On the other hand, "good" city elves also look out for their community and may engage in small acts of defiance and civil disobedience, such as sheltering runners and sometimes working with the local thieves' guild. Within the alienages, elves learn how to avoid drawing attention to themselves and to keep their heads down for their own safety, and where elven merchants can barter fair prices for their goods. Indeed, elves that manage the funds or connections to live outside the alienage are looked down as "flat-ears" for abandoning their people, especially since they inevitably are forced to return to the alienage's protective walls after being nearly lynched and burned out by their human neighbors. As much as it pens the elves in, an alienage often serves as a sanctuary in keeping prejudiced invaders out and the elven community together. Though the realities of alienage life are harsh, with crime and discrimination a constant reality, the city elves are downtrodden but proud. Sometimes the tree may also be cut down and destroyed against the elves' wishes, as punishment by local rulers. Some alienages, however, have cut their vhenadahl down out of necessity for firewood in a brutal winter, or have simply forgotten its meaning. In Denerim the vhenadahl is arguably the tallest and most vibrant tree in the entire city, and in Val Royeaux, for example, the elves leave offerings of brightly-colored cloth or ribbons at the foot of their tree, while the elves of Kirkwall paint theirs in bold designs. This huge tree, often brightly adorned and lovingly tended by the community against the poverty and slums, serves as a symbol of Arlathan―the first elven homeland―with its roots deep and branches reaching for the sky.
The most striking testaments to this heritage are the presence of a Hahren or "elder" that acts as the unofficial leader of the community and, undoubtedly, the vhenadahl (or, "Tree of the People").
Preparations for a marriage in the Denerim AlienageĪlienages are the only places in human cities where elves can exist in peace among their kind and practice their culture in safety, diminished though it may be.
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