Elves (Action)

Attributes and Schticks

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

Description

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.

Personality

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 individual 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, 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 to 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 lifespans 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 the expectant mother and the young child. Most elves grow up pampered, which makes them independent but somewhat emotionally vulnerable. Elves from elven 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 wherewithal 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	Elven Cities
Wood Elves	Plant	Forest
Wild Elves	Animal	Forest
Drow	Darkness	Caverns
Wave Elves	Water	Aquatic
Ice Elves	Ice	Glaciers, Mountaintops
Fae	Illusion	Magic Glens
Jinn	Air	Clouds
Jann	Fire	Desert

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 the forest. Wood elves have skins of pale earth tones such as greens or browns, sometiomes 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 black or dark purple skins and long white hair.

Wave Elves

Wave elves love water and live in shallow seas, marshes, rivers, and lakes. Some are amphibian, others mariners.

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.

Fae

Creatures of illusion and imagination, their very existence uncertain, fae are rarely seen except when they choose to be. They make their living in places of great magic, mirage, and uncertainty, such as the outermost isles or remotest glades.

Jinn

Creatures of the air, living on clouds, Jinn are rarely seen except when their clouds come down to earth as mist.

Jann

Elves of the desert, Jann thrive on heat and dance in the midday desert when no other things move.