Elf

General Appearance

With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, ranging from well under 5 feet tall to just over 6 feet. They are more slender than humans, weighing only 100 to 145 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, and males are only marginally heavier than females.

Elves’ coloration encompasses the normal human range and also includes skin in shades of copper, bronze, and almost bluish-white, hair of green or blue, and eyes like pools of liquid gold or silver. Elves have no facial and little body hair. They favour elegant clothing in bright colours, and they enjoy simple yet lovely jewellery.

Racial Attributes

General Attributes

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood⁠ and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.

Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions⁠. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkn⁠ess as if it were dim light. You can’t discern colour in darkne⁠ss⁠, only shades of grey.

Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting⁠ in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Trade Basic and Elvish. Elvish⁠ is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires.

High Elf Attributes

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

Cantrip. You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it.

Extra Language. You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice.

Wood Elf Attributes

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.

Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.

Dark Elf (Drow) Attributes

Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet.

Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

Drow Magic. You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Drow Weapon Training. You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows.

Elven Ethnic Groups

High Elves (Solaran or Lunis)

The high elves of Sulawei (also called the Solaran Elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blond. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Occasionally, a Solaran is born much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-white, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold. These elves are called Lunis elves and are usually sent to the Isarrellen Chancellery to become clerics.

Wood Elves (Wilder)

Wood elves’ skin tends to be copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green. Their hair tends toward browns and blacks, but it is occasionally blond or copper-coloured. Their eyes are green, brown, or hazel.

Dark Elves (Drow)

Drow are generally dark or even onyx skinned, with the occasional darker blues in skin tone. Their hair is uniformly white and their eyes range from white, to golden to purple.

Elven Society

Broad Overview

Elven society is inherently hierarchical with place in the world often decided by birth. Despite their differences, High and Dark elves interact quite often as Dark elves provide a lot of the mineral wealth that the High Elf society relies on to continue. The Wilder have long since detached themselves from High Elf society, preferring to keep to their clan holds and hunting grounds in Selanar and southern Elion. Each Elven nation is led by a royal, either King or Queen and these lines have mostly been hereditary. The days of the Elven Empire led by the line of Iridian (of which Prince Galen / Isarrel was a member) ended as a slow unravelling as the different Elven groups splintered into more isolated groups.

Mechanomancy

A lot of High and Dark elf society relies upon the careful application of Mechanomancy and it's inventions, from elemental driven couriers and the crystal light network to the beautiful blend of nature and magic in the creation of the Elven cities, whether they be in the trees and forests of Sulawei or the massive caverns under the Lierin Valley. It is often said that if you can imagine it, a Mechanomancer can bring it into being. The constant demand for new and improved inventions has meant that the trade between High Elves and Dark Elves has been steady, sometimes this has caused strain in their relations due to one side or the other attempting to get an upper hand in negotiations.

The Wilder

The Wood Elves essentially removed themselves from greater Elven society around 20000 BC with their greatest qualm being the integration of Mechanomancy and what they felt was a perversion of the natural order of things. Despite this disagreement, it isn't uncommon to see Wilder moving around the Elven world, though they will refuse to interact with any Mechanomagical devices while doing so. Several groups within The Wilder have taken it upon themselves to destroy any Mechanomagical devices when they find them and within Selanar it is illegal to own or operate any of these devices. The epitome of Wilder society is The Grand Hunt, an event that takes place every 10 years in which Wood Elves compete to take down the most dangerous creatures they can and then present it in a manner in which the entire beast is used by the people, as such, Alchemy is a popular profession amongst the Wilder, as this allows them to more fully use all parts of any kills.

The Effects of The Return

When the Elves returned after The Cataclysm their world was in shambles. All of the Mechanomagical devices had long since fallen into disrepair, their cities had started to fall to ruin. The death toll was in the tens of thousands for High and Dark elves, Wood elves were slightly less affected with a lower loss of life from being returned into solid objects or in the air above ruined towers or fallen trees.

In the area of jungle in Ilphas that wasn't destroyed by Ord during The Cleansing, the elves that had been living there were surprised to find the Eladrin, who had systematically removed any evidence of their cities and worked to make the jungle even thicker and full of life. The loss of their cities in Ilphas and the sight of so many overgrown ruins there in caused a massive exodus into Elion, causing a strain on the resources of the region.

In the 50 years since The Return, a lot of Mechanomagical inventions have been rebuilt, but the knowledge that was present before The Cleansing far surpassed what the Mechanomancers can currently accomplish and adventurers are often tasked now with hunting the lost ruins and overgrown dens to find blueprints and spell books. The capital city of Taesin in Taerel has been rebuilt, almost to it's glory, though it has taken a lot of work and it hasn't reached the heights of before The Cleansing.

Elves have begun to migrate out to the other continents, though they haven't built any settlements outside of Sulawei, High elves can routinely be found in Luminaire, Wood Elves have been found amongst the crews of the Tabaxi ships, finding new freedom and natural beauty in the seas and jungle islands of the Corind Archipelago and Dark Elves have begun to explore deeper into the Inner Lands, finding new riches, monsters and mysteries.