Elf

Elves are an extremely long lived people who are often seen as withdrawn by many other sapient species. They are the only known sophont species with significant populations in all four regions of Irion, though each have developed their own adaptations to their respective environments.

Unique Traits

Elves are well known as staunch traditionalists, though few outsiders grasp the full implications of what this means. Most elven traditions date to millennia past, before the population began to split. Interpretations of various details vary, but a Sea Elf and a surface Elf, either from The Wildlands or The Sleeping Lands, will share more core cultural values than two humans from different regions within the same kingdom of the Sleeping Lands. Often, this leads to surprisingly strong bonds between vastly different communities, but it can also sow the seeds of extreme conflicts, depending on key differences in how a tradition is interpreted.

Appearance

Elves tend to be slightly taller and leaner than humans, with sharper features and long, pointy ears. Those who live in The Sleeping Lands tend to have a similar range of skin tones to humans, as do those communities that dwell fully within The Wildlands. However, those who live in more challenging environments have experienced significant changes, some deliberate, others not.
Sea Elves, for example, have magically altered themselves to grant adaptations that are beneficial in the deep ocean environment in which they thrive, including gills, fins, and a more porous skin capable of easily equalizing pressure. The first couple of generations had to give birth in air pockets and alter their children, but successive generations undergoing the same alteration led to a permanent change in their form.
The elves that dwell in The Depths are not well known to those on the surface, due to that region's extreme isolation, but what is known suggests they have become adapted to the darkness of their environment. Their skin and hair are both generally a monochrome grey, with the skin tending towards darker grey or black and the hair lighter grey or white, though light skinned and dark haired elves are not terribly uncommon. Their eyes are often a piercing red or yellow, and are particularly well suited to seeing in the darkness.

Lifespan

Elves are among the longest lived species on Irion, with elders often reaching over a thousand years of age. This leads to elves having a somewhat timeless nature that sometimes causes friction with the shorter lived species.
Elves develop physically similarly to humans up to the age of about 16, after which their aging slows dramatically. Elves in their first 15-20 years are regarded much the way young children are among humans: too young to be seen as truly responsible and likely to speak without thinking. From then to their first centennial, they are regarded as youths. Staying largely within their community, the recieve a more in depth education about elven traditions, philosophies, and traditional skills, as well as having time to develop their own interests.
Elven education is quite different from what humans are familiar with: aside from basic foundations, there is almost no formal instruction. Advanced skills are taught through leading questions and encouragement of correct hypotheses. For example, while a human learning archery from a master would expect continuous coaching to improve their technique, an elf is taught the fundamentals of how to shoot, and then left to practice, with occasional suggestions being provided if their development begins to stall.
Once they have reached a century of age, elves are generally considered fully adult members of the community. For the next 3 centuries they appear young, comparable to human in their early to mid twenties. After this they age gracefully. Elves don't develop wrinkles and remain able bodied up until the last decade or so of their life, but elves who are more than 5 centuries of age tend to have a definite ageless look to them, giving them an ethereal sense of timelessness that shorter lived species often find slightly unnerving.
Elven lifespans also lead to a unique relationship with nature. While those who live for only a century or two see long lived plants like trees as being eternal, elves see them grow and develop throughout their life cycle. In some elven communities, children plant a tree when they begin their youth, and see the tree as a companion throughout their lives. Some tend to their trees carefully, creating an enormous art piece that is centuries in the making, while others simply visit their tree and care for its needs. Sea Elves have a similarly unique relationship with coral, growing it in shapes that are as useful as they are aesthetically pleasing.

Communities

Wherever there are elves, there are communities that are exclusively elven - while other species are usually permitted to visit, and may stay for a couple of years, they will eventually be asked to leave. The reason for this exclusivity is simple: the elven desire for stability. Elves exist on a timescale that spans generations of almost every other intelligent species, and while long term friendship and even romance with other sophonts is common and highly valued in most Elven communities, the knowledge that this companion will all too soon grow old and die is a strain. Elven communities provide a place for those who are grieving a friend to withdraw to, where life operates on a timescale that is comfortably slow. Some elves spend their whole lives in these communities, but most venture out at least once, for a few decades at a time.

Tolerance

Elves like spending time with other peoples, but keep the relationship very much on their terms. For some, that means a deep and abiding relationship, and for others it's the dispassionate fascination of the outsider, watching the lives of others as if it were a show put on for their benefit.
Regardless of their outlook, though, their timeless patience can be quite wearing on shorter lived peoples, especially the short lived and passionate Orcs, who often regard that patience as deliberate time wasting or simple laziness. In general, while elves are rarely deliberately antagonistic, their approach to life is often considered tiresome.

Environment

Elves can justifiably be considered the most adaptive of sophont species, with thriving populations in all four regions of Irion. It was an elven community that developed the Anchors that make The Sleeping Lands possible, and several communities of elves can be found in The Wildlands as well. Additionally, there are numerous cities of Sea Elves in The Mer and a handful of elven settlements in The Depths.