On Elves

Of all the sapient races of Glade, only two were directly created by a god. When Tir Frig looked down upon the world in its infancy and saw the seeds of war and strife, he decided to create an example for all the world to follow. In his divine intellect as the god of knowledge and the arcane, he crafted a people in his own image. Using humanity as the base, he utilized the power of the Fey to make his people smarter, stronger, longer living, and more attuned to the magics of the world. "Elves" he christened them, and with his guidance they began the work of bringing beauty and wisdom to the world.

This was not to last, however. There are many reasons the gods rarely directly intervene in the affairs of the mortal plane, and Tir Frig quickly realized his error when one among the Elves decided that the task set upon them by their creator was futile without the power to punish those who refused their divinity. Her name was Lolth. She and her allies formed an empire that began conquering the Elves still loyal to Tir Frig, before being stopped in their tracks by the god himself. Furious, she began seeking out the arcane secrets that Tir Frig himself had used to achieve godhood. She was able to discover enough of them to begin the process, but had to make up for lost knowledge with some experimentation, which led to the torture and deaths of thousands.

Finally, on the precipice of her ultimate goal, the final ritual began with song and celebration. Her people, still feverishly loyal to her, pledged their undying faith with a series of hymns and chants. With the power of these millions of souls, she abandoned her mortal shell and ascended to godhood. But, unbeknownst to her, Tir Frig had been watching this process and biding his time. At the moment of her ascension, his people, with the help of those within her empire who saw her madness, laid upon her a curse, to forever be isolated from the pantheon in the great Abyss, and to have her power within the mortal plane be confined to a stretch of rock between the Surface and the Core.

From that point on, Lolth has entered the mortal world at intervals and carved out, bit by bit, the stretch of caverns known as the Underdark, earning her the title "She Who Crawls Beneath." Within this cave system she too created a people for herself. A dark reflection of Tir Frig's Elves known as the drow. She spends the millennia digging and searching for a way to return to the surface that she once vowed to subjugate.

Tir Frig, for his part, saw the error in his ways. He no longer directly intervenes with the affairs of the world, and with his final action he eliminated all knowledge of the greater magics, known as Level 10 spells. Never again will they be available for use by tyrants.