Elves

Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace, present on Traversus since times unrecorded. They live in places of ethereal beauty or industry, in the midst of ancient forests or in gleaming cities. Elves often develop favour for nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world.

## Slender and Graceful

With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are taller than humans on average, ranging from a little under 6 foot to almost 7. They are more slender than humans, weighing only 140 to 190 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, and males are only marginally heavier than females.

Elven coloration depends entirely on their phenotype. Their palette 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.

## Timeless Body, Crowded Mind

Elves can live well over 700 years, giving them a broad perspective on events that might trouble the shorter-lived races more deeply. However, all elves are plagued with the eventual biological process of **Severance**; the necessary removal of memory and personality as an elf ages.

The ancient magic gifted to the elves increased their lifespan and granted them their unstable physiology, but did not account for their minds. Thus, an elf can only contain anwhere from 100 to 150 years worth of memories within their brain before they begin to go insane. Thankfully, they were granted the ability to prune these thoughts; effectively deleting them to make room for new ones. It is because of this that an elf may appear to be a completely different individual every century.

## Adaptable Genealogy

All elves are born as simply an ‘elf’, but in the first 18 years of their life, as they reach physical maturity, they absorb the energies around them in a process called 'attunement', which influences their phenotype. Phenotypes differ by both latent magical abilities, as well as appearances, particuarly of the skin. It is said that because the skin is the most outward organ, it is thus the closest to the aura, and thus is the most affected by attunement, gaining a uniqueness depending on circumstances and phenotype.

Those who grow up in the Empire, or other places filled with the devout, become **Sun Elves**. Pigmented of skin and hair, these divine elves are blessed with an affinity for miracles. Their skin glistens slightly in the sun.

Those who attune in proximity with arcane practitioners and magical industry like that found in the Steel Accord become **Moon Elves.** Pale with darkened hair, these elves are predisposed to learning and making use of the arcane. Their skin glows faintly under moonlight.

Elves who attune deep in the wilderness or desert become **Wild Elves**, their colourings taking on that of the environment around them, allowing them to blend in with the natural surroundings. When they are near a biome similiar to the one they are attuned to, their skin can feel like bark, moss, snow or sand depending on the location.

Elves who attune on a shoreline or beneath the sea become **Sea Elves.** They take on blues and purples in their pigmentation, and grow gills and webbed fingers and toes. Their skin has scales like that of a fish.

Elves that dwell beneath the earth in the So-Below become **Dark Elves**. Their skin ranges from black to grey to purple, their hair grows white or grey, and their eyes are typically white, black or red. When exposed to sunlight, their skin slightly dries and cracks, and their vision is slightly obscured. When within pure darkness, their vision is perfect, and their skin feels slick and oily.

An elf may not absorb enough of the energy of their surroundings, or perhaps they move around a lot in their youth, never attaching to a particular place and thus never completing attunement. These elves become the elusive and volatile **Eladrin.** They can appear to have any of the traits previously described, or none, depending on the nature of their attunement.

Were an elf to ever change their ways, and migrate to a new area (common, due to their long life spans), it is not unheard of that the phenotype may change due to the new attunement, although this can take centuries.

The world of Traversus is large, and there are sure to be many undiscovered subrace of elves that are as of yet undiscovered.

 Moon Elf
 Wild Elf
 Sea Elf
 Dark Elf (Drow)
 True Elves (Eladrin)