There was a recent discussion on the forums about Dyari. I’ve written about Elves before here, but the recent conversation brought me around again.
I’ve put together a more detailed history of the Elves and posted it on the forums a decade ago. In the subsequent years I’ve fine tuned and expanded upon it as part of our definitive Master Atlas and now in the SW: Book of Essaence I’m working on. I feel that most of my material is well within Canon, but there is one significant change I made: I demoted the Dyari to a cultural group.
The Dyari are a more philosophical issue for me. First and foremost, I have no interest in strict racially dictated moral and cultural traits: i.e. Orcs are “evil”, Gnomes are good with tech or devices, Dwarves like to work with stone and metal. These monolithic ideas that beings were born into specific abilities, attitudes and predilections were simple and appealing 40 years ago. IIt allowed us to easily drop races into convenient trait and identity buckets for game play. And, it gave free reign for player groups to attack and kill any person or being inherently “evil”. Per the MA:
The Dark Elves instead gained their name because
of an earned reputation for associating with
the powers of darkness. It is true that many of their
kind have been seduced by the lure of the Unlife
(many of the Priests Arnak are Dyar, for instance),
but most Dyari are merely what one might call
“mercenary.” They embody the worst traits of the
Loari but to the extreme: they are vain and arrogant,
considering all other races (including other
Elves) to be inferior. They have a lust for power:
political, magical, physical, and spiritual.
I am uncomfortable with an entire race, male, female and children being painted in such broad strokes, I feel that the origins of the Elves lends themselves to worship or alliance with the Lords of Orhan, but ultimately there should be a role of self-determination. For me, the solution was to have Elves that withdrew from the Lords of Orhan, become inherently “outcasts” from the collective Elven community. That is not to say that they would become evil, or automatically follow the Charonic pantheon. This solution allows for a variety of motivations: moral independence, agnosticism, allegiance to a local god, atheism etc. This of course introduces aspects of religious indoctrination, complicated cultural forces, and player choice.
It’s important to note that SW Dyari are not DnD Drow with black skin and white hair. That is a powerful image used throughout fantasy pop culture and VERY popular with players. Instead Terry wrote this:
The Dyari (Iy: “Delvers”) are, despite their nickname
of “Dark Elves,” no darker in skin pigmentation
than their brethren; in fact they are very
fair-skinned. While most have raven hair, a few
are born with pure white locks. Their ears frequently
have more pronounced points than the
other Elves; their eyes are grey, black, or sometimes
amber. Often, however, they are so similar to their
Loar cousins that it is difficult—at least for mortals—
to tell the difference.
For me and my campaign, that was the opening to retcon Dyari and provide a more nuanced approach to “fallen” Elves. Notably, during gameplay, I’ve framed Ilyar to be more intolerable, insufferable and judgmental in their approach to mortals and other lesser beings, while Dyari tend towards libertarianism. Certainly some contemporary parallels!
A final point, and one that I’ve also written about extensively. I don’t see the Charonic gods to be inherently evil or part of the Unlife. Certainly some of the gods of Charon embrace less celebrated behaviors and personality traits, but these aspects are all inherent to the human condition. I’ll have more on this in the upcoming SW: Book of Essaence!
For many, or even most GM’s, this is probably too much of a retcon, but I’m happy to hear everyone’s thoughts!
