Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

the People

may learn all that has passed for them

and their

predecessors. Now, in

songs that were once only sung in cel-

ebration, I may teach you brief candles

of humanity of the

People and your own place among

us.

-Cymbiir

Haevault, Lorekeeper of House Haevault

A memory

is a curious thing. One can come into

con-

sciousness unbidden, evoked

by an unexpected scent

or the words spoken by a friend.

A memory can also be

elusive, foiling all attempts to reca

ll it and sometimes

remembered

only after the hunt is abandoned, like a

word on the tip

of one's tongue. Some memories pull at

the heart, weighing

it down and holding it there as an

anchor moors a ship. Others buoy it up

or make it flutter

joyously like the wings of a bird. Some

memories lie in

wait like predators, ready to leap out when

the mind or

the heart is vulnerable.

Some linger like scars, not al-

ways

visible but ever-present.

Perhaps

more so than any other race, elves

are famil-

iar with

all aspects of memory. From birth, elves

don't

s leep but instead enter a t

rance when they need to rest.

In this state, elves remain

aware of their surroundings

while

immersing themselves in memories. What

an elf

remembers

during this reverie depends largely

on how

long the

elf has lived, and the events of the lives that

the

elf's soul has experienced before.

CHILDHOOD

Much has been made of the

relative fecundity of humans

compared to elves. Ignorant folk

wonder how elves can

live so long

, yet have so few children. They cannot

know

what it means to an

elf to usher a child into the world.

They cannot understand how a birth is both

a joy and a

sorrow, a reunion and

a parting.

Each birth represents

an elf soul that has been to Ar-

vandor and returned. Mortal

elves cannot know if it is

the soul of someone recent

ly dead or someone who died

millennia ago. They cannot

even be certain it is an elf

of the same

world. The only assurance they have

is that

it is an elf

of their own kind, for when the primal elves

went against Corellon and took

permanent shapes, they

chose this fat

e for themselves.

How many elves are born to which

parents or in any

given generation

is a topic studied by elves in the hope

of discerning some

sign from Corellon or others of the

Seldarine. Aerdrie

Faenya, the winged goddess of air

and sky, is thought to ferry souls from

Arvandor into the

world, bringing them down from the heavens

to begin

their mortal lives anew.

A decade in which many elves

are born across the world

is thought to be a harbinger

of danger that great numbers

of elves will be needed

to withstand. In contrast,

if an elven community goes

a century

or longer without a new birth, members

take

this as

a sign that the community has stagnated

and

must disband.

Because

of the rarity of e lf births, siblings might be

separated in

age by decades, or even a century or more.

Thus, few elves

grow up playing with brothers or sisters

of similar age and instead rely on friends

for the devel-

opment of their social skills. In exceedingly

rare cases,

a birth might produce twins or-scarcer

yet- triplets.

These offspring, which

the elves refer to as soul sib-

lings, are believed to

have a special, intertwined destiny

CHAPTER

2 I EL\'ES

37