Elwei/ elves

Elwei, also more commonly called elves, were humanoid creatures that were considered the only societal species other than humans until the appearance of dragons in the world. Living alongside humans for several hundreds of cycles, elwei ultimately went extinct in the world after the last elven societies had fallen in Zalanya.

Physical traits

Elwei

Elwei were humanoid creatures, meaning that their physical characteristics closely resemble humans. Elves tended to be slightly taller and stronger than humans on average and were built rather lean. Elves had no natural hair growth except on their head and eyebrows. They typically had pointy ears and somewhat sharp looking eyes, with better hearing and eyesight.
Most notably, elwei lived much longer than humans do. Elves generally lived around 500 to 600 cycles, but some are said to have lived for up to 700 cycles. While elves matured at a similar speed to humans, they physically aged slower than their human counterpart after maturity.
The word ‘elwei’ and its etymological derivative ‘elves’ were also used as a general denomination for all elven related ethnicities.

Arwei

Due to their close resemblance to humans, elwei and humans were able to procreate, even without poly-morphing magic. The reason for this resemblance is unclear. Offspring of such unions were called half-elves or arwei. Arwei displayed a mixture of physical traits from both their ancestors.
In most societies, arwei were considered to be elwei even if their human features were more prominent. If a person displayed features from an elven heritage, they were considered an elwei. It can be said that all arwei are elwei, but not all elwei are arwei.

Periiwei

Periiwei was an elven ethnicity displaying snow-white or silver hair, purple eyes and exclusively elven features. Consequently, arwei who display human features were never considered periiwei. Additionally, elwei who did not display ‘enough’ features associated with periiwei also were not considered as such, even of (most) of their ancestors were in fact periiwei.

Euyowei

Euyowei was the most common elven ethnicity. Euyowei could have all kind of elven or humanoid features.

Descendants of elves

Even though elwei are officially extinct, some people still display slight elven features. Slightly pointy ears and a general lack of hair below the nose are seen as typical elven traits. Some people also live notably longer and age notably slower than others, though this might also be a result of healing and preservation magic, rather than the result of an elven heritage. Descendants of elves currently are not considered to be elwei.