Imperial Elves

500 years ago, the elves ruled the Continent with a satin-covered fist. Their empire had stood for thousands of years before the calamity destroyed nearly half the continent and allowed a coordinated rebellion from their slave races to overthrow their empire. Wounded and spiteful, they sit and plot within the gilded halls of the Palace of Whispers to regain their control of the continent. Many elves still remember the empire, and though in decline, the great forest of Lothe’lia still commands quite a bit of power within the world. Generally haughty and xenophobic, most Lumorans only know the elves by reputation. Most found outside of their insular nation are itinerants or secretive agents of the Empress herself.

With skin tones ranging from alabaster to a very light olive, and hair between stark silver and pitch black, with a universally unsettling grace and beauty, the imperious elves stand somewhere around 5’9” and 7’1”, and can live up to 1,000 years.

## Racial Traits

### Standard Racial Traits

* **Ability Score Modifiers**: Elves are nimble, both in body and mind, but their form is frail. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Constitution.
* **Size**: Elves are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* **Base Speed**: Elves have a base speed of 30 feet.
* **Languages**: Elven characters begin play speaking Low Elven (Lumoran Common) and High Elven.

### Other Racial Traits

* **Elven Immunities**: Elves are immune to magic sleep effects and gain a +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells and effects.
* **Keen Senses**: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception checks.
* **Elven Magic**: Elves receive a +2 racial bonus on caster level checks made to overcome spell resistance. In addition, elves receive a +2 racial bonus on Spellcraft skill checks made to identify the properties of magic items.
* **Weapon Familiarity**: Elves are proficient with longbows (including composite longbows), longswords, rapiers, and shortbows (including composite shortbows), and treat any weapon with the word “elven” in its name as a martial weapon.
* **Low-Light Vision**: Elves can see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.

## On Elves

I suppose, for completeness’ sake, I should include a short piece on our own culture. Our histories span back millenia, to a time before the realms of faerie and death were separated. When the realms were split by The Black Lord, (The elvish title of Fal’rist, the Guardian of the Gates) the fae which remained in the material world became elves, while those who went on to faerie became host to the seasons. For a hundred millennia we ruled justly and fairly, building incredible cities and learning all we could about the world. Then, the cataclysm happened, and almost all of that history, all that work, was lost in fire. Two of the lodges survived. The Bright Leaves and Featherlight Blades schools were all that was left. In five hundred years that number has increased to nearly twenty lodges, of all different stripes. For the most part, each is dedicated to maintaining and uncovering our historic cultures, as well as providing dutiful service to our Immortal Empress Illmaril.

We are, due to outstanding prejudice from the cultures of Man, unable to serve as good stewards to the whole region, though that doesn’t prevent us from making the effort, and every prospective Blade serves for a time as a traveler or a diplomat, making inroads and fostering goodwill where we can. As much as the old guard sees the humans as an annoyance, as tools to be manipulated, I fear they’ve begun to play with fire once more.

-Illaria The’inn, Blade of Bright Leaves

*In the interest of conciseness, your Highness, I shall skip the prelude. The elves are a dire threat, true. A necessary one however. Their machinations would see the world plunged into the flames of war once again to feed their imperial ambitions, but that self same desire is what keeps them quiet on our borders. They cannot dare risk anything as long as your kingdom and Ironholme remain at peace, and their diplomats continue to make overtures to either side. It is a dangerous game they’re playing, but the proof of their tampering is exactly what we need to reverse the jaws of this trap they’ve laid for us. Audemar is hungry, certainly, but he’s never once been blind to the threat the elves represent. I implore you to open channels with him, regardless of nobles concerns over their populist rhetoric.*

*Your invisible hand,*

*Silas Haverforth, Vintarum*

## The Last Letter of Lord-Warden Hale's Own Hand

*Your Highness,*

 *The knife-eared scum have slaughtered the logging village of Greenreach. The number dead nears one hundred. I implore you to send a contingent of mages to redress this issue as soon as you can. We repelled them, and avenged the fallen as best we can, but I fear they were only a scouting party.*

*Feyblood Keep will hold, however long it takes.*

*Lord Jericho Hale*