Role

Chapter 3

The first group held that the the place of the elven people should be primarily
as an active force for good in the world. To this end they would sharpen their
skills with magic and hold back the tide of its cycle as best they could. Magic
was too powerful a tool for the Light, one that equalized the elves' physical
frailty relative to such foul, brutish creatures as orcs. Even if that were
not the case, the idea of wiping magic out of the rest of the world was
clearly anathema. It would require the loss of too much innocent life.

The second group felt that no good could ultimately come of fighting the tide.
Ranaven believed, but could not prove to the first group's satisfaction, that
the proper ebb and flow of the cycle would produce the greatest good for all.
To halt the passage of the cycle would be dangerous and should mortals somehow
force magic's Autumn back into Summer it could unmake the very world. Realizing
that this cycle of magic had been an important and dangerous part of the natural
world that they had been ignorant of, they resolved to live in greater harmony
with the natural world and see to it that the seasons of magic progressed as
intended, even if they should have to help it along.

These two groups, each well-intentioned in their way, found themselves totally
at odds, the drives of their beliefs completely opposed. The great elven civil
war began, and brother slew brother. In time the hostilities gradually died
down as the two nations of elves put down roots in different parts of the world.
Each kept their own version of the elven traditions and language, which grew in
different directions and soon enough became unrecognizable as sharing the same
root. As generations passed and what were now the high elves and the wood elves
came to have more pressing problems than each other, most even forgot what had
been learned about the cycle of magic and why they had fought at all.

One wood-elven secret society calling itself the Brotherhood of the Inscrutable
Equinox remembered.