Alvish

The Alvish, named after the sun of their original homeworld, are a species of sentient ammonia-based ape-like humanoids native to the destroyed moon of Ozalfen, and later their new homeworld of Gozich. The Alvish are the founders and predominant race of the interstellar state known as the Alvish Imperium, and have expanded across hundreds of colonies and star-stations in the core regions of the Spordic galaxy. Boasting a vast and complex unified civilization, the Alvish are the second most-populous race in the galaxy after Humans, and frequently considered the second most-prominent. However, due to their unique biology and isolationist mindset, the Alvish have established only limited contact with most of the galactic races, and their society remains highly secretive and suspicious of outsiders.

The Alvish were nearly wiped out several hundred years ago, falling prey to a malicious, but unknown, entity and suffering their “Eldritch Cataclysm,” also known as the “Howling Chaos.” The Cataclysm destroyed their homeworld Ozalfen and forced the survivors to flee to Gozich, whereupon they sought aggressively to re-establish Alvish civilization. The current Alvish demand for rapid colonial and demographic expansion is a consequence of their near-extinction during the Chaos.

Biology and appearance
Alvish can be easily identified by their upright posture, ape-like features, and especially their large, pointed ears. They evolved on a world rich in ammonia but lacking water: as such their biology evolved in accordance with this chemistry, expressing subtle effects on their physiology. However, despite these differences, the Alvish are remarkably physiologically similar to humans, posing a challenging question for modern xenobiologists.

Physical diversity
The Alvish possess a wide range of eye and hair colors, different facial features, and size discrepancies. They are traditionally subdivided into three races. The Augir, originally describing those Alvish north of the Great Scaly Ridge on Ozalfen, are marked by their naturally bright hair and eye colors, usually a shade of red, green, blue, or yellow. They have been the more prevalent variety of Alvish ever since the Dottish, an Augish ethnicity, colonized the continent of Jelcka on Ozalfen and rapidly expanded their population. The second most-prevalent Alvish are the Gadavir, distinguished by naturally dark eyes and hair, usually in shades of black, brown, or grey. The Gadavi generally originated south of the Great Scaly Ridge.

Finally, the Dalic Alvish inhabited the isolated peninsula of Kaus, and as such were highly distinguished from the mainland varieties. The Dali are identified by bright red or yellowish skin, as well as bright white hair. Their eyes are also normally white, although shades of blue and green are not uncommon.

Society and culture
Alvish society is remarkable for its secrecy and isolation, a sharp contrast to the myriad interconnected human cultures of the galaxy. It has been suggested that their near-extinction during the Chaos imbued this xenophobia into an otherwise normal species: however, Alvish culture is also highly traditional and oriented towards the past. In contrast to humans, Alvish civilization broadly did not undergo centuries of revolutionary upheaval following the onset of industrial society, and their industrial elite instead usually obtained power in top-down coups, or else they peacefully assimilated into old aristocracies. Alvish revolutionary thought normally revolved around either returning to an imagined racially or ethnically-pure past, or returning to an imagined paradise of pre-agricultural statelessness. Furthermore, Alvish society is still strongly influenced by its ancient mythologies, so much so that the old churches still possess much power in the Alvish Imperium, even in most revolutionary or radical communities.

The famed Therian xenobiologist Ozago Zyrmos remarked that “the Alvish are really haunted by their history: as an endeavor it is esteemed even over mathematics or science; it shapes every aspect of their living.” Twenty years after his species first made contact with the Alvish, the Dauvish anthropologist Tamigail Ozudan joked that “the Alvish are obsessed with the past, the Therians are obsessed with the future, and this is why they kill each other.”

Family structures
Beyond its secrecy and adherence to tradition, Alvish society is dominated by various concepts of family unity and blood-centred social bonds. The dominant mode of family is the Valckish Zockensian model, which demands monogamous pairs, or sometimes trios, of adults raising large broods of children. Parent-child and sibling bonds are held in highest regard, and these are also gendered: the father-son and mother-daughter bonds are traditionally held to be more important than their cross-gendered counterparts. This model of family spread rapidly due to the vast economic and cultural power of the Valckish, however other models persist in various communities around Alvia. The Dalic Alvish, for example, are traditionally homosexual, and confine procreation to complex quadrilateral relationships between pairs. Xenobiologists attribute this variation in family structures to the dominant bisexuality of the Alvish.

Mythology
Despite their massive and culturally-dominant mythologies, the Alvish never developed the concept of supernatural deities and do not easily grasp the immaterial spiritualism of other species. Alvish mythologies are largely based in semi-fictionalized histories of great figures, or allegorical tales of fictional creatures, but never has any Alvish society embraced supernatural beliefs. Zyrmos famously described the Alvish as “material-spiritualists,” however many Alvish thinkers have rejected such a term.