Independent Spirit (EoA)

== Independent Spirit ==
The elves of Athas possess a great love of personal free- dom and a driving need to remain independent and self- sufficient. While few elves would willingly trade away their tribal bonds, all experience a need to be alone regu- larly to prove their individual worth. It is not uncommon for an elf to disappear for weeks or even years at a time when the wanderlust grips her. Besides seeking new joys in every now, she will seek new challenges to test her met- tle. Such tests may even include joining up with adven- turers for a time to face the dangers of the burning world. At no time is an elf more independent and the need for self-reliance so great as when an elf travels among non- elves.
Elven ritual dancers and element singers believe that this fierce independence comes from the elves commu- nion with the wilderness. There are no walls in the desert that can long stand against the driving winds and smoth- ering sands. The wind goes where it wants to go, and it has taught the elves to do the same. The wind is like the tribe, the sand like individual elves. Usually the wind car- ries the group in the same direction, but sometimes indi- vidual grains will drift away to follow a different breeze. Eventually, if they are able, the grains will return, but until then they are on their own.
An elf needs wide open spaces. She must be able to run across the horizon, to feel the sun on her skin and the wind in her hair. She needs to see the sky and touch the ground. For this reason, most elves do not last when forced into slavery. The wastes have made the elves a claustrophobic people. They dislike walls and hate the feel of bindings, which inhibits their ability to run.
If an elf is captured, he will spend his initial days in captivity seeking a way to escape. The need to run free burns in his heart, keeping him focused on the now and ever alert for some opening to exploit. Once an elf gives in to despair and loses his hope of freedom, he succumbs to the rigors of slave life and dies.
Do not think that this love of freedom extends to out- siders, however. Elves are only concerned with their own freedom and the freedom of their tribe mates. They will not go out of their way to set other slaves free. Unless there is some hope of personal gain involved, an elf will simply leave an outsider to find his own way out. After all, if the elf could escape, then anyone who is his equal should be able to escape, too.
== Elves and Love ==
Their independent spirits allow elves to love freely. Elven love comes with no obligations or promises beyond the now. This does not make elven love less intense or less real than the love exhibited by other races. On the con- trary, like other elven emotions, love is unrestrained and overflowing. Elves do nothing halfway. When they com- mit to love, they commit fully and completely, with every fiber of their wild souls. However, because they refuse to think or plan beyond the now, their love can be over in an instant. It lasts for as many nows as it lasts, then it ends with no regrets or compromises.
Elves readily fall in love with members of their own tribe, elves from other tribes, and even with humansit all depends on whether the spark fly. (Rumors of elf and
halfling dalliances have yet to be confirmed.) When the sparks do fly, the love that follows burns like the sun itself, with heat and passion. But elves cannot stand to be tied down with obligations any more than they can endure being bound with ropes and chains. Elven love does not come with any guarantees or promises other than those of the moment. For the now, an elf loves fully and without restraint. Who knows what the next now will bring? Cer- tainly not the elf, who cannot contemplate the future the same way members of other races can.
== Madness and Elves ==
Two types of madness often strike at elves, shattering their fine minds and breaking their soaring spirits. The first type of madness appears in most elves at one time or another. This is the madness brought on by confinement, crowds, or enclosed spaces due to an elfs natural claus- trophobia. This madness is rarely disabling. Instead, it causes depression, mild panic attacks, or even moderate physical discomfort. In rare cases, it can cause elves to be gripped by such an intense panic as to become nonfunc- tional or to even lash out with wild, frenzied attacks.
The other type of madness usually strikes elves who have lost their tribe through disaster or who have been cast out. If these elves ever lose the ability to focus on the now, longings for the past or for futures that will never be can drive them into a state of depression and insanity. This form of madness often takes a destructive course, leading the elves it inflicts toward a quick, violent end.