Elf

Basic Information

Anatomy

Elves look mostly human but for their pointy ears. They tend to be more slender and dexterous than humans however, and pure-blooded elves also have no facial or body hair whatsoever.

Growth Rate & Stages

Elves live a very long time, but their birth rates are also very low. Because their children grow to adulthood about as quickly as human children, it is rare to see an actual elven child.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Elves eat like humans, but most are vegetarian.

Civilization and Culture

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Elves are the longest-lived people on Celn. The oldest of them rival dragons in their long memories. This lifespan makes them the most adept at wizardry, since mastering even the simplest spells almost always requires decades of training. Almost all powerful wizards are elves that have trained for centuries to master their craft. Shorter lived races, like humans and dragonborn, must resort to drawing power from questionable divine sources to gain such power, unless they are lucky enough to be born with magic or blessed with it by one of the gods.

History

Like most cultures, the elves lost most of their historical records in the Age of Darkness. Due to their long generational cycles and low birthrates, they have yet to recover the population they had before the Age of Darkness, but in the last nine-hundred odd years they have rebuilt their culture well. The elves of Western Ketal belong almost exclusively to the kingdom of Ysalia, which encompasses almost all of the forest for which it is named. 300 years ago, Ysalia fought a war against the United Confederacy of Human Lands, which ended in a stalemate when Ysalia withdrew from the rest of the world and closed its borders to the outside. The root causes of the war are still in dispute, but the elves would say that humanity grew jealous of their superior magical ability and sought to take it by force, and exploit the resources of the forest along the way.

Lifespan

Often over 900 years, barring death by violence or disease. The oldest elves still remember the Age of Darkness.