Yes, I confess. The Elves of my setting do not really stray all that far from their arrogant stereotype in a lot of popular literature, but in this case at least the presence of the elves is not an admonition of human ambition, but rather an insight into how a people accustomed to hegemony and cultural supremacy can fall behind- badly enough, even, to cause an all-out revolution.

Depicted is a soldier of the Xenon Guard, an elite unit of bodyguards fanatically loyal to the Maenid Emperor alone. They are elves specifically hired from the expatriate community and tasked with lifelong protection of the Emperor's person in exchange for status, wealth, and honor.

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The formidable, insular Maenid Empire, so named after the Maenid Elves that dominate it, is the product of political, military, and magical might that rose to prominence thousands of years ago. The once fractured nations and cultures of the Elves, plagued by internecine warfare, were united by conquest and politics by the discipline and power of the Maenids and liberated from the tyranny of their God-Auspices and their religious cults. This conquest was not without cost- where there were once hundreds of distinct Elven subspecies, there are now only five, the result of centuries of eugenics.

The Maenids brought peace and prosperity to the land, anchored by a monopoly on mana, the raw material which makes all magic possible. In nearly 1,000 years of peace, the Maenids and their allies flourished. To this day, Maenid is a word synonymous with all Elven affairs.

Yet 1,000 years of obstinacy and lethargy have now brought about poverty, overpopulation, starvation, and rife oppression throughout the Empire, realities seldom exposed to anyone outside this insular nation. Secrecy and denial can no longer hide the revolution that is taking place, a massive general revolt in dozens of cities that seems to spread by the day. The Maenid Emperor, Lusitanius II, is a progressive monarch that is willing to push the Maenid Empire into the modern age, but is he too late? Does the Maenid Empire even belong in the world anymore? The solutions to these questions will be steeped in Elven blood.

An age of carnage approaches, and the world is quivering with the thought of what will happen once the 55 million Elves will slake their thirst for each others' blood and turn their baleful gaze upon their neighbors.