Elves

Of all the races who made their way to the Central Continents of Eramon in the time after the Calamity, the Alfenthi or Eladrin are the most eerie and mysterious. Immortal creatures with the ability to 'see' the magical currents of reality, possessed of alien logic and callous caprice, it is when they send individuals and colonies outside their Otherworld to live among mortals that a bizarre transformation overtakes them. 
They appear to absorb the emotionality, physicality and even mortality of the races around them, though never losing their otherworldly beauty, aptitude for magic, and fascination with the short-lived folk. It is then that these beings become known by a more familiar moniker; they are the Elves, envied, desired and mistrusted by all who brush close to their mystique.
Elves can be found in the lofty spires of Wulveral, the enchanted forests and elegant courts of Valderia, and the mystical enclaves of Qadoris. There are wilder and more dangerous Elves in the snows of Kar-Vreld and the fire-scarred steppes of Tamuz, and even a few settling among the folk of Sukima, but those of Ezzuth are whispered of in legend as the most primal and strange of all...

Basic Information

Growth Rate & Stages

Elven children are born with a sense of calm sapience that often inspires wonder or even discomfort in those used to squalling, noisy, helpless infants. They learn to walk, speak and manipulate objects much quicker even than human children, whereupon they are notoriously prone to pranks and trickery as they explore the limits of their growing abilities. Elven children are wide-eyed sponges of information and sensory input during their early years, more prone to calculated, experimental mischief and less to emotional outburst and fragility than their human counterparts.
Elves reach physical maturity at age thirty and enter a phase colloquially known as the 'Quisiting', which lasts for the next century or so. During this time, which many elves liken to the waxing phase of the moon or the burgeoning of Spring, elves tend to exhibit a heightened sense of curiosity, adventurousness, sensory awareness and emotional intensity. This is the phase of the Elven life cycle wherein most elves are encountered by other peoples, as travelers, explorers and wanderers, with an eagerness for new experiences that can manifest in ways anywhere from innocent joyfulness to indulgent, narcissistic hedonism. It is at this time that Elven emotionality peaks, in tides of intense passion and inspiration. During this cycle, curiously, Elves are capable of producing offspring with other creatures - this is when many Half-Elves are sired or borne - but seemingly incapable of reproducing with each other.
Somewhere around two or three hundred years into their life cycles, Elves experience a dramatic shift in persona known as the 'Quieting'. Their passions cool and urges lose their immediacy, as if the elf had absorbed their allotted quota of the world's experiences and now settled to process and digest what he or she has learned. At this life-phase, the Elf will often turn to more aesthetic pursuits such as the production of art, literature, poetry or sculpture, or immerse their self in philosophy and discourse. It is also likely at this phase that the Elf will seek a lifelong elven partner with whom to produce fullblooded Elven children, though they will produce only one or two children. Three is the known recorded maximum of Elven children. After this phase, Elves are no longer fertile.
At around 300-400 years old, Elves enter the final known stage of their mortal life cycle, known as the 'Yearning' or the 'Long Fade'. Disinterest and detachment from the mortal realm and a sense of deep, melancholic longing for the Feywild overcomes the individual's thoughts. Elves have described food tasting of ashes, music sounding flat and discordant, and even the speech of once-beloved mortal companions seeming dull and grating. This leads to a period that lasts itself for up to a century, or in essence as long as the Elf can hold out or immerse itself in what remains of their mortal-realm interests. Elves partnered to another elf whose partner is also caught up in the Yearning are more likely to leave sooner and together than others, especially than those with a mortal partner still living within the world. When the elf at last loses attachment, they will simply slip quietly into the Realm of the Faerie and disappear permanently from the world of mortals.