TheArcaneWeirdo wrote: Sun Nov 23, 2025 12:10 pm
What is an elf community scared of?
Let's think about elves for a sec.
Elves are allegedly perfect. They're immortal (or at least especially long-lived), beautiful, smart, in harmony with nature... Their societies are often described as utopias, and if they're flawed, the flaw is usually about how they deal with the occasional imperfection.
But elves are also decendent from (IRL inspired by, and in D&D lore literally scions of) the fey. The wonderful and terrible fey; The tricky, duplicious fey; The chaotic, unpredictible fey. The so called 'good folk', who hide beneath their charming appearance not exactly malice, but a view so different of morality that to a mortal it could equally be that.
The elves have this in their blood. Or maybe not. But the
idea must be lurking somewhere in their collective subconciousness. The prospect that buried not-so-deep under their peaceful civilization, is still the wild, perilious nature of their ancestors.
This makes them the perfect candidates for...
Gothic Horror!
I think this time I'm going bigger than one plot hook. I'm gonna do
a domain with an elf darklord.
I'm gonna give a dark twist to one of my favourite Tolkine stories; Beren and Luthien, the OG
Human/Elf Star-Crossed Love story.*
So. I always felt like Thingol is the real antagonist in the Beren and Luthien story, risking Beren's life just because he thinks his daughter can do better. Eventually he accepts Beren into the family, but only after bro lost an arm.
So.
What if even this wasn't enough? What if our snobbish elf king didn't learn from his mistake?
Do you want a darklord? Cause that's how you get a darklord!
Turendo, king of Tauroiala, had little love for the (so-called) inferior races. Sure, they were his subjects too and had equal rights, but it didn't mean he wanted his daughter to hook up with one.
So when his dear Elyana brought home a human adventurer named Tuval, he deemed it absurd. How foolish could the girl be, to think she can be happy with one of
them? Turendo loved his daughter more than anything in the world, and for this exact reason he had to protect her from herself.
He promised Tuval he can marry Elyana if he accomplishes a dozen quests. Each mission seemed simple at first, but turned out to be nigh-impossible. By the time Tuval had finished his 12th quest, he was in his early fourties, horribly scarred, and dying from a curse that was layed upon him by a foe - But Elyana still wanted him. With the knowledge she'd acquired in herbs and spells, the princess undid his curse and nursed him back to health. Turendo held his part of the bargain, the two married, and it seemed the family was finally at peace.
But as the years passed and the prince and princess had children of their own - who grew up so fast it seemed they'd inherit their father's lifespan - Turendo began to regret his acceptance. He doomed his daughter to bear children she'd outlive, which would bring her nothing but tears. But that Tuval will only be around for a few more decades, wouldn't he? After he dies, Turendo can find his daughter a proper elvish husband, who'll father properly long-lived heirs to the throne.
Elyana and Tuval's 20th anniversary was celebrated with a luxurious ball in the royal grove. Turendo sat in the shadow of Atar'orn, the largest and oldest tree in the grove, with the queen to his right and the princess and her husband to his left. The finest of food and wine was served and the most beautiful of songs were sang - including several renditions of the lover's own story. Elyana was the loudest singer - of which none complained, as she was also the best one.
But when the feast ended and the time for dances had begun, Elyana refused to join, claiming she was weary. This has bewildered Turendo, as his daughter loved dancing more than anything else in the world. He asked if she was feeling well, to which she nodded - but then he noticed a gray streak in her hair.
Confronted, Elyana admitted her dark secret:
Tuval
had died from his curse all those years ago.
At the time, she made a pact with death: her lover will be ressurected, and in return, she'd age and die as a human. A large price it sounds, but small to her, for she would not live without him.
Turendo was outraged.
"As if it wasn't audocious enough," He stood up, looming over his son-in-law, "That you deem yourself worthy of my daughter, you dare to take her down with you?!"
"I didn't even know!" Tuval protested. "I was a lifeless corpse at the time, and neither saw nor heard the deal made! Only few years ago, when she stopped having the women's buisness, did she tell me the truth of her sacrifice."
Turendo forced himself to hold back his fury. The man could not be blamed for what could not do.
"Had you known," He asked, taking a deep breath, "Could you stop her, would you do so?"
"I would have died for Elyana a thousand deaths, would have suffered every punishment and pain, as I suffered each of your tests." Tuval answered. "But it was
her choice to make. I'd never ask her to make it, but as she had, I'd not take it away from her."
"What kind of a husband are you," The elf stared him down, "to prefer your own life over that of your wife?"
"One who respects his wife's decisions over her own body." The man shrugged. "She's an adult, you know."
Then Turendo drew his sword to make the man pay for his slight. Tuval quickly drew his, but the old hero was not as strong as he once was, and no match for the elf, who had on his side both the skill of centuries' experience and the vigour of youth. Elyana, a great witch and a heroine on her own right, interfered with a song of power, but for all her might she could not being herself to harm her own kin.
Turendo slew his daughter and his son-in-law, and as their blood spilled over the roots of Atar'orn, the tree blackened and withered, and the mists claimed Tauroiala.
Tauroiala is a forested domain, minimally interfered by (demi)humans' buildings and roads - which are often designed to mold with the terrain. It's mainly populated by elves, gnomes and fey creatures, with a small human minority, and governed by The Silver Court, with Turendo as its head.
If one fails a powers check on Tauroiala's land, all plants in a radius of a number of meters equal to the check's DC die, and the earth in that radius becomes completely barren for an equal number of years.
Important locations (And NPCs):
The Dead Grove
Where the royal grove once stood, the land is now charred and barren, and the trees black and leafless. The legends say that Tuval's sword, Spite, is buried under the roots of Atar'orn, and many adventurers tried their luck in claiming it - but this will prove harder than it seems, for every single tree in the grove is in fact an undead treant.
The Silver Court
Well, it's your typical fairy court. Political intrigue, curses, flower-shaped gowns, you can come up with it yourself.
Elyana's Treehouse
Furious at her husband's death but too conflicted to avenge him, Elyana fled the Silver Court with her children to the depths of the forest, where she raised out of the trees a new home for them. Each of the house's rooms is built on a different treetop, and they're connected by branch bridges.
Elyana is a high-level druid/bard, and is still considered an elf for all intents and purposes other than aging effects. She has black hair streaked with silver and gray eyes. She is wise and compassionate, and despite the many sorrows she'd experienced still possesses a fine sense of humour. She rarely adventures herself, but gladly offers those who do healing and refuge - as long as they mean well. Those who
don't soon find out why all wise men fear the anger of a gentle person.
Actually, her and Tuval's children - whom I intentionally left undescribed - are, at the time of the domain's creation, in the conventional starting age for adventuring. If you want one of them as a PC, you can pick either the human, elf or half-elf racial option (a reflection of Elyana's own choice) - And considering their background, they're likely (but don't have) to choose druid, ranger, bard, cleric or paladin as their class.
Rivershade
In one of Tuval's quests, he had to cross a river without touching or passing over the water. In return for a poem, he asked the river's water genie to raise the stream and everything in it - rocks, seaweed, fishes - high in the air, and thus walked in the dry creek
under the water. To this day, that portion of the river hangs magically as an arch in the sky. A few years later, a group of gnomes had settled down in the creek and built a prospering town. Many tourists come to Rivershade to witness the genie's miracle and the result of Tuval's wit, and the town offers many inns, attractions and overpriced souvenir shops.
The Cat's Lair
One of Tuval and Elyana's most fearsome foes was the tabaxi lich Tevildo, who captured the ranger trying to steal from him an enchanted jewel at the king's request. Elyana found Tuval and freed him, and together they defeated the dreadful cat. When faced with the question of what to do with the lich's magnificent collection of books and magic items, however, the couple had one of their first fights: Tuval wanted to burn to ashes the place that brought him and Tevildo's other prisoners so much pain, while Elyana loathed the idea of destroying so much knowledge. They decided to consult the nearby town's cleric, who said that while a lich's lair contain's many treasures, these treasures tend to be cursed. He and his acolytes would do their best to purify the place, but the safest way to prevent the curses from befalling anyone is to make sure they're never
owned by anyone.
Thus, The Cat's Lair was transformed into Tauroiala's first public library.
Local kids come to read stories, scholars from all over the domain come to research ancient tomes, and adventurers can borrow magic items under the strict time limitation of three weeks - beyond that you might get cursed by a spell that had yet to be discovered by the clergy, and we don't want
that to happen, right?
The Lair is generally considered a benelovent place nowadays, being a center of community, art and science. A Tauroialan PC might have fond memories from a former visit there. But no one had ever identified Tevildo's phylactery, meaning he might be back someday... Meowhahahahahaha!
Tevildo is a comic villain with fondness for drama and theatricallity, completely devoid of a typical Ravenloft character's tragic undertones, because he became what he is today centuries before Tauroiala was claimed by Ravenloft. Not all cats are little devilspawns, but he definitely is, and proudfully so. He revels in his malice, and likes to make people miserable in hilarious ways. Yet, he can be friendly when he's in the right mood, and will help the characters if he thinks it will be funnier than torturing them. The right half of his body is completely skeletal, while the left half is lifelike and covered in blue fur.
Turendo's Powers and Dominion
Turendo is a sun elf aristocrat. He used to be an oath of the crown paladin (sworn to his own royal house), but is now an oathbreaker as he betrayed his heir. He can also cast the spell Withering Touch as a cantrip, with no components required - in fact, as he's cursed by the dark powers, he must succeed a 5 DC dexterity saving throw to touch a living being
without casting it on them.
Closing the Borders
When Turendo closes the borders of Tauroiala, winter falls on the domain - leaves fall, the temperature drops and snow starts falling. When he opens it, the weather changes back to spring.
Turendo's torment:
Turendo is tortured by the following circumstances:
- Elyana is alive, but refuses to forgive her father for Tuval's murder. Turendo is desperate to remarry her, but as she still ages as a human, no elf would agree to take her hand - and Turendo can't protest, cause that would make him a world-class hypocrite.
- Tuval is a powerful semicorporeal ghost and continues to haunt his father-in-law. At times he's friendly and at times hostile, but he always asks the same question: What would it take for you to finally accept me? Turendo sends him on more and more ridiculous quests - inside and outside of the domain - but Tuval always returns, usually successful.
- When Elyana passes away, she and Tuval will finally be freed from Ravenloft and move on to the afterlife. But then Turendo's second daughter, Alde'a, will fall in love with a dwarf, and Turendo will face the same test - which, knowing how darklords' brain works, he'd probably fail again.
*Yes, Tolkien can't be the first who wrote about a human and a supernatural creature falling in love. That trope is older than feudalism. But I think he
had popularized several things about it that got fossilized in modern literature and D&D.
- It's specifically an elf or fey. You don't see many half-dwarves around, right? And in D&D we don't even get stats for other mix-raced options. Logistically it makes no sense, as there are many fantasy species would find it easier to mingle with humans than elves do. (Yeah, I know that as of late there's plenty of fantasy romance around more monstrous creatures, but... Eh... That's usually the kind of romance people my age shouldn't be reading.)
- The elf and human
can have a happy ending... Until one dies of old age and the other either joins them in death or lives the rest of their lives alone. The lifespan gap is the only inevitable source of tragedy - everything else is a social construct and thus solvable.
Reason For the Origin
It happened to Tolkien IRL.
Seriously.
Like, his crush Edith wasn't an elf, but she was protestant while he was catholic, and to his adoptive father it was just as bad. He forbade young Tolkien from talking to her until he's 18, and bro just waited until his 18th birthday and then wrote Edith a letter. And then, of course, there was WW1, and then Tolkien got sick... To sum it all together, that couple went through a lot of drama before they could finally unite. And even then, Edith never really made peace with converting to catholicsm so they can marry. She too made quite a sacrifice for that relationship to work. So you can understand the analogy.
Why Does It LInger?
First, cause it's
good.
As someone who'd read multiple drafts of Beren and Luthien's story, I can say that every version brought me to tears. It's a beautiful story. Read it.
Second, cause it's repeated
inside Middle Earth. Aragorn and Arwen, anybody? They literaly identify
themselves as Beren and Luthien expies. This gives the story an aura of a traditional one, one that lovers all over history can relate too.
Third, regarding the 'specifically elf/fey', it's because it intensifies the conflict. Elves are the most beautiful creatures our poor human could choose, but also the most unachievable. The elvish beauty also makes them more convinient for romantic self-inserts like Tolkien himself made - Every girl would like to be compared to a fairy; A dragonborn, on the other hand, is more risky... (Unless your partner is as a lizard-obssessed as my boyfriend.)
Fourth, regarding the 'and they lived happily ever after until they died' ending: It's because it's more relatable to the modern reader than the older, more tragic version. Let's take another famous supernatural star-crossed love story: The Little Mermaid. It originally has a sad ending, because
its author had a sad ending: Hans Christian Andersen was a queer man in a time when homosexuality was too much of a taboo to even directly write about. He watched the man he loved getting married with a woman, and knew there's nothing he can do about it. In his generation, I'm not sure if even straight lovers from different religious sects could make it work like the Tolkiens would a century later. We have the fortune of living in a time and culture where people have a lot more freedom in their choice of partner IRL - tragedies still happen, but I think most of us who face such conflict can expect something more along the lines of 'You two have to go through a difficult journey but together you can make it and eventually your parents will either accept you or will no longer be in the position to decide for you' then 'You'll either die tragically or have to forgo all romance and live as a (probably celibate) angel-like figure'.
Should It Linger?
I think Beren and Luthien's story is absolutely one to be remembered and cherished, but also one that recieved enough adaptations. (Confession: My first attempt at writing an original novel was an urban-fantasy version of Elf/Human Star-Crossed Love. It was very cute, but I abandoned it because I felt I'm an Israeli trying to write a British story and it just doesn't work. 'Write what you know' and all of that.) I'd love to see more love stories representing other fantasy species (especially ones with no human involved) + D&D lineages for the progeny of those stories. I also think that as a society we've advanced enough to have more queer supernatural couples.
