MONSTER, lu-shalim

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The world was young when Lu-shalim woke beneath a starless sky and walked alone beside the dark waters. The shape of the earth as the Goddess originally dreamt of it had not yet been lost to petty jealousy, and his people walked untroubled beneath the light of the sun. Their rise and fall was brief, even by the reckoning of mankind: even at the height of their power, the svartalfar desired little more than to indulge themselves in art and beauty, and they had no true troubles till the birth of humanity.

Unlike most of the Goddess' first children, Lu-shalim did not recoil from humanity. He was drawn to it. Here were a people who created art that surpassed anything he had ever seen a monster make! Here were a people to feed upon; their blood was like wine and the taste of their terror was exquisite. He desired nothing more than to dwell among them, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

It was then, in the early years of history, that he met the human woman he would love across millennia beyond count, and convinced her to enter a contract with a monster, so that he might never be sundered from her though the fates of their people were held apart. And she became the only mortal to fully comprehend the love of the undying, the depth of which eclipses the reach of time.

The world changed. Lu-shalim remained. A cult rose in his name and waxed and waned and fell. He traveled across the human territories, and then across their fledgling empire. He watched it grow with the same avid interest of a man transfixed by an anthill.

In the current day, he dwells in Irkalla with his wife, the scion of a respected old money family.



Of the dark elves, the svartalfar, there is little we know, for they were never a numerous people even at their zenith before the rise of mankind.

Now they prefer to hide in the shadowed woods and hidden dells of the empire where no human footsteps fall rather than face the bleak Northern Wastes. Their love of beauty is fierce and jealous, and those few who venture forth to the human world often do so for the sake of art, for they desire above all else in their secret hearts to possess that which they admire. It is simple enough for them to walk untroubled in the empire if they wish, for the only feature that marks them as inhuman are their pointed elven ears, a fact easily concealed. 

They are a darkly beautiful people, seductive and charismatic, but fragile in body despite their appearance. They belong to the elder years, to a world that has vanished under the sundering seas, and this age is not kind to them. Their strength is fey and arcane in nature: the art of shadow-walking and shadow-wrought magic. Bright sunlight dazzles them, but they see farther in the dark than humans. They do not sicken or die of old age as mortals do, but grief and injury can kill them. 

But why then are they the dark elves? What separates them from their fairer kindred, besides a taste for shadow magics and dwellings in the wild places of the world? Well there is the small matter of their diet. While for the most part dark elves feed and drink as light elves and humans do, there is one crucial difference: they require blood to sustain themselves physically and feeding on terror and fear strengthens their mental aspect.

[attr="class","appname"]LU
SHALIM

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AGE: ---
SEX: M
RACE: SVARTALFAR
HOMELAND: SOUTHRON
JUNGLES
CONTRACT: N