Elf

Trance and Memory

Perhaps more than any other race, elves are familiar with all aspects of memory. From birth, elves don’t sleep but instead enter a trance when they need to rest. In this state, elves remain aware of their surroundings while immersing themselves in memories. What an elf remembers during this reverie depends largely on how long the elf has lived, and the events of the lives that the elf’s soul has experienced before.
Elves can sleep and dream just like any human, but almost all elves avoid doing so. Dreams, as humans know them, are strange and confusing to eleves. Unlike the actual memories of one’s primal soul, present life, or past lives, dreams are uncontrolled products of the elf’s subconscious, and perhaps the subconscious minds of the elf’s past lives. An elf who dreams must always wonder whose mind these thoughts first arose from.

Reincarnation of Elven Souls

Each elven birth represents the reincarnation of an elven soul. Elves cannot know if it is the soul of someone recently dead or someone who died millennia ago. A decade in which many elves are born across the world is thought to be a harbinger of danger that great numbers of elves will be needed to withstand. In contrast, if an elven community goes a century or longer without a new birth, members take this as a sign that the community has stagnated and must disband.
Because of the rarity of elf births, siblings might be separated in age by decades, or even a century of more. Thus, few elves grow up play with brothers or sisters of similar age and instead rely on friends for the development of their social skills. In exceedingly rare cases, a birth might produce twins. These offspring, which the elves refer to as soul siblings, are believed to have a special, intertwined destiny. Elf legends are filled with tales of misfortune and tragedy that comes to pass when twins are separated and kept too long apart.

Elves and Other Races

It’s a rare elf who forms strong relationships with people of other races, particularly those whose life spans are much shorter. Even though they are stingy with their affection for others, most elves are excellent judges of character. Thus, they can form superficial associations with other creatures very quickly. An elf often knows within minutes of meeting someone whether that new acquaintances would be a fitting companion for a journey, and their first impressions are seldom wrong -- though it may be decades later before the relationship becomes deeply personal.

Elves and the Empire

During the Rachina Empire’s first advances, the elves of the world primarily kept to themselves. They frequently went so far as to shelter and ward their communities to prevent discovery. There was an initial consensus among elves during this period that this roughshod human kingdom would falter and disband as others had before it. However, as the Empire approached it’s golden age, elves began to consider that Rachina may mark a new opportunity for structure and peace in the world.
While most elves still largely kept to their homelands, elven communities within the bounds of the Empire began to cooperate the Empire at large -- dropping their protective shields and paying into the system. As the centuries unfolded, elves came to hold pivotal roles as advisors, tacticians and high-ranking members of the noble court. Many of the more cosmopolitan cities boasted elven quarters -- beautiful neighborhoods that had been adopted by elves and redesigned with traditional elven architecture and landscaping.
Elves had largely repatriated en mass back to their homelands even before the Empire formally fell. After the coup that deposed of Emperor Argus Varvaren, there was an unspoken understanding among most elves that the end of this era was near. The very visible and swift flight of the elves is considered to be one of the factors that contributed to Empress Nikoleta’s failure.
In present day, the elves that remain in the world are primarily those who had deep ties to the Empire -- individuals such as merchants who benefitted from the broadened trade routes; land-bearing nobles; university professors; and former military leaders. Alternatively, they may be elves who grew up within the Empire’s limits and feel no call to return to their family’s ancestral home…

Elf Sub-Races -- Sea Elves

Eons ago, sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean. Today, they live in small, hidden communities in the ocean shallows, or in secluded underwater caves.
Folklore has touched upon the Sea Elves, giving them alternate names such as mermaids and sirens. As ageless as surface elves, sea elves are known for their beauty and are innately gifted with magic. However, it can be said that one aspect of such folktales are true -- a life below the sea can prove more lonely for an elf than a life on land, and as such sea elves find themselves more prone to romance with humans and other races than surface elves do.
Sea Elf Traits -- Sea elves have the following traits in common, in addition to the traits they share iwth other elves.

• Ability Score Increase. Your constitution score increases by 1.
• Sea Elf Training. You have proficiency with the spear, trident, light crossbow, and net.
• Child of the Sea. You have a swimming speed of 10 feet, and you can breathe air and water.
• Friend of the Sea. Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Aquan.