Elves once ruled nearly all of Verascith, because they're one of the most magically powerful species, and they're quite advanced compared to most races (can't really beat the dwarves, though, all they do is build). They enslaved many species, and kept sentient beings as pets, including nekomata and centaurs. One day, almost out of nowhere, the high elves found themselves up against angels, supposed descendants of sirens, who didn't have much magic, but did have wings and strong armies.
See, while the elves were pampering themselves and whipping their slaves, the angels were hiding high in the clouds and mountaintops, whipping their own slaves and soldiers alike, in an effort to catch up with the power and influence of the elves as quickly as possible. A few angels had been captured and dewinged, and it didn't take long for their brethren to decide they'd had enough. So the angels threw out (and/or killed) their slaves and replaced the dungeons with armories. They surprised the elves by ambushing their capital as soon as the horizon went from black to grey.
What started as the Elf-Angel War quickly turned into the Elven Genocide, as the angels vowed to wipe out every last elf, mother and child included.
During the first few days, about 100 children were sent to hide deep in the largest nearby forest. The smaller the child, and the darker their skin or hair, the harder they were to find. It didn't take long for any child with white hair and glowing white skin to be found and mercilessly slain. Any child who was too large to hide in tree trunks or in bushes was easily captured and executed. Over the next 3000 years, these children and their offspring would get increasingly smaller and darker with each generation. These became the wood elves.
A few years into the genocide, as many other species began getting involved with the worldwide slaughtering of elves, a group of elves decided enough was enough, and it was time for them to fight fire with fire. Their superiors and companions refused to genocide the angels, centaurs, and other races, because "We're better than those animals. We will beat them into submission, in time, with planning, but we will not be animals".These rebellious elves who wanted to kill angel and centaur children left their homes and joined together to hide away inside the deepest caves they could find. They began practicing dark magic and blood magic, using it to kill anything that tried to hunt them down. These became the dark elves.
Eventually, the elves, now calling themselves high elves to distinguish themselves from the "lesser races", were reduced to just a few thousand, and were isolated to the capital. Their homes were torn down, their prisons were burned, and their cities were reduced to ruins, or taken over by other Verascithians. Things eventually calmed down, as the angels recognized the high elves would never recover from the genocide to regain the rule they once had, and the high elves took this opportunity to hunt down the wood elves. They were disgusted by the animalistic, dark-skinned, dark-haired, child-faced people they found, and proceeded to kill all the men and children in that village and take the women, completely unaware that the wood elves had spread to other forests and many other villages.
The high elves proceeded to lock up the female wood elves and r*ped them repeatedly, trying to "breed their blood back to purity". After many attempts, they realized they weren't getting anywhere (and they realized their flawed thinking, though unfortunately, not the immorality of it), because the children, and the children of those children, weren't becoming pale-skinned, white/blonde-haired. Instead, their skin was staying sand-colored, and they could be born with any hair color between blonde and brown. Their eyes were almost always green, and sometimes blue or brown.So they threw out the new race, which they disgustingly called "mid elves" (to suggest they're better than the wood elves, but not quite true elves), and forced them to live in the run down remains of an old elven city. After these mid elves had children on their own, they sent their own children away as soon as they were old enough, to get further away from their high elf rulers, and those children would start a new village together. This became a mid elf tradition.
After this, the angels and centaurs began a war with each other. With the powerful high elves out of the way, they were the two most capable, and most arrogant species left. The angels wanted to take over Verascith, now that the high elves were reduced to hiding in their capital. The centaurs insisted it was their land, and they had the rights to it, as the angels were creatures of the skies, and should have no say over the land. The war goes on even today, and angels and centaurs will kill each other, without mercy, on sight.
Any high elf that gets in the way is either beaten to an inch of his life, or killed. Any high elf found by most any civilization will be brutally, viciously attacked, or otherwise shunned and chased out. So now, high elves rarely travel. When they do, they bring many soldiers and body guards with them.
Mid elves bear the brunt of most of this trouble, though, since many of them have light-colored hair, and they have light, sandy skin. They're often mistaken for high elves, and tend to be treated as such. Word is slowly spreading of the new race, however, so the attacks are becoming less and less frequent, gradually. Wood elves, though, still hate the mid elves because of what they came from and what they inherently represent. Dark elves don't really care about them either way. All the races, aside from high elves, prefer to keep to themselves when possible.
That is the story of the Elven Genocide, and how the elf races came to be.
Kelpies are primitive animals that live in swamps. They’re carnivorous and intelligent water horses that are able to use natural magic to transform themselves to lure in their prey.
They are very thin, and naturally look malnourished by comparison to a normal horse. Their hooves appear to be backwards, which helps trick slightly intelligent creatures into thinking that going opposite of the tracks will lead to safety. They do not have manes, but do have tails. They have darkly colored coats, which range from charcoal grey to ink black, and can even be found in dark green. Often, however, they may disguise themselves as pure white horse, or even a hornless unicorn.
When kelpies transform, they always keep their hooves, which retain the backwards appearance. Why this is so is unknown.
Kelpie skin excretes a natural adhesive, like sap, which is only enhanced by the muck of the swampy water they live in. This natural adhesive binds to anything that comes in contact with it, which helps them blend in with their environment by grabbing onto moss and leaves. It also makes catching prey much easier, as any person who tries to pet the kelpie, or any predator which tries to bite it, will immediately be stuck to it, at which point, the kelpie can return to the water and drown it.
The kelpie’s appearance is based off the real world horse breed, Akhal-teke.
(Image credit to HorseBreedsPictures.com)
