A Zarhuycan Sand elf tribeself from the Bareds
D U N E Arenarum Rosea elvii
Race: Sand Elf
Class: Light Elf
Species: Elf
Other names: Sand elf, [light] Desert Elves, Sand Raiders, Dune riders
Allegiance: Independent tribes, Caliphate of Blazakhov
Sand elf Description[]
The Sand Elves are a race of Rossnes light elves who lived in northern Zarhuy (Ze-Berra desert and Bareds) and southern Aels (Desert of Iperto). They have a wide range of skin and hair colors, light skin and blonde hair is not uncommon, but many groups tend to have darker skin and dark hair and more sharper, prominent features. This is mostly due to mixing with the invading races of Kanov and humans during the Age of Invasions that brought an end to the High elves' colonies. Despite the isolation of arid, sandy areas, these were much traveled lands and served as genetic melting pots.
Sand elf History[]
The Sand Elves are another of the remnants of the old age of Elven Hegemony, from when the High Elf Empire of Whide Axis and the loosely collection of states then composing it began their imperialism trying to conquer the World, settling down colonies and conquering lands in the continents of Aels and Zarhuy:
However, the golden age for the High elves ended with the “Age of Invasions” that followed the apparition of Humanity, and from all their colonies and cities they founded in Aels and Zarhuy, only a handful of them resisted the waves of invasions and destruction.
Most of the colonies were abandoned, and the elves tried to escape, to the home continent of the High elves, of Ushaenor, or to the remaining High Elf settlements, but many of them didn’t make it, and from the ashes of the High Elf colonies, raised three “new kinds” of elves: the “Grey elf”, elves who accepted life under the rule of the invaders. The “Wild elf”, living in small, scattered settlements or semi-nomadic tribes in the plains of Antor, and the “Sand elves”: descendants of the settlers who searched for refuge in the desert and semi-desert areas of Zarhuy and Aels.
For example, here are some Sand elves tribes-elf warriors ready for combat equipped with red robes, bronze helms (often mimicking animals to cast protection of certain spirits), wicker shields covered with cow-hide as they live from raising cattle
Because of that, there can be found two main “Sand elf” groups: the ones in the sands of Iperto in Aels, and the ones of Zarhuy, existing significant differences between them.
The Zarhuy sand elves remained free as errant tribes for a long time (meanwhile the Ipertians were conquered by humans and Christianized), and the Zarhuy elves developed their own culture, which kept many archaisms from the ancient “High Elf” times of their ancestors, but also new ways that come with their style of life, as well as an animist religion, dance, language, clothes, and many others.
The Sand elves are some of the darker “Light Elves” (a somewhat racist definition invented by the “high” elves, who called in a derisive way “dark elves” their enemies and the “barbarians”), but this can be explained because among the Sand elves (as with the Wild and Grey Elves) they had much mixed blood with other species: a souvenir from the Age of Invasions, which ended with many half-elves, bastard sons and daughters from these violent ages:
However, with the passage of centuries, the closed Sand elf society made stronger their elven blood, but some dominant genes, as the darker skin tone acquired from Kanov and Humans mostly, remained.
The Sand Elves are rossnes elfs –light elves-, but there exist as well other elves who live in the desert: the Desert elf(ves), or “Desert Raiders”, who are zuleis elves –dark elves-, who many times are enemies of the Sand elves, mostly due to competition for forage for their cattle and for water.