to be the end of the Marching Elves, except that the explosion knocked loose a slab which covered a tunnel to the The Underdeep.

 

The Marching Elves, crying out and desperate at their misfortune, followed the tunnel until they became hopelessly lost in the bowels of Battal. Their king, Bowsar, was unable to lead them back into the light. Over the years, their skin has become a charcoal black color (because things that live underground are always dark colored), and their instruments have become specialized for indoor acoustics. They became the "Dark Marching Elven", and then, just the "Darkmarch Elven".

 

The End of Kings

Bowsar ruled his people during their period of greatest strife, as they learned what they must need know to life in such a dark and forboding place. In time his rule was usurped by an outsider; a mysterious figure known only as Sworderer (Sworderer's identity is revealed much later to the readers). She remained queen until Yar the Sorcerial changed her into a bucket of wine (by all accounts, it was delicious). Thus ended the kings and queens of the Darkmarch after a reign of two, neither linked to the other through heredity.

 

What followed was rule by the bandleaders, of which there were also two, the first being Elowel of the Tuba which lasted all the way into the Ending Times, followed by his son, Parnabuse of the Cymbal, and then the return of Elowel.

 

The Darkmarch Later On

It is said sometimes at night, when the wind is blowing rather strongly and you happen to be near a large hold in the ground, you still hear the Darkmarch playing their joyous songs, attempting to Unsunder the world with their music. This continued even after The Unsundering, as they were still underground and didn't know about it, or possibly were told and immediately forgot.

 

The Darkmarch even Later On

At some point after The Unsundering, a faction of the Darkmarch, calling themselves the Faction who Really Hate Playing Music all the Damn Time, caused a rucous when they mentioned that the Darkmarch might want to stop wandering around the exceptionally dangerous Underdeep, and found some sort of defensible city where they could live in relative safety. This was, of course, summarily rejected by the Conductors as a defeatist attitude and a surrender of their sacred mission to Unsunder the world.

 

The Faction had a sacred book in their possession, penned during the Unsundering, called My Diary -- DO NOT OPEN! This means YOU, Re'tak!, which was written by a young Darkmarch maiden. The faction called her the Truthbearer, because scrawled in her book were descriptions of the events during the Unsundering and the joyous parties they threw afterwords, up until the point that they all forgot there had been an Unsundering and went back to marching. The Conductors believed the book to be a forgery and a hoax when they were presented with it, they not only burned the book (after reading some of the more embarassing entries aloud), but also banished all those adhering to the faction out into the Underdeep.

 

These few founded the citadel of Great Gandandersanden, and partially because of the loss of their sacred text, partially because of their being exiled from the Darkmarch, and partially because living in dark caves really sucks, they became very jaded and pissed off at their existance. These were the ancestors of the Mean Elves, who would later persecute the Darkmarch as they grew into a powerful underground nation.

 

The Darkmarch Elsewhere

Some Darkmarch have abandoned their quest and made their way to the surface world to rejoin society. The Darkmarch Elves that live above ground are often mistaken for Mean Elves, but for their distinct lack of tatoos and piercings, and their slightly musical bent. One famous surface dwelling Darkmarch is Jastevi the High Assassin of The Order of the Black Hand.