Tzel'toah

Tzel'toah
LIFESPAN:	Effectively Immortal
CONCERNED DEITY (DEITIES):	Tzelgami
ORIGINAL CREATOR(S) / EXPERT(S):	Kerov
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Human height, grey skin, pupilless eyes, assorted hair colors
SPECIAL SKILLS: Shadow Walking, Elemental Control
MISC: I got nothing.

The Tzel'toah are a race that has been hidden from the rest of mainstream society from pretty much the beginning of time, and that's how they like it. A nearly immortal race spawned by Tzelgami, they are humanoid in appearance, with grey skin and pupil less eyes. They appear fragile, mostly because they are.

The tzel'toah live chiefly in a village near an oasis in the desert west of the Shuman Mountains. However, this village is hidden and thus extremely hard to locate normally. It is cloaked by a mirage spell. Sometimes, one can see it clearly, but due to the effects of the desert, it is usually passed off as just a normal mirage, and that's the way the Tzel'toah prefer it.

Tzel'toah means "Shadow Walkers" in their tongue, and that is exactly what they do. They have the ability to blend into the shadows, becoming completely unseen. It is completely like how many ninjas have mastered the art of disappearing in plain sight. Every tzel'toah knows how to do this innately. It helps them mull about the world without revealing themselves. Of course, light makes this ability useless, so most tzel'toah appear to be nocturnal.

Every tzel'toah has an innate control of magic, but it differs from normal understanding of magic in key ways. Each Tzel'toah is born with an element. This element is indicated by several physical features. For example, fire means red eyes and hair, water would mean blue, and so on. Each tzel'toah can either create or destroy his element. Fire-innate Tzel'toah, for example, can create fire out of thin air, or smother flames with nothing but a thought. However, they cannot manipulate any other element, nor can they learn any other magics. They would declare themselves the "masters of one," but they usually don't have a combined ego.

Tzel'toah are effectively immortal. However, as the millenia pass, they eventually lose control of their physical forms and meld into the shadows forever. In additon, the weight of all the years of experiences tend to weigh heavily on the beings, and they tend to forget most of their lives in order to obtain new memories. This spawned their literary tradition, where they write down anything important in the world. Their eyes see far, and many events are recorded in their libraries.

Newborn tzel'toah are rare. If the gestation cycle of high elves is decades, then the birth of a tzel'toah can take upwards of several millenia. This is not something relished by any tzel'toan female, and thus the ranks of the tzel'toah will never be significant enough to ever make them more than just a rare and secretive race.