The House rules
There has always been a cult of Greenscale, though it was not always called House Aelfwar. Once, the name Aelfwar stood for the eternal devotion and untarnished honor of the High Elven royal house. But when Shyla Starhearth led the Elven people to fight in the Mathosian Civil War, Prince Hylas of Aelfwar stayed behind with his court, refusing to meddle in the affairs of men.
Shyla died in Mathosia and returned as an Ascended to find House Aelfwar… changed. Their devotion to the wild had grown fanatical, making enemies of the Mathosians and Dwarves. That the Ascended were blessed by Tavril meant nothing to the Aelfwar, whose new god represented Life at its fiercest and most uncompromising—Greenscale.
Today, House Aelfwar is an army of heretical thugs and seditionists who hate civilization where once they loved nature. They embrace unbridled strength and savagery, and with every move they work to spread the primeval forest and free their overlord.
A difference of opinion
When the Mathosian Civil War began, the lovers found themselves divided for the first time, if only by politics. Shyla argued that the Elves had to side with Zareph for the good of all Telara, while Hylas would not endanger their charge over the wilds to meddle in the affairs of men. Unable to convince him, Shyla led her followers to join the Mathosian rebels, leaving her dear prince behind.
None could stand before the hideous magic Aedraxis released at the climax of the war, not even a cleric of Shyla’s experience and skill. Shyla, Priestess of Tavril, died that day, and Shyla, Pentarch of the Vigil, arose as one of the first Guardians. Along with Cyril Kalmar and Borrin of the Dwarves, she helped keep Regulos from total victory, and returned to her homelands leading those High Elves who had also ascended.
Rushing into Hylas’s arms, Shyla found them… cold. While others might take their beloved’s wholesome return from the grave as a miracle, Hylas seemed alternately sickened by and jealous of Shyla’s Ascended status.
Eternity torn
Once more the two lovers clashed over the fate of their people. While Shyla fought for the Elves to officially join the Guardians, Hylas maintained that a Mathosian war had all but ruined Telara. He would not follow a Mathosian before, and he certainly never would now.
Where before their debate seemed like two lovers and friends in a lively discourse, this second engagement turned bitter, entirely on Hylas’s side. He questioned Shyla’s integrity, her fidelity (in more ways than one), even whether it was the gods who returned her to life. Still, Shyla loved him, forgave his grandstanding as rhetoric, and remained loyal, though he no longer visited, or even smiled upon her.
Then without warning, Prince Hylas took his entire royal clan, House Aelfwar, and holed up in their ancestral castle, allowing no visitors. Shortly thereafter, he informed Shyla by messenger that their “association” was no longer advantageous to the Elven people, and so he felt no need to maintain pretenses.
Pity not the Pentarch
To say that Shyla’s heart broke would be like calling a toppled tower “cracked.” Nonetheless, without further opposition, Shyla officially joined the remaining High Elves to the new-formed Guardians. For the Guardians, she has been a pillar of strength, a rallying point for Telara’s scattered Elves, never wavering against any enemy, even the forces of House Aelfwar. She fears she must stand against Hylas, and that the rampant spread of Life Rifts has something to do with him.
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