Elves (Action)

Heroic Action Role-Play

Attributes and Schticks

Body: 3-7
Mind: 6-12
Reflexes: 6-12

• Grace
• Mystic Form
• Long Life

Description

Elves are fey creatures, thing and otherworldly, never fully of the material plane. While they have many things in common with other Folk, they are also magical and lead enchanted lives.

Appearance

Elves are shorter and slighter than men, usually about 150 cm (5') tall. They resemble human adolescents, and facial or body hair is quite unusual. Head hair is fine, and often plentiful. All elves are considered good-looking, but seem fragile and otherworldly by human standards. Some elves have strange physical features, such as extremely long hair, horns, vestigial fur, fangs, webbed hands and feet, claws or unusual colors. Such peculiarities are often associated with particular bloodlines or clans.

Role

Elves are quite leisurely, and don't really enjoy hard work or physical labor. They cherish arts and fine crafts, but tend to regard them as diversions. A typical elf knows a little of many professions, being a master of none and changing profession as whims or markets dictate. Most have at least some experience as traders, artists, entertainers or performers. Sometimes, an elf becomes obsessed with a particular occupation or task, seeking absolute excellence in it to the exclusion of all else, but this is seen as quite unhealthy by other elves.

Politics

Elven kingdoms are collections of individuals living together, often led by a charismatic leader with a cult of personality as the guiding force of the realm. There is no real sense of civic duty. Shared ideals and the initiative of charismatic individuals can get things done, but outsiders usually see nothing in the way of government.

Integration

Elves are physically similar to humans, can live in the same houses, and enjoy the same food and the same diversions. They rarely have their own section of human cities, and tend to move about quite a bit over the course of their lives. Most seek not to identify too closely with any group or location, preferring to keep options open. They are usually welcome in human lands, but not as trusted as a well-known human, dwarf or even ork. It is said that an elf becomes your friend in the evening and forgets you when the morning comes.

Family

With long life spans and few children, elves spend just a tiny part of their lives as parents. Most take to this unusual situation with sensual devotion, doting on both mother and child. Thus elves grow up pampered, which make them independent but somewhat emotionally vulnerable. Elves from isolated communities usually take to the children of other races, but after a while the novelty passes.

Vices

Elven self-confidence and demand for liberty easily gets bruised. Having had things go their way, elves can get sullen and rash when faced with opposition, unable to see the other side of an issue or have enough wherewithals to pursue a matter to the finish. They can also be vain and proud. Tough rarely evil, they can be antisocial to a catastrophic degree.

Elven Tribes

Elves are by nature magical, and form strong ties with the different Forms of magic. Groups of elves all with the same Mystic Form join together and become tribes. These tribes are based on both magical and blood ties in ways not fully understood by the elves themselves. A few elves develop unique Forms baffling even other elves, many of them having grown up outside elvish communities.

These are the most important elvish tribes, and the forms they are associated with.

	Tribe	Form	Habitat
	High Elves	Light	Villas
	Wood Elves	Plant	Forest
	Wild Elves	Animal	Wilderness
	Drow	Darkness	Caverns
	Nereids	Water	Aquatic
	Ice Elves	Ice	Glaciers, Mountaintops
	Jinn	Air	Clouds
	Jann	Fire	Desert
	Theiflings	Flux	Magical places
	Dis	Order	Sacred places
	Prodigal Elves	Any form	Anywhere

High Elves

Civilized, enlightened, living in cities or villas seemingly grown from nature, high elves are the epitome of culture. In many worlds, high elves are in retreat or hiding, surviving only as the royal houses among other elven tribes. High elves have fair skin and black, silver or gold hair.

Wood Elves

The most commonly seen type of elf, practical and civilized people living in tune with their forest homes. Wood elves have skins of pale earth tones such as greens or browns, sometimes changing complexion with the seasons. Their hair has similar colors in brighter patterns.

Wild Elves

Considered barbarians by other elves, wild elves live rustic lives accompanied by the animals that taught them to survive in harsh environments. Wild elves are ruddy or swarthy of complexion with wild hair of natural colors. Many have the eyes, tails, ears, or other features of animals.

Drow

The dark elves or drow ore the antithesis of the high elves. Civilized yet cruel and depraved, they live in isolated communities far from the light of the sun, most often at war with other elves. Drow have shiny black or dark purple skins and long white hair. They are even lither than other elves, almost spidery.

Nereids

Nereids love water and live in shallow seas, marshes, rivers, and lakes. Some tribes are amphibian, others mariners. Nereids have alabaster complexions with brown, green, or pale gray hair and dark eyes that shift towards blue or sea green in bright light.

Ice Elves

At homes on snow-shrouded mountain tops and glaciers, Ice Elves are elusive creatures living in forbidding environments where few others could survive. They depend on their remote location for protection. Ice elves are pale, with black or ice blue hair and eyes of different shades of blue.

Jinn

Creatures of the air, living on clouds, Jinn are rarely seen except when their clouds come down to earth as mist. Jinn have flashing eyes of bright primary colors and are otherwise pale to the point of translucence.

Jann

Elves of the desert, Jann thrive on heat and dance in the midday desert when no other things move. They have brick-colored skin, black hair and deep red, amber, or yellow eyes. Some rare Jann have matching hair and eye color.

Theiflings

Often the result of influence from the outer planes, the chaotic thieflings often show demonic traits; horns, pointed tails, tiny hooves. They are the least trusted of a whimsical breed and many settlements might flat-out refuse to admit a thiefling.

Dis

Perhaps the most enigmatic of all elves, and also the most human-looking, the Dis are creatures of physical perfection, slim and stately. The nonhuman traits of other elves are rare in Dis, but they still have the slim build of other elves. They live reclusive lives at spiritual places; even others who live there might only have perceived them trough the choral music they love to sing. When about in the world, it is to experience fate at work; they accompany heroes who live out a great destiny, good or bad.

Prodigal Elves

Not all elves fit neatly into the tribes. Variously refereed to as lost, orphans, or prodigies, these elves either rebelled against their tribal traditions to grow into an unusual Form, or were brought up outside elven society and had the magic find them. Always regarded as outsiders, the prodigies are usually welcome among other elves but not fully trusted until they prove themselves. Their lack of facility for the tribe's magic often means they are unable to share in the subtler aspects of tribal culture. On the other hand, their unusual gifts can make them very valuable and praised members of a tribe. Sometimes they can band together in small groups, which could potentially grow into tribes over the centuries. Some such groups are the Celestial Choir (Order and the Wild Bunch Flux).

Prodigal elves usually have a less distinct look than other elves, colors similar to humans. Some of them have physical oddities, but these don't run true; that one Order prodigy has checkered skin does not mean they all do.