Elf (Legal)

* *Current Realm and Enneade*: Eternal Suns, Progenitor, Tuat, Atlas, Kess’Aai, Mirrormark, Qedseba and Inet’Saret

#### **Statistics**

**Age**: Elves possess a lifespan of about 750 years. They reach adulthood biologically as fast as humans do, but they are considered adults culturally around 100.

**Characteristics**: Dexterity +2

**Languages***:* Ancient Markish, your home Realm’s language, and Elvish.

**Size**: Elves’ average weight is 45 to 65 kg, and their average height is 1.5 to 2 m. Your size is Medium.

**Speed**: 6 m base walking speed

**Darkvision**: You can see in dim light within 12 m of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

**Keen Senses**: You gain 2 skill points in Perception.

**Fey Aspect**: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.

**Trance**: Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. While you are in this trance, you are in a dream state that you control. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

##### **Garden**

**Characteristics**: Intelligence +1

**Mental Acumen**: You gain four skill points that you can assign in Academics, Arts & Craft, Medicine, or Occult in a manner of your choice.

**Cantrip**: You can cast one cantrip of your choice from the spell list as Soul Mastery.

##### **Wood**

**Characteristics**: Cunning or Composure +1

**Fleet of Foot**: 7 m base walking speed

**Mask of the Wild**: You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.

**Woodland Athleticism**: You gain a climbing speed equal to your movement speed. In addition, you gain one skill point with Athletics.

#### **Appearance**

Isismia, the Enneade of grace and austerity, created the **elves** in her preferred image. Slender, beautiful, with cat-like agility and grace, and a long life to reach maturity and wisdom, they represent their creator's spirit marvelously. Yet, Isismia seldom clad herself in the form of an elf when she came visiting her creation. She favors the ephemeral. The playfulness of a forest stream, the patterns of a flock of birds in flight, or the twinkling blanket of dew on a misty spring morning are forms she has clad herself in the past.

Elves possess the same range of eye color and hair color as humans do, but they can also be born with eye color of spun silver or gold and hair color of vibrant green or blue. On average, they are slightly shorter than humans, more slender, and can display bluish and copper skin tones. They are unable to grow facial hair. The fact that elves enter into a deep trance rather than sleep is quite the unique trait amongst the Enna. The trance is a deep meditation where the elf is still aware of their surroundings but lost inside their own minds. Depending upon the elf’s age, these dreams are usually memories that the elf revisits or experiences repeatedly. Some memories can be conjured up by will, like fond memories of people long lost or knowledge gained long ago. Others are like nightmares that plague the elf over and over again until they reconcile with their past. Sometimes, the memories aren’t even their own, but their Soul's long lost memories of a past life.

#### **Lore**

##### **Childhood**

As elven children are uncommon, they usually grow up with only adult companionship. The elves don't view the birth of a child with as much joy as other races might. The elves are very much aware of the circle of Souls, and they know that through the trance and the elven child's life, they will experience much pain. The spark infused into the babe could have been as serene as part of the World or an Enneade, rather than coalescing into a single living being.

In their childhood, the elven community helps prepare the child for adulthood, taking great care of their education and moral growth. During this time, the elven child exclusively dreams of a past life. Conveyed to them through the most dominant fragment of their Soul that have had a past life. The dreams can be a great source of advice and guidance or be a grave warning.

##### **Adolescence**

As soon as the elven child experiences a dream in their trance that is not of another lifetime, but of their own memory, they have officially transcended into adolescence, now considered to be a full-fledged member of elven society. Typically this occurs when the elf is about 30 years old. During the elven adolescence, the trance will, as the years pass, show less and less of the past lifetime, and in the end, only encompass the elf's own memories. Most elves in adolescence experience an intense lust for discovery and exploration. These feelings do not have to be expressed as a lust for adventure or travel. It can also be a lust to explore different professions or subjects. How this burning curiosity expresses itself depends upon the specific individual's quirks.

##### **Adulthood**

The transformation into elven adulthood is harder to determine. As the elf matures, the lust for adventure will temper and, in the end, fizzle out. This is a process that can take a hundred years or up to three centuries. This maturity usually entails a sense of homesickness, a need to settle down and slow down. As the elves' life has roughly run half its course, most elven adults aspire to create a permanent effect on the World, a mark that future generations of elves, or other races, will remember after they are gone. Some elves choose to continue adventuring or traveling even at this age, but now with a clear purpose.

##### **Late Years**

As the elves' life starts to come to an end, adulthood’s slow placating process comes to its climax. Some elves lose all sense of time and interest in the mortal world. As a result, others grow agitated at their nature and resist the best they can to scramble to achieve as much as possible before this time is over. Throughout this stage in their lifespan, the elven body slowly but surely starts losing its vitality, wilting away. The elf will also experience mental exhaustion, their sharp mind of 600 to 700 years inevitably starting to fog and muddle up. What is also iconic for this stage is that the trance once again changes nature. When an elf begins to dream about other lives' than their own once again, they know that this is the first sign of their eventual end. These memories increase in frequency and strength as the years’ pass and are joined by other lifetimes that smaller Soul fragments in their Soul have experienced. The elf can even start to dream about the experiences of alive Enna, as sometimes Soul fragments can have been divided between the elf and the other Enna. The elf remains in this stage from a few months to a century.

##### **Death**

If the elf hasn't died of natural causes before the last stage of their life, their body and mind will continue wilting until nothing is left. Before the situation becomes so dire, traditionally, the elf will offer its Soul to its Enneade patron and let them release their Soul from their body. On some extreme occasions, when an elf has failed to perform this ritual, the family releases the Soul of their kin for them. At some point, the body stops working entirely for solitary elves who refuse to give up their Soul, and they simply remain in place and over the centuries join with nature, turning into a meadow, a tree, a bed of mushrooms, etc., and their Soul slowly seeps out of them until there is nothing left.

##### **Isismia and the Elves**

Early on in the World’s creation, "The Three Sisters” banded together for support and sisterly love. Gera, the Enneade of animals and nature, had the oldest sister’s personality and was ambitious and opinionated. Isismia became the stable and supportive middle sister, and Imenta, the Enneade of mischief, took the creative and playful little sister’s role. Imenta and Isismia supported Gera every step of the way as she experimented with plants, animals, and later the feat of creating the human. Some would say that without their undying support to Gera, humans would have never come to be. Similarly, the sisters helped each other with all their early Enna creations, like Isismia's varied form of the elf and Imenta's various species of the "fey.” Indeed, the minor fey aspect within the Soul of the elf hails from Imenta's direct influence.

Isismia intended her elves to be regal and solemn, but to her dismay, Imenta's involvement added playfulness and passion within the elf, which has become the cause of many internal struggles for the race. Their primary personality contradicts itself. They vie for dominance throughout an elf's life. How an elf handles the tension between passion and restraint colors their life experiences.

The three sisters created Progenitor together, though Gera, who was at the time the strongest of the three, certainly had a more heavy hand in the process. Progenitor was back then only home for Gera's beasts, Imenta's fey creatures, and Isismia's elves. The elves preferred to find their homes in beautiful forest groves and built elegant and lofty white homes.

The elves’ long lives affect their attitude toward mortal life. They seldom get emotionally attached to material belongings. Even a piece of jewelry or a sword succumbs to the ravages of time in the end. Contrary, elves become easily fascinated with the ephemeral, such as the flight of a bee, eclipses, artistic performances, etc. Such an event might only be experienced once but will forever visit the elf in their trance of dreams. Relationships with other races can be hard for elves, not just because of their shorter lifespans, but also because it takes a long time to form a close bond of friendship with an elf, a century is believed to be an excellent foundation to forge close relationships.

Elves can seem emotionless and cold, and especially in the face of tragedy. Elves feel emotions the same way other races of highly intelligent Enna does, but they also understand from experience that feelings are fleeting. More importantly, if an elf becomes too emotionally invested or loses control of their austerity, they will forever relive their loss, mistakes, and regrets through the elven trance. This was the start of the rift between the Three Sisters. Isismia later came to regret letting Imenta assist her in the creation of the elves. Imenta's lack of wisdom introduced too much passion in the elven Soul, which contradicted Isismia's wishes with her elven race, what she wanted to be her masterpiece of creation.

In the presence of the mischievous and playful fey, many elves suffered mental issues. The fey creatures often tempt elves to let go of their self-control. Most fey thinking innocently they are teaching them how to have a good time. Those elves who fell prey would forever be tormented by their experiences through their dreams. Isismia became increasingly dismayed, and the elves could feel that their God was disappointed with them. This created further melancholy. The frequency of the scathing tirades Isismia unleashed on Imenta only increased, and Gera often felt she had to step in and defuse the situation. But Gera did not hide that she often took Imenta’s side. Unsurprisingly, Isismia felt less and less like she belonged with the Three Sisters.

And one day, she did. After a few centuries, she entered into a new alliance with Tot, the creator Enneade of the gnomes, Neter, the creator Enneade of the halflings, and Moqatri, the creator Enneade of the dwarves. Together they created the world of Neferia, which grew to become the most important trading hub in all of the World before the War of Collapse (read more about it in the dwarf section). Isismia hoped that her elves could learn from the other races and outgrow their issues.

##### **Death of Isismia**

The elves proved to be an essential resource for Isismia, Moqatri, Tot, and Neter, as the elven might with both sword and magic proved to be competent defenders as their Enneade patron's held and bickered over their neutral stance in the war. When the time came where staying neutral was no longer a choice, and Amaknuphis taunted Moqatri to launch an attack, Isismia joined the fray with her companions she could now proudly call her friends. Isismia was struck down, her powers absorbed by the World as no one opted to claim it during the battle. The elves were now without a loving mother, and a collective sadness spread amongst them, not only because Isismia fell but also because the elves believe that she died, still being discontent in her creation.

After the battle, the elves were divided concerning which of the Enneade to beg for patronage of and spread like the wind between the surviving Realms. But all united in the quest to find a new purpose.

##### **Dusk Elves**

One group of elves turned their melancholy to resentment, rejected Isismia's teachings and traditions, banded together, and gave their undying devotion to Borias. To the dusk elves, Borias proved his superiority over Isismia as he is the only Enneade survivor who had a hand in her death. These elves allowed and welcomed Borias influence upon their elven Souls, and they turned into the very young elven subrace of the dusk elves. The dusk elves created their empires in the bowels of Kess'Aai, now preferring the darkness and the cold of the underground tunnels more than their past bright forest homes. The dusk elves evolved to worship strength and power overall, which has affected their elven society profoundly. The dusk elves despise their conservative elven kin for being weak in their pathetic sadness and scoff at their inability to move on from Isismia's frail teachings. The dusk elves’ most significant disagreement with Isismia was the thought that their creation was a mistake. The dusk elves only see their superiority, that their many strengths as elves give them the right and the might to rule over other weaker races. When a garden elf, wood elf, or others come upon a loyal dusk elf, the meeting usually ends in insults at best.

##### **Garden**

All elves possess a fair shot to become well versed with magic, but the garden subrace came to be by exceptional magical talent. Those who count heritage to this subrace are born with a sharp intellect and a keen sense of magic. The garden elves are one of the two most common subraces of elves, the other being the wood elf. Compared to the wood elves, the garden elf is usually even more delicate and often slightly shorter. With their brilliant minds, the garden elves have often ended up as leaders of the elven communities. This has created a sense of superiority in some elven individuals, believing the garden elves to be the greatest of the elven subraces.

##### **Wood**

The wood elves were shaped by their focus on their physical prowess rather than intellectual or magical pursuits. They stand the tallest of all elven subraces and the sturdiest, which is still lean compared to most humans’ physiques. The wood elves stand united with a peculiar love of forests, as this subrace has for thousands of years made their homes hidden in its foliage. The wood elves are often down to earth, practical, quick, and possess the uncanny ability to blend into natural environments.