Elf

Found In: Empyrean Spires (Astral Elves, Desert Elves), Twilight Vale (Wood Elves), Greenwyrm Vale (Astral Elves, Wood Elves), Hellonde, Cerulea (Wood Elves), Marmaroth (Aquan Elves)
Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace. 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.
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.
Elves can live to around 200 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.
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.
Elves take up adventuring out of wanderlust. Since they are so long-lived, they can enjoy decades of exploration and discovery. They dislike the pace of human society, which is regimented from day to day but constantly changing over time, so they find careers that let them travel freely and set their own pace. Elves also enjoy exercising their martial prowess or gaining greater magical power, and adventuring allows them to do so. Some might join with rebels fighting against oppression, and others might become champions of moral causes.
Ability Score Increase. Their Dexterity score increases by 2.
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 75 and can live to be 350 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.
Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Their size is Medium.
Speed. Their base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, they have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. They can see in dim light within 60 feet of them as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. They can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Keen Senses. They have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Fey Ancestry. They have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put them 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, they can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, they gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Languages. They 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.

Elf Variants

Astral Elves.

Sometimes referred to as High Elves by the more ignorant, Astral elves take their name from the unbreakable belief that they are the chosen race of the gods, Solus and Luna, and their destiny as a race is to ascend to the right hand of the divine.. Intellectual, arrogant and considering themselves the height of developed sentient life on Gonde, High Elves are master tacticians, natural magicians and their thirst for knowledge is legendary, though tends to be limited more to the academic than the experiential.

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Wizardry Initiate. You know 2 cantrips of your choice from the wizard spell list. In addition, you know one 1st-level spell from the Wizard spell list. You can cast this spell once, regaining the ability to cast it when you complete a long rest. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for these spells.

Astral Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

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

Aquan Elves.

The sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean in the earliest days of Gonde. While the rest of the common elven ancestors traveled from realm to realm, spreading throughout Gonde, the aquan elves navigated the deepest currents and explored the waters across a hundred worlds. Today, they form small, hidden communities in the ocean shallows. The largest community of aquan elves on Gonde resides in the waters of the Sea of Eophas north of Marmaroth, where they have been locked in conflict for decades with the Aquan Orcs for control of the waters.

Ability Score Increase. Your Constitution score increases by 1.

Aquan Elf Weapon 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 Small or smaller beasts that have an inborn swimming speed.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan.

Desert Elves.

Desert Elves live in harsh environments that lack much in the way of foliage. They are wild suspicious and aggressive. Desert elves live in small groups, rarely more than 5 or 6 to a group and only occassionaly interacting with other groups if alliances are needed to face off a threat or when they need to mate.

Ability Score Increase. Their Constitution score increases by 1.

Sand Digger. They have a burrow speed of 15 feet in sand, snow, or loose soil.

Hot/Cold Lands Survivor. They’re acclimated to hot or cold environments depending on their homeland and automatically succeed on saving throws against extreme heat or cold.

Natural Survivor. They have proficiency in the Survival skill.

Slow Metabolism. You can go double the amount of days as regular without eating or drinking.

Wood Elves.

Wood elves have keen senses and intuition, and their fleet feet carry them quickly and stealthily through their native forests. 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.

Ability Score Increase.Their Wisdom score increases by 1.

Wood Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

Fleet of Foot. Their base walking speed increases to 35 feet.

Mask of the Wild. They can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.