Elves in Presia

Elves are the prominent race on Presia, where they control almost the entirety of the continents. The elves are a diverse race that have a set of subspecies that are spread all across the continent.

## Elven Lifespan

You rarely see an elf child because they are rare. An elf hits what humans would consider maturity only slightly slower than a human - elves begin their "adulthood" around age 20-25. Elves reproduce incredibly slowly. While a human mother might have 3 or 4 children before she's 40, an elf doesn't even start to be able to have children until she's 40, and even then maybe once in every 20 or 30 years are they able to, for a year or two at a time, Elves are also careful, With such a slow reproducing species, every death is felt by the numbers of the group as a whole. Where most of the short lived species would learn magic and lifespans quickly, an elf will take months, years, or even decades to start learning and improving how they would cast their spells and use their spells to ensure minimum casualty

## Elven Lifestyle

The elves have been split across the continent ever since they revolted and overtook the ancient civilization, and they have always had different standards of living and their education and upbringing.

### Their Timeless Perspective

Elves can live well over 700 years, giving them a broad perspective on events that might trouble the shorter-lived races more deeply. They are more often amused than excited, and more likely to be curious than greedy. They tend to remain aloof and unfazed by petty happenstance. When pursuing a goal, however, whether adventuring on a mission or learning a new skill or art, elves can be focused and relentless. They are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. They reply to petty insults with disdain and to serious insults with vengeance.

### Wood Elves and Eladrin

Wild Elves consider their first 100 years to be an apprentice education in horticulture, hunting, fishing, and shelter construction in the trees under the tutelage of the druids. Their culture is based more on oral traditions and hands on learning rather than high literacy or formal education. Think of a lifestyle somewhere between iroquois, native americans, and huckleberry finn. They value making do with less, and learn as many survival and bushcraft skills as they can. Seasonal hunts keep their tracking, stealthiness, and marksmanship sharp, and swordsmanship is constantly tested through friendly competition and rivalry inside and outside their own tribe. Most Wild elves dwell in small forest or fey villages hidden among the trees. They hunt game, gather food, and grow vegetables, and their skill and magic allow them to support themselves without the need for clearing and plowing land. Their contact with outsiders is usually limited, though a few elves make a good living by trading crafted items for metals

### High Elves and Shadar-Kai

The Higher Elves' society based on an extremely rigid social stratification. Very old noble families where the patriarchs or matriarchs stay in power for centuries, with a slow motion feudal system based on the military service of spell-sword knights. High elves shy away from heavy agriculture that would be necessary to finance their beautiful villas and citadels. So they have populations of gnomes and wood elves serving as serfs tied to the fertile plots around their forests. Their cities reflect a genius level of urban planning, but built for a completely static economic system that doesn't welcome immigration or new competition in the market. Trades are monopolized between a the 12 high elf families, and the skills are passed down from father to child, with each succeeding generation expected to maintain the tradition. Literacy, magic, and the use of swords and bows are taught to all high elves as a matter of service to their noble sovereigns, that they may be called upon to defend the realm against the profane mortal races. They are talented artisans, crafting finely worked clothes and art objects.

### The Drow

Dark elves have, depending on your viewpoint, the most tortuous childhood, or the most "fun" childhood. Dark elf adolescents are taught to be amoral, power hungry, efficient bastards, simultaneously completely self centered, yet bound by fear to the rules of a house, a society, and a dark god. They are taught to be political predators, and that their worth is completely dependent on results and ambition, while understanding that failure or betrayal, both real and perceived, can be deadly. The ones that take to this well will have perversely enjoyable times as a child, learning how to manipulate word and situation, how to read a battlefield as well as a court ball, and how to hide the bodies, in the metaphorical and actual sense. The ones that don't take to this well will either spend their days in something closely resembling hell as they are locked in what is essentially perpetual servitude and slavery, or they will die.