Elf

Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace, living in the world but not entirely part of it. They live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires glittering with faerie light, where soft music drifts through the air and gentle fragrances waft on the breeze. Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world.

Slender and Graceful

With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, ranging from well under 5 feet tall to just over 6 feet. They are more slender than humans, weighing only 100 to 145 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, and males are only marginally heavier than females.
Elves' coloration encompasses the normal human range and also includes skin in shades of copper, bronze, and almost bluish-white, hair of green or blue, and eyes like pools of liquid gold or silver. Elves have no facial and little body hair. They favor elegant clothing in bright colors, and they enjoy simple yet lovely jewelry.

A 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.
Like the branches of a young tree, elves are flexible in the face of danger. They trust in diplomacy and compromise to resolve differences before they escalate to violence. They have been known to retreat from intrusions into their woodland homes, confident that they can simply wait the invaders out. But when the need arises, elves reveal a stern martial side, demonstrating skill with sword, bow, and strategy.

Hidden Woodland and Realms

Most elves dwell in small forest villages hidden among the trees. Elves 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. They are talented artisans, crafting finely worked clothes and art objects. Their contact with outsiders is usually limited, though a few elves make a good living by trading crafted items for metals (which they have no interest in mining).
Elves encountered outside their own lands are commonly traveling minstrels, artists, or sages. Human nobles compete for the services of elf instructors to teach swordplay or magic to their children.

Elven Subraces

Drow

Drows were infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. They are at home in shadows and, thanks to their innate magic, learn to conjure forth both light and darkness. Their kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.

Eladrin

Eladrin are elves of the Feywild, a realm of perilous beauty and boundless magic. Using that magic, eladrin can step from one place to another ing the blink of an eye, and each eladrin resonates with emotions captured in the Feywild in the form of seasons—affinities that affect the eladrin's mood and appearance. An eladrin's season can change, though some remain in one season forever. Choose your season or roll on the Eladrin Seasons table. Your Trance trait lets you change your season.
Like other elves, eladrin can live to be over 750 years old.

High Elf

High elfs have a keen mind and a mastery of at least the basics of magic. In many places of Etriel, there are two kinds of high elves. One type, which includes the gray elves, valley elves and the sun elves, is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type, including the high elves and moon elves, are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.
The sun elves of Etriel, 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.

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, sea elves navigated the currents and explored the waters of many worlds. Today these elves can be found wherever oceans exist, as well as in the Elemental Plane of Water. Like other elves, sea elves can live to be over 750 years old.

Shadar-Kai

Shadar-kai are the elves of the Shadowfell, originally drawn to that dread realm by the Raven Queen. Over the centuries, some of them have continued to serve her, while others have ventured into the Material Plane to forge their own destinies. Once shadar-kai were Fey like the rest of their elven kin; now they exist in a state between life and death, thanks to being transformed by the Shadowfell's grim energy.
Shadar-kai have ashen skin tones, and while they're in the Shadowfell, they also become wizened, reflecting the somber nature of that gloomy plane. Like other elves, shadar-kai can live to be over 750 years old.

Wood Elf

Wood elfs have keen senses, intuition and fleet feet carry you quickly and stealthily through your native forests. In Etriel, 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.