The Silvered Elves
The Moonfae were a race of Unseelie Elves thought to have vanished from the world shortly after the advent of Common Men.
Unlike most Elves dwelling in Duatha today, the Moonfae were unwilling to fully shed their ephemeral Faerie nature, and so even by the standards of their kind, they remained aloof and inscrutable. They wielded considerable arcane power, blending Fae chaos magic, druidic mysticism, and eldritch energies drawn from the ghostly planes of the netherworld...
DESCRIPTION
Otherwise, they resemble other Elves in most characteristics, being typically tall and slender of form, with elegant, symmetrical features, and a haunting beauty about them. Their ears are pointed and of medium length, while their eyes are usually as black as pitch, seemingly all pupil with no whites.
Moonfae are extremely long-lived, with lifespans exceeding a thousand years, and likely much longer for those of noble blood. Like many Elves, they continue growing throughout their long lives, with the most ancient attaining towering statures far beyond human limits.
LORE
The beings who would become the Silvered Folk crossed over into Duatha soon after the time of the planar conjunction, when our realm was young and unformed. As with the other noble houses of the Sidhe, they constructed their citadels in the mortal world, and entwined their otherworldly magics with the primal forces they found here.
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However, the royal line of the Moonfae also refused to forge tethers to the mundane world and sacrifice their immortality. As such, they remained deeply connected with the nebulous, timeless energies of the Faerie realm, and would only rarely venture across the Veil. The majority of the Silvered Folk instead made their home in a magical kingdom nestled in the dimensional ether between the our world and Faerie. This Silvered Realm existed in a state of perpetual night, forever bathed in moonglow.
The history of their civilization overlaps with many of the great Elder Races - the First Men, Giants, Alukah, and other Fae beings - resulting in instances of trade, alliance, competition, and warfare. The Moonfae were reputed astrologers and keepers of arcane secrets, but also famously strange and dangerous beings with unfathomable moods and motives. Even their Elvish kin were cautious in their dealings with them, for despite their posture of lofty detachment, the Silvered Folk were ever prone to the follies of pride, envy, vanity, and avarice.
The Silvered Folk were among the Elves who took part in the reformation of the Unseelie Court after the age of the Goblin Blight. Up until the time of their disappearance, the Moonfae were powerful players in the dark Faerie hierarchy.
Although the reclusive Moonfae have been gone from this world for thousands of years, their mystery lives on in accounts passed down from the other races who shared the world with them. In one such legend, it is said that in ancient Fae-touched places, on nights of the full moon, it may be possible for mortals to pass through into the Silvered Realm.
According to the story, the ruler of the Moonfae, the White-Gold King, oversees this domain from a spectacular palace, and those who make the journey to pay homage to him may in turn be rewarded with a coronet of silver and everlasting life.
However, another story, perhaps closer to the truth, tells of how Moonfae would use their magicks to lure wayward trespassers to their court, where they would be enchanted and transformed into slaves for eternity...
THE HALL OF STORIES
In the Palace of the White-Gold King, a marvelous frieze is carved into a winding corridor, depicting the long history of the Moonfae in white stone, silver, obsidian, and precious stones. Here is found a visual account stretching from the arrival of the their kind after the conjunction, all the way up to the Red Spite, and the fall of the Silvered Realms, when the Twelve Lords gathered at the Dew-Kissed Tower.
In the rolling tableau, one may find the formation of the Twelve Houses, the creation of the Lunar Gates, chapters in the personal lives of kings and queens; portraits of artists, musicians, craftsmen and philosophers; important battles and triumphs; great romances and tragedies; courtly revels, historical alliances, and interactions with other ancient races.
Many tales are depicted here, including the following:
Many tales are depicted here, including the following:
1.
An early image depicts Elven figures atop a mountain, and again trooping through a series of shimmering reflections of the moon itself. This motif repeats itself throughout the many tableaux, often including architectural representations of various structures that must be Lunar Gates.
2.
A later panel presents a council of elegant Moonfae who preside over a gathered court of unusual beings who appear to be arranged in a loose hierarchy -- strange spirits and nightmare beings, vampires, ice elves, crones, water women, spindly white ents, misshapen troll-like things, nixies, spriggans, changelings, bugbears, and various bestial folk with horns and tails and other animal traits. Beneath all of these others scurry a throng of goblin-like creatures who cower and genuflect.
3.
A series of tableaux depicting a ferocious battle scene with armies of Silvered Elves marching against large, white-skinned giants with horns and golden eyes. With great drama, the vanquished giants finally are cast down through a roiling cloudmass from the hallowed silver plane occupied by the Moonfae, clutching their heads in agony, their eyes rolling grotesquely.
4.
Another series depicts Moonfae greeting and interacting with man-like creatures of a similar stature (likely the First Men), and sharing scrolls, magical techniques, and culture. At the climax of this cycle is a depiction of what might be a romantic tragedy; a regal bearded figure and a moon-maiden seem to share a cup, but then are forced apart, with the grimacing faces of mythological titans filling the sky around them. Massed armies loom on each side.
5.
One splendid frieze recounts what appears to be a hunting scene set in a desert (or perhaps a starlit snowfield), though at times it also fluctuates based on where the viewer is standing to resemble a great hall, with banners and banquet tables, creating a jarring dissonance. The object of the hunt seems to be a massive lupine shape, pierced through by a dozen spears of light wielded in turn by a dozen noble Elven figures. On this last image, a symbolic figure larger than the others presides over the event. He wears a white crown, and triumphantly holds aloft a great lunar disk, which he brandishes over the transfixed wolf-creature.
6.
In one of the rare depictions of what appear to be common humans, we see lowly men and women being led through silvered lands by lantern-bearing Moonfae knights in black armour. Here, ribbons of text around the mortal faces translate as cries for "silver coronets" and "eternal life."
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