The Vaunted are an extremely rare race of humanoids from Southern Harkania. They are the last remnants of a genetic offshoot of the aelven peoples who were bred to be smaller and more human looking than their progenitors.

Notable differences include an increased average height (6'5-7'5), long, thin, pointed ears, elongated fingers and slightly upturned, pointed noses, sharp, delicate chins and thinner, less robust frames. Coloration tends to range from dark tan to deep brown. Hair and eye color also tends to be more virbrant than in humans with intense white-blue or teal eyes, and metallic, irridescent hair.

History

Culture

     The vaunted tend to keep to themselves, albeit within larger pan-human communities. They are in an odd place, culturally. On the one hand, they are extremely ashamed of their aelven heritage, unable to cope with the magnitude of the sins of their fore-fathers. However, in recent years they have realized that human communities in Harkania, largely ignorant of aelven history, are actively fascinated by the past they sought to shun. Some of the Vaunted have begun to act as beacons for aelven knowledge, recalling what little they themselves remember, in the forms of nursery rhymes, half destoyed artifacts etc.

The Vaunted, in this schizophrenic self conception, have little idea how to negotiate the ever-changing world, or understanding what their place is in it. During the rule of the Sylvan Court, half-aelves emphasized their humanity as well as their shared subjugation as a way of forming bonds with their fellow slaves. But since the aelves passed out of living memory it has been hard for others not to note their lesser bretheren's foreigness and difference from human and dwarven stock.

     The Vaunted quickly abandoned the aelven language and learned to speak Sandervaadi and Dwarven. For a time they even abanoned the use of aelven names, preferring to draw their sirnames from Vaunted heroes resulting in common names like Fan-Maris, Fan-Lennic, and Kale-Laris.