Elf

Among the trees of the most ancient forests and living within the great feylands, there is a lithe people borne of nature and pure magic who spend their days wistfully passing the time, letting anything unnecessary continue on until a later time with their long life spans giving them a timeless perspective. These are the elves, a people known for their skill of bow and magic. Due to their innate connection to nature, they can withstand some of the most inhospitable locations on the planet, and thus they are well specialized within these environments.
There are six separate types of elves within the world of Elaris, living in a variety of environments from the deep seas to the harsh deserts. The most common of the elves are known as the high elves, mixing together their martial prowess with magical mastery.
Elves are notorious for their desire to see things for themselves, never happy with having something only explained to themselves, especially if the explanation comes from a non-elf. Even when a place has been explored and reported, many elves will still have a wish to see the place. Along their journey, they are likely to view each passing locale with great interest and wish to stop and explore anything and everything that catches their interest. For this reason, elves as a race are likely to have heard of any given location, especially as elves tend to enjoy sharing their experiences among their people. An elf is nothing if not curious.
This extends beyond simple locations and sights which, alongside their natural skill, has lead to them becoming some of the best mages and lore keepers within Elaris — particularly the dark elves who devote their entire lives to magic, referring to it as ‘the art’.
Elves have certain abilities not accessible to most humans except though powerful magic. They are aware that other races do not have these faculties, and they take great pride in knowing that they are the only mortal race However, most elves do not treat other races as inferior simply because they were born without these abilities; rather, they rejoice in their own uniqueness. The elves feel truly blessed.
There is only one thing more important to the elves than their magic and experience. More than any other race upon Elaris, the elves value their ancestors. This is in part due to the experiences their ancestors have brought to them, but primarily due to their creator deity having blessed them with ancestor spirits. The ancestors of the elves are able to physically manifest within the world to offer guidance to those who still walk their path of mortal life. So strong is their bond with the living elves that they have found a way to bind themselves to the weapons of the elves, staying nearby to always watch over their descendants.
Due to this bond to their ancestral spirits, all elves have the inborn ability to share their experiences, their feelings, and their lives with those elves they love or trust implicitly. This sharing, called communion, can be undertaken only by fully willing elves. It does not work with half-elves, nor does it function when one of those participating has even the slightest reservation. This includes those under the influence of charm-related spells, for they hold qualms deep in their hearts, even if told they do not.
Communion requires all elves involved—to a maximum of four—to be in a state of total relaxation. They must be in a place of peace, preferably where the world is not likely to intrude with its troubles and its cares. A natural surrounding works best for this operation.
Communion requires the participating elves to be totally serene, thinking only of the others in this most intimate bond. Thus, communion is not an effective method of relaying messages of any urgency. All the elves must free themselves of judgements and prejudices about the others, which may take some time. Indeed, some communions have been known to take a fortnight or more merely in preparation for the bonding.
When the participants have sufficiently calmed and retreated from the rigors of the world, they lightly touch palm to palm, finger to finger. They open their minds to the others, freely and completely joining together; if even a tiny reservation remains, the bond fails. During communion, the elves explore all facets of the others’ personality—the loves, hatreds, hopes, and fears.
While in this trance, communing elves are totally vulnerable to anything that might happen to them physically, for they cannot defend themselves against any attacks while communing. Mentally, they are even more vulnerable to attack, for their minds are totally unguarded.
Interestingly enough, the very act of communion offers a protection of sorts. Those in communion are defended against being spied upon, either mental or physically; this defense takes the form of an invisible barrier surrounding the communing elves. It is speculated that the elves are so enraptured with each other that they project a mental shield that keeps discovery to a minimum. Of course, this offers no protection against an attack from someone who knows of the time and whereabouts of the communion.
The benefit of communion is not only that elves learn the most secret facets of others. Because of this sharing, they also become intimately acquainted with others’ habits, fighting styles, and ways of thinking. For the day immediately following communion, the bonded elves can fight in perfect harmony, one’s weapon following though where another left an opening. All the elves must have at least one partner from the communion at their sides if this bonus is to be brought into play.
Communion can only be effected once a week. Those who try it more often with the same partners find themselves sharing with essences that are essentially themselves, for those who participated together have shared enough of their souls that there is little difference between them. Furthermore, communion tends to be somewhat draining even while it invigorates. Bonding so totally is simply too much of a drain on one’s psyche to be attempted lightly and frequently. Communion woks best when the participants have something to learn or gain from one another.
An elf that has no ancestral spirits—whether because the spirits have passed on totally, been slain, or for any other reason—is unable to bond through communion as it is their ancestor spirits that allow the sharing.
Another of the elvish abilities granted unto them by their ancestral spirits is that of manifestation. Despite the fact that elves are shorter than humans and can often appear somewhat childlike because of their height and frail builds, they are usually not discounted as such. There are the rare occasions when they are, however, and it is then that they invoke this power.
When elves wish, they can have an imposing presence. Suddenly, they seem far larger, more there, than their actual height and weight would indicate. They use this ability to good effect against impressible humans; it keeps the credulous ones at a distance and occasionally attracts necessary attention to the elf.
The manifestation ability is purely a result of the elven connection with their ancestral spirits; the only trick involved is in demonstrating this connection. Naturally, manifestation does not work on planes other than the Prime Material and the Feywild, as the elvish ancestral spirits are barred from entering such areas. Furthermore, it functions only on a world where the elf’s ancestors had lived for at least 50 years before dying there.
The final of the elvish powers, or spirit-blessings, is that of the ancestral sight. Elves do not sleep in the typical sense, though they can if they wish to. Instead, they gain their rest through a series of meditation and mental refreshment. During this process, they are able to enter ancestral sight. This special sight is akin to sleep, yet is very much unlike it. When elves enter this state, they vividly relive past memories, those both pleasant and painful. Like the dreaming of humans, elves have no control over which memories rise to the fore when they relinquish their bodies to their ancestral sight. Occasionally, elves do actually dream, but this is not a frequent occurrence and mostly occurs only when or if they truly sleep.
Elven dreams, when they happen, are sometimes prophetic. Whether these dreams are an indication of some sort of precognitive ability on the part of the elves or granted by their gods is a matter of debate. However, not all elven dreams are prophetic. Indeed, enough of their dreams are like those of humans that they cannot rely on their dreams for guidance. Still, all of their dreams are highly symbolic, providing insight into each individual’s character.
In a very real way, the ancestral sight accounts for the elven desire to lead happy, joyous lives. Who would look forward to reliving unpleasant memories every night. Very few, though there are some truly noble elves who take on the pain and suffering of others so that they relive the memories with each sight trip instead. These elves have accepted this sacrifice for the good of their people, taking upon themselves the burden that could not—or should not—descend into the lives of other, more innocent elves. They perform the unpleasant task of drawing into themselves the suffering of their people.
When they enter the ancestral sight, elves do not usually close their eyes unless there is a bright light present. They relax their bodies entirely, each muscle losing its rigidity, until they are absolutely calm. Their faces relax into a dazed and distant look as if they were seeing another land or another time.
During this time, they are fully aware of their surroundings, but they cannot act to influence them any more than a human can while asleep. Only by an act of will can an elf tear himself or herself from the ancestral sight, and they will be confused for a short time, just as a human would be who has torn themselves from sleep.
Although the sight provides rest, it is primarily an important memory tool that helps the elf maintain a strong sense of identity. Since their lifespans are so great, elves must periodically recall the events in those hundreds of years that were integral to the making of their personality.
The fact that elves go into this state, rather than enter actual sleep, could help to explain their natural resistance to sleep spells. Since sleep is, for the most part, alien to their nature, they can ward off its effects easily. But since the sight is akin to sleep, they suffer no ill effects when they do fall victim to sleep spells and similar magics.
The combination of ancestral sight and manifestation may also account for the elves’ near-immunity to charm-related spells. The reverie imparts a strong sense of self, giving them a secure identity. They are intimately attune to their own lives, wants, and needs and are therefore not easily misled about their goals. They allow only themselves to determine their course of action.
Their innate manifestation ability makes them well aware of efforts to influence them through supernatural means. Since they can sway others, they are conscious of attempts to manipulate them and can resist these endeavors with more authority and success than most other races.
Elves, especially those that are young—typically under 100 years of age—will see the memories of their ancestors rather than their own lives. This grows less and less common as they age and these memories grow hazier and harder to recall the closer they grow to a century old. When an elf no longer recalls any memories of their ancestors, instead only recalling those of their own lives, they are considered to be an adult.
The elves faith is not the strongest among the races, though they do keep it all the same. While they are nowhere near as steadfast in it as the dwarves, they are not as relaxed in it as the halflings either. As a people, elves tend to be lighthearted and flighty, having trouble keeping strongly to a single task. Most elves tend toward goodness, not feeling the need to harbor hatred toward others, though that is not to say they don’t keep grudges. If one is to truly wound an elf’s pride, they will not likely forget it for decades or potentially centuries to come. While they tend toward goodness, many elves do end up leaning heavily toward moral neutrality, caring only for themselves. Outside of this, many have trouble sticking to any singular code and thus have a very soft leaning toward chaos, though very few go out of their way to break law and code.
An oddity among most peoples, elves feel almost no true connection to life. Whether this is simply due to their chaotic nature or because of their ancestor spirits is unknown. While a dwarf will stand fast and fight to the last breath, and a halfling would rather flee to fight again another day, an elf is far more likely to accept their death. This is not to say an elf will simply lie down and surrender should anything go wrong, but an elf outnumbered with little chance of survival is unlikely to fight their hardest, having already given up on their chances to live on further.
Elves generally do not hate other races. Although they may dislike these races, they still feel a kinship with them as living beings. Humans never understand this, for they have not the time to make a true connection with the life force of the world. Only the true mystics of other races can understand the affinity elves have for connecting to the lives of others, even as they pay little attention to their own life’s connection.
Those races that hate the elves with an all-consuming passion are not worth any such emotion from elves. Irritating as these species may be, the elves regard them with nothing more than strong antipathy. Only those who routinely defile the forest and wilds for their own evil ends around much anger in elves.
The elves reserve their darkest emotion—hatred—for their own cursed cousins, the deep elves. The deep elves, or drow, have thrown away all that the elves consider sacred and have instead embraced foulness, corruption, and death. They have betrayed the heritage that was theirs by right and forsaken the light of the sun to live with pure evil: Norodiir Anuaer.
Not only do most of the surface elves fail to comprehend this choice, they don’t understand how beings created from the pureness of the gods and shaped by their ancestors who were the same could descend to the depths of evil as have the drow. They do understand, however, that the drow mean to destroy them. Truly, the drow have destroyed more of elven culture than even most elves understand, for the drow have forsaken their ancestors to extend their own lives. As such, drow are entirely unable to use ancestral sight, manifestation, or communion and have grown further from each other to become stronger individuals instead. The drow dreams of world conquest and domination are secondary only to their hatred for surface elves. The elves of sunlight know this hatred well and return it in full measure.
With regard to other races, elves have been accused of being haughty, arrogant, and contemptuous. This accusation is not entirely true. While elves do hold themselves apart from other races, they do not hold them in contemptity—though dwarves do come close. Most elves, however, don’t befriend these other races because of their short lives, not because of any inherent dislike. While the elves believe in living life to the fullest, they don’t relish the idea of watching myriad friends grow old and die, for through their ancestral sight they may be forced to re-watch these deaths time and time again.
Since elves can live through twenty human generations before leaving the world, many see no point in befriending those whom they will only lose immediately; while dwarves are longer lived, they don’t agree well with the elven disposition. Younger elves are sometimes willing to accept the sure pain of impending death for the joy friendship with these vital beings brings. After a few decades, however, they see that their companions are aging at an absurd rate when compared to elf friends. For the first time, they must come to grips with the concept of mortality and death. This proves more difficult for some than for others, though it comes to almost all finally. Some elves are unable to bear the pain, and can join amongst their ancestral spirits willingly, releasing their soul from their body and dying alongside their companions—though this is exceptionally rare.
Despite their short lives, each of the other races holds a unique place in the elven heart. Although elves and dwarves both fight on the side of goodness, they often find themselves at odds over everything else. The main point of contention between the two is the definition of a good life. Dwarves strongly believe in the work ethic that elves find difficult to enjoy. Dwarves don’t feel that happiness is essential to a good life while elves find it essential for any semblance of one. Dwarves believe life should be organized and well cared for—not haphazard and spontaneous as many elves prefer. These views, so contrary to the elven enjoyment of life, don’t allow dwarves to see things on the elven level.
Yet each race secretly appreciates the other, and some of the strongest bonds in the world are between elves and dwarves. The two races are actually a good complement to each other.
Elves and gnomes get along well when they meet. Gnomes have an appreciation of humor and a zest for life that appeals to the elves, for that connection to life is something they so lack. In elven opinion, gnomes take what is best about the dwarves and combine it with a healthy dose of elvendom. Indeed, some ancient elven legends say that gnomes were created by crossing elves with dwarves.
This is not to say that gnomes are entirely loved by the elves. They take their obsession with digging into the earth a little too seriously, and they seem to regard elves with some suspicion. Elves return that regard. Still, as with dwarves, the two races will defend each other if necessary.
Elves genuinely like halflings, although in a somewhat patronizing way. They regard halflings as an amusing race and treat them for the most part as children. The halflings don’t have enough curiosity for elven taste; halflings are usually content to remain in their burrows and comfortable little farmsteads without ever experiencing the outside world. Elves are very impressed when a halfling manages to amount to something more than a connoisseur of food and drink.
Halflings sometimes resent the elven view that the halflings are like children, but they are very much in awe of elves and rarely speak out against them. To associate with an elf is all the excitement a halfling needs in his or her life. To travel with elves is more than many halflings can bear. However, those halflings that have heard The Call often seek out elvish companions just for this reason.
Elves regard halflings as children and are very protective of them. They don’t appreciate attempts to harm halflings in any way and will do their best to avenge any wrongs.
Elves have a difficult time classifying humans. Many humans are friendly and even a little in awe of elves. Others are bigoted and unfriendly, even downright hostile. While other races have variations in their racial makeup and general views, none are as varied as the humans. This means that elves will regard every human they meet with some degree of suspicion until that human has proven him- or herself a friend.
Elves, despite their many accomplishments, are amazed by humans. Humans are prolific producers of children, and many have incredibly innate ability. Humans have managed to convert lands elves had once thought unlivable into homes. The elves are impressed—and perhaps a little frightened—of this adaptability.
Despite their constant bickering and warlike nature or perhaps become of it, humans now dominate the world. They have accomplished in a few short years what it took elves hundreds of years to achieve. It is because of the humans’ soaring population and expansionistic tendencies that elves find themselves retreating to the forests and secluding themselves from the world.
The vast variance of human nature is enough that elves have no set reaction to them. Their variety confuses elves, and they stay away from humans as much as possible.
The greatest taboo among the elves is sacrificing another in order to live on longer themselves. Elves know and understand they can pass on into a peaceful afterlife, guiding the young along as spirits, but tend to know little of any afterlife awaiting others. Due to this, they see it as their duty to allow others to live on if possible. An elf protecting trusted companions and attempting to save them from death’s grasp is one of the few times one will see an elf putting their full effort into anything.

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Table of Contents

Game Statistics

5th Edition

Ability Score Adjustment. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Speed. Your base land speed is 30 feet.
Size. Your size is Medium.
Low-Light Vision. You can see in dim light as though it were bright light.
Elvish Bloodline. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
Ancestral Sight. Elves don't need to sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exersizes that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish.

4th Edition

Ability Scores.
Size. Medium
[speed. 7 squares
Vision. Low-Light

Languages. Common, Elvish
Skill Bonuses. +2 Nature, +2 Perception
Elven Weapon Proficiency. You gain proficiency with the longbow and the shortbow.
Group Awareness. You grant non-elf allies within 5 squares of you a +1 racial bonus to Perception checks.

3.5th Edition

Ability Score Adjustment. +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution
Size. Medium
Speed. An elf's base land speed is 30 feet.
Elvish Bloodline. Elves are immune to sleep spells and effects, and receive a +2 Racial bonus to saving throws against enchantment spells or effects.
Low-Light Vision. Elves can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to him or her as a source of light.
Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.
Weapon Proficiency. Elves are automatically proficient with the longsword, rapier, longbow, composite longbow, shortbow, and composite shortbow.
Racial Skills. Elves receive a +2 Racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. An elf who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if he or she were actively looking for it.
Languages. Automatic Languages: Common, Elvish; Bonus Languages: Draconic, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, Sylvan.
Favored Class: Wizard

2nd Edition

When an elf is alone and is not wearing metal armor, he or she gains a bonus to surprise opponents. The opponent suffers a -4 penalty on surprise rolls, or a -2 penalty if the elf has to open a door or move obstructions. An elf can also gain this benefit if with a party comprised only of other creatures with this or a similar ability.
Elvish bloodlines react oddly to certain effects due to their innate connection to spirits and death, and as such all elves are 90% resistant to sleep and charm-related spells.
Because of their acute senses, elves are quick to spot concealed doors and hidden entranceways. Merely passing within 10’ of a concealed door allows an elf a one-in-six chance (1 on 1d6) to notice it. If actively searching, an elf’s chances improve to a two-in-six chance (1-2 on 1d6) to find secret doors, and a three-in-six chance (1-3 on 1d6) to notice a concealed door.

Pathfinder 2e

Hit Points. 6
Size. Medium
Speed. 30 feet
Ability Boosts. Dexterity, Intelligence, Free
Ability Flaw. Constitution
Languages. Common, Elvish, Elvish Dialect (Based on your Heritage), Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from Celestial, Draconic, Gnoll, Gnomish, Goblin, Orcish, Sylvan, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).
Low-Light Vision. You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.

Genetic Descendants

• Half-Elf

Related Organizations

• Unbreathing Council

Related Ethnicities

• Aquatic Elf
• Dark Elf
• Deep Elf
• High Elf
• Mirage Elf
• Wild Elf