I, Drow
By Charlie Bright [Author Info]Hatred is the strongest where love once ruled. They were siblings, the Lady of Void and the Kingdom Father. Void was master of patience and chaos, believing that with time, all things would grow into greatness. She labored long to alter the world into perfection, but the Kingdom Father thwarted her whenever he could, because he did not want the world to change.
The Kingdom Father ruled the elves, and his province was order. In an age so far past that it is beyond mortal reckoning, the two gods fell into an argument. For whatever reasons that compel gods, Void and the Kingdom Father came to blows in their celestial home, a fight that would carry down to the world of mortals below.
All the gods had a people, save the Lady, who had a few followers among the elves, but no race of her own. In those primordial days, the elves were eternal, never growing old, unmarred in beauty or grace by the passing of eons. The first followers of the Lady of Void were the miracle men and wonder workers of the age, for those elves who worshipped the Kingdom Father were not blessed with magic, and were greatly amazed. They were brothers and sisters, the wizards of Lady Void, and the common folk who followed the Father, but the battles they fought were bloodier than anything that the world would ever see again.
The most powerful of Void's people came together to consider their fate, and to bemoan their doom, for they were few and the other elves were many. The greatest magician among them was Eldritch, and he was the most ancient among the elves, except for the king himself. The king was Eldritch's twin, older by minutes only, and the two had been brothers by nature as by blood since time's beginning. Fearful for his people, and tortured by his brother's betrayal, Eldritch cast an augury that put him in a trance for many days. While the others watched over their leader, the elves mobilized on behalf of their stagnant god against Eldritch and the other mages.
The terrors of that time are still told among my people, and the vile treachery of the elves will be remembered even unto the end of days. When at last Eldritch awoke, he was taken before the king of the elves and sentenced to die for crimes against the Kingdom Father. Only a handful of his magical brethren lived, and the great mage was weakened from his time in the realm of visions. Eldritch asked that he be allowed to speak his final words to the king alone, and because of their ties which stretched on long before the heavenly schism, it was allowed.
While no one knows what was spoken between the two leaders, it is said that the king's golden hair became white as snow, and he was struck with age like the mortal humans. They would learn years later that time now crept up slowly against all elves, a curse sent by the Lady of the Void to force change into their hearts. In anger, the king cast out Eldritch and the remaining mages, never to return to the forest that had been their home since the world's birth at the hands of the gods. To the otherwise eternal elves, this punishment was far greater than death, and many of those cast out fell upon their swords rather than live forever outside their homeland. The king called the magicians 'drow', saying that they were unworthy of any true title, just a backwards word without meaning.
Eldritch had foreseen all of this in his great trance, and took his drow into the caves beneath the forest, vowing war eternal against the elves. Many generations passed before the two races came together again.
In the centuries while my people gained strength and the magic that defines us as a people, the elven nation was destroyed. Unknowing, we girded ourselves for war and marched as one against the surface. We were a changed people, the magic that had been so much a part of our heritage having seeped into our bones and our homes beneath the earth. The foe we met in the world above was greater than any history recorded, and vaster than any could have imagined.
The precursors enslaved the surface elves while we brooded in the darkness. We believed at first that they would be allies, magic wielding giants with the grace of the elves and the wisdom of untold ages. We were wrong.
When the precursors saw the drow army rise from the darkness, eternally marked by the black soil of our homes, they knew fear. The giants raised an army of the massed ancient races they held in thrall. Human, elf, and minotaur stood against the whole of the drow nation, born and bred for war. The battles that ensued were titanic, and victory for the precursors was costly indeed.
The humans fell beneath our warriors while the elves fled before us. The minotaur warriors who remained saluted proudly the drow that sent would send so many of them screaming to their brutal god. Just as they had been bereft when the precursors came upon them, so too were their divine protectors absent against the children of Lady Void.
The word drow became a night tale for the children of other races, our intentions and features distorted until we resembled nightmares more than ourselves. They called us dark elves, both for our flesh and our souls. In the end, it was the titanic magical might of the precursors that drove us back. Though we had spent our centuries studying magic, creating the delicate art it has become, the precursors were fantastically powerful, weaving spells far beyond even our comprehension.
Eons passed while we hid again in our everdark home. In the light, the precursors fled or died with the same mystery that surrounded their arrival, but fear of the eternal drow remained. Few surface dwellers see us and live to tell the tale, for we wait patiently for the time when we will rise again to the world from which we were forced.
My name is Christos La Krail, descendant of Eldritch, and child of the drow. I am the embodiment of our principles and our power, and I am not alone. Beneath the feet of every man, woman, and child who lives in the sun is one of us, waiting. Void taught us patience, but the day of justice is near, and we will be ready.
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