Elf

A typical male and female Wood Elf

## Overview

Elves are a long lived race found most commonly in forests, shrublands, and other wildernesses. From time to time the elves have organized strong nations,and sometimes clans even adopt a nomadic lifestyle. Almost all elves worship the Seldarine, otherwise known as the elven pantheon, and the elves are generally, though not always, good in nature. They have been known to worship Gods of the pantheon of Major Deities. Wood Elves are the most common of the elven subraces and are the origin of the stereotypical image of their kind. They are curators of nature and live in harmony with it as best they can.

## Physical Description

Elves stand at average from 5'4" – 6'0" (1.63 – 1.83 meters) and weighing in from 130 – 170 pounds (59 – 77 kg). Usually, true elves are a naturally slender and athletic race. Elves have a similar range of complexions to humans, with wood elves typically coppery or pale skinned and wild elves having darker pigmentations. Often, elven hair is dark, either brown or black, with copper red or blond hair also found amongst wood elves, although orange or even green hues are not completely unheard of. Elven eyes are commonly brown, hazel, or an emerald green. Elves are fair and beautiful, handsome, and have pointed ears and no body hair except eyebrows, eyelashes and hair.

Elves mature at roughly the same rate as humans, though they are not usually considered past adolescence until they reach 110 years of age. Unlike humans, elves do not age dramatically as their lifespan comes to a close, with the most obvious changes being a change in hair color, alternatively graying or darkening. Most elves
remain healthy and full of life up until their death, which, if age-related, is usually between two and nine centuries.

## Psychology

Elves commonly possess strong but swiftly passing passions, moved easily to laughter, anger, or misery and as quickly calmed. Elves are known for their impulsive behavior and, as a result, many races see them as flighty or impetuous. However, elves are not as flaky as others may interpret them to be, and are typically responsible in spite of their almost whimsical nature. Partially due to their long lifespan (though not entirely, since many long-lived races act differently), elves have difficulty taking some matters as seriously as other races, but when threats they recognize *do* arise, elves are strong friends and allies to those they are loyal to.

Elves make strong and uplifting friends. Most elves love simple joys such as dancing, singing, footraces, or contests of skill. Elves find a natural aversion to that which they see as uninteresting tasks and are fun-loving by nature. However, despite how unpleasant some things such as war can be, elves can become grimly serious if a threat to their friends, family, or livelihood makes such actions necessary.

## Culture

Elves are usually found in small tribes throughout the forests of Faerun as well as windswept plains and mountain vales. The elves, as a whole, prefer these secluded places of nature to the cities and nations of the civilized world, living in harmony with their natural surroundings. Cautious and cunning warriors, particularly of the bow, elves secure these homelands through guile and tactics.

The history of the elven race is marked by great empires and a gradual decline and retreat from the mainland Faerûn. The elves first are thought to have come to being from the plane of Faerie more than twenty-five millennia ago. The elves settled into five major civilizations along the west and south of Faerun during this period including along the Sword Coast. All of these realms were gradually destroyed as time pasted and other races expanding their influences on the world. Their once expansive realms have shrunk back in territory and prestige due to the influence and expansion of the younger races, particularly humans. They remain influential, however; much of the shape of Faerun is influenced by conflict between the various subraces of the elves.

### A Culture of Compassion

Although a proud people, wood elves feel that compassion is a greater virtue than strength and wood elven realms are less concerned with expansion than they were with maintaining amiable relations with their neighbors. Wood elves were not nomadic, however, as was common amongst the wild elves and instead they were organized into scattered, carefully concealed villages united under a gerontocratic hierarchy composed of village councils consisting of the most distinguished families' eldest members. These councils were often advised by local druids, whose influence played no small part in wood elven politics and who frequently served as the webbing that bound any number of villages together as one realm.

### Magic and Religion

Elves have a notable disinterest in the arcane arts. To an elf, the wizard's spells are little different from the mason's castle walls or the tiller's plow—a means of controlling the natural world, which was contrary to the common ethic of living in harmony with nature rather than trying to dominate it that so many wood elves espouse. As such, elven adventurers are more likely to take on careers that did not require the use of arcane magic. In particular, many are drawn to the path of the fighter, the ranger, or the rogue, relying on their natural-born skill to overcome obstacles. The one major exception to the elven taboo on arcane magic was the arcane archers, who counted among their number several elves. Other elves from more remote areas are drawn to the ways of the barbarian while many religious wood elves became druids with clerics often seen in much the same light as wizards. Those wood elves who did become clerics might eventually become hierophants.

Wood elves are generally uncomfortable with most forms of magic, viewing wizards and other arcane spellcasters with no small amount of distrust. Clerics and other divine spellcasters fared little better in wood elven eyes, who saw their prayers as a useless call to distant and alien gods. However, wood elves are largely at ease with the ways of the primal magic used by druids, barbarians, shamans, and wardens, which they felt was the truest expression of supernatural power—or rather, a reflection of nature itself, used to protect the wilderness. However, wood elves are not completely adverse to arcane magic and wood elven bards, sorcerers, and wizards were far from unknown, although wood elves as a whole have no particular tradition of the Art.

Elves largely worshiped the Seldarine, but they did not do so exclusively. Solonor, as the god of archery, was perhaps the most popular god amongst the wood elves, who would sometimes invoke him as their protector and patron deity just prior to a battle.

### Art and Leisure

Elves commonly felt that they were in harmony with their natural surroundings and an examination of their art helped to justify this belief. Frequently, elven homes were made of natural fieldstone or carefully furnished wood, but on occasion wood elves were known to do without even these creature comforts, living in the limbs of mighty trees or sheltered caves. So close did wood elven villages resemble their surroundings that humans were occasionally known to wander through one without even noticing. In keeping with their naturalistic inclination, elves are not particularly fine metalworkers and had no interest in developing any such skills. However, elves were among some of the world's finest carpenters and stoneworkers, masters in the crafting of bows and arrows as well as in leather tanning. Elves even developed a number of specialized arrows, including those that flew further than usual as well as some that were used as signal devices. So carefully guarded were elven crafting secrets that even experienced fletchers from other races had difficulty emulating wood elven designs.

While wood elves felt it better to have a minimal impact on their surroundings, the race had no particular aversion to meat-eating and were passionate hunters. Many hours of a typical wood elf's life were spent on the hunt, which was both a practical activity and a pleasurable one. Most of the time that wood elves were not hunting they were enjoying themselves at ease within the highest branches of their forest homes. Wood elves did not, however, commonly keep pets, but instead formed bonds with local wildlife in a manner similar to those of a ranger.

### Race Relations

Although a proud people themselves, elves looked to the examples of the ancient elven empires and, seeing failure after failure, felt that their aim should be compassion and humility, rather than political or military strength. Unlike many of other races, elves feel that their fates were inextricably tied to those of Faerûn's other races and they make no effort to pull away or isolate themselves. Ironically, so reclusive were wood elven settlements that, despite their open nature, wood elves rarely actually saw people from outside their race.

Of all the humanoid races of Faerûn, the ones most familiar with the elves are the humans and dwarves native to the North, who often lived within the vicinity of the fey. Still, few humans or dwarves had ever actually met a wood elf and when they did it was often largely by chance. However, when meetings did occur, they were largely friendly and elves saw themselves as allies and teachers of humanity, rather than as rivals. Elves also had a long tradition of friendship with the shield dwarves of Ammarindar, dating back to the reign of Earlann, which carried on into the present.

Gnomes and halflings were less frequent guests among the wood elves, but they were generally seen favorably. Conversely elves had a strong contempt for orcs, as well as for gnolls, though their reasons were less about the ancient enmity and more out of the devastation that raiding parties often brought to the forests that wood elves held dear.

## Notable Elves

### Notable Elven Individuals

* Sister Garaele, Acolyte in Phandalin to the Goddess Tymora

### Notable Elven Clans

* Clan Lunlae, who Ellaria Nightwood grew up with despite being human