Torpor

Elari Torpor is the deep and long sleep older Elari enter as a means to retain sanity after thousands or tens of thousands of years of life. This facet of Elari life is normal to their species and they build elaborate plans for many years to prepare for the call of torpor. When they begin to become unstable from the combination of too many memories and experiences, they will have a physiological warning that they must enter torpor. Most do so voluntarily as the warning signs become clear. Occasionally Elari will try to hold off the torpor, by a combination of willpower, magic, and stimulants. This is extremely dangerous as they rapidly become unstable and eventually insane. The brain damage caused by avoiding torpor is most often permanent and even if they eventually succumb to the slumber, they won’t be the same when they awake.

Most Elari create sanctums designed to withstand forced entry, to protect their bodies while their minds recover in torpor, and surround themselves with knowledge they want to retain after they recover. Most commonly memories, details of people, faces, actions performed are the things stolen by torpor. The longer between torpor the more chance of losing valuable knowledge. Elari almost always retain things such as basic language skills, muscle memory, and some level of sorcerous efficacy.

Waking from torpor is itself not unlike waking from a long deep sleep… with a profound confusion on purpose and location. Elari know that in torpor and after emerging from it, they will be incredibly vulnerable, so they spend years, or hundreds of years, forming a sanctum that protects them, and has all of the materials to return them to their former power. Enchanted relics, armor, weapons, grimoires of their most powerful magics, books detailing their enemies and allies (if any), as well as pertinent historical information they may lose during their sleep.

Not all Elari successfully rise from torpor. Those who remained asleep for millennia are known as the Forgotten Ones.