A Rough Explanation of Witcher Elves
As requested by a lot of my followers, myself and a few friends ( @carangeas & @gynvaelrhena specifically ) put together some rough n’ dirty information of the witcher elves and their respective worlds. Hopefully this will help with those who plan to take up some elves who haven’t been rp’d or in putting together a verse! To my fellow witcher friends, feel free to add on about important points! You CAN reblog this!
So the elves started as an ancient race called the Aen Undod on a whoooole other world. This ancient race has little information, but were said to possess great magical power known as Ard Gaeth, which allowed them to open the gate between worlds. Upon facing certain death due to the White Frost, or Tedd Deireadh, in their world, they began to search for others in which they could settle and inhabit. From this search, they separated into two main groups of elves we encounter in the series: the Aen Elle and the Aen Seidhe, with the latter residing in what is known as ‘the Continent,’ which is the world where the series takes place, and the former in their own separate world, which we visit in the book Lady of the Lake, and in a mission titled ‘through time and space’ in Witcher 3.
While the two races of elves originally derived from one group, there are some differences namely in culture, physiology, and language (both speak Elder Speech, but different dialects of it; Aen Elle speak Ellylon, Aen Seidhe Hen Llinge), the Aen Elle are also much taller than the Aen Seidhe (which is most likely due to the differences in the availability of resources and evolution). The Aen Elle (or Alder Folk) discovered a separate world from the Aen Seidhe which was originally inhabited by humans, as well as a smaller race of ‘grey elves.’ Soon they became the dominant species of this world, and essentially imperialized, and established their capital, Tir ná Lia, under the rule of their king Auberon Muircetach. This allowed them to pursue the cultivation of their own magic abilities, armies, and knowledge of the arcane, both through the use of eugenics and the research of powerful sages known as Aen Saevherne, or ‘Knowing Ones.’ These sages can also be found amongst the Aen Seidhe. The Aen Saevherne of the Alder Folk are perhaps best known for their work with eugenics, where they would bring together pairs of elves possessing powerful magical abilities to create even more powerful offspring. This led to the creation of what is known as the Elder Blood, or Hen Ichaer in elder speech, which is a powerful genetic line that originated in Lara Dorren aep Shiadhal, who possessed the power to travel through time and space, and open the gate between worlds once more.
The Elder Blood is very important to both elven races, as it is said that a child of the Elder Blood will save them from annihilation in accordance to Ithlinne’s Prophecy. Unfortunately for them, whatever plans the Aen Elle had for Lara Dorren and her child were dashed away once she fell in love with a powerful human mage, Cregenan of Lod, in the world of the Aen Seidhe. Depending on who tells the story, the lovers were either torn apart by humans or by the hatred of elves, but Lara went on to bear a daughter and died. While the blame for the deaths of the lovers is debatable (though it is suggested that the truer version is that the humans attacked the couple, since the Aen Seidhe accepted Cregenan and his ideas of humans and elves coming together), the Aen Elle believe they were robbed of the Elder Blood by Cregenan and have been pursuing it ever since. This is where the plot of Lady of the Lake, and the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt come into play.
Ciri, is a descendent of Lara Dorren, and therefore possesses Elder Blood.In the books she travels to the world of the Aen Elle where she meets Avallac’h, an Aen Saevherne who Lara was originally intended to marry. She is told she has to pay back the debt left by Cregenan, and bear the child of their king Auberon in order to return to her own world.
This however, does not go as planned, for over time the elves lose potency. Eredin Breacc Glas, general of the army, suggests that Ciri give the king something that supposedly will help things speed along, but it actually ends up killing the king. Whether this was on purpose or an accident is debatable, but Ciri flees the world of the Aen Elle and is then pursued by Eredin and his Dearg Ruadhri, known as the Red Riders. More commonly known as, The WIld Hunt.
The Red Riders are basically the army of the Aen Elle, they protect the elves from the unicorns, who they have been at war with ever since they settled in their world. The Red Riders are able to travel between worlds through the utilization of mage navigators, who are able to lead Eredin and his armies through pre-existing portals, but cannot travel as freely between worlds as someone containing the Elder Blood can. Over the centuries, they have come to be known as the Wild Hunt in other worlds, a spectral force that rides through the night sky, and leaves nothing but death and misfortune in their wake. For in their pursuit of the Elder Blood, the Red Riders have been known to kidnap children (specifically in the Aen Seidhe world) who they believe to be Lara’s descendents, and abduct elves to join their ranks. They are the main antagonists as they continue to chase Ciri, in hopes of exploiting her powers to take over the world of the Aen Seidhe, and save the the Aen Elle from annihilation for the White Frost is imminent in their world.
When the elves broke into two parts, the elves which would later call themselves the Aen Seidhe sailed via portal into the southern tip of the witcher world. They settled, gaining land either through agreement with the gnomes or through war with the dwarves who were already present in the world. At the time, they were the only three races on that world and eventually a tenuous peace was found between them. As the Aen Seidhe spread northward and erected palaces and temples, they were met with the arrival of humans who arrived 2,000 years later when the Conjunction of the Spheres occurred and poured magic, monsters, and humans into their world.
Now the next bit is kind of a series of rinse and repeat when it comes to the Aen Seidhe and humans:
At first elves did not trust the humans into their lands but eventually took human children behind their city gates to train them in magic learned from the elven sages.
Humans later betrayed their would-be allies and essentially massacred elves regardless of status, age, or gender in Loc Muinne and Est Haemlet. From then on and it was total war with elves vs humans for centuries, with brief instances of peace and even interbreeding. A lot of the older elves disliked this because it muddled some of their magic abilities over time. And was a part to losing contact with the Aen Elle. So when shit the fan again interbreeding was a big nono, especially after an Aen Elle appeared by the name of Lara Dorren (Ciri’s ancestor).
Uprisings occurred on and off, one the most famous ones being Aelirenn’s uprising against the humans, which took place some 200 years before the events of Blood of Elves. Aelirenn is mentioned in both games/books as a charismatic Aen Seidhe lady who gathered a large army of the elven, gnomish, and dwarven youth into fighting human oppression, only for them be decimated devastatingly in Shaerrawedd.
Eventually humans outbred the elves, whose women could no longer reproduce at faster rates except every twenty years and were most fertile only in their first century. Elves resented that for some reason the women being close to human males made them more likely to conceive(hormonal shit essentially). Humans overthrew the elves, burnt their cities, massacred kingdoms and villages, pushed them to “the edge of the the world” until all they had left was the very historic valley Lara Dorren had died in, Dol Blathanna aka the Valley of the Flowers. In the short story The Edge of the World, Geralt encounters a group of elves led by Toruviel and the former king of Dol Blathanna, Filavandrel, who have been stealing grain from a human village in order to combat the famine their people were facing as humans surrounded their lands. Dol Blathanna, over time, was taken from them.
So at last when the last bit of elven land was taken and the elves were forced into the Blue Mountains, a string of rebel freedom fighter groups rose up. Later they would become known as scoia'tael. A southern human empire by the name of Nilfgaard extended their hand to these struggling elves when they offered a deal: form a guerilla group of elves to ride to the north and cause havoc so the northern kingdoms cannot defend themselves when Nilfgaard invades. In return, they would grant the Aen Seidhe sovereignty over Dol Blathanna. This army became known as the Vrihedd Brigade, characterized by lightning bolts on their sleeves.
The short story called Times of Contempt tells of the coup d'etat that follows after the elves agreed, in which they followed the elven sorceress Francesca Findabair in to destroy the entire conclave of sorcerers and sorceresses who were all essentially shadow ruling behind the Kings/Queens of the north. What changed was that once they took it over, the surrounding kingdoms were in an uproar by the deceit, but allowed the elves to keep Dol Blathanna as an independent elven nation on one condition: Francesca Findabair, the new Queen of the elves, had to denounce the elven brigade which had helped Nilfgaard in the north as war criminals.
Knowing that Nilfgaard would eventually betray them, the Queen conceded and at an event called the “Peace of Cintra” leaders of the brigade were taken to a human prison and 53 out of the 55 were brutally killed. The only two leaders whom survived and escaped were two commanders called Iorveth and Isengrim. From then on all the nonhumans whom were associated with the scoia'tael were left shut off and helpless from family or aid in Dol Blathanna, left to fend for themselves. Many left the Continent altogether to explore the better futures in the undiscovered world.
Which leads to the scoia'tael turning into perceived terrorists and bandits who sought only to kill humans for what they did. It was later on during the events of Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings that a former Vrihedd brigade member named Iorveth gathered the remaining scoia’tael units in the Temerian kingdom and Pontar region to join forces with humans and other nonhumans in order to create an independent & coexisting kingdom under Queen Saskia the dragonslayer. Many Aen Seidhe and other nonhumans, who had been living in poverty and danger outside the cities of humans, fled to the free city of Vergen. For a year, this independent state won its sovereignty and even flourished before Nilfgaard invaded and dispersed its army and people. The scoia’tael and other Aen Seidhe were scattered once more to the wind, suggesting a slow and painful end to the once infamous freedom fighters of the elves, turning them to bandits, thieves, and refugees once more in the events of Witcher 3.
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