The death Elwens- churni, (CHOOR-ny or CHOOR-nee) their Primal name is, meaning "clear pool"- are probably the most reclusive and rarest race of Elwens. Though in recent years they have been making their presence felt again, they have done so mostly in response to threats of genocide. There are only about a hundred thousand of them all told, possessed of frightening magic and frightening needs, living in the far northwestern corner of the continent. And yet they have haunted the dreams of the other Children of the Stars for generations.
Come among them, if you will- the death Elwens, the Dreamhaunters.
PHYSICAL LOOKS
All churni are born with smooth black skin that almost never wrinkles or scars; among all Elwens, they show the least signs of age or wear. Their skin is broken, on their cheeks, palms, arms, feet, and legs, with small round pools of dark liquid set into the skin itself. These pools usually revolve unless the churni is perfectly calm and at peace: more slowly when a mild emotion is being expressed, more violently when the death Elwen is angry or frightened. They often cast off shadows of purple and blue as they do so.
The hair of 90% of churni is dark, and worn close to the hair in springy curls. Those with some other color- of which the most common are blue, green, and gold- often wear it in longer curls, or even in free-flowing waves, to accent it. This is tolerated, even from the sha'sheerini (see below).
The eyes of death Elwens are their most important feature, the one that most other churni pay the most attention to. If the eyes are a pure, unbroken color, they will belong to the higher castes, and if one of the Five Colors of the Order (see below), to the nobility. (This applies even to children not born among the ranks of the nobles, if they have the correct color; it prevents inbreeding). If eyes are mixed, such as flecked with another color, the children will be placed among the sha'sheerini, the caste of servants.
Churni are taller than most other Elwens (6'1" to 6'9", normally), and rangy. They may well weigh up to 200 pounds, an enormous weight for an Elwen, but they rarely show this in any way except toned muscles. Their blood is silver, like the blood of most Elwen races, and they can sprint like cheetahs for short periods of time. Their lifespan, unless cut short by accident or warfare with other races (there is very little violence among the race itself), is about eighteen thousand years.
EMOTIONAL MAKEUP
Churni are trained from a young age to be polite and calm most of the time. Of course this does not banish the strong emotions that are their birthright, but they very rarely express them openly. Death Elwens, because there are so few of them, all live in the same society, and are bound by the same laws and rules. Therefore, they are encouraged to feel a strong loyalty to those laws and rules, and reminded constantly that most of the outside world would jump at a chance to destroy them. Fights are often settled with non-fatal duels (among guards), or by decision of the Lord or Lady of the Klaina.
Death Elwens, strange as it may seem, have a reverence for life. They will not feed from children (see below), and there is no known record of a Klaina or parent destroying a child because of birth defects, as sometimes happens among the other races, even the ones who consider themselves part of the 'Light.' All churni children are wanted and made welcome. They may be assigned to a different caste than their parents, and valued more or less than their peers depending on what skills they have, but they will never be turned out or slain unless they commit some horrendous crime- which is extremely hard for a child to do. Churni adults will forgive children, even those not their own, almost anything.
Churni almost all have a sense of their own innate worth and dignity. Sha'sheerini, for example, are taught from a young age that it is an honor to serve (their Primal name means "those who serve out of duty") and often carry out their tasks with quiet pride. Guards are almost fanatically loyal to that which they guard, be it a place, the nobles of the Klaina, the Order, or simply "the death Elwen tradition." Nobles are brought sharply in check if they are found to be abusing their power, and they often make a point of telling each other stories of those in power outside churni society who think nothing of manipulating the system for their own gain. Almost all the Dreamhaunters are proud and respectful of their own ways and traditions. Those who are not almost always leave, rather than staying to deliberately disrupt the society around them.
Almost alone among Elwens, churni regard war with horror (despite winning large battles easily with their magic and skill at fighting, perhaps the greatest in Arcadia). They see warfare as a drain on their precious resources, especially children, and know that those who fall on the field cannot be replaced. Death Elwens will do almost anything to avoid war, and the remarkable number of them they have fought in the past few Ages has been due mostly to the fact that their enemies left them no choice.
Churni have remained withdrawn from the world for a long time, content to ignore its existence. But, with the Council of Arcadia, the humans, and the land Elwens all more or less noticing they exist, they have had to become part of the continent's politics again. They have a representative in the Council now, something that most would have found incomprehensible a generation ago. Strange things are moving. The Dreamhaunters, who have not changed in billions of years, are changing at last.
MAGICAL MAKEUP
Churni magic- unlike that of, say, the curalli- is widely known and deeply feared. Their enemies often whip up emotion against them simply by repeating the truth; they feel they have no need to make up stories. The reality of the Dreamhaunters is terrible enough.
Common to all churni are:
Causing death with a gaze or a touch. Churni carry this power with them constantly, and it takes a moment and an effort of the will to release it. If an opponent meets the eyes of a churni wielding this power, she collapses, body covered with black boils. If a death Elwen manages to touch someone else, that person's body collapses to a fine, black dust. This applies even to Elwens, who usually burn after death (see Elwens.)
Deathchill. A churni, when concentrating, can cast an intense cold from his or her body that can freeze water and cause frostbite for a radius of about twenty feet. Churni do this reluctantly to others of alien race, usually reserving it for when they are trying to impress someone enough to avoid a fight, for it reveals more of their true nature than almost any other ability. They take a step closer to the unmortal with it, and reveal themselves as the children of the Forces of Death (see below).
Death-aura. A death Elwen carries an aura with her at all times that is powerful enough to kill small insects and wither plants. Suppressing this causes her great pain, though it can be done when she does not wish to leave a trail.
Avoiding detection. A churni can become, effectively, invisible to someone who is not looking for a death Elwen. It does not work if an alert sentry has had word that a churni has come to camp, but in the 'ordinary world' beyond the Falchian Plains, few expect that a Dreamhaunter will show up. Death Elwens have walked past alert Elwens before, without a trace left behind.
Hypnotism. If a death Elwen can speak softly to someone for a long enough period of time, she stands an effective chance of hypnotizing him with her eyes. A person under trance will happily tell anything he knows, and will not remember what he said on waking. The churni cannot really get the hypnotized person to do anything except talk, and perhaps put a weapon down.
Acid-splash. This is usually reserved for a moment when nothing else will work, because it hurts the churni. With an effort of will, she can make the liquid in the pools in her body, which otherwise never spills, rise up and splash an attacker, having the same effects as hydrochloric acid. As noted above, this greatly weakens the attacking death Elwen, and she will have to spend a few days recovering.
Bonding with deathtrotters. Deathtrotters are fully intelligent, horse-like creatures standing about nine feet tall (twenty-seven hands at the withers) with black coats, white manes, red eyes, and sable tails. They are the other children of the Forces of Death, the fastest things on four legs, able to run over a hundred miles an hour for great distances. Their hooves shatter stone and their bodies feel like ice covered with fur. Almost all death Elwens, after passing a series of tests of mind, heart, body, and soul, will be accepted by a trotter at one point or another, becoming part of the finest cavalry force in the world; trotter and rider understand each other perfectly, and work as partners, not master and servant. Not being accepted by a trotter is one of the few things other than a deep crime that can make a death Elwen leave the Falchian Plains in disgrace.
Feeding on life-force. This ability is the one for which death Elwens are called the Dreamhaunters. They must feed on life-force at least once every three or four days, and they must do it from intelligent creatures. They do not have fangs as the other feeder races do; instead, their hands can open the victim's chest in a bloodless hole, and they then reach in and pull out the life-force, golden liquid that freezes on contact with their hands. Another touch closes the hole. Most death Elwen Klainai keep prisoners, often chosen from among their enemies, to feed on, and almost all these prisoners go slowly but surely insane.
Common to nobles alone are:
Resurrection of the dead. If a noble can get to a body before it burns or is otherwise destroyed, he or she can often recall a wandering spirit to life. The resurrected person is not always appreciative of this, given that she might be on her way to bliss beyond knowing, but more people than is generally acknowledged owe their life to a churni noble's just-in-time touch. (This is another ability that scares the hell out of the other races).
Calling on the Forces of Death. The Forces of Death take an interest in the succession of the Klainai- and sometimes other matters- and may show up as an eye-destroying, ear-sawing whirlwind whose voice varies constantly between plural and singular when prayed to. They only come when they want to, however. They are capricious in the extreme, and it is never best to depend on their help; most nobles pray to them only when they see no other way of gaining the help they need.
ORIGINS AND MODERN SETTLEMENTS
All death Elwens share the same heritage: at the moment of their creation by the black and silver stars, the Forces of Death meddled with them, because they wanted Elwen children. As a result of this meddling, the churni were born as "unmortal," neither really dead nor really alive. They were feared and hated by the other races, especially the papiliferai or life Elwens, and chased north to the province of Fhevu, which at the time had no other inhabitants (no races were native there). There, a sort of magical explosion which has never been satisfactorily explained occurred, creating the Falchian Plains, barren and cracked clay fields broken occasionally by deathtrotter Circles of black stones and water. The death Elwens bound themselves to this desolate land, and since that day have rarely ventured outside it.
The death Elwens established the Order- their system of laws and rules and traditions- among themselves so early that it is hard to tell where it originated. However, the five Klainai all agree on a common legend that they all had divine ancestors- spirits of heaven who fell in love with the progneiting death Elwens and came down to mingle their blood with their chosen spouse's. All those who are born with the appropriate eye colors are marked as descendants of this union, imbued with both a greater power in magic and a greater nobility and pride than normal.
The five settlements (really ka'cheeri, enormous black buildings built of death force) are as follows:
Seafar. The oldest ka'cheer, home to the first Klaina in the Order, Daydark. Born with blue eyes, they are revered by all other death Elwens, and only two of their nobles have been murdered in all the Ages. The representative of the churni in the Council of Arcadia, Oiolani, is a Daydark noblewoman.
Lorin. The second oldest ka'cheer, and the one most devoted to the study of magic, thanks to its resident Klaina, Deepen. The Deepens are born with golden eyes and enormous magical power- so great that they have withdrawn from the world in recent centuries in order to control it. It is whispered that they have alfar as well as divine blood.
Aprim. The third ka'cheer established, home to the third Klaina in the order, green-eyed Deathwield. The most powerful and beloved leader of the death Elwens now leads this Klaina, the Lord Elshar. He is exponentially stronger than any other mage on the continent, and his power alone serves as an effective deterrent for those who would contemplate death Elwen genocide.
Amwkla. Fourth in the Order, home of brown-eyed Deathbring. This Klaina has recently seen much shaking and reordering of its ruling line, as one of its Heirs, the Lady Corya, refused the Heirship to run off with a curalli, Echelli Durillo. This was the first time something like this had happened in history, and was the first blow to rouse the churni from their long sleep.
Holin. The home of the youngest of the five great Klainai, black-eyed Darkhand. They are considered the strangest and most flexible Klaina in the Order, certain to break off and go do strange things. This was proven, in many eyes, by the recent exploits of Meylona Darkhand.
LANGUAGE
All death Elwens, confined in the same area, speak the same language, Alidden. The origins of this tongue are unknown. Some scholars say it resembles the tongue of the papiliferai. The life Elwens discount this (but then, of course they would).
In two things, at least, Alidden is like no other language known. First, it has an enormous varying system of verbal inflections for various castes (to nobles, to guards, to sha'sheerini, to healers, and to outsiders). Second, it expresses all relationships for which other languages use pre- or postpositions by case endings. And they vary from plural to singular. And some of them are irregular.
Many modern scholars, on learning the language, shake their heads; it does not seem that such an unwieldy structure should have survived. But they are discounting the long circumstances of isolation, and the churni respect for tradition that is inculcated almost from the moment of birth. Now that the death Elwens are more open to the world, perhaps Alidden will begin to change- but it will take a strong wind to blow down a house that has stood for millennia.
More to come, I promise.
