Elves

### Biology

Typically one child born at a time (50%), twins (40%), and triplets (10%). Elven women may have 1 pregnancy per quarter century, from age 100 to 300, and do not usually seek to have more than 2 or 3 pregnancies in their lifetimes, with one pregnancy per elf being much more common (especially with multiple babies).

Maximum life expectancy is 507 years, with median life expectancy being 485 years.

Acceptable Elf skin colors include: all shades of beige, tan, and brown, from very light to very dark. They appear to be gold-dusted in direct sunlight. Acceptable Elf hair colors include: all colors of the rainbow, as well as silver for royalty. Acceptable Elf eye colors include: all colors of the rainbow, as well as dark opalescent for royalty.

### Culture

Elvish names begin with the mother's family name, and then the personal name. So Hu Pinyen, would be an elf named Pinyen from the Hu clan or family. Syllables generally begin and end with consonants and have few diphthongs.

### Magic

(See also: Sorcery Guilds, Sorcery Theory)

Elven magic is enchantment-based, and there are five types. Elven sorcerers use incantations, songs, or chants to work their magic. Elven sorcerers can only use ONE type of enchantment. To determine which type of enchantment your sorcerer can wield, roll a d100. (1-50=Animation, 51-70=Mending, 71-85=Protection, 86-96=Illusion, 97-100=Enhancement)

Animation - the ability to enchant an inanimate object to move. This can be a single-use spell to summon an object across a room into your hand, or a longer-lasting spell such as to make a broom sweep on its own

Mending - the ability to repair an object. Can also be used to break something. This includes the art of healing.

Protection - the ability to shield a given area against almost any kind of threat, for a certain amount of time. Can be used to keep something out or keep something in. Usually stationary, but very skilled sorcerers can move their shield offensively.

Illusion - the ability to make others see, hear, smell, taste, and touch an illusion. These can be very subtle, or completely encompassing, depending on the skill of the sorcerer.

Enhancement - the ability to make an object perform far beyond its ordinary capabilities. For example, a very skilled sorcerer can enchant a door to lead, not to the next room, but to the next city.

Elven magic worked by one sorcerer is usually fleeting, lasting at most a day (Mending is an exception to this). Long-lasting enchantments can be achieved when three or more sorcerers work together. Permanent enchantments must be cast by twenty or more sorcerers working together.

Very rarely, an elf will gain the ability to turn into a dragon. This ability is often, but not exclusively, connected to the royal family. It takes particular strength of will and mind, and there are only a few elves in each generation with the ability. After much personal training and meditation, they can undergo a ceremony known as the Trial of Fang and Fire to undergo their first transformation, but it is extremely dangerous, and very, very seldom performed.

### Religion

The Elves of Tennarion worship the Goddess of the Sun. She has been referenced as "Our Goddess" and "Mother of the Sun" though no proper noun has been provided. The Goddess is benevolent to her children, however, and has not been said to dislike any names used affectionately by them. It is believed that she can, and sometimes will speak to the dragons, though no other citizens have had such direct contact with the Goddess.

Citizens have personal altars for the Goddess in their homes to pray at, but can also visit any of the larger altars maintained within any Elven city. Offerings are often left for the Goddess at these altars, under the belief that doing so will draw her near, allowing the Elves to feel closer to their Goddess.

The Elves also regard height as a way to measure the Goddess's favor. Those who are taller are seen to be closer to her, while those who are shorter are seen to be outside of her scope of respect and regard. This is part of why the Elves do not hold the Gnomes in any esteem.

### Classes

Commoner, Champion, Skilled Tradesman, Artisan, Academic, Noble, Sorcerer, Royalty. Elves keep thralls, which are all of the Gnome race.

### History

Sit, my child, and hear the song of our people, the song of your foremothers, the Song of Sorrows. 6,000 years ago, during the Age of Expansion, the Elves unleashed the Great Calamity upon the world. A Dragon prince, in youthful hubris, unwittingly released the Shadow from its prison, in which it had been trapped since time out of mind. The prince was slain, and only one of his company escaped to tell the tale. For three hundred years the Elves battled the Shadow, trying in vain to drive it back from their lands and back into its hellish prison. When it at last gained its insidious foothold in the City of Songs, the Queen knew without doubt that she must sacrifice herself for the good of her people. She sent her only daughter away, to come here, planning all the while to bring the Light of the Sun Goddess to bear on the Shadows... a light which, surely, would scorch the enemy, but also the city and everyone in it. "Go, oh, Daughter," she told her princess. "Go, and in a year's time, come back to gather up your people and rule again."

So it was that the Elves came to Tennarion through a portal made of enchantment and fire and blood. It took 36 sorcerers - every one in the kingdom who could be spared, who wasn't already assisting the Queen in her righteous endeavor, to create the great portal, and many died once it was done, taxed beyond their limit. This was a second Calamity, and it is said that the Shadow breached the spell at the last, trying to kill the Princess, and killed those sorcerers, instead. Since then, precious little word of the Elven people who were left behind has reached their ears. It has not yet come to pass that the required number of powerful-enough sorcerers has existed at one time to create another portal back to the ancient cities... if they even yet stand. Many an adventurer has braved the great Eastern Sea, hoping to complete the journey by ship, but terrible currents and mighty storms have risen every time, and more often than not the ships never returned. It was with great astonishment that the human ship arrived on Tennarion, more than 5,000 years after the Elves were stranded here. The humans had precious little news of the Elves of the East. Yes, Elves still existed in the world, they said, but so very few. The City of Songs was only legend, now, the epicenter of a vast wasteland full of ashes and ghosts that wail their mournful calls. No one ventures there, now. The Shadow.... yes, it was stopped, and that's all anyone knows.

Despite their grief-stricken beginnings, the Elves of Tennarion have made the best of their lot. They have built cities, smaller echoes of the City of Songs that they remember in story and art and music. They have multiplied, they have explored their magic... but they remember their ancestral lands, and yearn for it even still. The Princess became the Queen, and her daughter after her, and so on, an unbroken line of monarchs for 6,000 years. Someday, they vow, they will lead their people back to their ancient queendom, and heal the world of the Shadow-scourge. Someday.

### List of Characters

Ze Liya - Powerful Illusion Sorceress with a Dragon Form, Bastard half-sister of the Queen