Elves

The elves are a people apart, as they are quick to remind others. They were not the first settlers of the forests and fields, but they taught humans and dwarves and others the arts arcane and the art of civilization. The empire they founded at Thorn and in the Arbonesse, which later spread as far east as Sephaya and south to Valera, was a wonder for the ages. Its magical roads, its slim towers, and its speedy and lethal armies maintained an age of peace that lasted until a few centuries ago.
Now the elves are a splintered race. Some few with elven blood—the so-called “elfmarked” humans—remain and can claim descent from the great elves of old. The greatest of these is the Imperatrix of Dornig, an aging queen without a clear heir. But the elfmarked are as much human as elf (see MHH or MPG). The true elves are rarely seen, and defined by three groups: the elusive windrunner elves of the Rothenian steppes, the shadow fey of the Realm of Shadow, and the reclusive river elves of the Arbonesse, who might be the strongest and wisest of the three groups.
The shadow elves keep a court and a king and queen, but their remaining glory is slight, a reflection full of illusion and trickery and deceit. They no longer draw their power from Midgard, but from Shadow. The river elves are of the last holdouts of the elves of Thorn, with the River King retaining only slight contact with Dornig. The Arbonesse Forest is their homeland and the river their highway, and their borders include all the land where the leaves’ shadow falls. The river elves sometimes exile one of their number to wander the world for a few decades, but otherwise, the other races rarely see the elves who built so many castles, roads, and cities throughout Midgard.
On Elven Names
A true elf of the Arbonesse lineage has three names. The first is a birth name given by parents, the second is a common name adopted by the elf upon maturity, and the last is a lineage name, akin to a family name among the humans but taken from a list of a few hundred great heroes of the Elflands known as the Wild Hunt, who harrowed the demons back to their hells. The most common lineage names include Aynwyn, Sheoloss, Kalthania, Derina, Dammung, Rexthathus, and Larentil. Elves with the same lineage name might not be related at all, which leads to confusion among humans. Elves reveal their birth names to their own kind and trusted friends, and their common name to all others.
The Imperatrix was born Regia Kalthania, and took the name Moonthorn when she first adventured among the primitives. When she married she added her husband’s name Reln according to human custom, and upon her ascension to a noble state she took the vann Dornig title. Not all elves in Midgard maintain this tradition. The windrunner elves (whom the exiles of Arbonesse say were lower classes of Sephaya who ignored the Last Horn) adopt the naming conventions of the plains, and forget their lineages.
By Dornig law, only individuals with a clear elven heritage can take an elven lineage name. There is a brisk trade among up-and-coming gentry for genealogists who can provide such a link.
Elven Ritual Magic
The elves have powerful forms of ritual magic, and traditions that hand those rituals down to their descendants, and sometimes to the elfmarked.