Dark Elves

Dwelling in underground places and generally keeping to themselves, the Thin (common name: Dark Elves) are perhaps the most mysterious and misunderstood of Elven races. They are powerful in moon, star and smoke-based magic, and have a natural affinity for night-dwelling creatures.

Appearence
Dark Elves have sharp facial features, of which a strong, sharp jawline and longer faces are characteristic. Their eyes are often almond shaped and can be catlike or humanoid in appearence, often lacking an iris. Due to their life in mostly darkness, many Dark Elves are naturally blind, but those who can see have excellent night vision and often extremely light-sensitive. Their ears are long and often curved, and they generally have minimal hair, which is often pure white or black but can be shades of blue, dark greens or grey.

Fashion
Due to their limited resources and trading options, Dark Elf fashion is usually in tatters, but some have access to the materials for capes and armour. The richest thing they wear is generally jewellery made with precious metals mined from their caves. They generally don face paints and tattoos that glow in the dim light of their cities, and own more weaponry than other elves.

Culture
The Dark Elves live in five major constituencies: the Northern (primarily Scandinavia), Eastern (primarily Asia and Russia ) Southern (Southern Europe and Africa), Western (the Americas) and Central (Europe). There are smaller groups and sub-groups of Dark Elves around the world, but they tend to follow the beliefs of either their closest constituency, or their own niche and independent beliefs.

Each constituency has their own group of Gods. There is some overlap, but most are unique to their locale's needs. Every constituency has its own patron of genderless elves and patron of female elves.

Naming Conventions
Dark elves are named after the god they are closest to -- eg, a priestess could be named "nii del (female patron she's closest to/speaks for)" and a common enby would be "nii del (patron of enbies)".

Nii del roughly meaning "child belonging to". Dark Elves do not generally receive these names until after their first coming-of-age ritual, when they reach the age of puberty and begin their journey into adulthood. Before this their name suffix is nii del Thain, meaning "child belonging to the Ancestors".

Language
The official language of Dark Elves is ''Sinithin. ''This is an umbrella term that covers the major and minor dialects of all locations, which of course have many differences.

One of the main constants of Sinithin is plural pronouns. Due to the heavy intertwining of personal self and spiritual self, the Thin do not refer to themselves and each other with singular pronouns (I, me, etc) but instead include their Gods, making every pronoun plural (we, us, our, etc).