Coping With Immortality

When you live a long life it is inevitable that you get bored and you need something meaningful to occupy your time with. There may also be times when you get sick and tired of everything and just want to get away from it all

For mortals this usually isn’t much of an issue, but for the immortal elves it can be quite troublesome. This article is about how elves deal with their immortality when they get bored with life.

Getting away from it all
When you’ve lived for thousands of years and you’ve seen the world and all it has to offer, getting away from it and taking a break isn’t as easy as just taking a vacation. Wherever you can go you’ve been before, or somewhere like it and you’re still your same old self only in a different spot.

Fortunately, elves have a mental mechanic that allows them to put their personalities on standby and block all of their memories of the world. It’s called going feral.

In this state the elf becomes little more than an animal. They lose all access to memories of their past lives and they rely on instinct instead of reason. The creature the elf becomes is commonly referred to as a feral elf and apart from the physical body it has very little in common with the elf it was.

The Feral Elf
Feral elves generally live and hunt in packs. They can thrive in almost any ecosystem as long as there is prey for them to hunt. A pack does not have a home base as such, but roam a larger area, settling down to sleep in a different place each night (or day if they’re nocturnal).

A feral elf is generally stronger, faster and more agile than it was as a normal elf. This is achieved through magical means. The feral elves channel and weave the aether in order to improve their physical abilities. However, the feral elf isn’t able to wield magic in any other way. They may be able to run down a deer or a rabbit and kill it with their bare hands, but they’re not able to throw fireballs or kill them using other magical means.

While they tend to prefer hunting and fighting with their bare hands feral elves are able to use simple tools like clubs, rocks and sharp pointy sticks. It’s relatively uncommon that members of a pack use tools, but it happens. Feral elves are not able to craft their own clothes, but they understand the concept and will put on and wear clothes if they come by and need them. Usually this will only be in extremely cold regions where the elves’ magical abilities may not be sufficient to keep them warm. If that’s the case the region’s Feral Wardens will provide clothes for the pack’s members.

Most packs of feral elves are mixed gender packs with both male and female elves hunting together. It’s possible for female feral elves to become pregnant and it is generally considered highly unadvisable to enter the feral state while in a fertile age.

Process
Entering the feral state takes roughly twenty-four hours of meditation. Nothing else is required for an elf to go feral. Leaving the feral state is equally simple. The feral elf simply goes to sleep and when they wake up they’re back to normal again.

What’s complicated is what makes a feral elf decide they want to go back to their original self. For some it happens very quickly, within a few days but for others it can take decades or even centuries before they return to their old lives. The time spent as a feral elf varies from elf to elf and from time to time. Those who have had the opportunity to study feral elves up close have not yet been able to determine what it is that causes an individual to leave the pack and return to civilized society. Those elves who are coming back from the feral state also don’t know why they decided to return, only that it felt like it was the right thing to do.

It’s possible to force a feral elf out of the feral state in case their presence is required in society for some reason. This requires the feral elf to be captured and brought into captivity. Limiting the feral’s freedom in this way causes them to revert back to their original state within forty-eight hours. Those who have experienced it say it’s an extremely unpleasant experience. It’s been described as having your soul thrown into ice-cold water and then held under until it stops struggling.

The process is also dangerous for those bringing the feral elf in. Their target will resist and is likely to put up a fight. With feral elves being significantly more powerful physically the risk is considerable.

Organization and Wardens
Originally when an elf wanted to step away from the world and go feral, the just left their home and went out into the wilderness and changed. When they were done they changed back and returned back home.

As time went on a centuries and millennia passed the world became a more complicated place. Feral elves are dangerous animals that can and will hunt down and kill anything or anyone they come across – including other elves and mortals. For the most part people knew to stay away from areas where feral elves roamed, but accidents happened and people died.

Throughout most of history this wasn’t much of an issue, the elves were powerful and organized enough that humanity posed no threat and had no influence over them. However, in recent times – since the dark ages – humanity’s power has grown and the humans are now the dominant race in the world. The elves can no longer ignore the humans or the other mortal races and their needs and wants have to be considered.

<p class="MsoNormal">At first this resulted in reservations being set up; dedicated lands where feral elves could roam without running the risk of killing anyone. This worked well for a while, but at some point human hunters realized that feral elf was the ultimate challenge and poaching became an issue.

<p class="MsoNormal">Since the last two hundred years there are no longer any official reservations. There are still lands dedicated to feral elves, but these days their locations are kept secret and they’re closely guarded.

<p class="MsoNormal">The guardians of the feral elves are referred to as The Wardens. The Wardens are made up of some of the oldest and most powerful elves around and it is their task to keep their feral kin safe. It is also up to them to make sure the locations of the ferals is kept secret and that no one else finds out.