Elf (n): A member of the elfin race, characterized by large eyes and long, tapered ears, mostly carnivorous in diet, unusually long-lived, and given to
tribal culture.
While elves look, at first glance, like pointy-eared humans, they greatly differ from the human race. Superficially, they have low amounts of body hair. Females almost always only have hair on their heads (scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, earhairs and nose hairs), while males more often have some amount of pubic hair as well. Males may be slightly larger than females, on average, but other than the typical physical mammilian differences between the sexes, elves have a markedly low degree of sexual dimorphism. Because of this, and the fine soft features that elves of both genders tend to have, the other races in ancient times believed the elves to be a purely female race. Vaenetel Lassanodre is famous for proving otherwise, although he did so by dropping his trousers at a diplomatic meeting. Elves certainly have no difficulty telling genders apart among themselves, although it is possible that pheremones offer no small help to this feat. Light elves are generally     5' 8" - 6' tall, while dark elves average a height of 5' - 5' 4".  Light elves usually have pale skin, dark hair, and greenish eyes, while dark elves have dark skin, pale hair, and reddish eyes. Hair is always straight, although faint waves towards the end are not uncommon. Elves commonly have high cheekbones, smallish, upturned noses, and pointed chins. Eyebrows tend to be arched.

Elves are also dissimilar from humans in many functional ways. Firstly, their large, brightly-colored eyes are more similar to bird eyes than usual mammalian ones, and so they see a slightly wider range of color and have higher visual acuity, nearly twice as good as the average human's. They also have very strong vision in low-lit conditions; not only does an elf pupils dilate twice as far as a human's, there is a layer on the elf's retina called a tapetum lucidum (eyeshine) that redirects as much light as possible back into the fovea. In the case of dark elves, the fovea is so sensitive to energy that it can interpret non-photonic molecular energy, however, photonic energy will over-stimulate the fovea, causing the dark elf pain. Dark elves are at least partially colorblind but have unusually exact depth perception. The elves also boast the broadest hearing range of the races at approximately 58 Hz - 40 kHz. Furthermore, an elf's sinuses tend to be sensitive to pressure, a sensitivity an elf employs to detect changes in the weather, and a drow to guage his depth from the surface - which helps with navigation in caverns.

The elf's senses are important to his survival. While technically omnivorous, elves require a high amount of meat in their diets. They also eat fruits and roughages, but grains do not feature in the diet of a healthy elf. They can eat grains, of course, but will suffer gastric disorders and malnourishment if they attempt to live off them for more than a few days. For comfort's sake, elves generally would rather not eat for a few days than attempt a meat-less diet. Elves typically have two full meals during a waking period, both consisting of a main meat course, and eat small portions of vegetation here and there throughout a waking period. An elf's waking cycle lasts 36 hours, during which he will require 8-10 hours of sleep. Most elves that keep the company of other races learn to adopt a diurnal cycle; that is, they sleep 4-6 hours in every 24-hour period. A healthy light elf's life expectancy is 800 years, and a drow's 1000 (although drow rarely die of natural causes). Elves reach sexual maturity around the age of 100. After this, they maintain a post-adolescent appearance for centuries, often well into their seventh century (and even longer for dark elves, should they stay away from solar radiation). This is caused by the elf's unusually high regeneration rate, which doesn't slow down gradually as the elf ages. Rather, it will suddenly slow near the end of an elf's life and the elf will visibly age rapidly. Usually organ faliure of some form will follow, claiming the elf's life.

Elves are the only of the races to have a magical affinity. They have something of a sixth sense when it comes to flow of mana around them. They are therefore usually aware of any magic about them, from enchantments, to active spellcasting, to even the aura that surrounds a magical creature, although they are not necessarily able to comprehend what they are feeling. Furthermore, an elf acquires an innate ability to manipulate the mana of a certain element, depending where the elf was born and raised. When an elf is in his element (usually forests or plains for light elves, and caverns or other unlit areas for drow) he is connected to the mana of the area and may employ it for his benefit as magic. This is called "natural magic" for light elves, and "shadow magic" for drow.

Brief Myth and History (it is brief - I swear)
The elves are generally accepted as the eldest of the races, indeed, even dragons admit to the possibility that the elves walked the planet's surface before they did. Supposedly El Flana, goddess of the moon and the hunt, created two female elves - one was white, and the other was black. The white was named Lairel (full moon) and the black, Thelel (new moon). The goddess El Flana then showed them the Way - that is, she taught them how to hunt - and then gave each a husband, so that they might have children. Lairel's offspring became the fair-skinned and dark-haired Eltherin (waxing moon) who dwelt in the temperate forests of the North, and Thelel's offspring became the dark-skinned and pale-haired Elthelir (waning moon) who dwelt in the tropical forests of the South. A child with a parent of each race is considered to belong to neither race and is called Elfayal (half moon). Elves that are born pure white or pure black are holy children.

While the elves and the dragons traditionally do not bother one another, in early history, the elves were rather wary of the younger races: the dwarves and the humans. Both these cultures were pastoral (or usually pastoral, for the humans), practicing lifestyles that seemed very strange to the tribal hunters that were the elves. The elves gave them wide berths until they began doing the unthinkable - slaying wolves, the holy creatures of their goddess. The practice of wolf-slaying was soon common in dwarfen and human society, and as soon as it was, pastoral communities everywhere found themselves targeted by an elfin holy war. The elves, not having metal-working, might have perished completely had humans and dwarves been able to put aside their own differences and joined forces, but it was a fully three-way conflict. This conflict, which would also include the dragons towards the end, would later become the Great Holy Wars (or the Wars of the Gods) that lead to the Pact - an agreement between the Founders to step back from the fighting and let the races handle their own differences.

It took the three races a considerably long time to mend these differences, but, in the end, the elves made changes in order to stop the fighting. They created a common tongue, dubbed Orisian, so that the races could speak neutrally to each other. They trained male elves to act as emissaries and dummy leaders in an effort to adapt to the human and dwarves' patriarchal cultures (both refused to respect their female leaders). They worked to learn human and dwarfen technologies in order to adopt them and therefore establish need for trade. Or, rather, it was the Eltherin, called "light elves" by the other races, that did this. The Elthelir, also called "dark elves," had no desire to, as they saw it, pervert themselves in the name of peace. They grew more hostile...and ever more ruthless. The dwarves of Mirith Kur gathered themselves to put a stop to the dark elfin terrorism and waged the Battle of Savis Gulant, invading the lands of the Elthelir. All they managed to do was rile the powerful dark elves' blood and begin what  would later be called the Sun-Moon War. The Elthelir had, by this point, developed their own metal-working, and between their weaponry and magic, they were arguably the most powerful force in the world. The Elthelir pushed back, completely wiping out all of the Southern Dwarves (which is why there are no dwarfen settlements in the south) and put a good dent in the Southland Human population (which is why dark-skinned humans are rather rare). When the Midland (and some Waolese) humans pulled themselves together to defend their southern cousins, the light elves banded together to assist them. The dark elves rewarded this new treachery in kind, driving an invasion of their own into the North, and the battle persisted for thirty years until the dark elves were finally routed in their homeland of Eirondrian.

With the dark elves cut down to a quarter of their numbers, the Elthelir priestesses called out to their goddess for retribution against their enemies...only to find that she rejected them. Their pride wounded, they slew the Eltherin priestess Tenetriel Allivena, one of the white twins, as she came to them with terms for surrender and reconciliation. In light of this defiance, Josef Tarmund, an Archpriest of Alos, with the approval of Tenetriel's sister Arivanel Allivena, channeled the power of his god to curse the remaining dark elves.
"If you wish to live on, live on in the shadows."
Deemed unworthy in the sight of the sun, the sunlight now burned their eyes and weighed heavily upon them, and the dark elves fled to a nearby mine to hide from their new torment. Their enemy pursued them and collapsed the openings of the mine, sealing them underground. This place became known as the Grave of the Elthelir.

The majority of the light elves had lost much of their home during the Great Holy Wars and subsequent Sun-Moon War. Arivanel Allivena wrote up treaties and accords with the newly formed Borcean Empire and established Eirondrian as the new light elf homeland. Many elves remained within their tribal systems, aloof as they had been before. The elves that followed Arivanel to a new order of peace and trade with the humans became known as the high elves. They thrived within their new order, deep within the jungles. While they now have a strong understanding of humans, they remain suspicious of the dwarves, who regard them with equal suspicion.

As for the dark elves...the races on the surface had thought they had perished in the darkness. However, they survived. They learned to find food and water, their magics adjusted to suit them in the caverns and, most importantly, each subsequent generation's eyes grew stronger and stronger in the darkness, until they could see without light. Most notably, however, they now had Krukjenjai. In their anger and wounded pride, the Elthelir priestesses had held an open prayer, searching for any god that would grant them the retribution that El Flana had refused them and further revenge against their former goddess who had forsaken them and the light elves who had betrayed them. It was Krukjenjai, goddess of deceit, that answered their call in the darkness and promised them what they desired...should they prove worthy. They tunneled into the ground and built up a new religion and society around their new-found goddess, and worked and bided their time for eight hundred years.

Led by Jaleenara Kesmuthen, the last living priestess from the Sun-Moon War, the dark elves broke through to the surface at Savis, now a human trading settlement, and began their invasion anew. While the humans living there knew the tales of the wars of old, they did not associate these tales with the current dark elves. Fortunately, enough of them survived the night into the morning, when the dark eves had to retreat into the shadows. They called these new creatures "trow" (which comes from the same root as their word for troll, a kind of drae that lives in caves and is weak to light), which further became "drow" as people were talking quickly. The neighboring high elves answered the distress signals at Savis and were appalled by what had become of their brethren and so encouraged the use of this name "drow." While the Uprising of the Drow was a bitter battle at first, it was soon apparent that the drow themselves were poorly organized and not prepared to fight in the light - a mere shadow of what they had been eight hundred years before. They were routed and scattered before the reinforcements from the Church of Alos even arrived.

The next major world event, roughly two hundred years later, was the Fall of Borcea and the subsequent Dragon Wars. These barely touched the light elves, save a few tribes that were displaced when the Maurn spread. They joined the high elves in Eirondrian. The blighting of the Maurn was far more important to a group of drow that had been stranded above-ground at the time of the scattering - the Sh'bera al'Hathai ("they watch within the darkness"). The receding waters left behind large passages of cavern, which the Sh'bera moved into and proceeded to have a tremendous impact on the desert in both commerce and culture.

As for the light elves, the destruction of the Empire of Borcea annulled the treaties they had made with the humans, and by the time the three kingdoms had risen from the ashes, the high elves were ready to make good on a chance to strengthen their borders and impose their superiority over their shorter-lived peers. While trade and diplomacy between the humans and high elves still exist, it is quite a fraction of what it used to be.

Society and Subraces
Elves are the only purely matriarchal race on Oris (some human societies are matrilineal or matrifocal, but human society on the whole is patriarchal).

  • High Elf
  • Sun Elf
  • Mist Elf
  • Deep Drow
  • Desert Drow
  • Ghost Drow

Fun Facts

- Elves lose and regrow their teeth roughly once every century, and go through four sets of teeth during their first century before they reach adulthood. Each set consists of 28 teeth (eight frontals, four cuspids, eight bicuspids, and eight molars). Elfin frontals (or incisors) are smaller than those of the other races, while their cuspids (or canines) are much larger.

Back to Races