The Neiara are an ancient, forgotten race of elves that were neither exceptional in their pursuits of science nor spirituality in contrast to both of their successors of the Mirara and the Vaathara respectively, and instead, they called upon the wisdom of philosophy and the rejection of the instated caste system of Arethayn. Notably, some of the Neiari people were thought to be like leaders of a perceived clan or family, though there existed no formally recognized government or state that could provide a certain homogeneity among all of their elven people. These elven peoples were far from being a wholly unified race, and oftentimes, their worship of spirits was predicated on these spirits’ ancestral relation to the Neiara such that each bloodline recognized Cephareth that were thought to be like lesser siblings to the same Cephareth that the Arethara strove to emulate. Thus, as the caste system favored these supposedly greater ancestor spirits, worship of other Cephareth fell out of favor in the eyes of the law and was eventually outlawed by the theocratic authorities of Arethayn, otherwise known as the Elefyr.

In ages past, the elven people who would come to recognize themselves as the Neiara fled Arethayn, the mythical homeland of the elves, to begin a new era of peace and prosperity where elves lived freely and not bound to any caste system, the reason for their departure being the persecution of those who refused to bow before either the purest of the Arethara or emulate the greater Cephareth. Those purest of the Arethara were known as the Elefyr, and as they had achieved apotheosis through the preservation of Caelarkhe and the emulation of the greater ancestor spirits, they had become the icons to be worshipped throughout the land of Arethayn.

As the Elefyr had become regarded as the chosen of the original Cephareth, it was stated by these new rulers that the Cephareth had abandoned the ancestors of those who would become the Neiara. The schism between the Neiara and the Arethara was furthermore revealed as they both inhabited Arethayn alongside the other, and as they entered into an era of conflict with the Arethara, the Arethara eventually ousted them from the elven homeland, instigating a diaspora of the Neiari people. Thus, many of the Neiara entered the lands to the west of Arethayn, in time calling this land of mortality Driayn.

Unlike the sophisticated and unified Arethara, the Neiara were thought to possess the egalitarian nature of the Cephareth of ages past. These beings of magical form instead aimed to live in a society where none of their people reigned supreme to the others of their culture, believing that all elves were of significance and importance as they belonged to an echelon of elves that were thought by the Elefyr of Arethayn to be inferior, as descendants of the lesser of the ancestral gods of the Cephareth. This society of theirs thus emulated instead ancestor spirits that yet were distinguished by their relation to the individuals who constituted the modern Neiara, though there not being a centralized form of power and authority that could provide a homogeneity to their people, their customs, and their religious beliefs. Accordingly, the Neiara were not united through any means, only sharing a collective disregard for the worship of the Elefyr of Arethayn.

Though these of the Neiara were not united through a centralized government, there nonetheless existed a kind of clan system that allowed for an extended family to unite and face the trials of the world with greater prowess and ability. This system would, eventually, manifest in both of their racial progeny’s governance over the land which they would come to recognize as their own, there being disparate groups that were united either through blood, familiarity, or otherwise. However, Neiari clans were instead predicated on their leader’s circumstance of being a reincarnation of a worshipped ancestor among their acknowledged Cephareth and thus, the leader was thought to be a religious icon who could commune directly with the divine. This individual was believed to stand at the threshold between the divine world of spirits and the material incarnation of the same spirits, and their word was accordingly maintained as a code to be shared throughout the clan of which they belonged to.

The Cephareth who they worshipped were as varied as their Neiari descendants would become, and as they lacked a greater, overarching body of worship throughout their people, these ancestors spirits that they acknowledged were composed of a rather large swathe that yet included only their ancestors. Notably, they worshipped these ancestors in their elven forms, a significant and defining departure from the other elven peoples who had been led away from Arethayn. As this was the case, there were many statuettes and effigies of these ancestors, and they were often marked by such beautification so that their being could be sought after in their own lives. In possessing a reverence for their elven, humanoid forms, they recognized them also as spirits that could manifest in as a humanoid being, though often, they were believed to instead incarnate into a descendant and assuming their form instead. This would form the shared foundation of the Neiari culture, where religious leaders were thought to be incarnations of these Cephareth.

As an elven race, the members of the Neiara practiced magic and sorcery as attained through the gifts of their ancestors, and they thought of any who could not perform such feats that they were lesser in ability and potential. Furthermore, it was believed that intelligence enabled the practice of such arcane arts, and so they maintained that their people were capable of an intelligence lacking in other beings of the world. Accordingly, this often translated into believing that the races of man which they lived alongside were inferior to them in intelligence, and often, they were seen as beasts that had to be domesticated and ruled over such that an order might be achieved among them. Though this may have been a shared sentiment among the Neiara, they often chose instead to maintain a privacy from the mannish peoples of this land, and did not associate with them except through their close proximity and occasional enslavement so that the Neiara could benefit from their labor, though still presenting themselves to men as mysterious entities with great magical ability.

The arts of magic practiced by the Neiara would come to be very diverse, and this furthermore allowed for their two racial progeny to develop their own kind of magic independent from the strictures professed by the Arethara. As this was the case, there existed no limitation to surpass or profanity to achieve, and this granted them a free reign over their practices and abilities that they would come to possess. Thus, there were much more able and apt to discover the intricacies of magic and the ways of the world as dictated by its binding, and they found that there existed many exceptions to this binding. This was in contrast to the Arethara, who professed a fear of the instability that existed from without Arethayn as they sought to organize themselves in agreement with the primordial entity of Caelarkhe, the source of stability and life among creation.

The Neiara, who who would come to contest Caelarkhe as the primordial and primal force of the world, instead believe that there existed the Aya before Caelarkhe, and from the Aya there could be found a pure potentiality that might be realized into anything. Thus, the Neiara naturally transitioned from the worship of their ancestor spirits of the Cephareth to the alpha of the universe, seeking instead to transcend the categorizations of the Arethara in their development of a new kind of being. Accordingly, the Neiara could then become distinct in their being so that both a people that sought after truth and one that practiced worship of even elder spirits than their ancestors could be found.

The Neiari race, which constituted the vast majority of those elves who did not pledge themselves before the ascendant rulers and developing caste system of Arethayn, were known to still possess the golden features which were most reminiscent of the golden light of Soryi blood. These features were still present within the Arethara, as a result of their shared ancestry from the divine Cephareth. The Neiara, who were the first to diverge from the perceived grandiosity and virtue of the Arethara, yet managed to retain most of the characteristics of the Cephareth as the Arethara did, and this being distinguishable from those of the Undara, the Ayenara, and the Silvara, who each came to inhabit within a different form than that presented by the original Cephareth.

Though the Neiara resembled the Cephareth, they were distinguished apart from the Arethara through their possession of a paler shade of gold than the Arethara, and it was professed by the Arethara that this was a result of their descent from lesser Cephareth who did not retain as great of the quantities of the golden light within themselves. Nonetheless, the Neiara also were known for their longevity, being able to survive and flourish to the age of hundreds if not a thousand years, though this circumstance mostly being unknown to the mannish peoples they inhabit alongside.

As an elven race, they are easily recognized as distinct from those of humanity through their sharply pointed ears, and it is this feature that humans recognize and fear as markers of a more supernatural kind of being. These elves are often recognized through their relatively tall stature, though being accompanied by narrow shoulders and hips such that their form is not intimidating. Rather, they are slender and graceful, there not being found much muscularity as they often wield magic rather than the learned arts of the sword and shield.