Overview
The Sunlight-Sensitivity Dark Elf is the elven line in the deep — tall, narrow-waisted, with the long limbs and the slight forward lean that is the elven grace adapted to the low-ceilinged tunnel. It is the truest wound of the clan: the being to which the surface light is a wound, the wound that keeps the deep honest, and the sensitivity is not a choice. There is no will in it beyond the deep and no patience beyond the tunnel, but the wound arrives anyway, and the wound is not a choice. Where the other dark elves keep the dark by the adaptation, the Sunlight-Sensitivity keeps it by the wound.
Habitat
It lives in Vulkanis, the Volcanic City, a city carved into the heart of a dead volcano, its deep tunnels lit by magical fires that give an eerie, ever-shifting glow to the stone. It keeps the high line, because that is where the wound is newest and the keeping earns its keep, and because a dark-elf that leaves the high line is a dark-elf that has left the clan. The watch keeps the deep tunnel, the smiths keep the forge-tunnels, but the Sunlight-Sensitivity keeps the high line and does not stop keeping. It is settled in the city, and the settling is the whole of the territory, because the deep does not leave the dark.
Appearance
A Sunlight-Sensitivity reads 1.77 m tall and carries 66 kg of lean, long flesh, built lean and long with the shoulders a little broader than the high-elven ideal. The skin is a deep violet to a near-black, with a faint, almost imperceptible warmth to the cheekbones. The mark is the network of fine, pale violet veins at the temples, which glow faintly when the being is casting or roused — the glow is the whole of the warning, and the not-glowing is the whole of the peace.
Behaviour
It moves at 9.2 m/s through the low tunnel, deliberate, because the wound does not hurry and the being has nothing to do but keep the deep. It does not hunt by the mouth; it hunts by the wound — the surface light lands as a wound, and the keeping is taken the way a promise is taken, line by line. When the surface light comes down the tunnel — a wound, never a welcome — the pale violet veins run faintly bright and the being draws a degree deeper into the dark, the way a hand holds a blade.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The wound is the whole of the weapon — a keeping held across the high line that lands on the surface light and keeps the clan's faith for a century. There is no strike beyond the wound and no defense beyond the deep: the skin is a deep violet to a near-black, as hard as the promise that keeps it, and the pale violet veins hold the word the way the stone holds the debt. A Sunlight-Sensitivity that is harmed by the light does not break in the way the deep does not recognize — the wound simply stops being a wound in the dark, and the stopping is the whole of the healing.
Magic Alignment
Its line belongs to darkness, the will, the patient, precise keeping of the deep across the low tunnels. The Sunlight-Sensitivity carries the line's truest named inborn, Sunlight-Sensitivity — the surface light is a wound, and the wound is not a choice. It also carries Superior-Darkness, the line's twin body, which is not a choice either, because a dark-elf whose wound did not keep the deep honest would not be a dark-elf of the clan. Its signature power is the Deep's Word: a word in the deep tongue, and the dark will keep the word until the tunnel is done.
Society
There is no court in it, and the not-having is the whole of the shape. The dark elves of the city speak in parallel the way the deep speaks — each one its own line, all of them the same dark. The watch keeps the deep tunnel, the smiths keep the forge-tunnels, and the high line keep the wound, and the three have learned that a light that is not a wound is a light that is not a promise, and the not-wounding is the whole of the peace.
Culture & Lore
The deep is the only honest conversation the clan has ever trusted, and the lore of the line is the deep. A dark-elf that keeps its wound a century past the surface is a dark-elf that has kept the clan, and the keeping is the whole of its reputation. The pale violet veins are the mark the line keeps — the fine, deliberate glow that shows when the wound is honest — and a Sunlight-Sensitivity whose glow runs true is a being the city will trust with the high line. The The Forgotten are the only ones who have ever kept a word the deep had already forgotten, and the keeping is the whole of the legend.
Home
It lives in Vulkanis, the Volcanic City, a city carved into the heart of a dead volcano, its deep tunnels lit by magical fires that give an eerie, ever-shifting glow to the stone. The being keeps the high line, and the high line is the whole of its home, because the home is the wound and the wound is the home. The High Elf does not come down the tunnel, and the not-coming is the whole of the wound. The city gives the line its light, its quiet, its one honest conversation, and its one true wound, and the line keeps all four the way it keeps the word — until the tunnel is done.
Relations
The Dwarfs of Karn Dun, the Deep Delve are the neighbors the clan shares the deep with — the dwarf keeps the delve and the dark-elf keeps the tunnel, and the two read the stone the same way: the heat first, the dark second, and the keeping is the whole of the treaty. The High Elf of Aelfarion, the Silver City is the sun-side kin the deep does not trust — the high elf keeps the silver city and the dark-elf keeps the dead mountain, and the two have learned that a city beside the mountain is not a threat, it is a wound, and the wound is the whole of the treaty.
In the Story
The six who arrived through the The Threshold never came down the tunnel, but the deep has been keeping since the oaths were sworn above, and the high line's dark elves have been wounding a day earlier than they should. This season a dark-elf came up from the tunnels with a name the clan had not spoken — a name that is not in the ledger, and the not-speaking is the whole of the warning, because the deep keeps its word, and the word has started to move. The Sunlight-Sensitivity keeps the wound the word is keeping, and the wound is the whole of the story's edge.