Although mentioned on a few spots in The Fairy Tale REVAMPED, the Secrets of Dyrts goes more into the deep of this. The division between the "Stiffs" and the "Drop-Outs".

In this blog I'd like to go a bit more into the deep of these two "camps"...

The Elves did once live with each other in a kind of harmonious society. It was not that everybody liked all fellow Elves, and yes, even among the Elves there was crime, but overall that was no big deal. During the events of TFTR and TSOD, there are many many Elfish tribes shattered all over the world of Phantasar, on which the stories take place. Most tribes do not even know about the existence of the other tribes and two of them in particular the "Stiffs" and the "Drop-Outs" even hating each other with passion, and using argumentation against each other that is just downright idiotic.

How could a race that always lived in peace end up this way?

Now I am writing this, as I was shocked to realize that how many parallels can be drawn between this "war" on my own fictional world can be drawn with the real world as it is on this very moment, right now. I will not elaborate on the real counterpart in this blog, and I even discourage you to mention it in the comments (face my moderation powers I have over my own pages if you start on that particular topic), but the reason I mention it, is because it shocked me nonetheless. It could never have been my inspiration. The original Dyrt game was released in 2015 after all, and the very first drafts for Dyrt even date back to 2000-2005 or somewhere near those years. And the story is also not completely the same either.

The first big separation came when Captain Quayaro (self-proclaimed "Colonel Quayaro") came to the lands where the Elves lived. He began a genocide trying to wipe all Elves from the world, and he dubbed their land "Delisto", in honor of his son who was murdered as a child. Many Elves were not killed, merely driven away by Quayaro, and these Elves survived their flight due to the powers of the Elves of the First Generation, who were the primary ancestors of the Elfish race, blessed with eternal life and very strong magic powers (Rosetta whom you can meet in Dyrt, and in the Easter Egg Phantasar missions in Star Story, is one of those First Generation Elves). This was the reason the Elves are now shattered all over the world.

Now many Elves who stayed behind in Delisto, managed to hold their ground, resulting in a war against Quayaro that would last for thousands of years. Part of this is explained by King Herondo in TSOD, and by Melody whom you can find in a sidequest in TFTR.

The war eventually came to an end thanks to Weniaria. A girl born out of a human father and an Elfish mother (you can read about her in my free novel: Weniaria) and she thus being a hybrid of both races cared about both, and begin to use her healing powers to cure the wounded and nearly dead ones she found on several battlefields. This got her the praise of the members of both races, but led eventually into her doom, as the two kings of the human kingdoms that now came to be, didn't accept Weniaria's action and hired an assassin to kill her. These kings were killed by both humans and Elves together in retaliation.

Peace never fully came, as the new kings of men were downright determined to resume the war against the Elves. however, they knew the public opinion was against them, so they had to find a sneaky way to make their people believe the Elves were evil monsters.

This would never fully succeed due to the coming of Lord Dzgjymza, those who played Dyrt should know about him. Lord Dzgjymza would eventually create a situation in which both the kingdoms of Delisto and Kokonora would fall, and the humans would forever be divided into small tribes that distrusted the other tribes some of them even falling into the laws of the jungle... Eat or be eaten.

Now neither the Stiffs nor the Drop-Outs really know this, but a small group of Elves watched in horror how the humans completely fell into chaos and despair and vowed to never let that happen. They came up with a plan to make sure that the Elves would always keep up the "harmony" among each other, this to prevent the same chaos that befell men would befall them.

Unfortunately their preaching about harmony would eventually cause more harm than good. Many Elves got struck in fear and they too wanted to make sure chaos should never befall them. The teachings of Harmony quickly were pulled out of their original context, misinterpreted, completely blown out of proportion, and the Harmony quickly transformed into a kind of religion of its own, with the big difference that no Gods were honored in the Harmony. The Elves do have a religion after all that eventually co-existed with the Harmony. Very extremely strict rules soon came into place, and all kinds of freedom, forms of entertainment and even their sense of individual identity got lost. All was for the Harmony... Work hard, make sure you reproduce (in other words get kids) and prepare your body to return it to nature when your time had come.

As soon as those who embraced the Harmony as the salvation, the sole reason the Elves could keep themselves from chaos and despair that way, those who came to resist this entire idea stood up. But they were rejected for their views. Ridiculed. Shouted at, and eventually, driven into exile.
These exiled Elves were henceforth dubbed: The Drop Outs, in order to make it clear they are good-for-nothing, and they were not Elves you wanted to associate yourself with, as nothing but trouble could arise from that, and a threat to the Harmony and all the good it brought.

Completely unorganized, some driven by hate, others by the will to live freely, the Drop-Outs were shattered all over Delisto. A lot of them living as hermits. Others living among the humans in disguise. But as some Drop-Outs could still find each other, some families were still raised in secret, and as a result the Drop-Outs never died out. Sometimes even luring young Elves out of the Harmony communities to sexual intercourse in order to keep their numbers with every passing generation.

It would be thousands of years later, when both the Drop-Outs, who took on their foul name, as a title of honor, and the "Stiffs" as the Drop-Outs called the followers of the Harmony in hate and contempt would actually get to deal with each other again. High Priest Hando Stillor (yes, the same game as in The Fairy Tale REVAMPED) eventually met Laurinn Shadowgirl a young female Drop-Out and together they brought the Drop-Outs out of exile and forged them into a new tribe... The Drop-Out tribe. Thanks to their old instincts to feel the need to cooperate with each other still being intact, the new tribe was a bit shaky at first, but under the wisdom of Hando Stillor in combination with these instincts the Drop-Outs managed to set up their tribe. With Laurinn as their first chief, they found a new pride and companionship. Never would they allow others to dictate how they should live. Hence their motto "Be Yourself", which they call a "dogma", in order to annoy the Stiffs. Problem was though that Laurinn was a bit hot tempered, and Hando Stillor really had a rough time to prevent her from starting a war with the Stiffs. Laurinn would eventually pass on her leadership to the much calmer Dernor Woodlock, and he could keep the Drop-Outs from doing anything ballistic. And so the uneasy peace between the Stiffs and Drop-Outs was there, although both are always alert on the other group. The Drop-Outs were still kept out of villages, temples and all other things Elves should have access to, but Dernor taught them not to care about that, as they had their own village and chapels and all the stuff they needed.

The Stiffs and the Drop-Outs can never be re-united. Both sides of this conflict know this. And even at the time at which Dyrt takes place, it happens quite often a "Stiff" cannot live with the rules the Harmony imprints on them leading to them getting rebellious and moving to the "Drop-Outs", which is basically also how Seelah Gandra in Dyrt will eventually join the Drop-Outs and take on her new identity of Scyndi Scorpio severing the ties with her past and also her entire family (although not mentioned in the game, but in events taking place in novels of mine, her younger sister Seelah Gandra II, would join the Drop-Outs, as well, under the new name Alice Elumi).

The question is what was more harmful. The Drop-Out way of thinking, or the fact that the Stiffs never accepted that the Drop-Outs had an other opinion than they had?