The Elven capitol of Nahreen was a sight to behold even to the most seasoned traveller. Like a mirage it loomed, dreamlike, out of its inhospitable surroundings. Spires of alabaster and gold shimmered against the horizon, the desert sun catching in their flawlessly reflective surfaces, bouncing into the oases that lined the streets. Even the night could not subsume this radiance: ever-cloudless as this part of the world was, the moonrise would lead water, glass and gold all to glitter in a delicate dance through the darkness.

Nahreen would seem like a perfect place to the outside observer, a heaven made real upon the realm. Though while it might have indeed been a many-faceted jewel, the City, like its founders, was more flawed than the casual eye could see…

The Elves had become a self-absorbed kind over time. Their lives, longer than most, were at first dedicated wholeheartedly to knowledge: in the early days, their sages and adventurers were at the frontiers of discovery, striking out into the world, plumbing its depths for arcane secrets. Yet it was not long before they began to despair at what they had found.

While long-lived, Elves were mortal much the same as their human cousins. Like all mortal races, they desired to live forever. One would be forgiven for thinking that a creature that lived for centuries would be at peace with the time they are given, but it is in truth the opposite. Elves have a great deal of time to get used to their lives. They are children for decades, in their prime for perhaps fifty years or more. They grow old gracefully over the course of a century and remain old for even longer. Change is not something that they undergo often, and so the ultimate change - the passage from life into the next world, through death – terrifies them wholly and singularly.

So, at the back of every explorer and every researcher’s mind there lurked that nagging desire and little-by-little, their efforts shifted towards it: the discovery or invention of something – anything – that could bring everlasting life. But wisdom brought no comfort, in the end. The more they learned, the more futile it seemed. Eventually, embittered by the ‘truths’ their best and brightest had brought them, the Elvish populace began to live in wilful ignorance of the world around them. They turned inwards, and dedicated themselves to pleasure-seeking and self-fulfilment.

It was thus that the towers of Nahreen were erected tall and beautiful to reflect their tenants; enchantments woven into every brick on every street corner to prove the intelligence and might of their architects; waters stolen with sorcery, rivers and oases lifted wholesale from elsewhere in the desert as a testament to Elvish bounty of life. It was thus that the common man lost value – for ‘common’ can never be exceptional.

A society built on the principle of vanity.