Elves

Thought by many to be the eldest race and the first children of Genesis, the elves are the last cohesive power in a fractured world.
While many races became scattered when the world was divided, the elves best retained the structure and unity that makes them a major power. Their magic still allows communication between their remaining kingdoms, and of all those who dwell in Genesis, the elves can still travel between the shards with the greatest ease. They have stayed strong when many have faltered. But even the elves have felt their losses. Most of the great cities have fallen or been abandoned; while their civilization is far from dead, it's shrunk drastically from the major world power it once was. Though they still interact with the other races in many shards, the highest heights of elven culture are now found only within the safety of their own lands. Better to hide, then to vanish altogether.

Typical Physical Characteristics

As a general rule elves are taller than humans, with a strong, slender built. It's hard for them to deviate from this in any major way, with their metabolic rate tending to rule out the development of heavy musculature or excess body fat. They typically have well-defined features and bone structure, without a wide range of variation in facial build or features; humans tend to find elves attractive, but can often have some trouble telling them apart. Many elves offset their homogenous features by way of distinctive hairstyles, clothing, or personal ornamentation such as jewelry or body markings.
Elven skintones vary by region, with most ranging from fair to midtone brown. Common haircolors are black, pale blonde/ashen, and auburn; elven hair is typically straight and fine-textured, and is generally grown long and worn either loose or in elaborate looping styles. Eye colors tend to be various light shades of green, brown, or blue.
With a moderately strong, stable lifeforce, elves have slightly less natural affinity for natural magic than humans, but are well-suited to becoming mages and hone their abilities to a high level of skill via study and experience. They have no innate abilities.

Life Cycle

Elves are a long-lived race, with most living somewhere in the range of 200-300 years. Anything past 200 is considered old age, but the stability of their natural lifeforce means that elves age extremely gracefully and don't become frail until well into their third century of life.
Elves are considered full adults at approximately fifty years of age, though their childhood ends at about thirty. Though they physically and mentally mature at a slightly delayed but similar rate to humans during their first few decades of life, elves hold their youth to a much higher standard when it comes to having the experience and gravity required to be acknowledged as adults. Elves also typically take longer to select a lifelong partner, and don't typically marry until they're at least 100. Due to low fertility rates, they tend to have children when they're anywhere from 100-150 years of age.

Reputation

As a whole, elves are seen as proud, intelligent, deliberate and circumspect in their decisions, and elegant in both appearance and action. They're respected as the originators of culture and civilization, and maintain much of that reputation even in the present day. While individual elves can be as widely varied in personality as any other race, their long lives tends to give them a degree of perspective and temperance. As a general rule they're raised to be well-read and educated, and tend to work hard to excel in whatever interests they have. Elves raised in mixed population shards tend to get along well with and think of themselves as no better or worse than members of the other races.
In shards that have remained more exclusively elven, such as the few remaining true elven kingdoms, the population is far more racially homogenous with humans being either implicitly or openly discouraged. This has led to a more conservative portion of the elven race; while many elves who live within these kingdoms merely feel little in common with humans, there are some who actively blame humans for the wane of elven power and the shattering effect of Genesis. These more extremist elves think that Genesis was a human-born Reaper’s way of preventing the inevitable backlash from the older races that would have wiped out humanity and prevented its rise, and resent the fact that the world was so irreversibly altered for the preservation of humans. They tend to more strongly exhibit the pride and inflexibility of their longstanding culture, which can lead to conflict when they venture outside their shards.

Social Structure

Elven culture's leadership revolves heavily around lineage with very little leaning towards patriarchal or matriarchal structure; age and wisdom are valued over any gendered distinctions, with those in charge generally making the decision to turn power over to a well-prepared successor when the time is right. There's a strict structure of hereditary power and rank, leading from royal families to the nobility to the common people.
Each major elven kingdom is ruled over by a king or queen and acts largely autonomously; while all elven kingdoms are formally linked under the Treaty of Six Lands and answer to a single High King or Queen, this leadership only applies during times of war and has no bearing on the day-to-day ruling of the individual kingdoms. The position of High King isn't fixed, and traditionally is passed to the strongest reigning ruler among the kingdoms at the time of the previous High King's death. Within their own kingdoms, the king's word is law. They serve as the final word on all decisions, arbitrate disputes, and devote themselves entirely to the wellbeing of their people. While the elven royalty live well, they also work hard.
Elven households are large and extended, with everyone from major nobility to middleclass commoners tending to maintain large family structures ruled by a reigning matriarch or patriarch. Only lowerclass elves without enough wealth or power to maintain a large household split up into smaller nuclear structures; even when leaving their home shard, elves tend to try and merge with another household that they share history with through the intricate intermingling of elven bloodlines. The strong extended family structure means that elves sacrifice a certain degree of independence and autonomy for security; 'for the good of the family' is a guiding motive, and while they benefit from the stability and resources of their family behind them it means that most elves find themselves partially ruled by the will of the head of their family.

Societal Norms and Values

For more specific racial customs, see Elven Customs.
TRADITION AND CEREMONY
Elves do everything with a great deal of deliberation, and treat what ceremonies they have with gravity and seriousness. Their traditions are well-maintained and change very little over time. While many of these customs are serious, others are less so; elves have a great love of maintaining their histories via song and storytelling, and their performance is an important way of keeping their cultural norms alive in a way that's also beautiful to witness.
LOVE, SEX, AND MARRIAGE
While elves marry for love, the importance of family standing is so culturally ingrained that most marriages still take it into consideration. Arranging a marriage is a complicated and carefully considered affair, and prospective matches are expected to court for several years to ensure compatibility; a marriage should rarely be a first relationship, and young elves are expected and encouraged to take any number of lovers beforehand with very little restriction. Separations are frowned upon, in part due to the care with which marriages are made, and require annulment by the royal court of the kingdom the couple is affiliated with.
Due to their complex family structures, the patterns of primogeniture inheritance are a factor to be taken into account during matches; new couples generally affiliate with whichever family would place them higher in the hierarchy. Same-sex couples are normal and treated with the same relaxed air as most matters involving sex and sexuality, but forfeit the rights of their adoptive children in their family's inheritance patterns. They also receive slightly lower priority in terms of political desirability due to the fact that a same-sex couple won't continue the family bloodline.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Crime is judged harshly in elven culture, with even fairly minor transgressions punished to a degree that other races often consider disproportionate. Interestingly, the scaling of punishment is not uniform; crime is considered a vice of the poor and desperate, and the higher a criminal's rank the more of a moral misstep it's considered. As a result, members of the nobility who break the law face an exponentially harsher sentence.
The consequences for breaking elven law are intended to be civilized and rehabiliatory, most often centering around public shame and forced labor. Handling of punishment is a carefully weighed balancing of many factors; a long-lived being has the potential for a long and productive life if reformed, but also has the potential to cause a great deal of suffering if unrepentant. It's thought that the needs of the many outweigh those of the few, which also gives weight to using the community's moral judgement and the potential of stripping a lawbreaker of their rank, inheritance, and familial connections as grave consequences for their actions. In the most severe crimes, the punishment is exile or execution.
DEATH
Due to the length of elven lifespans, both birth and death are seen as very important events. Except in the case of young/premature death, the end of a life is seen as something to be celebrated as much as it is mourned; the elderly don't fear death, and see its approach as a reminder to treasure the time they have with their loved ones.
The sanctity of the dead's physical remains is important in elven culture. Elaborate funerary practices are common for all elves from royalty to the poorest commoners, though the lavishness of the proceedings various based on the means of the deceased and their loved ones. They almost exclusively bury their dead in forested graveyards maintained in each elven city or settlement; major noble houses and royal houses will often have smaller private graveyards of their own located on their ancestral estates. Elves will without exception keep a portion of their household shrine that's dedicated to their departed ancestors, and the dead are regularly remembered and honored as a part of family tradition.

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