A Different Fantasy: The Sorin Chronicles

(skippable)Bit of a history lesson

(This one might be quite long)

In the beginning, only barren rock was there.
The plane we exist on was barren and dead...bereft of purpose.

The gods came on comets, and saw the potential in this world...no matter how barren.

First, came came Gulemin Rax, lord of chaos and fire. From the rock he began a great and terrible thundering from beneath, and great plumes of magma and fire burst forth! They in time became the mountains, and beneath the greatest mount of them all, Rax is said to slumber, for creating these great and beautiful canvasses took from him almost all of his life force.

And then came Darian kima, Lord of the wind and water. From the empty skies he created a barrier, and filled this barrier with great black clouds of awful thunder, giant hailstones and stinging powerful rain. The land and the air soon began to erode the rocks, making sediment and mud ripe for the imaginative mind to plant seeds of future progress.
Alas, Kima sunk into the deepest depths of the sea, having too used up the majority of his spirit energy.

With the calming of the storm  came Sylvian Alamol and and Herrin Alomol, twin God and goddess and giver of plant life to this land.
From the fertile land the storm had made, they two descended to the earth and layer their hands into the mud, crawling along the land with grass, ferns, trees and creeping vines. All manner of life came to be from these two, who unlike all the others, did not use all their energy and remained among their creations.
They soon began to create all manner of life From the fish in the sea to the hummingbirds flitting amongst the flowers.
With the last of their energy, they created the elves in their own likeness, lending to them magical prowess and immense longevity.
One came to rest in a hidden glade, and the other in a horrid bog.
Legend has it, the swamp has warped and poisoned Herrin, and he has gone mad.

The elves grew to make this planet their own, and built temples to worship these gods, and the power they drew from them fueled sprawling city states, with elves splitting across the planet, adapting over time to live comfortably in different places. 
Each in unison with nature, the magic they gleaned granted great power, hindered by inherent passivity-for even in the thousands of years since their creation elves knew not war, conflict, or murder only killing in hunts for sustenance.
For hunting the elves have fangs and retractable claws, large eyes to adapt to the darkness and utilize cloaking magic to get in close.
As the elves changed, so too did the species around them, evolving to adapt to not only the ever changing planet, but the elves themselves. The planet, at that time was in unison.

The elves of the coast built sprawling undersea cities, and miles of windmills, utilizing  the maritime winds and ocean currents to channel a deep power from Darian Kima.

The thermal energy from the volcanoes high in the mountains fueled projects even further, with the mountain elves becoming dwarves, developing the stocky bodies and incredible superhuman strength that came with millenia of toiling in the harsh pressure beneath the crust.

The only land the elves never traveled was the great bog, seeping with poison and malice, from these lands came the orcs, originally elves who shrugged off their elvish cultures and sought solitary lives, but grew into a community slowly corrupted by the poisons in the swamp. Elves all the same, they were no less or more violent or sane than any of their brethren, albeit shunned for being considerably more ugly, and thought to be dirty.

From the plains grew a new species the elves watched eagerly, having seen them in their infancy as protoprimates now into upright creatures, revering them as gods. The elves gave them medicine and taught them peace. They taught them to forage, as their natural tools were not meant for hunting prey.
As their path marched forward. However, the elves began to see changes. Less hair, and more tribalism. They built tools to kill animals, as they did not have the means to kill them with their own hands. No longer did the elves see the eager young species as the tribes began what were the first instances of war. Killing and bloodshed like these creatures were doing, over something so freely given as water and food.
Perplexed, the elves simply watched. These creatures soon began to build out of better materials than simple stone and bone, and turned their wrathful gazes upon the elves themselves. At first the effort was comical, a novelty or comedic display.

That is until the walls fell.

These creatures tore through the city, and butchered a people that knew not violence or war, like a match to paper the city lay in ruins in no time flat, the creatures pillaging the city and learning the art of steelwork from the spoils.
The massacre was then known from that point forward as the day of silence, for when the elves saw the handiwork of these small, short lived creatures and could utter not a sound, so strong was the dismay the creatures brought to the land. The day is remembered by all of elfkind as the day elvish peace was shattered, and is observed by all of them as th day  commemorated by all elves uttering not a sound.

To this day, humans and elves have tension because of this.

The elves built up Arms and concocted spells that would harm, not heal, the humans, a novel concept even then to the elves.
Their swords were shaped like broad leaves, spears and arrowheads the same. If it was combat these creatures want, it was combat they would get.

The elves, however, could not keep up with the humans  reproduction. The gestation cycle for elves is 48 months, although unlike humans they are able to walk and climb from 3 days old. (For dwarves the gestation cycle is 36 months but the same applies)
Centuries of war hardened the elves and the humans, with orcs almost never getting involved save for some mercenaries that used their superior strength and steelwork to assist both elf and man alike, giving the orcs another incorrect title as turncloaks among the elves.

A stalemate became apparent as the elves matched on the capital of the human realms, then called Filigram. This battle was bloody and was meant to crush the humans once and for all, but the elves were thwarted and a treaty was signed. Humans and elves always held slight resentments toward one another, but they eventually came to intermingle in large cosmopolitan city states. Humans and elves intermingled and even interbred, gifting humans with elf blood overtime the ability to cast spells.

Pockets of elves and humans live outside the protections of the massive new walls.
The deep forest elves live Isolated deep in the ripvine forest.
The humans had tribes of larger Than average people who made their home in what used to be Dwarven land, conquered and held for centuries.
 
This planet of beautiful and diverse creatures is now at peace, with only minor battles between city states.