The distribution of The Ljosalfar (High Elves) is the most absolute and restricted of any race on Terra. Driven by an ancient, overwhelming belief in their own divine perfection and an intense disgust for industrial pollution, the High Elves have completely ended peaceful contact with other races, even the other Alfar.
The Ljosalfar reside exclusively within immaculate mountaintop citadels and snowbound ivory spires. Here, surrounded by light pathways, solar terrace gardens, and alabaster amphitheaters, the Ljosalfar live entirely removed from the physical realities of the lower realms.
Ljosalfar refuse to set foot in the "filthy" lands of the races beneath them. They view coal smoke, black powder, grease, and ironworks as a terrifying spiritual sickness. To a High Elf, descending into a human city or a Dverga hold is an unbearable pollution of their immortal essence. They do not maintain embassies in surface capitals, nor do they permit surface traders into their sky-holds. The only time the Ljosalfar interact with the lower world is when their floating sanctuaries descend through the cloud layers to channel scorching beams of solar energy onto surface logging camps, strip-mines, and coal-train tracks, incinerating industrial targets before ascending back into the pristine upper sky.
In stark contrast to their airborne Ljosalfar cousins, The Vioalfar (Wood Elves) are anchored to the ancient, primeval forests and deep canopy sanctuaries of Terra.
The Vioalfar reside in massive, suspended tree-cities built into the upper branches of ancient heartwood forests. Using living bio-architecture and powerful "Deep Enchantments," they shape the living wood into homes, walkways, and defensive bowers without ever felling a single tree. Their borders are protected by thick mists, disorienting rot spells, and lethal marksmen, making unguided entry into their woodlands a fatal mistake for outsiders.
While predominantly insular and fiercely defensive of their borders, the Vioalfar are not entirely closed to the outside world. They willingly accept and integrate individuals of other races—primarily non-industrial humans, surface Alfar, and traditionalist Dverga—provided those outsiders demonstrate a genuine reverence for the natural order and reject industrial machinery. The Vioalfar maintain secret trade routes with traditionalist Dverga, trading rare forest resins, heartwood, and medicinal herbs for non-industrial adamantine blades. Any visitor who brings firearms, coal-oil lanterns, or iron saws into Vioalfar territory, however, is executed without hesitation.
Inhabiting the lightless depths of the subterranean world, The Dokkalfar (Dark Elves) possess a demographic distribution that is both deeply anchored to their ancestral abyss and surprisingly far-reaching across the surface world.
The true heart of Dokkalfar civilization is the Obsidian Underreach—a brutal subterranean abyssal realm composed of volcanic glass, toxic thermal vents, and lightless abyssal chasms. Within this hostile domain, the Dokkalfar have constructed silent, highly sophisticated cities powered by micro-engineered, silent clockwork made from obsidian gears and ruby bearings. The Underreach is utterly lethal to uninvited surface races, functioning as a closed, highly competitive meritocracy where weakness is culled and martial pragmatism reigns supreme.
Despite their lightless origin, the Dokkalfar are far from landlocked. Driven by cold pragmatism, trade opportunities, and political espionage, Dokkalfar wanderers, diplomat-assassins, and merchant-brokers frequently travel throughout human kingdoms and Dverga holds. They navigate human cities with quiet confidence. They are highly sought after in surface lands as elite mercenaries, master clockmakers, lock-smiths, and shadow-mages, valued for their sub-second mechanical precision and absolute lack of sentimental bias.
On rare occasions, Dokkalfar travelers are even permitted within the high-canopy territories of the Vioalfar. While the two elven factions share little cultural love, they maintain a mutual respect for stealth, ancient spellcraft, and the preservation of their respective domains against human industrial encroachment. In the dim light beneath the dense forest canopy, Dokkalfar shadow-weavers and Vioalfar scouts occasionally trade specialized clockwork traps, dark alchemy, and regional intelligence, standing as a quiet, lethal reminder that the elder races of Terra, though divided by geography and ideology, remain formidable masters of their domains.