The Laore-Tel

Racial Overview
Deep in the salt-marshes of southern Verloren live the Laore-Tel, an elven sub-race with a superiority complex large enough to rival that of their ancient ancestors. Bizarre and twisted, the Tel have been punished for their hubris and callus disrespect of the Trimedium and its kin. To this day, the Tel continue to mock them openly, denying the mark of the runes as well as any other form of fealty to the three headed god. Unlike their cousins to the west and north, the Tel have all but abandoned any reverence of their former patron, adhering to the firm belief that the power of gods is nothing more than misunderstood science. With enough time and research, their powers of the gods can be harnessed, if with enough practice, even controlled.

Laore-Tel philosophy delves deeply into the nature of objectivity and individual freedom. Despite the horrible disfigurement they’ve suffered, they continue to rebel against the Trimedium in everything they do. Rather than pray to the lord of magic in hopes that their ancient homeland might be restored, the Tel have embraced the unforgiving swamplands, growing homes from the very fungi once thought to herald the Ilderwood’s doom. Rather than take up the Trimedium’s marks to practice magic, they have perfected the art of alchemy to an exact science. From their fungal capital on the isle of Ald, the Tel simply laugh off the warnings ushered by their kin, confident in the fact that they are the masters of their own destiny.

Physical Attributes
Undoubtedly the most iconic feature of this laore subrace, the Tel are born with nubs from which boney horns will eventually grow, reaching their full size around the age of fourteen. These horns vary from Tel to Tel. Some are long and winding about their heads, others are short and stick straight up in any direction. Occasionally, there have been cases of Tels having to shave their horns as the rigid appendages threaten to pierce or puncture them causing loss of feeling, sight, or even life. All Laore-Tel have anywhere between 2-6 horns, though they can be sliced off and shaved down to appear smaller. Horns, once shaved or damaged, do not regrow so any changes made to them are permanent. So far there has been no link found between parents’ horn shape and their children. Some Tel parents will begin shaping the horns of their children while the outer plating is still soft and just forming. It is unknown how this truly affects the Tel child, but it seems a painful process if the crying is anything to go by. Many parents who participate in horn-shaping often claim it is to prevent their child from experiencing any uncomfort or peril from future uncontrolled horn growth.

Tel are also taller and much more lithe than their Hoj cousins, with curiously long fingers adept at plucking various ingredients for all things alchemical. Their skin comes in mottled patterns of dark, earthy browns, grays, reds, and in rare cases, even undertones of greens and blues. Occasionally some will be dusted with white freckles. The sclera of their eyes are always a deep black, which most Hoj will tell you is a symbol of their damnation. The Tel claim it helps them see better in the limited sunlight, obscured by the ever present clouds that loom above their island home of Ald. Their short and thin tongues are often indigo in color and highly sensitive, picking up on even the most subtle of flavor differences. Many believe that the reason the Tel are so adept at alchemy is due to this acute sense of taste, allowing them to pick up on the faintest of impurities within ingredients.

Living in homes made of various mushrooms, the Tel have become immune to almost all fungal drugs and poisons. There are theories that their resistance and evident immunity to anything fungal is due to the fact that they are themselves connected to the mycelium network of Ald, but this has absolutely no basis outside of rumors.

The Tel despise runes, seeing any who wear them as willing slaves to the Three Headed God. To get a rune is to damn yourself to a life subject to the Trimedium’s fanciful and ever changing whims. Laore-Tel that are raised within the Trinitarium are firm in their prejudice against runes and anything else touched by the lord of magic. The Laore-Tel have been found to be unable to interbreed with any other species other than other Tel. It has been proven impossible, despite years of trying. Therefor any Laore-Tel are pureblooded, perhaps to their advantage.

History
The history of the Tel is, unsurprisingly, inextricably linked to the origin of all Laore-kind. In eons past, the Laore were a strong, united people, firm in their purpose and fiercely dedicated to their gods. This prosperity came to an abrupt end with the rise of the human empire to the north, and it was only a matter of time before Omnia exploded into all-out war. The war of the Aegis left them humiliated, shamed and beaten by the very people they had originally deemed too inferior to exist. As if adding insult to injury, the aftermath of the war forced the surviving Laore to fend for themselves in the coming apocalypse, hiding against Shesha and her hoards behind the Trimedium’s bulwark. Very few managed to persist, and those that did now bore a terrible burden. No Laore will ever give the same answer when asked, but it is widely accepted that after their self imposed exile within the Trimedium’s bulwark, the Laore became bound to the lord of magic through both flesh and spirit. The temple priests of that time spoke of dark visions, preaching that failure to uphold the Trimedium’s will would break the pact they had made with their lord. Verendell would sink into the sea with the rest of the Ilderwood, and all would be for naught.

It was only a matter of months before Laore society began to splinter into factions, one of these early offshoots giving birth to the elves who would later become the Glas. The other factions were not quite as radical, all believing to some degree that the reconstruction of their devastated home was, at the very least, possible. It was here, in the treacherous marshlands of the Ilderwood, that Tel society first began to form.

Far from unified, these pioneers originally sought to transform the fetid swamps back into the glistening forests of paradise they had once been. It didn’t take long for this restoration project to fail, and while many simply fled back to the teetering spires of their ancient city, some took a different approach. The science of alchemy was still young in those years, but word had started to spread from across the gash of a “magic without runes”, discovered by the deep-folk and their human companions during their century-long hibernation. With much trepidation, these early swamp dwellers made use of this new technology, warping the plants and fungi of the marsh into the very tools of their survival. They developed crops that could resist the salty soil, grew living buildings that were impervious to the constant rain, and above all, developed the field of alchemy far past anything the Talamh could have ever dreamed. While Verendell crumbled day by day, the colonies within the swamps prospered.

It wasn’t long before this success bred new conflicts. In the year 453 PE, those still loyal to the Trimedium’s cause began to see the swamp dwellers as infidels, ignorant of the disrespect they sowed. They saw the success of the swamp dwellers as nothing less than a repudiation of the Trimedium’s gifts, and this ultimately culminated in the first religious schism of the Trimedeist faith. As the schism grew, the swamp dwellers became ever more justified in their “radical” view of the three headed god, seeing the Trimedium as more of a problem to be overcome than a saving grace.

It is quite unclear what exactly transformed the Tel into the alien beings they are today, but it is often cited that the denouncement of the three headed god by Count Eredil Dreth was the inciting incident. Forever immortalized in the Ballad of the Horns, lord Eredil was supposedly approached by a well meaning consort of temple priests, insisting that he perform the ritual of repentance to atone for his crimes. Rather than perform the ritual as intended, he spat within the empty font, an act of defiance so insulting that he, his people, and all who came after them would be cursed for their insolence, their bodies becoming as warped as the experiments they concocted.

With horns adorning their skulls and flesh that appeared burned, the newly born Laore-Tel were deemed devils, cast out of the Ilderwood by King Adamus Rojor of Verendell. Rather than scatter amongst the various city-states of Omnia, dividing their culture and faith (or lack-there-of), the Tel made their way to Ald, a possession of the Verendell Protectorate deemed so inhospitable that it had lain empty since the first days after the emergence. Under the guidance of lord Eredil, the Tel put their alchemical mastery to the test, constructing the grandest living-structure Omnia had yet to see.

Soaring above the emperor fungi which blanket the island whole, the Trinitarium stands as a staunch monument to the unbreakable spirit of the Loare-Tel. By present day, the isle of Ald has been inducted as a formal county of the Verendell Protectorate, but the Tel still enjoy large amounts of autonomy over their disparate holdings. Nearly the entire population of Laore-Tel continue to live on this island, and while many have ventured forth seeking knowledge and adventure, most end up feeling a curious pull back to their homeland at some point.