Fertile Lands/Blackfens
From Tel'Laerad Wiki
Geography
The Blackfens are marshes that are slowly growing at a steady rate. To the west is the Great Lake Rhestin, to the northeast the tribal plains, to the northwest, the Endless Plains. The old North Road, which connects with the Dawn Way to the south, cuts through the Blackfens and passes through the ruined city of Rhest. The Rhestin feeds into the Elsir River.
Darkfen
The Darkfen Elves, or the Tiri Kitor, are an ancient clan of elves that settled in the marsh an age ago, long before the fabled scorching of the Thornwastes and the fall of the Dwarven Kingdom.
They were dark and mysterious people, watching in the dark and with motives indiscernable. They were said to be of middle nature between Man and Devil, when Devils were fallen angels. They had no soul but rather intelligent fluidous spirit, independent of their bodies, which they could change. Their blood was condensed cloud and they could only be seen fully in twilight, and they were so ethereal and piable to the sublety of spirits that by looking upon them, they would vanish.
Whatever the truth of the Darkfen, their influence upon the nearby kingdom of Rhest as it formed was felt quietly in the villages and farmlands nearby. It is said they would sometimes steal a child and replace it with a changeling, babies who would grow up with pointed ears and vanish when they had come of age. When meeting them, eating their food would entrap you into their world and enlave you. They would also kill if offended, and the ways to offend them were many.
When Rhest was falling, it was said the Darkfen came to their aid, and the marshes somehow guided those who fled to safety, while slaying any hobgoblin to enter it. An entire batallion of goblins sent into the Blackfen to flank Rhest simply vanished.
This tale moved the heroes of the Elsir Vale during the Golden March (when the oriental Kingdoms made a move for the Vale) to ask the elves for aid. Though they initially declined, the man who would become the King of Brindol was able to convince them that the Golden People would oust them from their marshes, and they lent aid to the defense of the Elsir Vale.
When the Brindol Academy was established as a place of magic, the elves agreed to an exchange program with the school, as the wet nature of the marshlands prevented any great library from being built. As a result, young elves were sent to Brindol Academy to learn from the great library there and be taught in the crude basics of magic, as the elves considered it, while the elves would accept humans and teach them the magic of duskblades and warmages, and refine their talents. Inevitably, this program has begun to lead to closer elf-human relations due to the youth and constant contact of those involved.
Any half-elf in the vale is due to these unions, and are considered incredibly immature and devoid of their ancestry by the elves, but welcomed amongst the humans. No half-elf grows up with the Darkfen, since any elf-human union must remain in human lands to find acceptance.
Despite this elven resistance to the growing number of unions resulting, the constant contact and stories and cultural mixing has humanized the Tiri Kitor drastically over the years, compared to the Darkfen of ancient legend.
They may still, however, steal babies..