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Elhan

"Those who stay are the elves. We are the exiled. Let us be remembered by what we left, not what we came to."
— Attributed to Elhan, on the founding of the Cynwäll city

The elf who led the schism out of Quithayran and settled what would, much later, become Cadwallon. Per the PHB: "Elhan and his followers exiled themselves westward to the peninsula." His followers called themselves Cynwäll — "the exiled" — and built the great elven city at the mouth of the Ynkarô and the Leâk Shear rivers. That city stood for centuries before falling to the necromancer Sinlis Mantis and being abandoned in plague. The Cadwë ruins beneath Cadwallon are his.

He is the founder-figure of the entire Ways of Light elven branch. He has no surviving direct line known to Cadwë heraldry. Whether Dyrsin is descended from him, or knew him, or remembers him, are questions Dyrsin has not been asked.

What the PHB Establishes

  • Led the elven exile. When the elven The Three Alliances schism happened, Elhan refused to join either the Daïkinee (Destiny) or the Akkyshan (Darkness) and led his followers westward, away from Quithayran, to the peninsula that is now Lanever
  • The Cynwäll name comes from him. "Cynwäll" means "exiled" — Elhan's followers named themselves for the act of leaving
  • Settled the city. They settled "at the mouth of the Ynkarô and the Leâk Shear" — the two rivers feeding the peninsula's harbor. The Cadwë call the location "where Cadwallon stands now."
  • The city's original name is forgotten. The Cadwës call its ruins the Cynwäll Ruins; the Cynwäll themselves have never publicly used a name for the lost city
  • The city was a thriving trade hub for centuries — "the only place foreign nations could walk Lanever's soil without provoking Cynwäll wrath." Then Sinlis Mantis invaded with the undead, the city fell, plague filled it, and the survivors withdrew

What He Was

The Cynwäll do not share their dead with the Cadwës, so Elhan's biography is what the elves are willing to volunteer plus what archaeology has confirmed:

  • An elf of the schism generation — the moment the three branches separated, he was the one who chose neither side
  • A builder rather than a warlord — the city he founded was a trade city, with no military pretension, even by elven standards
  • Friendly to dragons — the dragon-riding tradition the Cynwäll preserve was Elhan's, inherited from his refusal to side with either the Daïkinee or the Akkyshan but his acceptance of the Light affinity that became the Ways of Light
  • A name that survives among the Cynwäll as something close to "founder-saint" — not religious in the human sense but reverenced in a way humans translate as religious

Why He Still Matters

  • The buried Cynwäll city is his. Every shrew expedition, every Circle survey, every Tractor bore is touching his infrastructure. The Cynwäll consider it sacred. Dyrsin's Tower watches over it for him.
  • The Cynwäll's relationship to Cadwallon is mediated through him. The Cynwäll did not abandon the site by choice — they retreated after the plague. They have never legally acknowledged Cadwë sovereignty over the buried city. Elhan's claim, in some elven sense, still holds.
  • The Mantis line started here. [[Sinlis Mantis|Sinlis]]'s invasion of Elhan's city was the first move of what may be a multi-generational Acheronian project. Feyd Mantis continues it. If Feyd and Sinlis are the same being, then Elhan's enemy is still alive.

The Vanished Line

  • No Cadwë-recognized direct descendant of Elhan is publicly named in Cadwallon. The Cynwäll do not share this information.
  • Dyrsin's lineage is private. He may or may not be of Elhan's blood; he has not said.
  • The Walled Library contains, per the shrews who have reached it, a chamber sealed since before the city's fall. Cynwäll inscriptions on the seal name Elhan. What is inside has never been opened. Dyrsin has not permitted it. He has, on at least one occasion, prevented it.

Relations

  • The Cynwäll — his people; he created the branch
  • The Daïkinee — his cousin branch; the people he left
  • The Akkyshan — his opposing branch; the people he refused
  • Quithayran — his birth-place; he left
  • Cynwäll Ruins / Walled Library — his physical legacy
  • Dyrsin — his (possible) heir, certainly his caretaker
  • Sinlis Mantis (deceased? immortal?) — the necromancer who took his city
  • Feyd Mantis — the Acheronian lord whose connection to Sinlis is unconfirmed; the Mantis line's enmity with Elhan's runs through both

What's in the sealed chamber

The Walled Library's Elhan-sealed chamber contains, according to a single Daïkinee scholarly fragment, Elhan's own writings on the schism — his account of why he led the exile, what he was running from, and what he believed would come after. If this fragment is accurate, the chamber holds the founder-elf's contemporary record of the period the surviving Daïkinee and Akkyshan now contest. The Cynwäll seal it because Elhan's account would not flatter the surviving Cynwäll-Daïkinee-Akkyshan negotiation positions. It might also explain things the Cynwäll genuinely do not want known: why the schism happened, and what the elves were willing to do to prevent or precipitate it. Dyrsin would prefer this chamber stay sealed during his lifetime. If a free league opens it, the diplomatic consequences cascade through all three elven branches and possibly through the Light–Darkness–Destiny axis itself.

Elhan's seal

A free league exploring the Walled Library finds a seal bearing Elhan's name. The seal is genuine and intact. Opening it requires a Cynwäll witness with hereditary standing. The only such witness in Cadwallon is Dyrsin. He will not come down from the Tower. (see Dyrsin hook on getting an audience.)

See Also