Elf
The Elves are the oldest of the races of the world.
They usually prefer to live in nature. Their cities are built hidden within huge forests, and most of the times are kept hidden by enchantment or illusion. While they prefer the natural world, elves are masters of wizardry, and it's rare to see a large elvish community without a wizard guild or university. They also handle and keep Elmincia's biggest libraries.
Elves are ruled in monarchies, where every city-state has its own governments. They are fierce in battle, and do not take lightly to incursions on their lands, but can be very friendly when approached. Young elves are merry and jokers, while the older ones tend to assume a taciturn and sorrowful demeanor.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Elves are shorter and slimmer than humans. They usually have light skin and brown, amber or golden long hair. They have pointy ears.
Even when very strong, it's uncommon for an elf to grow muscles. To outsiders, their strength lies rather in the agility and precision of their movements in detriment of brute force. An elf when fighting appears to be performing a dance.
Genetics and Reproduction
As they are very long lived, elves reproduce slowly. In most of their young years, they do not care about marriage or children, as this brings responsibility and young elf values too much their freedom to let him or herself be tied up.
As they grow, however, the elves settle. A pair of elves however never has too many children, as this would affect the balance they have with nature. Elves also believe that population growth would be unwise given that they think the pool of souls for reincarnation would grow dry. A community of elves normally keep their numbers more or less constant through the ages and grow very slowly.
Growth Rate & Stages
Elves in Elmincia age slowly. They have a growth sprut in the beginning, reaching the development of a 10-year old human on a average of 20 years. There, the elf stops to age, and might stay at this stage in anything from 50 to 200 years.
When this phase ends, the elves have a branching path, and is still unknown what causes them to choose which branch. Roughly 95% of them resume aging and grow up to be adult elves, while a minority of them stop aging completely and instead mutate into forest spirits, like pixies or fairies. It is unknown what causes a child to go one way or the other, but it is know that the ones that take the longest to resume aging are more succetible to suffer the transmutation.
During this standstill, the elf does not age either physically or mentally. It is possible but complicated to try to teach them anything, as they tend to learn avidly one day and then forget everything the next day. Because of that, most of the elves let their children play, refusing to bother to teach them anything until they enter puberty, where it becomes much easier to make them assimilate knowledge.
When they resume aging, the elves still take another 20 years to reach adulthood. As they are young adults, they reach another plateau. In this phase, they are merry, can't take much seriouly, although they do work and perform their function in society. An elf can stay at this level for 400 years, seemly not aging at all, until their next development.
The next development is not physical, as the elves themselves do not change, but rather mental: they become taciturn, and begin to deviate from their merryment to more serious matters. At this phase the elves feel tired of the world, and they have a longing for something that they can't describe. Most elves at this age are proud, distrustful of people of other races, and regretful.
While elves do not die, they eventually feel a call to leave this world, migrating outside of the boundaries of reality into another plane of existence. Where they go to is a closed-guarded elvish secret, but they just take the road, abandon their families and loved ones, and wander for a while until vanishing, never to be seen again at Elmincia.
Ecology and Habitats
While some tribes still exist in hard to reach places, most elves are now civilized. They build their cities in the center of great forests, normally incorporating the forest name into the city (or the opposite, naming the forest after the city). They build around nature, and not through it.
Most of their buildings are therefore made of wood, and it's common for elves to make buildings alongside the trunks of huge trees, with halls at their top. Because of this, most of the elvish cities are in perpetual twilight.
Elves also are the race that lives the closest to the sylvan world. As such, it's not uncommon to find pixies and other enchanted creatures within their cities.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Elves cuisine is largely depending on gathering, be it the gathering of herbs and fruits or hunting. Elves do practice farming, but to a much lesser extent than humans, as farming normally requires huge patches of contiguous land and the elves are not willing to sacrifice the forest for that.
They have however made some advances in the cultivation of fungi, and due to the darkness their forests are a prime location for farming this kind of food, so it's natural for elvish cuisine to have many mushrooms.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Elves usually live on city states or kingdoms. They are always ruled by a lord and a lady, a married couple, sometimes people of great magical power.
Beyond those is the nobility. The nobility are people chosen by their lords to hold honor. They give political council and are involved in jobs that take care of the state. Great warriors usually also attain this status, for even if the elves do not like war, they recognize the need for power to keep the peace.
Beyond that, everyone is in a similar level. One apprentice might be subjugated for his master, but the distinction is more deferential than social. A master and apprentice on a guild, for example, will not have a big difference on their income.
Uses, Products & Exploitation
Elves are highly valued as slaves. Not only they live seemingly forever, their agility and grace are useful. An elf's ability to see in the dark as well as his capacity to quickly react are for example highly valuable in a mine.
However, elves were born to be free, and their cultural aspect emphasizes freedom. Elf slaves are paid extra attention, for the same agility that makes them invaluable also makes them more prone to try to escape, which they'll almost always do at the earliest opportunity.
In order to avoid that, some slave owners give elf slaves that turned out to be specially useful greater degrees of freedom or even a salary, in order to avoid losing them.
Facial characteristics
Elves faces are usually delicate but noble. They are envied from other races for their natural beauty.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Elves normally build their cities deep within large forests and jungles, where there's plenty of water. They also prefer places with great concentrations of natural mana, which they use to enhance their spells.
Average Intelligence
Elves are usually highly intelligent. It would be difficult to find a medium or large city of elves without a wizard school or a wizard's guild. They are one of the races that discovered the schools of magic and use magic actively on their daily life.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Elves have Darkvision in 60 feet. They also have keen senses, being able to see what others cannot.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Elves tend to assume child names until they get to 100th birthday, whereupon a rite of passage they finally receive their adult name.
Relationship Ideals
Elves are not conservative in their relationships. A marriage for an elf is a series responsibility, but for a limited time. The elves marry, have kids, and when these kids attain adult status it's common for the marriage to break up. The cycle might repeat again once or twice, but overall elvish societies are not organized in families, but more as a community.
Average Technological Level
Medieval
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Common, Elvish
Common Etiquette Rules
Elves treat their lords almost as gods and disrespecting the lord of the lady of the forest is the equivalent of disrespecting the forest itself and all its inhabitants. Elves do not take such offense lightly even from other races, and people have been known to be put to death after saying something silly after getting drunk with alcohol.
Common Dress Code
Elves dress lightly, in very loose frugal clothing, for two reasons: protection of the forest due to the elimination of waste, as well as to not hinder their natural agile movement. Even lords and nobility do not pay much attention over what they dress, preferring form over function. Elves clothing are however designed to enhance their natural beauty, as an elf values and see the beauty in all things.
Elves however like jewels and precious stones, and will use them any time they can get their hands on one, especially if its of dwarvish origin.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Elves culture is strong. They invented music, poetry and are the greatest historians and wizards of the world. Even nowadays, elvish arts are incomparable, and they sing and dance on their great halls of wood constantly, where it seems the feast will never stop.
In behavior, elves are very conservative. Their societies usually have few laws, but these laws must be obeyed, especially when it comes to magic.
Elvish books and art is highly valued throughout the world, and both scholars and connoisseurs of art would do well to learn the Elvish language should they want to go far in their profession.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
Elves usually make huge fests (well, bigger than normal) during natural events, especially the passage of seasons. Being more connected to the natural world, the seasons for the elves also cause behavioral changes. They go more taciturn during winter but are happy and more charitable during spring.
History
Elves are the oldest race. Soon after they were created, the elves began to move and populate the forests, also giving names to things. They began the development of culture, song, and magic.
When the elves discovered that the gods had created other humans, they felt betrayed, as they thought Elmincia was reserved to them. They did not trust the other races, not at first, and began to use their raw power to hide. It was at this time that the elves had their Schism: the drow wanted to enslave the other races to serve them, while the elves wanted to hide. Both races went their separate ways.
As the ages passed one of the elves states, named Tuilë, began to rise in power. Ruled by King Finare, the kingdom was a might potency in magic and began its expansion, coming to dominate a large part of the world. The elves were so proud of their kingdom of mighty and magic, that they thought that everyone should live on it, for even the life as a slave would be better than the life as an ignorant. The kingdom survived for more than 1000 years until on one day its capital was suddenly destroyed and vanished in a huge explosion. Without the center of government, the other cities turned back into city-states, and slaves from other races revolted against the elves for their freedom.
But these cities would not have peace for long. Out of the realms of Tuilë , a survival appeared. This survivor called himself the dark lord and he had more power than anyone would think to be imaginable. He allied himself with orcs and declared war on the people of Elminincia. This terrible war raged for years until the dark lord was defeated. But wizardry became ill-seen in the hands of the other races, which generated a problem for the elves, as they among all the races where the ones that depended on arcane power the most.
To remedy the situation, 150 years later the elves formed a council to discuss the future of magic. In this council, the schools of magic were firmly defined, as well as the basis of what would and what would not be allowed in spellcraft. The Rules for the usage of Arcane Power , decided upon this council, remain in place for this day. Elves still obey them to the letter, though in human societies they begin to seem as outdated and to hinder the progress of magic.
The elves then lived at peace for thousand years, until The Great War happened. At a similar time, the gods abandoned Elmincia, leaving the elves to fend for themselves. They decide to unite with the other races to fight off this great evil, and in the process of doing so formed the The Church of Light. Arannis, an elf paladin, still runs the The Church of Light after all these years.
From then on, the elves have enjoyed a time of relative peace, though battles with Orcs and Hobgoblins still threaten them constantly. Recently, elves have also grown distant to humans, as the elves are afraid of the expansionist habits put the whole equilibrium of the world in danger.
Common Myths and Legends
Elves respect the agreement of the The Church of Light, but they have their own beliefs about how the world works. Most elves believe in reincarnation and believe that their souls never truly die, they only come back later. When a child goes through a rite of passage to become an adult, it is common for the child to then receive the name of the person the elves think that soul was in its previous life. The elves believe this reincarnation process applies only to them, and they don't know and mostly don't care about what happens to the other races after they die.
Elves also believe that no more elvish souls are being created. Therefore, they go through great pains to keep their general population stable.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Elves have grown distant to humans, as they don't like the race expansionist nature and fear them. Of all the races, elves maintain a tight relationship with Moogles, though the fast growth of the Moogles also scare them.
Elves hate Orcs and Hobgolbins , and their hybrid counterparts, and will kill them on sight.
Genetic Descendants
Lifespan
Unknown. Elves can live apparently forever, but most of them wander out of the world when they pass 1,000 years old.
Conservation Status
Elves are the second most populous race of the world.
Average Height
1.5 - 1.8m
Average Weight
40 - 80 kg
Average Physique
Elves are fast and nimble. They can be plenty strong, but this usually doesn't show in their bodies. Elves steps are always light, and it's common for them to not leave much trace of their passage.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Elves usually have white skin. Brown skin is known to exist, but rare.
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