#made an oath...“

[eri-pl]

I'm not southern or even American and not sure how this got on my dash at all, but isn't this the best way to talk about Feanor, his sons, most of his other family, a lot of other elves and humans (don't forget dwarves) and last but not least or beloved (and less beloved) Ainur?

I am not the first person to attempt explaining this, but let me tell you about some of the nuances of Bless Your Heart™. It does not solely or even usually translate to “you are a dumbass.” It is more subtle than that:

It is primarily a thing you say to clarify (or falsify) the tone of what you DID say

OR

it is secondarily a thing you say instead of something ELSE to maintain 1) plausible deniability 2) a moral high ground.

“Bless your heart”: You genuinely deserve blessings because you are going through it right now and you need them. Gratitude, sympathy. “I’m going to have surgery next week.” “Bless your heart! Is there anything I can do for you?” (“Oh, bless your heart for asking.”) Original face-value meaning.

“Bless your heart”: You need a blessing because God knows you’re lacking (manners, intelligence, common sense) right now. Synonyms could include “Well, isn’t that precious” or “Well, that’s different.” It often comes in clutch when you don’t want to tell someone to their face that they fucked up. Your nephew has mowed the front yard for you. He has also mowed over all your flower beds. “Well… bless your heart.” If you were going to use it as a stealth insult to someone’s face for a more egregious occasion, it would be this category. It can be a mean girl move (the classic “It’s so brave that you dress like that” vibe), but it’s also a way of saying, “I want you to know that I see what you’re doing and I don’t approve of it, and you fully understand I’m expressing that, but I’m not going to give you the justification to clap back at me because I didn’t SAY that.” Someone wears a fancy white bridal-looking gown to your cousin’s wedding: “Well, bless your heart, that sure is a dress!” (If they understand you: “What’s THAT supposed to mean?” Because they know, but they want to make you SAY it. Combat engaged.)

“Bless their heart”: I am sharing news (gossiping) about someone but I like them and I want you to understand that I do, truly, bless their heart. “It’s been so hard for her after her father passed. Bless her heart, I’m gonna make her that red velvet cake she likes.”

“Bless their heart”: I am shit talking someone and I want to cover my ass, of COURSE I am just concerned for them. “She wore white to her sister’s wedding last week! WHITE! Bless her heart, I guess some people’s children just don’t know better.” (“Well you know they say she was always after the groom—“ “NO! Bless her heart.”)

That last one is the BYH they would need to deploy (but didn’t) in the Make Some Noise clip, but I feel like it honestly wasn’t necessary because the “prayer request” already served as a cover for talking shit. It probably would have come out if they’d been allowed to keep the skit going and they needed plausible deniability for spilling juicier details that maybe Jesus didn’t actually need to hear about. Thank you for coming to my Performing Southernness While Being Neurodivergent talk.

[bookshelfpassageway]

yknow i dont go here but sometimes i gotta go: seriously respect clowns. they have the worst pop culture representation in the world and also the best most thorough honor code. they're just here to be silly little guys who bring joy and are very conscientious about doing so responsibly. let them to their merriment in peace you dont hafta take potshots. i dont go here but like maybe i should, you all seem super chill

[mylittleredgirl]

okay tumblr’s exclusion from the twitter social media ban list is hilarious but genuinely we do not belong on there. if a real human person asks “where can i find you on social media” and your choice is a swift death or revealing your tumblr, most of us would simply expire. half of y’all change urls every week like you’re in witness protection. just imagine for one second attaching your wholeass government name to your latest two am clownposting and tell me that didn’t send a cold chill down your spine. the only place i ever want to see the words “connect with me on tumblr!” is on the ao3 profile of an author i’m actively stalking. anyone in the world can follow me except anyone i personally know. antisocial media.

[vaxxman]

"Do you miss the time when you used to do no harm?"

Old habits.

Merc behaviour is based on a nice little comment @up-in-flames-writing left on one of my comics :)

Rambling and more silly drawings below.

Loosely based on the Solemn Vow's public blurb:

Art lovers will cherish the bust of Hippocrates, commemorating a time when the Medic still thought doing no harm was a good idea.

I am absolutely convinced that Medic carries dextrose drops with him. German pharmacies throw these after you when you buy anything at all. I went to check if this one specific brand I know of had been around since the 60s and 70s and yes, it was.

Small acts of kindness I can see Medic doing is giving everyone one of these if they are tired. I'm talking about Engineer mostly.

Or they snack on them when solving practical problems together, like during the teleporter bread tumor incident.

[charlietheepicwriter7]

"Grandfather."

Ra's knew who the boy was the moment he'd snuck into the room. He'd allowed the child--more man than child now, but everyone was a child compared to him--moments to steel himself while Ra's refrained from acknowledging his presence. The boy's breath was barely audible but unsteady, and a drop of something fell to the floor.

His grandson was injured. "Danyal," he greeted and finally gazed upon him for the first time in seven years.

Danyal had grown into his father's height, yet stayed lean in regards to his musculature. His black hair had grown out of the League-regulation haircut, held back in a messy braid. He held himself as strong as he could, but kept an arm wrapped around his stomach. His shirt--standard American teenage garb, he dismissed--was spotted with blood and he could see bandages poking out from under the cloth.

With great care, Danyal knelt before the Demon Head and recited the Oath of Loyalty.

Ra's watched.

The boy's tongue, fat with English, spoke the League's variant of Arabic with the grace of a mace to the head, yet his words were clear. He took his time speaking the oath, carefully sounding out words, working hard to avoid mispronunciation. The Oath in question was the older version, from before Deathstroke's insurrection, but Danyal spoke it with a calm certainty that it would be accepted.

And without a doubt, it would be accepted.

Talia's eldest son had been born from her body instead of through science, a mistake that nearly cost her the child and damaged him upon birth. While the best doctors in the world saved his life, Danyal Al Ghul would always be weak in a fight, always prone to illness, always struggling to excel. When it became clear that the boy couldn't become the next Demon Head, Ra's sent Talia to create a replacement while arrangements were made for her first child to be taught business and science, for the betterment of the League. Danyal, very much his father's child, thrived in his intellectual pursuits while Damian grew and developed into a budding assassin.

But Danyal was more like his father than he'd ever knew. Ra's couldn't miss the signs of one of his family turning away from the League. Not the mission--Danyal had written several university level papers defending the environment by the time the boy was 10--but Ra's methods...

Ra's had a conundrum. Danyal was a dedicated conservationist; once the boy was an adult, Ra's was certain he'd take the world by storm and bring the League to new heights. But if he forced his methods onto Danyal, he could create an enemy of him, just as his father was.

Ra's gave Danyal an offer; Danyal would be allowed to leave the League and live a normal life if and only if he faked his own death in such a way that reinforced Damian's loyalty to the League of Assassins.

Danyal had been hesitant at first, but past his test with flying colors. Instigating one of the more unstable assassins into organizing a coup, cutting the insurgents off near immediately, but "dying" protecting both his younger brother and mother. It was a masterful performance. Even Talia hadn't known about the deceit.

And yet, here he was, on his knees, pledging loyalty. Danyal knew what that meant, knew what he was returning to, which morals he would be allowed to keep.

"And what do you bring with you, child of no one?" Why should the League accept the return of this child, who left once before?

Danyal met his eyes. "I bring with me, my team, who are loyal to me and me alone. I bring with me, research surrounding the Lazarus Pits, in origins and further uses for the waters." Ra's raised an eyebrow, and Danyal smirked. "I bring with me, my knowledge, nurtured within this very home and sharpened in the world outside. I bring with me, my weapons, built with my own hands. I bring with me... my body, finally healthy and whole." He brought his head down to the floor, trembling with pain. "I bring my whole self to the Demon's Head, for Him to accept or reject."

Ra's smiled. "By the shadows that guard our order and the blood that binds us, I accept this oath. From this day forward, you are an instrument of the League, a harbinger of justice, and a weapon in the hand of Ra's Al Ghul."

Danyal returned to his feet, swaying percariously. He needed immediate medical attention. Despite this, he continued, "Long live the League of Assassins. Long live Ra's Al Ghul."

And he collapsed onto the floor.

[trappedinafantasy37]

"Minthara is so abusive to the player" *INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE*

Minthara would literally go to fucking hell for the opportunity to personally beat the absolute shit out of the person who actually did abuse you. She will throw hands with gods and devils just to avenge you.

And you will not be able to convince her not to.

[corsairspade]

I was going to say we need to be weirder about Maglor but then I remembered crablor. That’s on me. We need to also be DIFFERENT weird about Maglor.

Maglor who walks along the coast for thousands of years and does not stop singing. Maglor who after ages of the world have passed, has a voice that is made only for music. When he speaks, there is something too lyrical to the tone. He sighs and the world accompanies him. His raised voice sets the ground shaking, his laments call water like tears from the sky. He has to be careful when he speaks to people, however rare that is, because of it. He weeps and those who can hear him cannot help but weep as well. Maglor with a voice so powerful that he can no longer use it the way he could when the world was young. One more thing lost to the Oath.

[runawaymun]

Elwing's goodbye, for @nolofinweanweek filling both prompts for Day 4 and for Day 5 (Elwing, Elrond, Elros). Double posting today because I'm working the rest of the weekend and I don't think I'll get around any more prompts this year.

This hurt to paint lol. I need to go lie on a cold floor for a while.

[sallyisdrawing]

Ahsoka Tano, paladin of the Daughter

DnD inspired piece for May 4th ✨

[sashthesloth]

Temerity the Cleric of Ilmater from my multiplayer campaign absolutely was smitten from her first conversation with the druid Halsin because he tried to heal her no questions asked

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[todayisafridaynight]

[visenyaism]

am i the only one who got some gay vibes from Cregan and Jace?

brokeback winterfell was real to me…

[n4tsum1-san]

so... that new myriad celestia trailer huh

[y-rhywbeth2]

Elven subraces

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest. etc]

(Tel'Quessir only, we're not going into the non-Torillian stuff like snow elves or astral elves)

How many of these bastards could you possibly need, you ask? Well according to the writers there are never enough:

So lore dumps on Moon elves, Sun elves, Star elves, Wood elves, Green elves, Aquatic elves, Winged elves, Dark elves (and their infinite permutations), Lythari, Fey'ri, and Celadrin. And we're not going into the other tiny little pockets of culture like the Llewyrr or the Poscadari.

A brief talk about the mixing of subraces, and then starting the lore dumps off with the moon elves.

(Well, the first half of the moon elves, because I forgot some things after moving onto the star and sun elves and had to add it later)

A note before going into it is that, obviously, elves can be descended from multiple subraces. Mechanically they will take after one parent, usually a mother. In appearance they usually favour one parent over the other, but they may have any mix of traits from their parents.

So a green elf (wood) and a moon elf (high) may produce a child whose 5e character sheet says either wood elf or high elf, with the appropriate stat bonus (3.5e would put them down as green or moon). It takes generations of mixing to produce a distinct subrace as the moon elves and wood elves have.

Canonically:

Shemmithil Maraphiir - better known as Ashemmi - is the daughter of a sun elven mother and a moon elven father. Mechanically she was a moon elf (and identified as one), and she had blonde hair and golden eyes from her mother.

Halanaestra, a tavern-master (barkeeper/pub landlord) on Evermeet is of mixed silver, green and sea elven heritage.

There's also an elven noble house (House Le'Quella) of mixed moon and green heritage.

As the offspring of an elf and a half-elf is mechanically classified as an elf in the Realms it's also possible for an elf to display human genes from a grandparent or more distant ancestor. (Or even a non-human non-elven ancestor).

-

Elven aging, in DnD baseline canon, features a lifespan of aprox. 750 years. That said, sources have varied and different elven subraces have different average lifespans so I'll mention them. It's also worth noting that these are average lifespans, and even the shortest-lived elven subrace (drow) are known to live into four digit numbers.

-

Obviously the lore presented is cultural norms and stereotypes, and individual elves may not fit the mould perfectly.

-

High Elves are sometimes referred to as Eladrin, which also happens to be the name for the closely related celestials/fey who dwell in the Feywild and Arvandor. Generally people just call them elves.

Calling a moon or star elf a high elf may cause confusion, as while there are three subraces that fall into the category it's also one of the terms used to refer to sun elves.

All high elven subraces share the same average heights and weights, standing on average about the same heights as humans (in contrast to elves of other worlds, who tend to be shorter)

Height Range: 4'5" - 6'6", averaging the same heights as humans.

Weight Range: 70 lbs - 250 lbs, lighter than a human of the same height and build - likely due to the comparatively physical fragility and 'delicateness' high elves are known for.

-

The People of the Moon - Teu'Tel'Quessir

Moon elves, Silver elves, Grey elves*

*A slur used by gold elves who consider them inferiors (and what an elf should not be).

By far the most likely to show ancestry from outside the moon elf gene pool. For example; while moon elven hair skews towards silver-white, they can be seen with hair of any colour.

Hair: silver, white, silver-white, white-blue, white-green, blue, midnight blue, black. Very, very early generations of moon elves had bright red hair, but that gene seems to have died out.

Eyes: Green, blue, grey, silver. A distinct trait of moon elves is that their eyes are always flecked with gold (which catches the light, giving the impression of literal gold or even stars).

Skintone: 'Bleached white' - also likened to ivory, alabaster and snow - with blue undertones, and an affect that's described as being like 'white marble' (which I assume is the blue pattern formed by veins under the skin where it's thin, but that's just my assumption.)

Average Lifespan: 500-900 years. Second longest lived of the elven subraces.

Patron deity: Sehanine Moonbow, deity of death, journeys, transcendence, dreams, mysticism, the night sky with the stars and moon. Moon elven religion is also the only one to officially include Angharradh in the pantheon.

Wandering party elves who may have to show up to work hungover. Individualistic, impulsive, flighty, fun-loving, hedonistic little bastards who tend to take risks and have a horrible ability to judge said risks: Do first, think later. Being alive is a delight, and the purpose of life is to enjoy it to the fullest (and to have the freedom to do so). If you visit Evermeet some of them will board your ship without warning on the way in and drink all your booze while singing bawdy songs. They tend to embrace change, delight in gambling, and see life as something to be enjoyed - other elves simply need to pull their heads out of their asses.

'Life is for the living and is best spent among the lively. Revel in variety and laughter, for all living things can learn and laugh with each other.'

Origin:

Moon elves are descended from the children of Sharlario Moonflower, an adventuring merchant from the Feywild (although his rival personally believed the man to be a pirate). He was staying in the city of Tintageer when it was destroyed by disaster and fled with the survivors to Toril. Said survivors became the gold elves, while he married a green elven priestess of Sehanine Moonbow. Their children inherited his white-blue skin and their mother's devout reverence for the Daughter of the Night Skies and were nicknamed moon elves as a result, they took to wandering as he did and served well as diplomats between the various elven people who had made their home on Toril.

(The Moonflower clan also went on to be the royal family as history progressed, and some sun elven reactionaries have never really forgiven the moon elves for that since that's their place.)

-

The Road of Life: 'The silver elves strongly believe than an individual must choose his or her path through life.' In the moon elven take on the core elven philosophy there is no one correct way to live life, and every individual must be free to find their own way and chose the path for themselves. It's not the destination that matters, but the journey.

Moon elves have a drive to seek excitement and new experiences; to see and do as much as they can within their lifespan, trying out new things and dropping them for the next as they go. They often spend the longest time in the first stage of the road, characterised by chasing impulse and entertainment, travelling and adventuring, focusing on themselves and their own interests rather than the community - and sometimes lapsing from the second stage (the mature stage where they focus on their society and their place in it) back to the first wanderlust stage in later life. There is no stigma against this however; it's their road to walk and they must walk it as they see fit.

-

Society:

Moon elves found outside of elven lands are transients, usually travelling in extended family groups. Of course, being elves, their idea of a brief stay has them hanging around in one settlement for years, sometimes several decades. They're likely to own houses and have jobs and long-term friendships before they decide to wander off again.

Their nomadic lifestyle often leads moon elves to pick up multiple languages over the course of their lives.

Due to their history of wandering and mixing with the people they encounter, their culture encouraging a love of fun and new experiences, and the presence of Angharradh in their religious beliefs encouraging strength in diversity, moon elves are the most outgoing and amongst the most open-minded and friendly elves (the others are the copper elves, who share their open-minded outlook but are more settled and reclusive). They do have conflicts - some moon elves are embittered by historical losses at the hands of humans; Evereska has historically been barred to any non-elves save Harpers and elf friends. And sometimes the friction between the clashing ideals of moon and sun elves, as well as their bad history, turns to real enmity rather than their usual 'disapproving family members' treatment. But the philosophical outlook moon elves have drilled into their head from birth, favouring individuality, generally leads them to be willing to treat people as individuals rather than members of their group.

Moon elven houses are the most likely to adopt non-elves into house membership, and often frown upon refusing to legitimise mixed children born to their house.

They usually happily integrate with their neighbours in whatever society they're staying in, though if they feel persecuted or othered they're known to respond by becoming the most obnoxious elven stereotype in order to annoy said neighbours. An elven household in a human city isn't going to have a bedroom and is liable to be covered in plants like some kind of greenhouse (these plants are actually edible - to the elven digestive system, at least), but assuming they like their guest they'll put the plants away and prepare a guest room while hosting. Sometimes the plants are enchanted to levitate to the rafters on command.

Fighters aren't uncommon, but moon elves prefer to approach conflict with a stealth-first mentality; moon elven stories favour heroes who outwit and humiliate their opponents with quick thinking and cunning.

Literature, song and poetry favours light-hearted with a focus on humour - especially dirty humour. They have their share of more solemn and tragic historical tales, but these things have their time and place and don't get the focus.

They like to party and all night revels are a common thing. Gambling games are also a staple of moon elven social life and getting dragged into games of kholiast (a very complicated card game involving dice and a deck of 1000 cars) is to be expected.

Pets are common, especially hunting dogs and birds of prey. They don't seem to care for horses though, preferring their own two feet. On the less common selection are blink dogs, pegasi, unicorns and dragonnes (cat-dragon things).

Moon elven culture doesn't encourage hiding or repressing emotion and many wear their hearts on their sleeves. They have a reputation for mood swinging, going from exuberant joy and merriment to 'the pits of despair and melancholy' and back again at speeds that non-moon elves struggle to cope with. Hiding or repressing your emotions is frowned on, and the stoicism practiced by gold elves is derided as a 'colourless' existence.

Customisation and self-expression in fashion is big. Makeup, especially eyeliner and eyeshadow is well loved. Piercings made of metal are less common, and bone - especially from a deceased loved one or revered ancestor - is favoured. If they use metal it's likely to be silver. Most moon elves having such pale hair means that temporary dyes see a lot of use, and they like painting their nails.

They also enjoy fussing over their hairstyles, and braids, ponytails and hair decorations like beads and wrapped wire are popular.

Some - though not all - moon elves have a tradition of body paint and tattooing in 'mystic patterns,' some of which were appropriated from green elven culture while others were maintained from their mutual ancestors. Body paint and temporary tattoos are far more common as their impermanence makes them more appealing: what if you change your mind about the design later, after all? You can change temporary designs as much as you like when you get a new idea and then put the old one on again later.

Almost as if they're making up for their flighty hedonistic ways, moon elves do take their oaths and responsibilities very seriously: an oath from a moon elf should be a binding contract, and oathbreakers are reviled as the worst sorts.

Adopting the local N'Quess fashions aside, traditional moon elven clothing is relatively simple but favours the highest quality material and construction possible. They enjoy embroidery and customising their own clothes, featuring patterns and beadwork and intricately carved stones. Some even add feathers. Where moon elves feel safe they favour bolder colours - cultural wisdom says 'brighter is better' and your peers respect you more the more ostentatious you go - but in places where they feel threatened they dress conservatively and tone it down to more earthen colours to blend in and avoid notice.

While they have the usual elven love of magic, and delight in experimentation and pushing the boundaries of the Art, moon elves despise black necromancy and its creations - likely a combination of their reverence for Sehanine to whose doctrine undeath is an abomination, and their love of life and freedom (to which undeath, a form of slavery and mock existence, is also an abomination). It is not taught or studied in Evereska, which may actually put them at a disadvantage when faced with hostile necromantic spells. Want to be an elven necromancer? Be ready to live alone.

They don't tend to make very good enchanters though, as few have the patience to sit around for ages doing all the long repetitive work that goes into making and enchanting a powerful item ('Sun elves in particular find this trait somewhat embarrassing' and moon elves respond by saying that think the sun elves' taking decades to make a single object is 'obsessive'). They usually make a bunch simple, weaker enchantments to-go.

Evereska, 'the Fortress Home,' and last major elven civilisation on Faerûn, located in the far North-East of the Western Hinterlands is a moon elven state. It does host sun and wood elven residents, but the city is still founded by and mostly populated by the Teu'Tel'Quessir.

The moon elven reputation for open-mindedness may find itself faltering there thanks to an extremely xenophobic noble population; half-elves are barred from certain privileges, such as membership at the Academy, without the backing of a high ranking elven parent and during the spellplage a rise in xenophobia saw many Evereskan half-elves leave the city. They prefer never to let dwarves of half-orcs in under any circumstances whatsoever. Said noble houses are ancient lineages and think moon elves not part of these esteemed houses are second-class citizens. Non-moon elves and non-elves can get fucked. As ever, Toril's nobility are a deranged world unto themselves and you can't really judge what to expect of a people by their rulers, nor what to expect of the nobility by looking at the average citizen.

(The moon elven noble houses of Evermeet tend to be friendlier.)

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Religion:

Silver elves are pious as a people, and their idea of worship is (can you guess?) partying. You start a ceremony with a few moments of solemn prayer, the elven equivalent of an 'amen,' and then immediately start the revel. Festivals end when the last elf collapses from exhaustion sometime in the early morning after.

Sehanine Moonbow features prominently in their worship, and moon elves account for 54% of the membership of her church.

They are also the only elven subrace to remember the triune goddess Agharradh: the queen of Arvandor and a fusion of the deities Sehanine, Hanali Celanil and Aerdrie Faenya. Other subraces may find themselves called to her service but 93% of her total followers are moon elves. Sun elves are the only other elves who know who Angharradh is, and they dismiss her as moon elves misinterpreting Sehanine and consider her worship heretical (though they largely leave the moon elves be).

[gayestcowboy]

guy who gets scared by a rat and jumps into gale’s arms, crushing him