Origins of the Dalaichin Nomads

Originally, they were like any other Drow from the Deep Dark. Centuries ago, they were cursed by Lloth, losing all access to the power of magic. Seen as heretics, their Lloth-favoured cousins chased them out. Finding themselves in a harsh tundra, a surface world which saw them with an equal unkindness as their former brethren, and without the aid of magic, they set about making their way in this new world. They were led by 3 sisters: Sejanus, Garviel, and Tarvitz.

Each inhabited place they came to saw them as enemies, and without magic to speak a common tongue, they were unable to make more than passing attempts at diplomacy. In those dark early days, they were night raiders on the small gatherings of Human and Orc wildlings which make their home in the north. It was not until a bold (or foolish) attempted raid on a Dwarven hold that their fortunes turned.

The Dwarves of Kharad Norn kept watch over the tunnels that led to their home from below, but they almost always expected attacks from the surface. After yet another failed Orcish raid, they sang to victory in their mead hall. When the alarm was raised yet again, it was with surprise that they encountered a poorly armed, near-starving group of Drow. Being on the border of the Deep Dark, they spoke Deep Common. Despite the cultural enmity of their people, Tarvitz was desperate enough to beg mercy and aid, and the Dwarves, both recently cheered by victory and sensing opportunity (the enemy of my enemy), provided.

In the next months, the Nornish Dwarves and the Outcast Drow pooled their knowledge, seeing mutual benefit. The Drow taught the Dwarves about the Deeper Dark and how to plumb its resources safely. The Dwarves taught the Drow of Runic Magic. Sejanus was particularly keen on this new magic. Effectively alchemy, but with a solid product rather than a liquid, it allowed the Drow to create minor magical items. The Dwarves also let the Drow make use of their forges, and their proficiency in metalwork expanded. Garviel set to work creating hunting tools such that she and the others would be able to provide for themselves.

When the time came for the Drow to depart, they did so as friends. This cemented a part of the identity of this fledgling culture, differentiating them from their Deep Dark cousins: a willingness to earnestly and honestly cooperate with others. They also learned a version of the common tongue to better work with those they would find on this surface world.

The Drow struck out into the cold north in Spring, hoping to use their new tools to make a better home. The sunlight still stung their eyes, but they kept looking. More and more, they were fashioning new tools, clothes, and equipment from the animals they hunted and the places they camped. Still, most others did not trust them, so they did not move toward the Kingdom of Eusia to the south. Instead, they moved from place to place, following an Auroch herd and taking kills from it whenever they could manage.

One hunting day in the autumn of the same year saw an immense opportunity. With the crush of winter threatening any day now, the Exiles sought to take as many aurochs as they could. The opportunity was a simple one: a glacier with a massive cleft. If they could force a portion of the herd over the edge, they could trap them, harvesting those who died in the fall and potentially capturing any who survived.

As they lay in wait to spring their ambush, they felt the glacier shift slightly. Concerned but unable to notice any difference, they proceeded to enact their plan. Rune Magic clappers and spark throwers startled the aurochs in the right direction, when suddenly the glacier burst open, a huge ice elemental standing menacingly between the Drow and the herd. For a tense moment, they waited for it to attack, but no assault came.

Unwilling to charge the huge elemental and risk any of their meagre number, the Drow watched achingly as their quarry slipped away. The elemental spoke to them, saying that they had already taken enough from this herd. Garviel proclaimed that without the aid of meat, bone, and hide from these beasts, her people would not survive the winter. The elemental agreed; without aid, they would perish, and then simply vanished.

Dismayed, the hunters returned to camp, prepared to share news of their impending doom. Instead, they found the fire stoked higher than ever, a roaring bonfire, around which human shamans danced. Fire elementals danced in the flame, air elementals ran through the trees, water elementals melted snow into clean water, and earth elementals formed sturdy, low huts around the fire.

Tarik explained to the hunters that these shamans had seen them depart toward the herd, and knew from the fashioned equipment that these Drow had respect for the nature they were living in. He went further, saying how these shamans had agreed to teach the Drow how to survive the winter by working with the elements if they agreed to leave the beasts of the land alone. Seeing no other way forward, Garviel agreed. Sejanus was easy to sway, as working with elementals meant new ways to interact with the magic she so desperately missed.

By the end of the winter, the Drow had learned much about the elementals of the land and came to form close ties with the shamans. It was the head Shaman Falkus who, in passing, gave a new name to these Drow. He had remarked how easily they sailed through this harsh winter, but in his people's private tongue. The word he had called them, Dalaichin, stuck.

The following winter, Garviel's son, Loken, dishonoured his mother. Finding himself old enough now to provide for the Nomads, he sought to procure a rare treat for them all: meat. He struck down an auroch with his javelins and spear, and hauled the beast back on his own, no small task. At the sight of the slain beast, the three sisters knew that the elementals of this land would not heed their call any longer, for the accord had been broken. Loken did not apologize, and instead proclaimed that this way of living on the surface was not possible. Lloth had damned them, and they would all surely perish.

Knowing that they would not survive in this land without elemental aid, too far from the dwarf hold to ask for refuge, and knowing that the south would not accept them, the brothers moved their people to the only place they could: the coast. With the accord already broken, they took as many large animals' lives as they could, fashioning what they needed from their bodies. By the time they reached the ocean, the crafty Nomads had what they needed to get started.

A great Runic ritual was constructed. Without any magical ability among them, it was all based on alchemy and runic magic. To power it, they would have to make a sacrifice of great magnitude. Though Garviel protested dearly, her sisters took their nephew into the ritual, and pleading with the elemental spirits, they sacrificed him. His blood bound a great water elemental and several earth elementals. Together, they formed a tightly knit fleet of vessels wrought of living stone barely large enough to hold all the elves. In her grief, Garviel could not join them, and the last of her that any Dalaichin saw was on that black sand beach in freezing winter holding the still warm body of her boy.

That winter was immensely difficult. On a frozen sea with little cover from the elements, they hunted seals, whales, and fish. Little by little, they expanded their vessels, adding structure and facilities. As if the salt and ice of the sea came together with elemental magic, the stone vessels began to change from stone to crystal.

By the time summer had arrived, life was a little easier. Sejanus tended to the runic devices, carving new runes when needed and iterating on them little by little. Tarvitz coaxed the earth elemental into transmuting animal parts into paltry quantities of metal, which she was eventually able to make into tools. Little by little, piece by piece, the first ship of the Dalaichin Nomads took shape.

Years later, the vessel was no longer made of stone, but of metal and crystal. The buildings upon it were small but efficient, and a proper economy of food, clothes, weapons, tools and the like had formed. Smaller boats were common, and it was common for the Dalaichin to venture forth into the ocean in search of goods to bring back to the ship. With their exotic goods, they often found good trade with Human vessels when they happened upon them. The Humans, for their part, found it difficult to believe that a Drow in furs on a boat in the ocean could be a spy from the Deep Dark, and so were more trusting.

The troubles were not over, however. The water elemental they had bound had demanded a price for its continued service: fresh sacrifices. At first, it was a single soul on the anniversary of Loken's death. Then a soul at each solstice. And then also the equinox. Then it was two each time. The elemental's hunger grew and grew, but without its power, the ship would plummet into the ocean, and they would all perish.

After years of this terrible bargain, Sejanus made a breakthrough. Perhaps because they were so far away from any other people, and none amongst them were using the magic in the area to cast spells, the place around their ship was always engorged with mana. Using runic magic, as well as a prototype cobbled together by Tarvitz, she was able to capture mana from the very air and condense it into a tiny crystal. The crystal grew as mana agglutinated to it. It would prove to be revolutionary for Dalaichin culture.

The crystals grew fast enough to appease the elemental's hunger and accumulate a small supply of the valuable resource. Eventually, Sejanus found a way to summon a new elemental using only the crystals, and the Devourer was sent back to the plane of Water, full of the energy of a hundred souls.

It is from there that the story goes. After centuries of expansion, the original vessel remains in the North Ocean, home to Five thousand elves. This Mother Ship serves as the base for all the other Crystal Ships, of which there are 3 known to the world, each holding one thousand souls. They still fish and hunt, but their days of survival by the skin of their teeth are behind them. Shrewd in the ways of Runic Magic, Elemental bargaining, and the art of crafting, they sell their wares and make a good profit doing so.