Elf

## Elf Traits

Your elf character has a variety of natural abilities, the result of thousands of years of elven refinement.

#### Age

Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.

#### Alignment

Elves love freedom, variety, and self-expression, so they lean strongly toward the gentler aspects of chaos. They value and protect others’ freedom as well as their own, and they are more often good than not. The drow are an exception; their exile into the Underdark has made them vicious and dangerous. Drow are more often evil than not.

#### Size

Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

#### Darkvision

Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet 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 have proficiency in the Perception skill.

#### Fey Ancestry

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. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

#### Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish. Elvish is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires.

## Subraces

### Dark Elf (Drow)

Descended from an earlier subrace of elves, the drow were banished from the surface world for following the goddess Lolth down the path of evil. Now they have built their own civilization in the depths of the Underdark, patterned after the Way of Lolth. Also called dark elves, the drow have skin that resembles charcoal or obsidian, as well as stark white or pale yellow hair. They commonly have very pale eyes (so pale as to be mistaken for white) in shades of lilac, silver, pink, red, and blue. They tend to be smaller and thinner than most elves.

Drow adventurers are rare. Check with your Dungeon Master to see if you can play one.

#### Superior Darkvision

Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet.

#### Sunlight Sensitivity

You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.

#### Drow Magic

You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

#### Drow Weapon Training

You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows.

### Eladrin

Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, a realm of beauty, unpredictable emotion, and boundless magic. An eladrin is associated with one of the four seasons and has coloration reminiscent of that season, which can also affect the eladrin’s mood:

**Autumn**is the season of peace and goodwill, when summer’s harvest is shared with all.

**Winter**is the season of contemplation and dolor, when the vibrant energy of the world slumbers.

**Spring**is the season of cheerfulness and celebration, marked by merriment as winter’s sorrow passes.

**Summer**is the season of boldness and aggression, a time of unfettered energy.

Some eladrin remain associated with a particular season for their entire lives, whereas other eladrin transform, adopting characteristics of a new season. When finishing a long rest, any eladrin can change their season. An eladrin might choose the season that is present in the world or perhaps the season that most closely matches the eladrin’s current emotional state. For example, an eladrin might shift to autumn if filled with contentment, another eladrin could change to winter if plunged into sorrow, still another might be bursting with joy and become an eladrin of spring, and fury might cause an eladrin to change to summer.

The following tables offer personality suggestions for eladrin of each season. You can roll on the tables or use them as inspiration for characteristics of your own.

#### Fey Step

As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

When you reach 3rd level, your Fey Step gains an additional effect based on your season; if the effect requires a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier:

**Autumn.** Immediately after you use your Fey Step, up to two creatures of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for 1 minute, or until you or your companions deal any damage to it.

**Winter.** When you use your Fey Step, one creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you before you teleport must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

**Spring.** When you use your Fey Step, you can touch one willing creature within 5 feet of you. That creature then teleports instead of you, appearing in an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you.

**Summer.** Immediately after you use your Fey Step, each creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you takes fire damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 damage).

### High Elf

As a high elf, you have a keen mind and a mastery of at least the basics of magic. In many of the worlds of D&D, there are two kinds of high elves. One type (which includes the gray elves and valley elves of Greyhawk, the Silvanesti of Dragonlance, and the sun elves of the Forgotten Realms) is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type (including the high elves of Greyhawk, the Qualinesti of Dragonlance, and the moon elves of the Forgotten Realms) are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.

The sun elves of Faerûn (also called gold elves or sunrise elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blond. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-white, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold.

#### Elf Weapon Training

You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

#### Cantrip

You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it.

#### Extra Language

You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice.

### Sea Elf

Sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean in the earliest days of the multiverse. While other elves traveled from realm to realm, the sea elves navigated the deepest currents and explored the waters across a hundred worlds. Today, they live in small, hidden communities in the ocean shallows and on the Elemental Plane of Water.

#### Sea Elf Training

You have proficiency with the spear, trident, light crossbow, and net.

#### Child of the Sea

You have a swimming speed of 30 feet, and you can breathe air and water.

#### Friend of the Sea

Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed.

### Shadar-kai

Sworn to the Raven Queen’s service, the mysterious shadar-kai venture into the Material Plane from the Shadowfell to advance her will. Once they were fey like the rest of their elven kin, and now they exist in a strange state between life and death. Eladrin and shadar-kai are like reflections of each other: one bursting with emotion, the other nearly devoid of it.

#### Blessing of the Raven Queen

As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. Once you use this trait, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Starting at 3rd level, you also gain resistance to all damage when you teleport using this trait. The resistance lasts until the start of your next turn. During that time, you appear ghostly and translucent.

### Wood Elf

As a wood elf, you have keen senses and intuition, and your fleet feet carry you quickly and stealthily through your native forests. This category includes the wild elves (grugach) of Greyhawk and the Kagonesti of Dragonlance, as well as the races called wood elves in Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. In Faerûn, wood elves (also called wild elves, green elves, or forest elves) are reclusive and distrusting of non-elves.

Wood elves’ skin tends to be copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green. Their hair tends toward browns and blacks, but it is occasionally blond or copper-colored. Their eyes are green, brown, or hazel.

#### Elf Weapon Training

You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

#### Fleet of Foot

Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.

#### 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.