Elves

ElfHumanoid

Elves are a lithe, long-lived people with a strong tradition of art and magic.

After arriving on Riadus, saved from a cataclysm that destroyed their homeworld, elves were forced to adapt to a new home both promising and hostile to them. Elves value discipline, respect, intellect, and beauty, with many elves striving to improve their manners, appearance, and culture. Their studies delve into a level of detail that most shorter-lived peoples find excessive or inefficient. Elves are a very private people, keeping to their family and neighbors and interacting with others out of necessity. They’re slow to build friendships outside their kinsfolk, as elves who spend their lives among shorter-lived peoples often become morose after watching generations of companions age and die.

If you want a character who is magical, mystical, and mysterious, you should play an elf.

You Might…

  • Carefully curate your relationships with people with shorter lifespans.
  • Adopt specialized or obscure interests simply for the sake of mastering them.

Others Probably…

  • Focus on your appearance, either admiring your grace or treating you as if you’re physically fragile.
  • Worry that you privately look down on them, or feel like you’re condescending and aloof.
  • Believe you have otherworldly powers.

Physical Description

While generally shorter than humans, elves possess a fragile grace, accentuated by long features and sharply pointed ears. Their eyes are wide and almond shaped, featuring vibrantly colored irises that make up the entire visible portion of the eye and virtually no discernible pupil. These irises give them an alien look and allow them to see sharply even in very little light.

Elves typically have fair to tan skin with dark brown to black hair and eyes ranging from white to gold. These features tend to change over an elf’s life as they adapt to and adopt traits reflecting their surroundings. An elf who grew up on the coast, for example, may have shimmering blue eyes and fair hair, while one who has lived centuries in south-eastern Reylan may might have dark skin and eyes the color of sand. Elves reach physical adulthood around the age of 30, though they aren’t considered to be fully mature by other elves until closer to the passing of their first century. A typical elf can live to around 600 years old.

Society

The natural patience and dedication of elves make them excellent historians, artists and wizards, and their society is built upon their deep sense of honor and need to maintain harmony and order between each other and the world around them.

Elves place a high value on discipline and self-control, and have evolved a social hierarchy which emphasizes duty and respect while leaving room for individuality and freedom of expression. This hierarchy divides the elven population into multiple, overlapping, social casts, each with its own expectations, duties, rights and privileges.

Beliefs

Elves almost universally revere Triceal who they believe is responsible for bringing them to Riadus. Although they have adopted her ideals of honor and duty directly into their society, most elves do not directly worship Triceal, but instead interact with her clerics who serve the public interest.

Popular Edicts act with honor, accept any challenge, demonstrate your superiority to a rival
Popular Anathema show disrespect to your family or superiors, betray a friend

Adventurers

Elven adventurers are rare, but the few who do seek adventure out of a desire to explore, leaving the safety of their homes to learn about other cultures and foreign magic. Those who are raised in lands populated by other ancestries may find the always changing life of adventure a comfort to stave off loneliness. Elven adventurers can come from all walks of life, but are more frequent among the privileged castes and thus tend to be fighters, bards, clerics or wizards.

Names

Privileged elves, such as members of the nobility or one of the privileged castes, possess both a high and low name. Their high name is the name of their family, and is typically used as both a way to address a specific person and a categorization of all elves of a particular family line. The low name is more personal and is given at birth to the elf by their parents. Elves of the lower castes tend to only have a low name and no high/family name, but there are some lower caste families large enough to have earned a high name.

Sample Names

Aoi, Haru, Hakari, Izumi, Kaede, Kaito, Natsumi, Ren, Shizuka, Sora.

Ethnicities

Elves have only a single ethnicity, but as described earlier may have a varied appearance depending on their environment. These variations are not due to a universal change among a specific population, but an individual change that occurs over the life of an elf.

Ancestry Mechanics

Hit Points

6

Size

Medium

Speed

30 Feet

Ability Boosts

Dexterity
Intelligence
Free

Ability Flaw

Constitution

Languages

Common
Estrali (elven)
Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it’s positive). Choose from Aklo, Disirean, Draconic, Fey, Goblin, Verdantic, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).

Low-Light Vision

You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.