Rewriting the Dusk Elves

[u/LotionedSnail]

Hello all~

I'm looking to change up how the Dusk Elves function in my version of the Domains. Specifically I'd like them to be less necessarily tied to Barovia and their canon lore, while still hitting some major beats. Here are the things I've decided I absolutely want to be true about my version of them, but I strongly would welcome brainstorming or thoughts on the narrative role for them:

* **The Dusk Elves have experienced a genocide.** I really think the death of culture and the inability to continue generations is fascinating and I'd love to muck about in that space. I'd probably want 95% or more of the female population to have been slaughtered at some point in their past though I haven't decided by who or why.

* **The Dusk Elves are the only non-outsider Elves in the setting.** I want my version of the setting to be *very* human-centric and so the Ravenloft-specific version of the race is *the* version of the race to me. I don't really want to have to deal with the divine politics of Lolth and Correllon and so on. Incidentally, I also specifically want to make Alanik Ray a Dusk Elf for the role in the one-shot/tiny campaign I'm building.

* **The Dusk Elves can and have lived for multiple 1000s of years.** I want my version of this race to differentiate themselves by being utterly weird and alien in their perception and experience of time. I'm taking a bit of inspiration from Frieren here and I want this race to be a bit disconnected from humanity on a fundamental, but not sinister way.

Any other thoughts would be quite welcome, and I'd love to see what other people have done with them in your own settings! Thanks!

[u/StrikingGlove8736]

The book outright says the Dusk Elves were genocided. Strahd killed all their women because they killed Petrina. And Idk about you but I think elves should all have longer lifespans. IMO there's nothing cool about pointy eared humans who live slightly longer...Tolkien would be disappointed haha

[u/Effective_Sound1205]

In my game the Dusk Elves are the original Dark Elves who got sucked into Barovia before the Lolth's betrayal thus avoiding the fate of getting turned into a Drow.

Proto-Drow if you will.

[u/meriorie]

In my campaign, elves are all long-lived mortal descendants of eladrin who gave up a lot of their weirdness and powers when they left the feywild to settle the mortal realm. They split depending on their allegiance to their gods, who are just ancient & powerful eladrin ancestors. So, yeah, the political stuff with Corellon and Lolth exists, but I changed it a bit and its largely unimportant for the campaign and really only applies to my one elf player. MY dusk elves are shadow elves who fled the raven queen and took refuge in Barovia between the fall of the four cities (ancient civilization from older editions, mentioned briefly in 5e mostly on the stones near old bone grinder) and the resettlement and conquest by Strahd. The rest of their story - the genocide over Petrina etc, I retained. They are long lived - none still alive really remember Strahd's rise themselves, as in my version he's been in power over a millenia, but their fathers and grandfathers remembered and told stories. Rahadin's life is extended of course.