When the seasons shift and grow cold, when summer turns to autumn and the nights grow long, the elves, hidden in their forest dwellings, speak of their histories. They tell the old stories; tales of the people, their hardships, their triumphs, and their losses. They speak of the old gods and of the beginning. They remember the shadows of things lost as the firelight dances and the whispers of the trees grow still, quiet in mourning for that which was believed lost. Yes, even to elves there are those that have passed into prologue. In those silent places where darkness and light blend, the legends of the Delombre remain; a people of the heartlands - more ancient than any human and gone from this world, trapped within the Shadowgate (or so it is said).

And yet some humans carry the tales. Stories of these lost people, told by the Umbraga clans as they traverse the veil of night, stepping into the darkness between the stars. An oral tradition carries a remembrance of this tragedy, regarding the elves of the gloaming. Around their fires and protected by the circle of their brightly colored wagons, the nomads sing songs of a people once beloved of the moon who fell to the shadow, a people who have suffered and have been changed by the suffering. The Umbraga's tales speak of a twisting of the elf kin, of a sapping of the spirit by the Shadowfell, sinking first to apathy and then despair, of ever-escalating acts in a drive to feel, spiraling ever more dangerous and dark in nature.

Mutated by the perils of the Shadowfell and subjected to hideous experiments at the hands of the Shadovar empire, the Delombre see themselves now as abominations: haunted beshadowed reflections of their former selves. Suffused with the deleterious, ever present phobos of the void, these poor souls occupy a curious place in the multiverse, at once apathetic, nihilistic, and self-destructive beings devoid of emotion. But so too are they hopeful creatures, desirous of joy without ever reaching those heights, with tales of their elven ancestry reminding them that it has not always been so. And thus, the dichotomy of the people of the gloaming is forged, indulging in a near-uncontrollable impulse to experience new sensations, each grander and more lavish than the next as they seek to overcome the dulling of their soul.

Generations of isolation within the shadows have irrevocably changed the Delombre, leaving them a muted facsimile of their elven kin. Their beauty, once glorious to behold, has become a fleeting, faded thing.

Physically, the Delombre appear as slender elven figures, though unusually tall for their kin, cresting an average of six feet in height. Without exception, their hair leans towards white, though platinum, silver and muted golden shades have been known, and their eyes are of a uniform yellow, glowing from within with the lambent gleam of a night race's superior dark vision. Their skin is corpse pale, though has been known to exhibit changes from a jaundiced yellow, through cadaver grays and bone white, as though all color were bleached from their very being. Their features are fair, patrician, and sharp as a knife's edge. All of these characteristics lead to an aesthetic that could charitably be considered unsettling, but still, they are unquestionably elven.

As mutated elves, the Delombre have developed a curious methodology of camouflage; The shadows are filled with undeath and the necromancers who control them. To this end, the race have developed the ability to disguise themselves as the unliving, blending in with the wandering hordes. This skill that has allowed them to largely escape the attention of the Shadovar empire.

As thrill seeking savants of the greatest degree, the Delombre prove themselves to be less than worried with the minutiae of deliberate study; within their fell home, they may have to fight or flee at any moment. To such ends, they are not known for such intricate callings as those of the mind or the quill. Instead, they find that the callings of a divine nature speaks to them, seeking an outside source to placate their inner turmoil. The same too can be said of those martial studies, pitting themselves physically against the world and taking risks likely to see them harmed. The role of the pacted or the one of the seers also can be tantalizing, where the unexplained mysteries or whims of others may cause them to experience things they might otherwise not.

The Delombre are not inherently of the dark. As if to shun their misfortune, they balance themselves curiously within the twilight, with each leaning towards the light or the darkness as the enigmatic moral tides draw them. For a creature adapted to the shadow as it has been however, Ashra's call is tempting, leaving the Delombre on the moral knife edge with the potential for thrill that this may offer.

And yet, they still hope. They sing dirges for the lost, and in their spell songs lies the prayer that one day they will leave the hellscape they have been trapped in to rejoin their people.

Until that day, they view the world through an apathetic screen. They cultivate beauty around them as a reminder, even within the twisted shadow. It is a macabre sensibility though, where the tenderness of the black rose petals are just as celebrated as the painful thorns lurking beneath. Such a culture devotes itself to curious aspects: a deep maudlin philosophy with an unending ennui that tempts this once great people to a preternatural series of obsessions.

The Delombre remember their past; they were elven once. Now, however, they are not of those people. They still hope for their salvation, though, and because of this, they seek to maintain what it is to be elven in every whispered breath.

To these ends, they preserve their history. Through word and deed, they try with all they are to be of the people, to hold onto what vestiges remain. The Shadowfell has a peculiar way of muting or dulling all things; the way of the gloom is grim, harsh, and unforgiving. With the deadening comes the fugue and with the fugue comes loss: thoughts can become sluggish, as fleeting as sensation. Through long experience, the Delombre have come to recognize that they may only retain their hopes and dreams via extremes, often taking the form of self flagellation. Branding, tattoos, piercings, and mutilation are common in their culture, as the physical pain aids them in remembering who and what they were meant to be.

Delombre society is as sombre as they are themselves, with great stock given to the ancient ones among their kin. They have the oldest memories and they know best the stories of the times before the gloaming.

The Delombre's settlements are lead by mystics; ancients who maintain their memories through perpetual sensation, be that self mutilation, binding themselves with barbed wire circlets, or through piercings and flagellation. These elders are often those who pray the divine, those pacted to powerful entities that promise sensation, or to the druids. It is said the Delombre harbor the upmost respect for the latter as they have adapted, learning to commune with the strange nature of the Shadowfell.

The elders are preserved and venerated by the Elite Guard: Delombre warriors who have proven themselves stalwart figures in the community, and able to present a mental fortitude that allows them to retain much of themselves against the fugue. It is also left to these elites to bear the dead and to set them to their final rest before they are able to rise as the undead.

The three houses of the city of Delombre are long established, maintained from when the Delombre themselves came to the Shadowfell in the time of the ShadowGate's sealing of Kismet. These houses are named after the venerated animal totems: Loup'Delanuit the wolf, Delombre'Corbeau the raven, and Mortalis'Morcego the bat. At any one time, the elder council will contain one member of each house, thus each family gains an equal say in all matters.

Loup'Delanuit: (The House of Death) This house includes the mortuary keepers, the hunters, fighters, and those who protect the community, whether it be by visiting death on their enemies or providing food for the collective. It is suspected that this bloodline split from Corbeau when aberrant forces mutated their blood, engendering a diverse series of additional curses upon them, not least of which being lycanthropy. The elder is a powerful born werewolf, and rumour suggests he commands the beasts of the surrounding forests. There may be validity to this, as he is a powerful druid said to be able to assume the form of a ruby-tinged shadow dragon.

Delombre'Corbeau: (The House of Memory) They are the lore-keepers, the clergy, the mystics and guardians of history. The reports are unclear, but it is suspected that the elder is old enough to have remembered the coming of the Delombre to the Shadowfell. Rumours circulate that this mysterious figure is a baelnorn, but if this were true, it suggests dark tidings for the people of the gloaming as Nilith now holds dominion over all undeath. (The Elder Corbeau is not in actuality a baelnorn, but is so ancient and suffused with the energies of the Shadowfell that if she leaves or is shielded from the sustenance of the void, she will die. This implies that the Delombre are all but immortal so long as they don't leave the Shadowfell after their natural life ends.)

Mortalis'Morcego: (The House of Life) This house includes the crafters, farmers, midwives, healers, and artists. Their elder, once of the wood elves of Tharis Forest, may be the most vitriolic towards the Shadovar for the agonies levied against the Delombre.

There are whispers of a fourth house, one of abominations from the discarded fugue. Named Phlaigith'Phantasm, these outcasts are those who have given over to their darker instincts and have erected a fortress of bone on the outskirts of dark forest surrounding the Delombre lands, far from the patrols of their own people. This keep, of the same name, borders the mists and it is said that the Umbraga have horror stories of their sojourns to the mistlands where the fog itself quakes with the dancing shadows of dark adepts and their hoards of unliving servants. It has not been substantiated, though it is believed that these fell creatures are already worshiping the dark gods, allowing themselves to forget who they are, flaying their skin to remove their affiliations and indulging in cannibalism, necromancy, and… worse. (Phlaigith'Phantasm is overseen by a being known to exist in full mortuum, one of the first generation Delombre who was broken by the Shadovar empire. Known as the Leti, this monster tempts those afflicted by the fugue with the promise of undeath, and is believed to be in good standing with Nilith.)

The Delombre do not think of themselves as dark. They do not uphold the evils of Lord Shadow; that deity, especially, they hold in the upmost contempt. What was done to them was in large part orchestrated by the Shadovar of Tenebrosa. A small few, fearful of their inevitable end, have sided with the shades to become grim agents, expendable assassins who no longer even see themselves as elven.

More likely, however, is for the Delombre to follow the paths that would guide them towards their salvation. Lysara is an obvious choice considering their obsession with mortality. Indeed, without knowing it, their cultural identity has many of the qualities that Lysara favours in her devoted. To outsiders, however, these can often be seen as oppressive stoicism intermingled with an abrasive, fatalistic outlook.

Nim'navanon, Cevahir, Velik, Cacia, and the Faceless One are also deities that hold weight for the Delombre. If one has truly given into their fugue of ennui, however, they may already see themselves as one with Ashra.

There is no room for the love of undeath among the Delombre. They fear it instinctually. It is not simply a nightmare but a very real fact that within the gloom, the dead will walk once more if not properly prepared after their hearts beat for the final time. To this end, in spite of their adaptation to blend into the ranks of the unliving, they will not treat with any who employ necromancy openly. The Delombre fear that they, as mutated beings of the Shadowfell, will lose themselves if a necromancer should turn his attention to them. Nothing is more horrific to the people of the gloaming than the loss of self.

In spite of this, some outcasts, those who have fallen to the fugue, have chosen to believe that the undead are kindred; cursed things similar to themselves. They have elected to not only accept but embrace undeath, with the twisted understanding that in death, they will no longer endure the agony of self that is their perpetual suffering.