Wood Elves

The Wood Elves are close cousins of the High Elves, but settling in wilder forest environs since ages-old time. These Elves are unsurpassed woodsmen, trackers, and hunters, often quieter and lower-key than their High Elf cousins. Sometimes their advice is sought by the High Elves, regarding issues of plant, animal, or forest, or some forgotten lore needed at the time.
They are a race that remained relatively close (geographically) to their High Elf cousins, living in more remote locations of their forests, as well as further into wilds of Fey lands. The Wood Elves lack the cultural sophistication of the High Elves, but they make up for it in their intimate ties with the forests and lands of Summer's Tale. Retaining much less of the High culture brought from the Early Times, they have become one with Summer's Tal and its Place. They prefer life in the woods, but some few have been known to contract the perennial elven wanderlust, to travel beyond in exploration.

Wood Elves follow a very old religion that could best be described as Animistic, living consciously among the Fey creatures of their forests, honoring them and propitiating them and enjoying relationships of many kinds. All but the most traitorous of the Wood Elves will hold the life of a forest and its animal creatures in highest esteem and value, and defend it in any way possible.
Wood Elves dwell in a number of Forests throughout Summer's Tale, as detailed below.

LACQ FOREST

The Wood Elves of the Lacq Forest have access to a unique resource, known only scarecely in other Elven forests. The Lacq Forest nearly hums with portals to Faerie, and with the Fey folk who come and go throughout the forest. Thus these Elves are very familiar with the Fey, knowing them both generally and personally from experiences in the woods. Many of these Wood Elves even have even had actual experience of the Fey lands from guided travels. The strength of relationship and knowledge is strong.

The High Elves of the Lacq often call on their Wood Elf cousins to consult regarding Fey matters and communication. The former believe the Wood Elves to be the foremost experts on the Fey in all the world of Summer's Tale. This may or may not be true, but the Wood Elves here hold it as a proud tradition in their culture. There is a hierarchy of clerics and adepts that build relationship with the Fey and disseminate their wisdom, as well as warning the Wood and High Elves of a pending (or immediate) invasion of Wicked Fey.

The Lacq Forest wood elves also relate to the humans who live in Sallador to the south. There is trade between them, if not warm friendship.
Lacq Forest Elves, Wood Elf and High Elf

GREYLEAF FOREST

Elves of the Greyleaf live in fairly close proximity to human groups, and as such they are more familiar with the latter. Their relationships range from trade (for example in the nearby metropolis of Terralus) to close alliance with the people of Narra close to the east. Terralus is possibly the largest city on all of Summer's Tale, and elves with a fascination for such things will leave home for short periods and explore its wilder streets and ineresting public houses. Narra, on the other hand, is a country inhabited by kind and noble people who have reached out to the Greyleaf elves for centuries, offering alliance and support, and requesting the same from the elves.
Other neighboring groups are often hostile: the kobolds and orcs specifically, and also the rare giant, troll, or other beast straying from the wilds to the north. The Greyleaf elves are well-versed in homeland defense, and even warfare when it is called for.
Of course, the Elves are not merely defined by their neighbors. Their life in the Greyleaf is rich in its particular seasonal patterns and flora. The Greyleaves know their woods inside and out, and they take advantage of their land's diverse flora, which especially yields poisons of various kinds. Greyleaf elves come off as stark and serious, their initial demeanor being somewhat off-putting. They tend to either appear or actually be haughty and skeptical of others. A close friendship with a Greyleaf elf is a precious thing!
Greyleaf Forest Narra Tellarus, General Document

FOREST OF ELVENDELL

Over the course of hundreds of years or more, the original faction of Elves--a kind of proto-elf of the past--gradually split into to different distinct groups. These proto-elves that originally occupied the forest had come up the Feywash River, scouting ahead all the while. The scouts who went ahead were chosen from the stock of elves that had the strongest knack for wilderness knowledge and survival, and relationship with the land.
These latter elves followed a mysterious way of being originated in the Old Country, from where they crossed long before, relating to the land, the rock, the plants, and the animals as ensouled. Everywhere they went, as this group of Elves made their way upriver, was made holy along the way.
When all the elves finally settled in the region of Elvendell, this group of scouts and animists moved apart from the others, deeper into the forest, where they could live less disturbed, and closer to the Spirits. These Elves gradually became who we know of as "Wood Elves" in the Forest of Elvendell. From their journey long ago, they still retain a strong relationship with the Fey.
The two sub-races (the other being the High Elves) now have a mutually respectful relationship in the Forest, although many Wood Elves have a wide-eyed and curious attitude towards the others. The Wood Elves live most often in the trees, and they wonder at the High Elves with their tall towers and fancy temples. The Wood Elves venture to the High Elves' city rarely, and most often on some official business of trade or mutual defense.
Forest of Elvendell

CENTURIA

Nowhere are Wood Elves as nimble and shy as in Centuria. Some of Origgune's foremost scholars on the subject veiw the Centurian Wood Elves as of a Fey Race. Instead of being experts on the ways of the Fey, the Centurian Elves instead resemble the latter. Their hair is often bleached white, or naturally some kind of outrageous bright color. Their skin is particularly pale, although not quite snow white, and their eyes are said by those who've met them to be enormous and almod-shaped.
While they may resemble the Fey more than their siblings of other lands, they retain the mental faculties and attributes of other Wood Elves, and their innocent, "bewildered" look belies a sharp and discerning intellect. The Centurian Elves are strongly animistic, and specific Elven gods are rarely worshipped or followed--or even known--in Centuria. Rarely a visitor will arrive from the north, and the people will sit down and hear Elven stories and myths. In this they are spellbound; Centurion Elves love a good story.
Centurion Elves are very curious about the world outside their forest, so it's not surprising to see someone leave for the wide wide world. But the Woods is always somewhere to come home. These elves form a strong bond with their band and people.
Centuria

YOLDWOODS

Elves of the Yoldwoods have adapted to the more tropical climate by dressing lighter and evolving a darker skin color--a deep brown-olive, with dark hair most common. Their concept of "forest" is different as well, with more of a jungle as their home. Neverthless, they hold Wood Elf attributes among them, and they live with the same woods-stealth and animistic faith as their siblings on other continents. The memory of these relatives is distant and faint, and it lies now only in stories told of ancient voyages. (Most of these stories describe cosmic "sky jourheys," and some of the animism of the Yoldwood Elves revolves around these. myths.)
The Yoldwoods are home to Cavern Elves as well, and the two sub-races periodically meet and relate. The threats they both face in the surroundings are unique to Elvenkind, being isolated on Yoldland and so far from any other Elven (or indeed any "civilized") group. Their villages are small and far-apart, although they retain tree-dwelling.
This isolation has also made them unique in that those who sail for other lands are somewhat (or completely) inexperienced in other creatuers, other sentients, cities and towns, etc. The language of the Elves has stayed intact somehow, mostly unchanging for thousands of years, and the Yoldwood Elves are delighted when they meet other elves and can speak their own language.
Yoldwoods

FOREST OF DJINN

Wood Elves of Djinn are the most accustomed to life in "civilization." They meet there at Yklas, many of them often, and take part in the workings of the university. Some of them have even become professors, usually of botany or biology. Life in the trees of Djinn is thus more studious and scholoarly than in other forests. Young Wood Elves are taught history and literature, ane they become bards and musicians much more often than their siblings in forests of other regions.
There are those that hold to the "deeper ways," as they call them, and these live in villages further away into the forest, shinning Yklas and the other universities as places of deflowering and mind control. This ends up being a real schism among the wood elves, and it troubles the Elders of both factions. Things have definitely changed over the past 600 years...
Forest of Djinn

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Wood Elven Attributes