Hullo. Geez, it's only been a day, let a growing boy get some shut eye, will you. lol Don't worry, after tonight I'll be off from work for three days straight. As to answer your questions, here I go:
So I'm interested in making a Malekith, is there any cultural/extra information I should be aware of, or can I just throw stuff at the wall and assume it sticks?
Did you watch Thor The Dark World? Much of the inspiration for the Malekith came from the dark elves from that movie. They are a secluded race, heavily prejudiced and stuck in their ways, and it should be mentioned that the Malekith attempted to invade the whole of Tenna some thousand years ago. They would have succeeded and dominated the land if not for a last ditch combined effort by the eleven nations who, at the time, were not eleven nations but one. The invasion, though eventually repelled, splintered the old united empire, and cast very a deep hatred for the Malekith amongst almost
all of Tenna's populace.
Fortunately, the Malekith almost exclusively used slow moving sky-barges, dispensed from their motherships, of which they had three. Very few ground forces were deployed. No one living today knows what a Malekith looks like underneath their armor, but their armor alone provokes both fear and animosity among those learned folks and older men and women of the land. Their technology, quite obviously, was ahead at least two hundred years beyond anything the Tennan people were capable of producing, and are still producing advanced machinery and engineering works into their flotillas and sky-cities. They derive their valuable crafting materials, sustenance, and whatever else the ground-folk need to live up above the clouds, and possibly beyond. No one stuck on land knows how the Malekith survive up there, but there are theories.
Ten Thousand years ago, a great empire known as the Tanlier stretched across the length of Tenna, and they ruled supreme. Every Tanliern citizen were essentially each a nation unto themselves, demi-gods of unparalleled strength. Their minds would alien to mortal beings such as you or I, and their methods were cruel, and unforgivable. They enslaved the lesser races, and all was but a dreary gray dream until the Power Nine of the future Auralien Empire landed on the southern shores of Tenna. The resulting hundred year war freed the people of Tenna and nearly wiped out the once thought omnipotent Tanlier, except for a few. The Tanlier emperor and his fiercest, most loyal soldiers and vassals escaped in their glorious citadel before the Power Nine ousted them. The citadel was an enormous live-ship (
say Live as in "Live" TV, not Live in "Living"), and they floated into the sky, never to be seen again.
Except, until the Malekith found the Live-Ship, and were changed forever.
I myself have questions of my own. I need information of the kind of magics in Tenna. What fuels the magic and how are spell casted? I have ideas of my own which i will elaborate later. I hope it doesn't contradict with the logic of the world created.
Magic is fueled by one's knowledge, self-worth, and their will. Self worth might sound weird, but the way in which a person in Tenna views themselves and their actions drastically change the outcome of spells and other types of sorcery they intend to use. I'll leave that open ended for you to work around ;)
There are literally hundreds of schools of magic, and there is really nothing you could do to contradict anything. Sorcery is derived from many winds of magic, many schools, many sources, many gods. It's a... Malleable thing, capable of being woven, stretched, bent and broken. New kinds of magic are founded often, but not often without a certain kind of danger attached to it. One must be very careful, because in Tenna, magic can and will kill you if you aren't careful. Many people of Tenna outright fear sorcerers, and sometimes even clerics, for the devastation they are capable of bringing down of the.
Most sorcerer's require an implement to cast. Be it staves, orbs, rods, or wands, without one of these things, they are helpless.
Divine clerics need chimes, bells, tokens of their god, or more commonly a "Holy Symbol" which is a depiction of their religion's holy icon, or an idol of their deity.
Druidic Clerics need only to have a small sample of "Nature" on them. A leaf, an acorn, a tree branch, etc. Though be warned, more powerful druidic spells consume the environment of their health and vitality. You are drawing from the power of the land around you, and overuse can potentially kill the very thing you're trying to protect.
Edit: Excellent character Shinari. I wonder though, for a people so enamored with the sea, hard to believe they'd let themselves get outwitted by it so easily.