Regarding the conflicts between elves and humansA brief excerpt from the book Unlike the goblins and elves, us humans are born of mortal stock. Although the remains of our mortal husks may return to nourish the earth, our spirits live on even after death - much like the stunted folk with whom we share many of our customs and beliefs regarding the dead.
In human society, proper respects paid to the dead are also indications of piety and humans believe that such actions will result in the spirits conferring their ancestral blessings upon their mortal descendants, helping to steer them away from misfortune. Failing to properly venerate your ancestors results in the opposite - the cursing of the living with misfortune and misery. Because of this belief, the humans greatly revere their dead, building grand tombs to honor their dead, such as-
These tombs were erected to honor their fallen brethren, and humans do not take kindly to having their dead brethren defiled or even eaten before they could even pay proper respects. Such forlorn souls are cutoff from their proper place in the afterlife and are condemned to an eternity of wandering, unless they are properly memorialized. But most importantly, proper veneration of the dead is essential so that the dead remain dead and have no cause to haunt the living. Improper burials and the like cause great problems as the forlorn spirits have a propensity to negatively influence the lives of the yet living in a great number of different ways.
It is no wonder that the humans of The Heroic Kingdom have been quite aghast at the conduct of their neighbors, the elves of The Skunk of Speaking. As of this writing, their current ruler - a fellow called Rosmic Alliedfire, has ruled from Campdashed as lord since 156. Rosmic has taken up the anti-elf stance that has been propagated since the wars of 48, having since killed 6 elves with his own hands in The Hills of Twinkling.
This was not always the case though. Given proper segregation, the separate ways of elves and of men should nary interfere with each other. Alas, it was not to be. As I recall, it all started in 48, when the elves began the wanton expansion of their territories northwestwards, occupying all the lands south of the streams that flowed into The Lake of Amazements. Shortly afterwards, the elves began to expand further north, occupying lands north of the great lake, bringing them into direct contact with the humans of the heroic kingdom.
There are few remaining today that remember how the war began, but all surviving accounts point to a dispute over the the elvish custom of devouring the bodies of sapient beings that sparked the conflict that was "The War of Disembowelment"
I should know, I was there.
Shortly after these events, I joined the Laborious Mines and was inducted into the teachings of Indur the Insightful Tome, where I was able to learn the secrets of life and death. With that, my life as a ignorant human was put behind me, and I removed myself to Inchedfaction to devote myself to study the dark mysteries of the afterlife. Still, I had not completely put my past life behind me, as I continued to keep tabs on the growing conflict that had engulfed The Heroic Kingdom.
The conflict continued to rage on and off over the years,
eventually culminating in the takeover of several elvish sites in 136, the slaying of their high council of elven rulers and the enslavement and subsequent integration of elf prisoners into human society.
A new elven queen, Ririli Willglimmer, was chosen for her diplomatic ability and her more "positive outlook" towards the humans. Thus the great human and elf wars were ended, but not quite.
The humans enacted vengeance by proceeding to construct their own temples on these conquered elvish lands.
And to add insult to injury, they then built their own catacombs to house their own dead under these temples.
Eventually, many of the former elvish prisoners would relocate to these catacombs, driven to banditry in order to eke out a living under human law.
The humans and elves have since sat at peace to this day, though relations have been tenuous at best, and a spark of hostility might one day renew the flame of conflict and once again engulf both civilizations in the furnace of war.
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