Elves

When the Calamity threatened to annihilate all life on Tal’Dorei, the elves of this land gathered in their last remaining city, Syngorn, and used long-forgotten magic to transport themselves into the Fey Realm. Time runs strangely in that realm, and for an unknown stretch of history, the elves of Syngorn lived with their fey kindred in peace. When they eventually returned to Exandria, they found a land devoid of all but animals and the grandeur of nature. The rotten majesty of the Age of Arcanum, burned away by the wrath of the gods, had given way to new growth.
To the elves, the lands of Tal’Dorei are still called Gwessar, and elves who dwell here are called the gwes’alfen—the elves of the Fields of Joy. For centuries, this folk watched with delight as other peoples populated Gwessar, beginning with dwarves, then humans from across the sea, and so on. Then they looked on in horror as mortal ambition was perverted into greed, and war followed in its wake.
Syngorn and the Verdant Expanse that surrounds it are the ancestral homeland of Tal’Dorei’s elves, many of whom never venture beyond that homeland. Young elves are most likely to journey afield to see what else the world has to offer, and while most of them return to Syngorn, some make new homes in the many towns and cities of Tal’Dorei—or they become hermits, their status as mystical beings with a thousand-year life span commanding an almost mythic reverence from other folk.
The elves’ tendency to focus on the past has given rise to many stereotypes of those folk being haughty, aloof, and unconcerned with the day-to-day joys and sorrows of the shorter-lived races. But though this is certainly true for some elves, it’s hard for other folk to consider the perspective of an elf who has personally witnessed whole cultures and civilizations rise and fall. Most elves are born with the same passion for life as any other being. But as centuries pass, life becomes a stream of historic events to be witnessed and contemplated, and not to be interfered with unless absolutely necessary.