[work in progress]

Elves are an ancient and near-timeless race, with natural lifespans stretching longer than almost any other mortal people. To non-elves, they often appear superficially charming but mercurial and aloof, passionate about their own affairs but inclined to treat members of other races as children and buffoons. While not as taciturn as dwarves, very few elves bother to explain their motives. In public elves tend to be smooth and gracious, but not necessarily kind.

Elves prefer to congregate in settlements of their own kind, particularly in dense forests. Settlements often welcome visitors, though it is hard for a non-elf to gain acceptance in most elven settlements, and it may take longer than a human lifetime to find that acceptance.

More gregarious elves often spend a few decades in enclaves dominated by other races, and larger towns and cities may have whole neighborhoods where elves are the most common race. Even here, elves see themselves as “just visiting,” even if that visit is a century.

What elves share with others

Where dwarves are taciturn and often dour, elves often appear carefree and glib. They laugh and sing quite freely, and espouse a deep appreciation of beauty in many forms. In social settings, the elven aesthetic drives them to be cheerful and polite, even to bitter enemies. In crafts, elven design tends toward exquisite delicacy and refinement, fetching a high price for those who can wait for their production. In spellcraft, elves rarely have the drive to establish new concepts and techniques, but they love to refine and embellish the work of others, to create more elegant spells and magic items.

Elves are welcome as actors, performers, fine artisans, advisors, and diplomats, though they rarely stay in a non-elven community for more than a few decades.

The founding of the elven race (and most of its subtypes) is said to predate the earliest of human kingdoms, when the Seven Lords of Aelfheim stepped out of the Dream. Legend says they learned magic from dragons, and spread that knowledge to the other races of the world. Elves do not gloat in this heritage, however – they find vanity and excessive pride to be unseemly and unsightly.

Elves make acquaintances freely, though friendships take root more slowly. Their long lifespans lead them to a certain amount of distance in most relationships with non-elves, as they are loathe to see loved ones wither and die in the span of mere decades. Even among their own kind, they make friendships slowly, but this is because they know that friends and enemies from this lifetime are likely to appear again in the next.

What elves share among themselves

Every elf is born with at least vague memories of past lives, so elven childhood is as much about learning as it is about remembering. Past friends and foes are likely to emerge again, and sometimes the past unfolds again in the present as if staging a play.

Elven cultural tradition

Almost all elves are raised in an elven community, so they gain the Elven Cultural Tradition benefit. This gives them Literacy and Educated as bonus feats. Even elves without exposure to the larger elven community gain the Educated feat.

Physiology

Elves do not have strong secondary sex characteristics. To human eyes, they may be mistaken for humans on the cusp of puberty. Elven physiology is heavily influenced by fey heritage. They may be born male, female, or ambiguous, and may shift gender and gender-related features at dramatic points in their lives. More rarely, other features may drift over time: eye color, height, hair color, etc.

Elves are born after almost three years’ gestation, and develop in four years as much as humans do in two. Their childhood lingers for thirty years, and adolescence for another ninety years. Elven children rarely socialize with non-elves until they reach adolescence.

Upon reaching middle age, elves age subtly and slowly. Even as their bodies weaken under the weight of centuries, they keep much of their youthful appearance. Penalties for each age category are limited to -1.

Family Structure

Elves form close personal bonds analogous to marriage among other peoples, though they tend to be polyamorous and evolve over the centuries as the elves’ gender and interests drift. While elven sexuality and social structure is more fluid than most mortal races, they tend not to discuss such matters in mixed company.

Elves form tangled webs of kinship as relationships come, change, and go. Despite their long lives, most elves have two children at most. Children are typically raised by one of the parents and their immediate family, though that too may change over time. Elves care for their children very dearly, but will sometimes leave children for decades with trusted kin and dear friends.

Half-elven children are almost never raised in an elven community. The elven parent will typically join the human parent in a human settlement, at least until the child reaches adulthood.

Government

Each typical elven settlement is led more than ruled by a prince and a loosely appointed ruling council, who administer the community’s few needs that cannot be handled by individual self-governance.

Elven settlements pay lip service to a united kingdom of all elves, called Alfheim, and ruled by the Seven Lords. These quasi-deities have guided their people since before recorded history.

For all practical purposes, there is no higher government beyond the individual settlement, though occasionally a prominent elf, fey, or ally will intercede on behalf of an embattled community, and elven settlements tend to help one another if asked.

Language

All elves are fluent in the Elven tongue, though the wood elves and dark elves prefer their own twists on the tongue. The “true” tongue of the elves is spoken around the known world, and its spoken and written conventions have not changed in millenia. Elves do not learn to read or speak this language so much as they are reminded of a past they already know. Thus, even elves bereft of their cultural tradition still learn their language and writing with even cursory exposure.

Elves are not private about their language. Though few non-elves have the patience and dedication to master it, they readily teach it to others, and several non-elven languages and magical traditions use their script.

Diversity

The Seven Lords of Alfheim and the various fey additions across the ages have produced many subtypes of elf, but all remain distinctly elven. Water-breathing elves swim the sea’s depths, blue elves stride across glaciers, and dark elves worm through caverns never touched by sun or torch. While some elven strains maintain their own idiom, they all feel the tug of the same history, they all understand the same language, and they all feel themselves to be the true heroes of the elven story.

Occasionally, new offshoots of the elven family tree emerge, usually the result of an elf going fey and coming back again. If these individuals reproduce with other elves, a new subtype is born.

Most elves reproduce with other elves regardless of subtype, as their hearts move them. The child may exhibit some unusual bloodline traits, but it generally takes the subtype of its mother. They can also carry children from unions with fey, to the same effect.

Elves can also reproduce with humans, though most elves do not consummate romances with such short-lived races. Other race pairings are not known to occur, or are not known to be fertile.

Afterlife

When most elves die, their souls walk the Bright Roads at the guidance of the Seven Lords of Alfheim, and they eventually find their way to a new elven incarnation. Most of their memory is left behind in favor of a fresh start, but inclinations and past associations tend to linger, and most elves who come to understand their past lives see the same stories and relationships playing out each time.

Elves who follow other gods before the Seven Lords of the elven pantheon may not find their way along the Bright Roads unless the other gods release their followers’ souls. Half-elves may walk the Bright Roads, but they will only reincarnate as half-elves, forever ignorant of their prior lives.