Watching the Elferie

A group of orc bandits, watch over the Elferie¹ of Pointu Oirelle, located in an island in the Osorio river.

The origin of the Elferie of Pointu Orielle was after the creation of the River Guard by the Sargonic king Martin the Conqueror (2234 - 2297 a.a.H.), in which was granted the River Guard the western banks of the Osorio river in a maximum width of 15 miles.

There, to better protect the ancient Five Kingdoms of the Weseuros, the human northwest, from the barbarians of the Barlans: to do so, they issued a prohibition for all the non-humans to live in the western bank of the Osorio, and so they will expel the grey elven population -and other non-humans-.

The original idea was to expel the non-humans to the west, depper in human territories, to live among humans -either in internment camps, in the farmlands under the service of human lords or in elferies-, and while many did so, some grey elves, to escape the prohibition to live in the 15 miles of the western ban of the Osorio granted by Royal Decree to the river guard, but not abandone their farms and properties, they will settle down in a stoney island in the middle of the Osorio river

Not in the River Guard territory, and in principle -but not spirit- following the law, the grey elven settlement will be at first only barely tolerated by the river guard, who time after time requested to the sargonic king permission for them to disperse the settlers.

As the king never said anything in that regard, they made then a prohibition for non-humans to own as well rural property in territory of the River Guard, which forced the grey elven settlers of the stoney island to cultivate and work the lands of the eastern bank of the Osorio.

These farming in the eastern bank of the Osorio will interest the sargonic king, as was seen the probability to strengthen the Barlarian border, using these lands to have a buffer territory between them and the barbarians of El Yermo, and as well a possibility to give a territory to settle down the expelled grey elven populations of the western bank of the Osorio by the river guards and some anti-elven outbursts against some elferies in Sargos.

This will lead to the later fundation of the Principalty of Erenian, and as the kings of Sargos had a protective policy with their grey elven subjects -in part to keep good relations with the High Elven Empire of the Whide Axis-, calling themselvers "Protectors of Elves", the River Guard as well will drop off their initial fanatism against non-humans, as their leaders, depending of the King of Sargos, were removed and somebody closer to the current policy toward elves put in charge.

With the colonization of Erenian, and a re-opening of the western bank with a friendlier River Guard, which still banned rural property for grey elves in the western bank -but not their presence or trade-, the settlement of the stoney island will become a small, prosperous village with two bridges crossing the Osorio river, being a center of trade.

Because of this rising importance, the River Guard will later build a small keep, and will be granted by the king the right to toll the fluvial traffic, using for this a dawnbridge that could block the navigation of the larger ships of the Osorio.

One of the particularities of Pointu Oirelle was that, unlike other Elferies, was largelly a grey elven city, while the minoritary humans and their quarters was in the River Guard Keep of Oirelles Rondes.

The Elferie will prosper until the Second War of the Power, when werewolf elements of the 2nd Mondwargh Legion, the Dark Legion VIII Iron Paw, under the demonic werewolf general Pumori White Fang, sacked and destroyed Pointu Oirelle, massacring and hanging all the survivors.

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1. Elferie is the traditional denomination of the Elf Neighborhood, elf quarter or the part of the human cities where concentrated the housing of the elves. In some cases it was determined by law as the exclusive place of residence of members of that comunity. By extension, the term was applied to any zone inhabited notoriously by elven families.

The Elfieries surged in Northwestern Aels during the Dark Age of Demons, as a result of a conception of a segregated society bassed in ethnic-religious and racial entities, and in the sucessive historical junctures of more or less racial and religious tolerance or of prosecution. The space segregration was as much due the discrimination of the mayoritary comunities (humans), as the wish of the elven comunities to keep their identity.

After 1998 the grey elves of Sargos where forced to live in a walled neighborhood, as consecuence of the slaughter of elves by a marching army of sargonic soldiers against Huncle, during the War of the Clover. The rise of the threat of the demons and the Dark Legion increased anti-elven (and against non-human) attacks all over Aels, and with them, measures of segregation.

Both in the northwestern Aelian human kingdoms and in Uslen, elves where settled on differentiated communities, that had juridical and fiscal personality, may they or not be separated in space.

After the anti-elven revolts of the 2091, caused due the continuation of ancient elven religious practices, numerous grey elves decided to convert to christianity in the northwestern aelian kindgdoms, which will originate a comunity of newly converted christian elves, but who continued to bbe discriminitaed legally and socially. To try to keep apart and limitate the contact between the newly conversed christian elves and the pagan elves, where established measures to issolate the non-christian elves in elferies after the Court of Karentia of 2108, being segregated them in new elferies, many of which will last until the third war of the power.

After the Cataclysm, once more time elfieries where estabished legally in several human cities: they normally where surrounded by walls and their doors where closed at night, being abolished such systems only in the time of the time of the Joaquintopian Wars.

Elferies in Northwestern Aels

The creation of Elferies in the human cities was done in a sporadic way along all the dark age of demons, the middle human age, the second coming of darkness up to the Cataclysm, normally when urban space was reshaped with the new foundations, the destruction and reconstruction of cities.

There have been attempts to estimate the population, both for the total of elves in each kingdom, and of each elferie, but with partial and diverse results.

While there where some large elferies, counting even thousands of inhabitants, most elferies where small, with maybe only ten families or less.

Arquitecture and Urbanism

Normally the houses where of brick, adobe and wood, being the streets paved. Many times they where surrounded by palisades, and by night they where closed and isolated of the rest of the city, being this done by orders of the local autorities and as security measure. However, there weren't few attacks to these elven neighborhoods.

A characteristic of these elven neighborhoods it's the asimety, as the external distribution of the facades and the adaptation to the irregular topografy, which had spectacular effects in the houses. This was due the spontaneous growt of the buildings without planification along many years, as there was a delimited space to be used.

The need of isolation was solved normally by walls or grouping the houses in a compact block, that had only some few accesess, easily to close.