Are there any Drow in Birthright?

[Delazar]

I seem to remember reading that Dark Elves do not exist in Cerilia... is this correct?

If they "officially" didn't exist, would you think it "weird" to use them anyhow?

[Nameless One]

It is correct that they officially do not exist in Birthright. There is no Underdark so there are no underground-dwelling elves.

However, there are profoundly evil elves in service of Rhuobhe Manslayer and a nation of mysterious xenophobic elves probably somehow tied to Shadow World in Vosgaard. It would be easier to use those in your plots than to develop a whole new Underdark under Cerilia.

[Sorontar]

Drow don't exist as such in Aebrynis. Elves are treated as a generic type - the Sidhelien . However each Sidhe community can be thought of as having differant cultures, even if genetically they are alike.

As to unofficial variations, that is up to the DM. Some have spoken on this forum about treating some of the elves who remained with Azrai as Drow. It may be thought that the faerie in the Shadow World as being a type of elf, or maybe a pre-elf or proto-elf. If that is so, then perhaps the Unseelie Court is inhabited by drow. Or maybe there is a separate race that exist in the Shadow World that may be regarded as proto-elves.

Another approach is to treat the faerie as the Shadow half of the original elf and the Cerilian elf is the Light half. Therefore, each Cerilian elf will have a Shadow counterpart at some time. Perhaps the Shadow elf could be drow in your campaign.

Sorontar

[Delazar]

no Underdark? omg... I've been using Duergars a lot in my campaigns... -_-

[Birthright-L]

At 06:08 AM 10/1/2011, Delazar wrote:

>no Underdark? omg... I`ve been using Duergars a lot in my campaigns... -_-

Well... no. No Birthright drow, duergar, svirfneblin or illithid
civilizations.

There is a character in the PSo Tuarhievel that is very similar in
appearance to a drow, but I wouldn`t want to read too much into that
as far as the existence of the Underdark itself is concerned.

Including an Underdark in BR as it appears in other D&D products
seems awkward to me. That said, I think there are ways of
incorporating some Underdark ideas into BR. There are, for example,
large underground civilizations amongst the dwarves, goblins and
orogs. Elements that come from the Underdark could be used when
exploring such places. The dwarven nations that have a more neutral
or evil inclination could have characteristics in common with the duergar.

Some races that are standard in other campaign settings do sometimes
exist in pockets in BR. There are sahuagin who are (possibly) living
under the protection of the Kraken. There are tribes of "lizard men"
spawned by the Hydra. Such populations are small, but their
existence does illustrate how one might want to use other D&D races
in BR. That is, give them something that is specific to the setting
itself, an awnsheghlien master being the most obvious, and tweaking
the racial characteristics and culture a bit to fit that difference.

It`s easy to see clans of "duergar" living in isolation as a
seperatist culture deep below Mur Kilad. Gnomes are contentious in
BR, but if they were called svirfneblin (or something more Gaelic)
and characterized more like perverted halflings escaped from the
Shadow World, endlessly and madly digging for some darkness deeper
than the shadows themselves (that is, even more scarred and demented
by that background than are BR halflings) then I don`t think anyone
would mind that.

The thing to do, though, is to give them some sort of theme that is
related directly to those of the BR theme. Do they exist at the
domain level with bloodlines, regents, provinces and holdings? Do
they have an awnshegh host? Is their existence the product of some
particular extension of the BR setting like the Land`s Choice, ley
lines, the Shadow World, or something other inspiration that comes
from the setting itself.

Hope that helps,
Gary

[Delazar]

Another approach is to treat the faerie as the Shadow half of the original elf and the Cerilian elf is the Light half. Therefore, each Cerilian elf will have a Shadow counterpart at some time. Perhaps the Shadow elf could be drow in your campaign.

Sorontar

I like this idea a lot.

[Delazar]

The thing to do, though, is to give them some sort of theme that is
related directly to those of the BR theme. Do they exist at the
domain level with bloodlines, regents, provinces and holdings? Do
they have an awnshegh host? Is their existence the product of some
particular extension of the BR setting like the Land`s Choice, ley
lines, the Shadow World, or something other inspiration that comes
from the setting itself.

Hope that helps,
Gary

I'm cannibalizing all my Dungeon mags for scenarios, to give my players some "adventuring" action in between Realm Actions and Mass Battles. So I guess for me the way to go would be something like what you suggest. For example, having "THE Drow (an awnshegh)", and having him create/corrupt elves to become similar to him. The fact that no one in Cerilia knows about them would be even better, they'd be the first to come into contact with a "lost civilization".

Man, I really thougth Duergar existed in Cerilia...

On a related note, where do I find the list of what does/doesn't exist in the Birthright setting? I think there's a short list in the main rulebook, but I never thougth that would be exhaustive.

[Sorontar]

On a related note, where do I find the list of what does/doesn't exist in the Birthright setting? I think there's a short list in the main rulebook, but I never thougth that would be exhaustive.

Have a look at chapter 9 of the BRCS. Much of it can be found in the BR wiki:
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/BRCS:Chapter_nine/Creatures

While the BRCS may be for 3.0/3.5, I'm sure it will give a good idea of how to interpret any creature, intelligent or not, with respect to whether it would fit into Birthright.

Sorontar

[Delazar]

Mh, seems Dungeon mags are probably not the best source for scenarios, since the Underdark features pretty heavily in them.

Maybe I have to start looking into other RPGs scenarios, like MERP...

[Jaleela]

Are you sure there's no "underdark"?

I thought it was mentioned in "Warlock of the Stone Crowns" that is to say the mapped part that is part of the dark road in the Five Peaks; There's even a mysterious crystal city mentioned in the module.

There are similar places in the "Sword and the Crown"; possibly equivalent to "the land of below" (Orog vaults pg. 30; Kal Antherak the orog city pg 36; the land below pp. 40-41) in the Sea Mist Mountains. Not specifically mentioned by name, but there are large underground areas.

The black skinned human woman that appears in the PSoTuarhieval is Tara, the Black Princess, Prince Raesene's wife (see Blood Enemies in the back with the Ersheglien and other creatures).


I introduced Drow into the campaign; someone wrote up the "Awnsidhelien" in the wiki (not canon - but interesting), but had their rift exist well before Deismaar. They don't exist in large numbers. It's up to each DM to decide if they want to add them. I don't think they unbalance the campaign if you keep in line with the rest of the cultures.

Tuar Annwn in Tribes of the Heartless Waste might be a good place. This realm exists simulateously in both Cerilia and the Shadow world. Check the wiki for a description of the elves. They're not Drow, they are wasted and gaunt -- perhaps vampiric in nature. Maybe like the white spiders of the shadow world, they are Albino Drow with different powers than are traditionally accepted. The Monster manuals don't cover them that well, at least I found their description ...disappointing.

Just an idea.

[AndrewTall]

Strictly actually Drow are in BR, as one, or at least their body, featured in Warlock of the Stonecrowns including her holy symbol of Lolth (P67) although its whole under-dark aspect didn't fit well into BR in my view and the dracolich on P34 was completely out of place in my view given cerilian dragon lore. Like the Monkey King in Sword of Roele some aspects of the module looked to have been bodged in from other settings...

In practice however as sidhe in BR are far less 'good' then elves in other settings drow are somewhat superfluous - if the 'good guys' are hunting humans for sport then what are the bad guys doing?

[Bryon]

A long time ago I started thinking about this and posted this
http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?175-Dark-Elves-Awnsidhelien&highlight=bryon

[Sorontar]

A long time ago I started thinking about this and posted this
http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?175-Dark-Elves-Awnsidhelien&highlight=bryon

I believe this was already been republished in the wiki: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Awnsidhelien_-_Dark_Elves

[Jaleela]

Ah, that's the article in the wiki I remember.


Strictly actually Drow are in BR, as one, or at least their body, featured in Warlock of the Stonecrowns including her holy symbol of Lolth (P67) although its whole under-dark aspect didn't fit well into BR in my view and the dracolich on P34 was completely out of place in my view given cerilian dragon lore. Like the Monkey King in Sword of Roele some aspects of the module looked to have been bodged in from other settings...

In case folks are wondering, as it took me a moment, Andrew mentions P67. This is not a page number, it's the encounter number. And indeed, the Warlock had a drow ally, who ended up dead, but her body, corroding maille, and her holy symbol of Lolth are still laying there...monsters are such messy house keepers. ;)



In practice however as sidhe in BR are far less 'good' then elves in other settings drow are somewhat superfluous - if the 'good guys' are hunting humans for sport then what are the bad guys doing?

It depends. The drow aren't fans of their surface dwelling cousins (who's hunting whom?).

I agree about the Dracolich and the Monkey King, better suited for perhaps one one of the undiscovered continents of the world.

[Nameless One]

I wouldn't really give much thought to the adventure modules by Wolfgang Braur when considering what is Birthright canon and what is not. Those two modules were obviously written for Forgotten Realms or some other setting and recycled for Birthright when they failed to make it in their original setting.

[rjurikwinds]

I wouldn't really give much thought to the adventure modules by Wolfgang Braur when considering what is Birthright canon and what is not. Those two modules were obviously written for Forgotten Realms or some other setting and recycled for Birthright when they failed to make it in their original setting.

Personally the fact we have faeries in the shadow world who are in direct "opposition" to cerilian elves makes them drow replacements...

Drows could be placed in as a Faerie sub-race, and an under-dark placed deep below the surface of the shadow-world. That's the beauty of the shadow world; endless possibilities. Could even explain the Stonescrow adventure and Wolfgang Braur modules by saying those are underground cities and such that really reside inside the shadow realm...

[AndrewTall]

In case folks are wondering, as it took me a moment, Andrew mentions P67. This is not a page number, it's the encounter number.

Sorry Jaleela, I'm clearly going senile in my dotage.


It depends. The drow aren't fans of their surface dwelling cousins (who's hunting whom?).

The sidhe of rhuobhe, tuarheivel's gheallie sidhe etc are well on their way to such a split from their 'we hate humans slightly less' cousins from some readings - the under-dark or ancient forests are both equivalent 'no human dares walk here' sort of places for 'evil' to lurk, it depends on what you see as key to what makes the drow, drow.

[Sinister]

Years ago probably 2001 as I was ending my 5 year campaign, the PCs cleverly trapped Rhoubble in the shadow world and stole his bloodline (through bloodbank). The campaign ended there which was a real treat to the players. In about 2005 I had a chance to run for the players who had played in that campaign so I ran a one shot where Rhoubble basically started a new domain as a rule of drow in the shadow world, and then used some unwilling halflings to open a portal back to seek his vengence on the PCs.

Very Fun, Very Epic

[lmnoq]

At 06:08 AM 10/1/2011, Delazar wrote:

There is a character in the PSo Tuarhievel that is very similar in
appearance to a drow, but I wouldn`t want to read too much into that
as far as the existence of the Underdark itself is concerned.



I always viewed that person in the province Sideath too be a Baelnoron. I would have to look which 2nd edition monster manual expansion the Baelnoron is from. A baelnoron is an elf that saught unlife to protect their family, clan, or kingdom. So the province in the PSo Tuarhievel or Sideath in the Gorgon's Crown might be occupied by a Baelnoron that saw no other way to stop the Gorgon than to become an undead creature. I always viewd a Baelnoron as a chaotic elf-lich.

As far as sub races of major demi-human races; I tend to view this as the creators of Birthright viewed the Goblins. I always enjoyed that goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears get lumped together in Birthright as common, elite, and large goblins: one shared race. So the variety of gnomes, dwarves, and elves could all be seen but just viewed as the same race amongst themselves.

The Birthright game is kinda the game of human tribes fighting for a continent that is not their own (if you want to look as the humans as the invaders). So of course the humans do not know as much about their foes as they know about themselves.

Why would dwarves or elves want to talk about whole sections of their society they look down on? Some people have speculated that the dwarves that the Gorgon control have to be evil dwarves; but from what I read they are conquered dwarves. That is not to say evil dwarves do not exist; maybe so deep down in the mountains that humans just have not seen them.

Same would go for dark elves. Why would elves, whom go to war and hunt humans, would tell humans about a sub race of elves banished from the light? One possibility could be that Azari did not call upon "drow" of Birthright because those dark elves had already gone over to say Lloth and Azari didn't want to war with that god too.

In the adventure, the Warlock of the Stonecrowns, there is a group of mercenary orog's that have a magic device like an instant fortress that has a basement. The orog's use the basement to access a place they call the Dark Path. The Dark Path connects all over Cerllia and is basically the Underdark of Birthright. I was so amazed by this adventure, if you have not looked at it recently: do yourself a favor and dig it out for a good read/adventure.

The basic Birthright game information is so packed with information it makes a person kinda feel like everything is known. But in the literature there are a lot of gaps, adventure hooks, and just plain speculation. Lots of stuff let up to the players and dungeon masters.

[Deathknyte]

Just to throw more fuel on the fire.

Drow are dominated by the clergy of their religion. In Birthright, the Elves had no concept of gods and had no idea of how to counter priestly magic. To me this would make a Lolth dominated elven society highly improbable, otherwise the surface elves would have had to face clerical magic from the Drow priesthood.

One way to get around this is if there is a small underground-dwelling society of renegade evil magic-using elves. They would not necessarily have to be using clerical magic either. Also, if the band is small enough and takes care to leave no survivors in an area where another race, or nation, will get the blame they can remain hidden for quite some time before people start getting the idea there is someone else besides their known enemies killing them.

[Lifesbane]

I have never really thought about using drow in birthright simply because there is so much antagonism between Sidhelien and humanity anyway. You can use Sidhelien as enemies for human adventurers without the need for drow.

You could certainly have a group of malicious elves who retreated underground after losing their lands to the humans and introduce them that way but to be honest they wouldn't seem much different to 'good' Sidhelien other than skin colour and location.

If you went further back in time they could even be elven rebels from losing a civil war. Again though given how divided elven society is they would probably just seem like a different elven realm but with a chip on its shoulder against other elves.

Tuar Anwyn and Rhoubhe's followers might be options as well but as Deathknyte has said they again lack religion and Rhoubhe is too male to lead AD&D drow.

A better alternative might be to have a cult of Sidhelien who took to worshipping Kreisha after Deismaar and got banished from elven society from worshipping a human god. That way you would get the elven outcasts, matriarchal society and evil goddess into the mix. You could throw an awnshegh or two into the mix as well if you felt like it.

[Deathknyte]

A better alternative might be to have a cult of Sidhelien who took to worshipping Kreisha after Deismaar and got banished from elven society from worshipping a human god. That way you would get the elven outcasts, matriarchal society and evil goddess into the mix. You could throw an awnshegh or two into the mix as well if you felt like it.

Here is a thought, a tribe of elves that remained loyal to Azrai retreated to Aduria instead of going north with the rest of the Elves. I wouldn't make them black or give them anything that regular elves wouldn't have, other than access to clerical magic of Kreisha's priesthood. You would however, have to come up with WHY they worship a human god when their original culture rejects the whole idea. One way would be that an avatar of the ice-goddess visited them or convinced a respected elder to begin worshiping her.

I don't think this would really be a good idea though, because what would stop the other gods from doing the same thing to gain a following amongst elvenkind? I wouldn't change their skin color though, it would be simpler for them to infiltrate other elves and the more tolerant human cultures if they could pretend to be from a known elven kingdom.

[Deathknyte]

no Underdark? omg... I've been using Duergars a lot in my campaigns... -_-

I gave it some thought. A way around this is to have the "powers" of a Duergar be generated by clerical items from Laduguer or Abbathor (depending on who will be your dwarves patron) in the form of a stone tooth for each power. They could have learned how to ride the spiders by trial and error or by dominating them with magical tokens.

I would make the teeth unable to be removed without destroying their power so that adventurers could not smash out the teeth and implant them in their own jaws. Or you could simply make them not work for non-dwarvish people.

[AndrewTall]

Just to throw more fuel on the fire.

Drow are dominated by the clergy of their religion. In Birthright, the Elves had no concept of gods and had no idea of how to counter priestly magic. To me this would make a Lolth dominated elven society highly improbable, otherwise the surface elves would have had to face clerical magic from the Drow priesthood.

I don't actually see this as a problem, you just replace the god (in this case Lloth / Lolth) with a powerful sidhe spirit / awnie / ehrshegh (think of the Brecht ehrshegh in Truecht). This guiding spirit is revered not worshipped but that's purely semantics in practice if they set out a strong philosophy. The guiding spirit could use the Serpent's reputed power to grant spells to its followers and voila, a talinir order which can cast clerical magic and has a guiding entity. As has been noted before, a sidhe has plenty of time and capability to get a 100+ bloodline, the sayer could do it in 20-30 years without breaking a sweat if she wanted to do so and trusted her fellows so it isn't even particularly far-out as a concept.

Sidhe I note are fully aware of what a god is, they understand the concept just fine, they simply don't see any reason to worship them - man sidhe are, afterall, older than the human gods, and thousands watched the former bunch die at Deismaar while sidhe love of freedom doesn't fit the "think as you are told" core concept of a religion.

The matriarchy thing can be quietly set aside in my view, the game is wider than lonely nerds huddling in libraries nowadays and the risk of misinterpretations arising from the "photo-negative elf" suggests that the appearance should be kept the same as the regular sidhe as well :o

[Deathknyte]

I don't actually see this as a problem, you just replace the god (in this case Lloth / Lolth) with a powerful sidhe spirit / awnie / ehrshegh (think of the Brecht ehrshegh in Truecht). This guiding spirit is revered not worshipped but that's purely semantics in practice if they set out a strong philosophy. The guiding spirit could use the Serpent's reputed power to grant spells to its followers and voila, a talinir order which can cast clerical magic and has a guiding entity. As has been noted before, a sidhe has plenty of time and capability to get a 100+ bloodline, the sayer could do it in 20-30 years without breaking a sweat if she wanted to do so and trusted her fellows so it isn't even particularly far-out as a concept.

Sidhe I note are fully aware of what a god is, they understand the concept just fine, they simply don't see any reason to worship them - man sidhe are, afterall, older than the human gods, and thousands watched the former bunch die at Deismaar while sidhe love of freedom doesn't fit the "think as you are told" core concept of a religion.

The matriarchy thing can be quietly set aside in my view, the game is wider than lonely nerds huddling in libraries nowadays and the risk of misinterpretations arising from the "photo-negative elf" suggests that the appearance should be kept the same as the regular sidhe as well :o

Well, the Serpent is more than just revered, he is actually worshiped by his people as a god. I think this level of belief would grant spells of up to 3rd level. I think that number comes from Planescape though. Anyway, Elves revere their elders too, but the elders cannot grant clerical spells. I would argue that the level of reverence necessary to enable a spirit of some sort to grant spells would be well beyond what a Sidhe would be willing to give. Elves are pretty flighty in most settings and it is suggested that they are kinda flighty in BR as well. After all, they fought humanity for centuries and didn't get very far in driving humans into the sea. Considering that both males and females would fight, and how well they were reputed to fight, they should have been able to shove the humans out of the forests at least. But they did not. I would say this is because they lacked the attention span to keep at it for more than a year or two on an individual basis.

Anyway, I am way off topic now.

[Birthright-L]

I would stay well away from having actual populations of drow in a BR
campaign. The drow are a fun race to use in OTHER settings, but they
just don`t smack of the dynamics of BR for several reason, most of
which have already been described by other posters. I would only add
that including the drow would, in a few ways, vitiate the role of the
sidhe in the setting. The sidhe already are "dark elves" in the
sense that the drow are in other campaigns. Or, at least, several of
the elven realms are "dark" in a way that is comparable. Rather than
replacing an existing BR dynamic with one from GH or FR, I think one
should just go with the things that already exist in BR. Adding drow
isn`t quite as egregious as gnomes, orcs or ninjas, but it is
problematic for many of the same reasons.

With that said... an awnsheghlien or small group (less than a
population level) of degenerate beings that are, effectively, a BR
version of the drow could be interesting if implemented the right
way. There are small pockets of races that exist like that in
Cerilia: the sahuagin with the Kraken, a race of lizard men who are
descended from the Hydra, the Itave (not really a new race, but an
isolated pocket of slightly different tribal characteristics.) It
seems sensible to me that there might be some sort of degenerate
races of Cerilian elves who physically looked like drow, but had many
characteristics that differentiate them from both the FR/GH/standard
D&D race, and made them more "BR-like" in flavour.

Gary

[Muaadeeb]

If we are talking about incorporating clerical magic with elves - I think the main reason why elves are not clerics is because they truly are immortal. If you do not kill a BR elf - then that elf will never die. This concept made the need to worship a deity much less than other races.

Now if we as a DM are looking for a reason why in their campaign Elves has access to divine magic - perhaps saying that certain elves were druids or shamans might not be a bad stretch of the imagination. To me the idea of xenophobic elves who want to reclaim Anuire for the forest seems like a well fitted match.

[Deathknyte]

If we are talking about incorporating clerical magic with elves - I think the main reason why elves are not clerics is because they truly are immortal. If you do not kill a BR elf - then that elf will never die. This concept made the need to worship a deity much less than other races.

Now if we as a DM are looking for a reason why in their campaign Elves has access to divine magic - perhaps saying that certain elves were druids or shamans might not be a bad stretch of the imagination. To me the idea of xenophobic elves who want to reclaim Anuire for the forest seems like a well fitted match.

Good point. What need for an afterlife would an elf need if he or she will live forever? Which brings up the question of inbreeding and an elf's reproductive cycle. Why isn't the world overrun with immortal elves?

[Edonel Bladesong]

Now I didn't dig in my boxes to look for the book but I remember something in Heroes of Light and Shadows about the Elves and the Faeries once being a united race and that they wielded both priestly and wizardly spells (and that now only the Faerie Queen can do so...).

But if using that split the Drow were to be the "elves" that still manipulated priestly magic, I would say that in BR I would maybe bring in the interesting twist that while they manipulate priestly magic, they would have lost arcane/wizardly magic...

Not sure though that I would bring in Lolth, as in my mind, having her present without Corellon seems "unnatural".

[Lee]

I'm in the camp of "BR doesn't need drow, sidhe are scary enough." Same for the Underdark, we have the Shadow World (which looks more like Ravenloft than the Faerie realm to me).

A "reverse negative elf" element that I have used, though: when a party that included sidhe and half-elves crossed into the Shadow World, they found that their skin glowed (faintly, in the case of the half-elves), and that when wounded, their blood glowed even more brightly. THAT really freaked out the players!

[lmnoq]

In the adventure the Warlock of the Stonecrowns, the Drake had contact with a drow and her corpse could be found in section 67 in the Halls of Darkness in the Bastard's Borrow. The drow corpse is found with a drow chain armor, a broken hand crossbow, and a holy symbol to Lloth. Now this is not the only oddity found in that adventure. Other such treasures the Drake has are at least seven true names of demon princes and powerful artifacts like the Midnight Cauldron, the Mother of Storms, and the Ebon Cube. Again; great adventure if you have never read it.

So if a person wants to spice things up: one could add Drow as foreign indavders like the Githzerai (if I am picking the right Gith). If the world of BR has no Drow, and Lloth loves non-drow elf followers, then it makes sense that maybe Lloth would love to gain a foot hold in BR to gain new elf followers. Adding in something and claiming it is from another plane is lazy writing that everyone loves. Toss in an adventure with a band of time traveling tinker gnomes that take the players back in time to a point where the adventures lost their horses because they stole them from themselves now in the past. Do whatever you want; it is just D&D.

side note: no orcs in BR? I like to think of Cerillia as the land of monsters and whatever made the goblins a little stronger than normal hooked the orcs of BR up and upgraded them all to Orogs. So while a classic D&D game has a variety of lose goblin bands and rather stupid orc nations: BR has several united goblin kingdoms and the more advanced Orog. I think that is fine so that BR is just not rules for domain management overlaid on a generic D&D world. No 10 basic dragons, each is unique and powerful creature of legend.

[Birthright-L]

In and of itself, I don`t have a problem with including almost
anything in a BR campaign. Gnomes, ninjas and drow are not part of
the setting, but I could imagine an awnsheghlien embodying any of
those particulars with a more BR flavour:

The Tinker: an ershegh halfling whose mind has developed a freakish
affinity for tools, mechanics and crafting. His wondrous devices and
developments are spoken of with awe and wonder across the
continent. Some have even whispered that the Tinker has begun to
create a race of mechanical beings who serve him. Could he be
creating an army of artificial creatures to overthrow a nearby
realm? Is he creating clockwork creatures with sentience and even,
gods forbid, a sentient scion?

The Shadow Assassin: Spoken of in whispers and in darkened corners of
the most unwholesome taverns, it is said that a contract with the
name of a target and an appropriate bag of gems will lead to the
sudden, unexpected death of anyone, anywhere. The legend speaks of a
creature wrapped in shadow, clothed in shadow and exuding shadow that
brings death in counltless ways to hapless victims. Is he an
awnsheghlien or some being of that world that parallels the lands of light?

The Sidhe of Cinders: burnt black as night by the corruption of his
own blood, the Nightelf is said to lead a vast, continent spanning
network of spies and murderers who operate as the intelligence
network of the Gheallie Sidhe. His hatred of humanity is rivalled
only by the Manslayer himself. Rumors about that Rhoubhe is The
Blackelf`s greatest ally, his most hated competitor for the hearts of
elves, or even his father.

My point is, anything is possible, but you have to have the right
attitude towards it, and keep the themes of the setting in mind first.

Gary