The wissenmai (wee-SEHN-may) are often bitter about their name, which is Primal for "masters of grief." In their view, they are not the masters of sorrow but its victims, and they have suffered under a curse for nearly as long as they have existed. Few others know of this bitterness, however, for the wissenmai see little point in complaining where they cannot change things, and so have turned in on themselves.
Come among them, if you will- the grief Elwens, the Children of the Weeper.
PHYSICAL MAKEUP
Even their bitter enemies will agree that the wissenmai are beautiful. Their skin is absolutely black and smooth from birth, rarely troubled by defects of any kind unless they are scarred or tortured. The only color on it is the occasional thin band of silver. Such bands encircle the wissenma's wrists, ankles, and forehead, though the bands on the brow cannot often be seen unless the wissenma is wearing his or her hair up. A wissenma standing in light bright enough for the silver to be seen in is indeed a striking sight.
The hair of almost every grief Elwen is dark, and worn in natural curls to well below the waist. A wissenma with silver or golden hair is occasionally born, and they will sometimes wear their hair in flowing rivers that cover their entire bodies for the purpose of showing it off. Other colors almost never occur unless the grief Elwen is of mixed blood, which is common in some parts of Arcadia.
Their eyes are more varied in color, though silver and black are the dominant hues, which has led some to speculate that they are kin to the zorkro. However, dark purple, blue, and green, and sometimes bronze or gold or other metallic colors, are not unknown. Their eyes are larger than normal for an Elwen's, though still diamond-shaped, and tend to dominant the wissenma's face with both the size and their expression of grief.
Wissenmai are among the tallest of Elwens, usually standing above six feet, though they remain slender, rarely more than 180 pounds, and move with a grace uncommon among even Elwens. It is said that the sight of grief Elwens dancing in the forest will cause a watcher to weep until he dies of beauty or joy or sadness- none but the watcher knows for sure.
Wissenmai have silver blood that can sometimes appear disconcertingly like more bands of silver on their bodies. They live about twenty thousand years, if they can make it past the hazards of childhood (see below). They are so rare now, with numbers not known but estimated as near a few hundred thousand, that they rarely die by violence, and no known diseases can affect them.
EMOTIONAL MAKEUP
Wissenmai as a whole are ever-conscious of the curse that affects them. Cast by the auillai or joy Elwens long ago, this curse prevents an ever-larger number of their children each year from reaching adulthood, dying of accidents, birth defects, and other forms of what might be seen as monumentally bad luck. The wissenmai have been fighting the curse for so long that their opposition to it is more a matter of rote at this point than of spirit. They have sunk into despair, and have already made peace, as much as they can, with their seemingly inevitable doom to depart and fade from Arcadia.
A seeming side-effect of this curse leads wissenmai to an absolute protectiveness of children, and a wonder at the very sight of them which means that no grief Elwen ever tries to harm a child, whatever the justification. Though they do not try to curb the wills of their own children if they truly want to do something, they will quietly but firmly forbid them from putting their lives in danger, no matter what resentment this might cause in the child. Their foresight (see below) is usually quite good at distinguishing between situations that would harm the youngster and situations that they can relax and let the child go into. Some grief Elwens think this also a dark "gift" of their cousins, so that they would always known when their own children were going to die, and be helpless to save them.
Wissenmai are also empaths of a very special kind: they know in an instant if someone near them is experiencing grief, of what kind and intensity, and for what. They share the grief as best they can and try to offer condolences. Grief Elwens have been known to put their own lives in danger to spare someone else grief, though this has grown rarer as they have. Many Children of the Weeper must now weigh the benefits they could bring someone else with death against their own continued responsibility to the survival of their race, with often agonizing consequences.
Wissenmai as a whole also seem to share an intense appreciation for beauty and the arts, especially those of song and dance, that perhaps explains their adoration of the Weeper. Many outsiders view this mysterious power, which seems to have no gender and to appear exclusively through the beautiful, white, peacock-like birds also known as weepers, as a god, and think the wissenmai worship it. The truth is more complicated. The wissenmai might worship someone or something who could free them from the curse, but the Weeper cannot, and so the grief Elwens express something more in the way of appreciation, and thanks for the condolences that the Weeper offers them.
Grief Elwens are also said to know more about childbirth and the sciences pertaining to it than any other race in Arcadia, not unreasonably. Though they cannot keep their children from dying, they can save the life of the woman bearing the child, and no wissenma woman has died in childbed for years beyond counting, even when bearing a child of mixed blood.
MAGICAL MAKEUP
The joy Elwens explain their curse against their kin by saying that the grief Elwens possessed magic so powerful they had to be destroyed for the good of Arcadia. Scholars of other races doubt the truth of this, but they have been unable to discover much more of the reason behind it.
It is true, however, that the wissenmai do have powerful magic, and all their abilities are common to everyone of the race.
Sensing grief. This gift, described above, lets grief Elwens know at once the source of any sorrow around them, and often leads them to attempt to alleviate the sorrow and the suffering.
Foresight. This gift is a foreknowledge of death or near-death. It typically warns a wissenma when a typical course of action is discussed whether or not that action will lead to death. The grief Elwen will then likely try to persuade someone else to choose the safer route, but will not- unless the other is a child- actively try to forbid it. They have sworn binding oaths to avoid interfering with the wills of others as their own wills have been interfered with.
Causing grief. Wissenmai carry an aura about them that will cause enemies to spontaneously break into tears. Only the auillai are immune to it. Most enemies will refuse to fight grief Elwens after that, which is one reason that wissenma numbers are not usually pared by violence any longer.
Deathsong. Any wissenma, by singing in just the right way- they can control this ability- can cause death in any listener. This death usually takes the form of a heart attack, but grief Elwens will usually choose harsher penalties for those who have harmed children. Bearing marks as of torture when dead is not uncommon.
Dancing. Wissenmai can cause others to become paralyzed or die weeping simply by dancing in front of them. This is a gift they cannot control, which is yet another grief. They love to dance, but must be careful to keep their dances in the midst of dark forests where others cannot see.
Tear-jewels. A grief Elwen's tears, rarely shed now that they have become so accustomed to grinding despair, will turn into small diamonds upon contact with the ground. These jewels are usually traded to enable the wissenmai to survive.
ORIGINS AND MODERN SETTLEMENTS
The grief Elwens were born in an unknown place and province, but given their modern preference for forests, it was probably somewhere within a wood. It may have been Cytheria, since that is well-documented as the birthplace of the auillai and it is certain that the wissenmai fell under the curse very early in their history.
Scholars of other races have been unable to learn the truth behind this curse, but the wissenmai know it. Essentially, the joy Elwens made a trade- though with what divine power or by what magical means is not known- so that the grief Elwens would decline with time, and their own race would survive and flourish. For every Child of the Weeper who dies, an auilla child is born healthy, happy, and with a "charmed" life, resistant to accidents and most diseases and violence. The joy Elwens have grown very numerous since the curse was cast.
Wissenmai have tried for ten Ages, more than five billion years, to turn back the curse, without success. They would have worn down much sooner without their inborn Elwen pride and stubbornness. They can have living children by intermarrying with other races, but any such half-wissenma child who tries to marry back into the grief Elwens falls under the curse. The wissenmai's only choices, seemingly, are to either watch most of their children die, or to see their race fade in yet another way, by breeding their blood out of existence. Some grief Elwens marry into other races out of sheer defiance of the joy Elwens, because their children's birth does not mean any corresponding birth of a happy joy Elwen child, but few now take this course, having made their peace as much as they can with their passage.
It is ridiculous now to speak of "cities" of grief Elwens, though some existed in the past. They wander now in small bands all over Arcadia, or, at times, have tiny, sheltered villages deep in thick forests where they can be relatively sure that joy Elwens will not find them. Such villages are most common in Cytheria and Fhevu, which still have thick forests. There are sometimes rumored to be Children of the Weeper in the Forbge Forest, but it is doubtful that the curalli would allow it.
LANGUAGES
All wissenmai now alive speak only one language, Toumin, due to their low numbers. (They do preserve some older variations as tongues of lore, though they no longer speak them natively). Toumin is a puzzling language, intricately connected with gestures and facial expressions, which is perhaps one reason that the wissenmai have never developed a system for writing it. The older variations do have alphabets, but they were less complicated.
Linguists believe that Toumin is not related to any other language, which would make sense if the wissenmai are truly not closely connected to any other Elwen race. However, they cannot really study it, given the wissenmai's secrecy, and few have tried.
More to come.
