#Moryann Lore

[author-a-holmes]

Hey!!! Here's a question for the underwing challenge: I really like the detail about Reilly's tattoo from his forest elf heritage! Does it appear over time, or did he get it tattooed on his skin? Do all forest elves get a similar thing? Can it be 'read' by people if they learn the language?

Ah! Thank you! This is actually a very interesting question for me to answer!

Most Forest Elves are born into a clan, and when they come of age they get their family history, and a little of the clan history where it’s relevant to their family, tattooed from shoulder to wrist in written Elven. It can be read by anyone who knows written Forest Elven (which is a distinct dialect from Desert, Plains, or Snow Elven).

The tattoos are formed using a special ink made from plants but the recipe is a closely guarded secret of each individual clan. The colour of the ink alone usually tells other Forest Elves which clan your family comes from, or at least the most recent generations.

It doesn’t appear over time, and it’s usually the head of the family’s responsibility to keep tract of important events and changes, and then inform the clan leader of the changes to the tattoo when the next person in the family is old enough to receive theirs.

Reilly’s, however, are a tiny bit different.

Forest Elves require permission of the clan leader to leave the clan for any reason, the clan is the most important thing, and the Forest Elf clans have grown even more protective since the Desert Elves were massacred several hundred years prior.

This may be a little vague as it’s treading close to spoilers territory but; Reilly’s father asked to leave the clan with his wife and children, and to settle somewhere else, but was denied permission. He chose to do it anyway but this meant that he and his family were considered to have ‘abandoned’ the clan.

Reilly, and his sister Eryn, were no longer considered part of the clan, and therefore not entitled to the tattoo’s detailing the family and clan histories.

Reilly wanted them to honor his fathers memory though, so he created his own using normal black ink. Reilly’s tattoos are in Forest Elven, but they are copies of what he can remember of his fathers tattoos, plus and his own additions. The important things he’s experienced since his parents deaths.

Eryn also chose to have them added, but she only wanted the family history from when they split from the clan, rejecting the clan in the same way the clan refused to accept them.

No forest clan would recognise Reilly’s tattoo’s as coming from a clan.

.... and after writing “clan” that many times, I feel like I need to name some of them, just to make it easier to talk about :D