Elder Race

The original and undifferentiated race of humanoid life on Valbara. The Elder Race appeared and flourished during the First Flowering, speciated and declined during the Second Flowering, and are extremely rare in the modern age.
The Elder Race most closely resembles elves, particularly the so-called Pureblood elves of Helkariah, but were taller and more robust. Their ears were pointed, but less so than elves, and their features were also less fine and sharp than elves, but still extremely striking and noble. The sclerae of their eyes were black, rather than white, a feature that remains common today only in Pureblood elves and certain races of giant. Though it is not thought that the Elders were immortal, they were extremely long lived, with lifespans on the order of millennia. Those Elders that remain today exist through esoteric means, such as lichdom or the patronage of a deity.
After the fall of the civilization of the First Flowering and the subsequent reordering of the cosmos, the Elder Race began to diverge into several subspecies and races. Scholars refer to the two main branches of the Elders' descendants as the Gracile Elders and the Robust Elders, though the Elders themselves certainly did not refer to themselves as such. The Gracile Elders came to emphasize refinement, scholarship, magic, and cunning over strength, while the Robust Elders sought to regain their former status through physical power and dominance; it should be noted, however, that both of these races were still larger, stronger, smarter, and more magically gifted than most humanoids alive in the Fourth Flowering.
A third branch of humanoid descendants, crudely referred to as the Livestock races, were bred and kept by some of the more unscrupulous Elder civilizations as a slave workforce. The most direct descendants of these unfortunate peoples are the dwarves and the various goblinoid and orcish races, while interbreeding with the various "higher" Elder races created halflings and humans.
The Gracile Elders' most direct descendants today are elves and, perhaps surprisingly, gnomes. Pureblood elves, the nobility of Helkariah, consider themselves to be the last true remnant of this Elder race, but in reality are simply ordinary elves with some atavistic features. Much of the Gracile Elders' knowledge was lost in the various collapses and catastrophes of the Second Flowering, and so their descendants, though still long lived and often quite refined, are much more on a level with the other humanoid races in the Fourth Flowering.
The Robust Elders actually fared better than their Gracile fellows for many a millennium; indeed, they ruled the entirety of Valbara for an entire age, for the giants of the Third Flowering are their direct descendants. In their pursuit of godlike stature and strength, the Robust Elders became truly huge, and were called the Elder Giants. The Elder Giants arose in the latter days of the Second Flowering and ruled for much of the Third Flowering. However, magical and genetic tinkering with their forms created and inherent instability, and each long-lived generation of giant was slightly lesser than the last. While the first Elder Giants were wise and practiced both magic and science to a degree that would rival any other civilization in history, they became ever so slightly less so with each turning of the age. Their attempts to counter this phenomenon, which they called the Ebb, ravaged the world and tore their race asunder. Some giants, the cloud giants in particular, retained much of their wisdom and power, but became much less fertile, and so retired to distant lands to nurture what remained of their people. Others attempted to augment and attune themselves to certain elements, creating the fire, frost, and stone giants. Though those races are stable, they are limited. A last and most unfortunate offshoot succumbed entirely to the Ebb, becoming brutes and monstrosities. The hill giants, ogres, and trolls, each one stupider, grosser, and more chaotic than the last, are the most fallen of the Elder Race's many children.