It’s Midgard Monday! Each week, we visit a corner of the wide world of Midgard. Look for standalone content you can drop into your campaign—whether it’s in Midgard or your own homebrew. Find new inspiration each Midgard Monday!

The Kobold Press Tome of Heroes is full of player options for any 5E D&D game. Several subraces in the book have sidebars describing their place in Midgard. However, some do not!

One subrace missing a Midgard description is the dunewalker elves. These desert dwellers are canny survivors in harsh environments.

They’ve never appeared in any Midgard product . . . but where could you find dunewalker elves if you wanted them in your Midgard game?

Dunewalker Elves in Midgard

In the Southlands, dwell elves that have never known the green shade of the Arbonesse, never seen a tree outside an oasis. The dunewalkers call the scorching sands of both the Crescent and Sarkland deserts their home.

Dunewalker elf communities are small and nomadic. Limited resources spread over a large area make such organization the norm.

Exceptions occur when dunewalker elves settle an oasis, especially one that can be defended due to natural terrain. For example, the settlement of Cyothi sits within the bowl of a hollowed-out mesa, its sides acting like the walls of a fortress. Beneath the mesa is a natural cistern fed by an underground river. The Cyothi family discovered the place and claimed it for their clan, eventually becoming clan leaders and rulers of the oasis.

Gnoll Problem

As they wander the desert, dunewalker scouts keep track of not only locations of food and water sources, but competing and hostile humanoids, predators, and other dangerous inhabitants.

The greatest enemies of dunewalker elves are gnolls, as they directly compete for limited resources. The elves mostly avoid gnoll bands, preferring to avoid conflict undetected. However, when they outnumber the enemy, or when the gnolls pose an imminent threat, the dunewalkers strike swiftly, at range, to end the encounter as quickly as possible. Certain gnoll tribes and dunewalker clans have had ongoing blood feuds for centuries.

Hosting Duties

Dunewalker elves are generally seen as reserved and cool towards outsiders. However, in their culture, the concept of hospitality is of great importance. Should anyone request aid or shelter from dunewalker elves, they feel compelled to oblige.

Hosting guests is a sign of prestige among clans, especially in large numbers. It not only shows a clan’s strength in what they can spare, but is indicative of their honor.

Guests who abuse the dunewalker’s hospitality are treated with contempt, if not outright hostility. However, dunewalker elves who obligate themselves as hosts and then neglect the needs of a guest are subject to derision and ridicule from fellow dunewalkers. Such stains upon honor are long-remembered and difficult to erase from the memory of the culture.

Facts about the Dunewalker Elves of Midgard

• As nomads, dunewalker elves travel light, but with enough of materials to survival. What luxuries they carry are true keepsakes, important family relics, or beloved items. To steal such valuables is a crime second only to heinous acts against the persons of the elves themselves.

• Dunewalker elves have a rich oral history. They cannot weigh themselves down with books and scrolls, so their history and culture are passed orally from one generation to the next through stories, poems, and songs. Every clan member learns and knows various oral works, but some are designated clan historians, whose role is to remember as many oral works as they can, and teach them to those who wish to learn. Such clan members are held in high regard. And yet, a persistent rumor remains that the elves keep a secret library in an old ruin, whose location is known only to the dunewalker elves.

• The Sumdul Ath’onna family leads the White Oryx clan, a tribe of dunewalker elves that travel the southern Crescent Desert, between the Mbazha Mountains and the Fassili Hills. Their name translates as Keepers of the Oasis, and its meaning is not a metaphor. Family members draw on the power of the nearby ley line to bring water from below ground to the surface, providing an oasis wherever the clan may happen to be. These oases must be magically maintained, and dry up within days once the clan moves on.

• Some dunewalker clans of the Crescent Desert trade with the city of Saph-Saph, trading salt harvested from the Kephani Salt Flats for goods found in the markets. It is lucrative, but dangerous, as the gnoll clans that wander the desert between the salt flats and the city watch for the elves, eager to ambush and take their goods.

• Stories circulate about hostilities between a clan of dunewalker elves in the Sarklan desert and travelers in the area. Attacks by the Horned Viper clan have been reported by Tamasheq nomads as well as merchants caravans traveling south past the Hariek Hills to Siwal. At first, these attacks were thought to be banditry, but the elves never pursue. They seem to be driving outsiders away, as if guarding something. Thus far, no one has wished to brave the elves’ arrows to find out what they protect.

---

Get into Midgard with the Midgard Worldbook! This acclaimed campaign setting is rich and deep, with a decade of support from Kobold Press. Want a more focused start? Try the Zobeck Clockwork City Collector’s Edition! This detailed sourcebook gives players plenty of room to run, and includes adventures within the Clockwork City itself!

---