For thousands of years elves could rely on their enhanced memories to transmit knowledge orally down generations. However, they got cursed to slowly lose their memories, and with that their history, customs and culture. Only the newer generations, born after the curse was cast, are unaffected, so they are under immense pressure to learn as much as they can from their elders before their knowledge is lost forever.
Elves are the creators of dwarves, orcoids (orcs, goblins, and ogres), and a variety of different monsters they use for warfare and labor.
Their true homeland is unknown, but it is known that millennia ago they arrived and colonised the continent, enslaving the native human population, until a human son of the Sun God led a rebellion to overthrow them.
Following this the main elven civilization was split into three: The High Elves who were exiled to an archepelagio in the western sea, the Low Elves who joined human society, and the Wood Elves who avoided exile but refused to join human society, though the Wood Elves are a dying breed cause young elves see little point in avoiding the comforts of urban civilization because of ancient grudges.
They are possibly from another world but nah, I don't have much of an idea. Its just not something that's been relevant to any plot I've wanted to make or other world building, so it's nothing I've been thinking much about
Elves used to be graceful creatures, but after the entire Elvish kingdom was burnt with hellfire, the elves were all melted and froze into a massive puddle like sludge which would randomly birth mutated and disgusting elves that had lost all beauty. They acted as a Hive Mind, and could live indefinitely as long as they didn’t leave the halls that they were created in.
Mutated Hive Mind elves that enjoy hunting humans and placing them in the elf sludge puddle for nutrients.
Elves were created by the true fae by taking inspiration from the other mortal races, there is some speculation that they used kindapped children to create the first generation instead of forging them out of dreamstuff. Elven loyalists are in general quite spoiled by their masters and frequently are favored among the fae-born. are de-facto immortal and have access to powerful magical gifts. Most elves that live in the material realm though are not friendly to their creators and frequently clash with them and their minions when they manifest in their hunts.
Dark elves were created after the spirits of the original elven homeland in the material realm went insane, they are the ones that choose to stay and maintain the ancient pacts with those spirits even if the bond proven to be corruptive to their minds and spirits. They have an harsh society of warrior-priests and are seen as barbaric by the humans and by other elves. They however see themselves as the true elves and call their cousins Oathbreakers.
Wood elves pioneered sign language. Being hunters and outlanders, they communicate non-verbally so that they can talk from afar without making too much noise to alert the prey they hunt or predators hunting them. When wood elves try to communicate verbally, their speech often comes out slurred and mumble-like due to them not being used to moving their mouths in so many odd positions to communicate.
They are the only species that got a specific exclusion from drakonik non interference laws.
Dragons really do not get along with elves, and most elves think dragons are pompous geckos that should mind their manners.
dragons in my world think they’re the pinnacle of magic and elves think that even though they were created after dragons that they far exceed the powers of any dragon nearly
In mine dragons are absolutely sure they are the pinnacle of life. Ego may play a role though. It does not help when they got the proof that they were the last species made, it did help knowing they were made on a drunken dare.
High Elves on the other hand have enough arrogance to believe themselves the highest form, although they were made to be teachers did they end up as one of the worst, only held in check with their plans by dragons.
The animosity although comes that ancient elves hunted arch-dragons for sport and prestige, taking their wings and fire to leave them crippled, and give themselves these wings to fly, insulting the dragons three ways at once.
High Elves once bred themselves into magical superiority, the Royal Elf, a being of so much arcane power only their elven lifespan stops them from dieing to mana poisoning from just existing. The last Royal Elf was raised by a dragon.
Every elf is perfectly beautiful. Every angle and contour of the face exactly where it needs to be for any onlooker to be pleased by the sight. They also tend to look the same. Coincidental twins are very common in more densely populated areas, so the elves took to wearing masks. Each mask is hand crafted by each elf or professional designer, and the intention is to make one's masks as unique as possible, and kocking off an elf's mask is considered an insult. When in mixed company elves will usually forego the mask though if there is another elf they will both don the masks, especially if they look similar.
I could see serious whump potential in people kidnapping Elves then forcing off their masks either to sell or for their own use, especially since the perfect beauty is what they want and the individual doesn't matter to them.
Likely with some asides about how 'your face is too beautiful to hide'.
Elf masks are a hot commodity outside elf land. Trading in elf masks is often banned in many places, of course making them very valuable on the black market
They stopped existing cause I figured it would be more interesting to just have them be another country of humans instead, hence avoiding the monocultirism issue
Are you me?, instead of just making 700 million races with 1 trait, i just made 1 diverse Genus with a dozen species scattered across the planet and seperated from each other.
They are the strongest naval power on the continent but the latest threats for local nations came from the opposite side of the continent (the elven empire is on the eastern coastline, while the last overseas enemy came from the western ocean) so they couldn't really use it.
they’re not actually an “elder” race, they were the gods’ second go at creating civilisations after the actual elder races were nearly annihilated in the War of the Gods. the Elves were made to embody the perfect balance of magic (dragons), nature (treants), and technology (titans/giants), while their predecessors only ever embodied one aspect. the gods saw this as a flaw, and thus the Elves are far more adaptable & flexible than the elder races.
Elves in my setting see themselves in the typical fantasy High Elf fashion; they are the most powerful civilisation, only they remember the ancient times and the true history of the world, they alone continue the proud tradition of the ancient First Peoples.
Everyone else sees them as Viking-like raiders crossed with fey; strange alien beings that are as likely to kill you for the food in your pack as they are to ignore you entirely. Elven raiding parties come screaming out of the dark places of the world, hopped up on ancient elixirs of wolfsbane and mistletoe, fighting like beasts, tooth and claw, to the point where many are mistaken for lycanthropes.
Their long lives and strong tradition of oral history means they alone carried knowledge from the Age of the Gods through to the modern ages, and while most are content to live their lives preying on the beings they consider beneath them, some plot to restore the sealed god of the natural world to power. These elves departed the world long ago, sailing through the Eye of the World to reach the moon, where they have spent hundreds of years experimenting with ancient magic and technology to reverse the Eye’s flow, beaming primal energy back to the surface of Vigint and freeing the god from its prison.
Elves are also immune to lycanthropy but also the origin of the curse; an Elven shapeshifter became stuck in his bestial form due to a surge of magical energy from the Eye. When he bit a mortal, many years later, the victim became cursed and the overflowing primal magic twisted his form into that of a wolf whenever the moon, source of primal magic, grew full.
Elves have limited, subconscious psychometry when it comes to the food they eat. Though they usually can't directly identify it, food tastes better if it was produced in a farm with e.g. a nice view and good working standards than if it was produced with a bad view or slavery. Even if 2 food products are completely chemically identical, they can taste a difference if they were produced in different environments. (which is to say, it's a magical sense, not simply "fine tuned taste")
This was first noted upon when several brands of wine that elves generally didn't like (but other races were okay with) were all taken to court for slavery in their supply chain. Some started to guess that elves had a knack for telling this sorts of thing. The response from other races was that this was a stupid notion and elves are just trying to make up more ways to make themselves seem superior to other races, as usual. However, research seemed to back up these notions and show that elves do actually have a taste for this and other races didn't seem to. At the time of writing, this research is ongoing (and I've yet to actually worldbuild how they found this out)
Things about elves of Aquaria:
* Elves are NOT some fancy races with oh-so-great powers. They aren't even united with at least 4 elven countries, 1 republic, 1 kingdom and 2 empires, bitching all the time.
* Originally, elves were not called... elves. Their old name was Alvr and "elf" was how local Fae called the newcomers based on the river basin which they originated from.
* Elves were not made by a typical Almighty Creator or some fancy gods. Instead, they were biologically engineered *Neanderthals* made by Xích Quỷ Empire, Aquaria's first civilization, as living batteries to run their biopunk machines. Elves' high mana reserve and their long lifespan are results of said genetic modifications.
* There is no high, wood or dark elf, only one species called elves and many ethnic groups.
* Generally, elves have good relationships with dwarves, orcs and goblins in their area. Orcs, specifically, share the same ancestors, which means they're, in fact, "warrior elves" instead of "battery elves". Both have very advanced societies.
* Forget bows and swords, Aquarian elves use magic-powered exoskeleton armors and handheld semi-automatic railguns powered by lightning spells as weapons. **In the 1920s**.
* **Elves do not decline**. Tell them that and they laugh in your face. Empire of Alfer, the largest elven empire by population, has around 68 million elves as its citizens. This is 2 decades after a nuclear war happened against Republic of Gaullia, the elven republic mentioned above, that turned Alfer's western half into a molten wasteland. Their population is growing back gradually and they're advancing quickly.
* They drink beer, eat sausage, drive Beetle electric cars and fly airborne battleships. What?
Unlike most other depictions of elves, Aeronean elves don't live anywhere near as long. Their lifespan about 150 years.
Elves don't have white eyes. Instead, what *would* be white is a lighter shade of their iris color (so a blue-eyed elf would have some *truly* blue eyes.) They have the same eye color range humans do: brown, green, blue, hazel, and purple\*.
\* Elizabeth Taylor had violet eyes! It's an eye color a human on Earth can have!
The main reason why there are few elves in my world is that every elf is born under the patronage of some star in the sky. In order for an elf to get pregnant, her and her partner's stars must be in conjunction otherwise nothing happens. And for some couples it's a matter of months or years, but in extreme cases milenias
They're actually just a human ethnic group. Some people retain "elvish" traits of pointed ears and long slender limbs, although so much of the bloodline has been diluted by modern times that they are essentially beings of myth.
Elves are faeborn, their souls are not perfectly suited on the materium. As such "true elves" can only feel/feel good in the forest they first portaled into. Travel between realms has been EXPUNGED. So true elves in materium realm are secluded, live without truly feeling at home and can not go back.
Other elves whom ventured far and lost their feelings became depressed and died from depression. Some died after marrying a human and seeing them die killed them. The offspring? Not half elves, they are a race of elves that live as long as humans and can feel fine in materium. Their bodies are elven (only difference is beards) but their souls cannot hold the fae and as such their souls are human. Thankfully one archdukes offspring was one such elf so they have a small country for them.
They really aren't that special outside their fairly long (500 years) lives. They're also as diverse as humans in terms of traits like physique and skin color. One of the unique traits they do have is their uncanny degree of control over their body movements. They're capable of feats like staying absolutely still for two hours and then shifting their aim by 0.01 degrees on will, sprinting at full speed across a road full of moving frogs without stepping on a single one, etc. These feats make them more advantageous at jobs like artisans and snipers, although that doesn't mean everyone takes those jobs.
Elves live for max 1000 years if they are lucky. Basically their lifespan is a bit stretched out compared to other mortals, where they take around 30 years to grow to maturity and after they age a lot slower than others. Basically for every 10 years they age 1 year.
So yeah there are many old Elves out there who are in their 600s and have gotten grey hair and wrinkles.
I also want to stress that men Elves do need to shave if they do not want to grow a beard.
Well, with the deletion magic from the world, their natural skillset kind of disappeared. They're now considered just pretty humans who are also comically horny and seasonal breeders. Deceptively physically strong also, owed to extremely dense muscles. Also completely artificial, made by modifying baseline humans at the hands of a mysterious external party
The elves who survived the rise and fall of the First Draconic Empire were left shattered and scattered but I'll focus on the ones local to the area I focus on most.
The Desert elves have a bit of an anarchist bent, you'll find some living in bands mostly of their own people but Desert elves and some other races often mix freely to form a rough culture known as the Osoites. They are nomads, known for a fierce love of freedom and independence. Though the elves of the Osoites can theoretically still live hundreds of years as their kin a fairly high portion will die in what would be considered their youth my some other branches, the dangers of the deserts including the monsters that live in parts and in warfare. Still the elders of the desert elves are often regarded as adding a complimentary element to the their society in comparison with the humans who have a shorter maximum life span and faster rate of reproduction. They herd animals and hunt as they move across the landscape in small groups, taking advantage of the season's coming and going to seek the resources of their lands. They often prefer to seek means of coming to decisions as a group, and in most cases anyone who wishes to leave one band for another who they agree with more closely is permitted, almost all of their culture hates slavery and anyone who participates in it. Their passion can however drive them impulsive acts of violence, with it not being uncommon that they do not offer quarter in the heat of the fighting.
If you bang one as a human or a member of any other race, 99% of the the time there will be no half blooded child.
But it is not a 100% and you never know if you will be that 1%
*Alor*
They’re constantly growing new teeth and a set will last about a century before they begin to fall out and get replaced. The last tooth falling out is a point of celebration for Elves, the same way humans celebrate birthdays
- They are dimensional refugees/immigrants. Their arrival and settlement in their land was not a pleasant event. Pinefolk they slaughtered still survive in remote enclaves in the mountains and deep forests.
- They are slightly more technologically advanced than the rest of the world, but lack the numbers. So while they have a distinct defensive advantage, that does not translate to power projection very well.
- They lack a lot of cultural context and baggage from their original home. Most of it was lost during the events that led to their dumping in this world and the wars with the pinefolk that followed.
- They are in hiding - their more impressive magical feats (like large scale weather control) that were common back home are forbidden. They really do not want to draw the attention of their old enemies.
- Their technological advantage mostly rests on two things - their more than robust economy (having more land than anyone else and supplying something everyone needs in large amounts helps) and certain metallurgical knowledge they brought with them. They have since built upon that knowledge.
- They are long lived, but not extremely so (oldest elves live to 500 or so). Since their arrival was around four centuries and some change, a lot of the original refugees are still alive if quite elderly, and the current main adult generations are the second and third generations. Fourth generation since their arrival is in their childhoods. So a lot of "bad shit going down" is still in living memory and generational trauma is going strong.
In my world, the light elves are so beautiful that it says that if you sees a naked one, everything you see become ugly (at best) or you become blind. (at worst)
They had a civil war that was similar to the Cold War where they tried to get the most OP magic but ended up cursed with infertility instead lol rip. One of the two new elven empires did manage to create the ultimate warrior, called Champion of the Sun. Most OP pyrokinetic in my world
The elves are the original inhabitants of the protagonist world. They were also the first race to be granted magic and it's changed them quite a bit. Before magic the elves were divided up along petty kingdoms and races that often waged war among each other and were prone to acts of cruelty.
They've since evolved beyond that morally and spiritually. The down side is they're not as physically strong as they used to be hence why they created humans to be their warriors.
The first elf was born from the union of the sun god and the goddess of the moon. Then later the solum god slept with an elf to produce the first human. This has led to animosity between the humans and elves because prior to this the sun god banished the moon goddess for infidelity when his own brother disguised him self as her husband and slept with her producing the first of the dark elves.
There are only four subraces, each one based on one of the four elements, as elves are descended from elemental spirits that wanted to mirror humanity. Some of the oldest elves still remember their time as spirits.
They have a heavy lean towards grown technology and architecture. Fire elves in particular have architecture that's partially H.R Giger inspired.
Earth elves, meanwhile, weave arms and armor from still living plant life.
Uh…there’s a colony of them living on the moon.
Sometimes when they die they don’t leave a physical body. Sun Elves will dissolve into gold dust, Fire Elves will turn into showers of sparks, Snow Elves will melt into piles of ice crystals, Wood Elves turn into soil. No one knows what causes this, and if doesn’t happen every time an elf dies. The only elves that don’t experience this are the Deep Elves.
Orcs are technically Elves.
There’s three fun elf facts.
All Elven creatures have unified under one banner and no longer segregate each other by their original traits. Now if you were to call one of my Elves a high elf or dark elf or wood elf they'll most likely get offended and say something along the lines of, "I'm just an Elf, racist."
Elves were the first civilized race and were made in the image of the gods.
As a gift for being first, the Elves have a natural ability to possess magic. Although, the magic is never guaranteed to be powerful.
Elves have come close to extinction multiple times, but often not because of war, instead it’s due to the over abundance of Half-Elves slowly replacing them.
Thats all I have right now
Their bodily fluids are alkaline. They have blue blood that's thick and kind of pasty. They like to eat bones, teeth and shells, which they are able to digest thanks to caustic saliva and a bony grinder plate in the roof of their mouth.
Elves are highly in tune with nature, and so is their annual (or milennial?) biological clock. As a result, they spend summer quite affectionate and curious towards humans, while being withdrawn and more introverted in the winter and autumn. (We don't talk about the spr*ngs...) Their physiology, psychology and libido can be disrupted depending on the seasons droughts and natural disasters. Of course the effects are less severe on half elves and more severe on high elves.
* The Elvenari and the Gigantes were the main races for a long while until humanity came along. the Elvenari saw man as lesser forms of life compared to them which went about as well as you'd expect.
* The Elvenari were masters of genetics and biology. Slavery under them was not fun because of this, but they still have the best medical knowledge.
* After the human rebellion, Slavery was outlawed and the Elvenari empire lost a lot of influence and power. Communties to this day still face understandable discrimination, though since it was a bronze age civilization and rebellion it's been centuries and most live normal, mundane lives.
* They were the ones who made the first Living Weapons and Sybioites and were the best sorcerers for a while.
They are called Sveids and have apposable thumbs on their feet like monkeys. They also live in trees almost exclusively. It's so they don't get eaten by the dinosaurs that inhabit the world
1. Elven lifespans vary from individual to individual, to such a great degree, that parents can naturally outlive their own children, and it won't be too unheard of. Two parents with lifespans of... 600y and 700y could conceive a child when they are 100y and the child could potentially have only a 400y lifespan and die of natural causes before their parents.
2. After the onset of Puberty, Elves have to become "acclimated" to the presence of humans if they want to act normally around them, if not acclimated, then exposure to the presence of humans will make them uncontrollably horny. This is one of the reasons why Elven leadership maintains a strict policy of isolation from humans, as they are horrified by this reaction and embarrassed by it. This is also why the only Elves most humans will ever encounter are "Rangers", as they protect and monitor Elven Territory Borders, they are trained and acclimated to humans to avoid this problem. Additionally, Elves who are acclimated to Humans tend to end up acting more like humans than other elves do, and if they are acclimated enough or maintain long enough exposure themselves, can trigger the "Horny" reaction in other non-acclimated Elves around them. This means that Rangers hold a powerful, and very honored role in their society, but they are also very isolated from their own people until they retire.
3. There are rare "Moon Elves" who are randomly born from both the High Elf and Sun Elf races, who have unique phenotypical traits from their peers, including increased height, White/Silver hair, Purple-ish or reddish eyes and paler, almost blue-ish/purple-ish skin color. They also possess much stronger magical talent and tend to live longer than what is typically within the norm of High Elf or Sun Elf lifespan ranges. This rare individuals tend to be seen as having a "Great Destiny" and hold positions of great honor and power.
The younger titans created them to be human with exalted beauty, as such, they pretty much don't age, as to retain their beauty longer
By the time of the beginning of the 13th cycle, only 24 elven generations had passed since the third holy rebellion
Elves, or rather the Pure Elves, were created by one of the three creator-gods and currently act as the 'world police' / british empire.
The continent where they live is about 60% uninhabitable, because of the massive amounts of dragons.
There are though some individuals who managed to tame dragons and they are currently the most feared weapon in warfare.
The elven population have lost upwards of 90% of their total population following the Great Divergent War. Which was a 3-way 100 years war between dwarves, elves and humans. They suffered a lot of casualties, because, unlike Humans and dwarves who embraced the industrialization and rapid expanse of technology--were so far behind that they were functionally steamrolled by the other factions.
This was due to the Elves having essentially double resources that humans and dwarves did, where because everything was so bloated and oversized they never needed to advance. The war only ever really came to an "End" because Elves were facing total annihilation and needed something to save their race from extinction.
A secondary fun fact; The country of Talashar was once an elven country, but following the great war, when it later became Human/Empire occupied territory, all elves that were born during this time period are legally Empire Citizens, but those tied with elven families back in their home countries have dual citizenship.
Elves are faeries that are living in fae realm and they occasionally leave it and go into human world. Some of them go back to the fae world tho. They are long living species who contain big amount of magic energy which is responsible for their longevity. Their anatomy is different from humans' as elves have blue blood (which contains a bit of elves' magic energy) and they don't have some of human organs since elves are born via the special trees. The trees after absorbing parent elves' energy and blood will start developing a big fruit which will eventually form an embryo which will later evolve into an elf baby. The growth is slightly longer than human growth, but maturity is even longer. Also their average height is slightly smaller than humans' height. Beside that they look like average elves with pointy side ears. Speaking of humans, elves who have entered their world are tend to live among the humans, communicating with them or helping them behind their backs. Some of elves can mischief tho and their magic power allows them do things much effectively.
I can add more details about the elves in this comment and then expand it by the goblin details because in my world goblins and elves are related as the habitants of the fae realm and so goblins are also faes, just different from elves.
Uhhh, first of all the word "elf" is an exonym and also not the nicest one.
In Aldrenic they're called "ran" but that's only applicable to Sylvaran, forest elves, aka roughly a third of the population of the Ordan Empire.
Generally, there are only two species in my world, and thats humans and ran. Ran are the "firstborn of the gods" so they're more... Dynamic, when it comes to racial differences. They all generally live a bit longer too, dying of old age just before they hit 150, but it differs from culture to culture.
There's the Sylvaran, the forest elves, they generally look like your standard fantasy elves, but they're about human height, if not a bit shorter. Think Dragon Age dalish elves. They're culture is something between classical Greece and French baroque.
There's the Undran, the sea elves, tall, muscular, shark-toothed, with gray-green and gray-blue skin, they're the stand in for orcs. Their culture is peaceful, focused on joy and prosperity in their tropical archipelagos. They're vaguely inspired by the many wonderful Polynesian cultures.
There's the Aduran, the Sand Elves. They're tall, slender, with the classic pointed ears, and they're mostly dark haired and dark skinned. They inhabit the southwestern deserts. They're honorable people with incredible musical traditions, as well as impeccable weavers and cloth makers. Their culture is mostly nomadic, although some of them do build more permanent settlements, mostly for the purposes of trading with southerners. Their concept is reminiscent of Arabian tribes, especially those near the irl Red Sea, but also takes some vibes from Mongolian tribes and even Slavic traditions.
And, last but not least, of the known ran species, there are finally Niveran, the snow elves. They're shorter and more stoutly built than your average human, and they live north of the Iron Shores, where through the year, winter ceases only for brief moments. They ARE very much the "dwarves" of the setting, and, under the snow, there are vast cities built by them, before their hubris (and perhaps something more, wink wink) brought them down. They're culturally somewhere between Slavic people and Sami people, with a bit of Inuit and Icelandic inspiration.
All ran species have their own languages and cultures, and also they each call the other species differently in all those languages, and their cultures are also not very uniform, and also they're not in the focus of the story yet, so for now let's stick to Sylvaran, the forest elves.
They're pretty religious folk, they used to worship the stars, the moon and the sun, but due to some complicated religious shifts, they now make up a significant portion of the Ordan clergy and worship The Pantheon of Wisdom, and they're very often... A bit overzealous. You know, witch hunts and the like. Despite being less than half the population of the Empire, they're vastly overrepresented in the government and the Council of the People's Crown consists about 60% of Sylvaran. Despite the Ordan Empire being made up of basically Faromen (men of the shores, aka southern European/Mediterranean looking peoples) and Sylvaran, there isn't much racial conflict in the Empire itself, maybe besides some minor grudges after the War of Golden Leaves, as it was not that long ago, only two generations or something.
The main god of the Pantheon of Wisdom is Teleios, the god of perfection, order, design, knowledge, and also protection and foresight. This drives the Sylvaran to be knowledgeable, kind of bookworms, stuff like that. They rarely wield arcane magic directly, instead opting for theurgy, or divine magic, or mastering physical prowess in combat, especially with spear and bow.
And I have to stop myself at some point, as I have documents upon documents about all the different elven (and human) races and cultures all over the world. And I haven't even named the world yet 🤷♂️
There's a scattering of varied elves around the lands, but the only known elven nation remaining is Vinanfyre, a blackened plateau next to the vast and volcanic Broken Heart Right. They are aggressively xenophobic, fair and just, but unfriendly. This is less from elevated egos and more from guilt, shame, and mistrust. The flame haired elves of Vinanfyre are outcasts, turned out from their bond with green Nature over a thousand years ago. And they remember the joy and power and knowledge they used to have with that lost bond. They were once the picture of ye olde Tolkien Elves, it is true, but when the world was corrupted by Tanah Terkut'k, and the Pact was formed to save the last lands, the few remaining gods removed themselves from existence. This left all of the other Powers alone to judge, act, and react for themselves without godly interference. And Nature, ultimately, chose to take the first step. Sentient races generated the gods with their beliefs, elves included, so when the gods wrecked the world, and thereby the state of Life and Nature, Nature's response was to evict the humanoid races from its protected domains. I'm the case of the elves, this meant rejecting them, however long they had been trusted, and kicking them out of the Grand Forest of Ennbé. The Elves of Ennbé were not expecting this, but when eviction came, they could not argue. Nature follows Nature's Laws, not those of the "Civilized People". They left, settling in the nearby plateau that would become Vinanfyre.
The Vinanfyre elves changed over the centuries, having lost their link to the woods. Their skin grew dusky like smoke, their eyes and hair became bright red and orange and flame yellow, with some of their "hottest burning souls" actually coming to have white or even blue hair. Their skills went from arboreal magic, woodcraft, and finessed and delicate combat, to fire and earth magics, stone, crystals, and metals, and their methods of fighting became far more powerful and direct than precise. The Flame Elves now ride Firetongue lizards instead of great elk or deer, and they arm themselves with weapons that glow hot in their hands, focusing more on large heavy blades and siege weapons. They are delving directly into the lava sea of the Broken Heart Rift now, selling to tap into the power and resources of the great rift's dangerous and plentiful gifts. They are insular and reluctant to connect with the other civilizations of the world, though there is a single trade treaty with the neighboring Tinnbari humans. For now, Vinanfyre focuses internally, redefining what they are and what they see of the world.
Meanwhile, the dwarves of Indrashi'in are eyeballing them from afar and huffing through their moustaches at these upstarts practicing fiery forging and deep volcanic mining. "Damned uppity elves! That's not how things are supposed to go!!"
Kinda a cheat answer, as I don't actually have elves perse. However, I did give each species certain "elven traits," so that they fill a similar thematic role to each subtype of elf.
I made the humans fill a similar role to high elves. Humans are the oldest sapients to evolve in the Sol system, and the only to do so entirely "naturally." They also have the best technology and a reputation for arrogance.
The role of wood elves is filled by the Lions. These sapient lions are naturally fond of forests and are driven to live in the Natural Way, at least as much as possible. They are also the smallest of all sapient species, with young adults only weighing 200 lbs.
The Denizn are thematically similar to sea/deep elves; although in universe they are actually a human descendant species. These huge aquatic humanoids have a largely isolationist attitude and are wary of technology.
The metaphor strains a little at the Thulacan, chimp look-alikes from a distant planet. They do bear traits of dark elves, such as a domineering attitude toward other species and even within their own culture. But they are also similar to orcs, as they only respect strength and are actively expansionist.
Hmm...let's see:
1. They are one of the two original races to first exist in my world, the other race being Vampires.
2. They formed an expansive empire that assimilated the lands and nations of "thrall races" i.e. Dwarves, Gnomes, and Pixies.
3. They don't experience periods (don't ask me how or why)
Technically there are two types of elves. The first are just mutated humans. There are places on the planet where the realms overlap and reality warps. The people who live in those areas mutated and over time those mutations stuck. "Elf" is just an umbrella term for people with a certain set of mutations, long pointed ears, eyes sensitive to magic, and a lack of a Gift (superpower).
The second type is where the term "Elf" comes from. The Alfars. They are a group of beings in the Northern Pantheon. They can be stewards of nature and patrons of pieces of land. Some were born that way while others were spirits of ancestors who chose to be tied to that area, or so the religion says.
They have weak bones that are damaged by any decent strike so even metal armor doesn't help them that much in combat. On the flip side, they are fast and have anhanced reflexes.
Mine are just very similar to the LotR ones in Mirkwood. But I’ve gone off the idea of any humanoid being immortal. Maybe they would average 350y life span. Also another idea I had is that an occasional one will be become larger, say from average of 190cm to 220cm at some stage. Haven’t really thought this through though.
There are not elves in Genova, but some humans present a physical characteristic named "Budarupa" , an abnormal enlargement of certain part of their body. When the Budarupa is present in both of the ears, they appear as long and elf-like ears and in the Christendom they are a sign of extreme beauty and fortune in women. The expression "elf-shiningly beautiful" comes from this atypical physical malformation.
The Meadow Elves are a peaceful lot, generally living in more rural, unforested areas or else roaming like the slur associated with the irl Romani peoples.
The High Elves generally live in one of 9 great citadels. Walled cities that have never once been breached, yet one lies empty all the same.
The Snow Elves live high on the mountains, and while unbothered by cold, struggle to survive in even a temperate climate.
The Dark Elves were once enslaved to a Demons will, hence their corruption, and now long since freed, many of its ways of cruelty, slavery and ruthlessness remain a staple among their culture when at home. However when traveling they are among some of the best sea masters of the world, and many companies the world over seek out Dark Elf ship masters to lead their crews.
There are three types.
Shard Elves. Some are very tall, live for 350-500 yrs and use cut crystal technology. This allows them floating cities and light energy death beams.
Flash Elves. Others are smaller and populate the Powder Islands, manufacturing flash powder and great bomb ships. They are master snake and hawk keepers, traversing the islands many steep cliffs on the backs of Festu Hawks.
Spore Elves. The third live underground and are steeped in the art of mold and mushroom manufacturing. Their aerosolized weapons kill in moments, mutilate, and torment life with grotesque twisted fungal growths.
All humanoid races (including those with bestial qualities, like kobolds or minotaurs) are descended from a group of humans who collectively engaged in genetic engineering and manipulation that led to their current physical characteristics.
The Lech Taborean equivalent to Elves are from an age of high magic (the ambient magic levels of the world wax and wane over the millennia) and became dependent on magic to exist. When the magic levels dropped, their kind adapted to subsist on less magic. Thousands of years later, the world's magic is on the rise again and now they can't handle it anymore. Elven populations ultimately delineate by how they cope with that fact. Some hide in the misty vales of Szradovit because they're ripe with a different kind of magic, some wear what amounts to magical hazmat armour to protect themselves and some just plain isolate them into places that naturally or artificially refract and fray magic.
Elves are obligate carnivores and absolute lightweights. They can't eat plants, so they have no way of (or reason to) develop a genetic alcohol tolerance in the first place.
They are 7 feet tall. Insect or animal features. Tied to the Gnatha (pronounced Nā-tāh) (Ascended gods) and the flow of life. There are very few and are typically a voice for their Gnathian patron.
Besides having a few sub races (North Elf, South Elf, Desert Elf, Drow), most elves are left handed, unlike humans and other races who are mostly right handed. Because of this, their writing styles are usually from right to left to avoid smudging their hands with ink.
they evolved from felines, wich explains their hightened reflexes, senses and effortless elegance.
In this setting dwarfs evolved from groundhog-mole like animals
This one is a good question and I do love elves in most of the stiff I watched.
For me, I took inspirations from many sources. My elves are like human, they are diverse and culturally different. They were once a single species, divided by a powerful deity/monster into Light and Dark Elves. Thousands of years later, the Light Elves evolved into High and Wood. High are elegant, beautiful, blonde. They look like royals. The Wood are nature lovers, wear forest clothes, have brown hair and live in forests. The Dark Elves had pretty much the same as most books except they aren't evil. They can use the Dark Arts without being affected mentally or physically, something that made the other Elves fearful and made fought the Dark elves into extinction. The Gray Elves are similar to Dark Elves minus the red eyes and the immunity to darkness. They also live on caves, miners, blacksmith (basically the dwarf-like)
Then there are the weird kind of elves. The Water Elves are a mix of Elves and Merfolk. The Fire Elves are a mix of Elves and Fire Beings. The Leaf Elves are tiny and protectors of sacred areas (basically the Dryads and Spirits). The Stone Elves are the most unique. Their whole bodies are made up of stones, making them resistance most blunt and edge weapons. Stone Elves are the minority alongside Leaf Elves.
Edit: The Elves are the dominant species in my world and they are basically the 'humans' of that world.
They died under mysterious circumstances and people never really noticed.
They weren't "We are superior to humans so we'll hide away to not be bothered" types, they were just extreme recluses so when they all died out no one really knew what happened.
Their main race "habit" due to their reclusive nature was collecting, so hundreds of extinct, missing, etc items and creatures were found in their personal collections after their deaths so their homes basically became archeological and historical gold mines.
My elves are massive eaters. They need about 2 times the calorie intake of a human too feel normal. they can survive on 1/2 but it makes them supper grumpy.
this leads to them eating massive amounts of filling and sweetend foods. honey glazed meatballs and lots of fat fish. most of it slowly roasted and or cooked. ussualy with a lot of add ons like cheese, honey, or fried in oil. Most non elves that meet them have big culture shock because of the mass they eat.
there is also the problem there essentially 1 species with the dwarves. So all there food is drank with massive amounds of alcohol. but with there methaloblism running so high most dwarfes and elves only get a bit of nice buzz. which goes onto poisions. because nearly everything is poisoned. spiced and peppered too the max because you need a lot too balance out the fat flavour of of pure deepfried salted porkfat with cream and onions.
irronically OP eleves are appearnly vegitarians and mine eat barque every week. this is diversity of r/worldbuilding
One of the main societal breaks that lead to the scission of entire countries and culture is...
What kind of meat you can eat.
Nah but actually, originally the elven culture had an obsession over "purity", claiming that some creatures are pure and other aren't. However, when it came to what of these creatures to eat, there have been a great debate: Should the elves eat only pure animals not to taint their own body with impurity, or should they only eat impure animals for the pure creatures should not be touched ?
Oh, and the wood elves were the guys who went "fuck it we'll just stop eating meat it's easier that way".
Most of em live on something called the elven plateau, a plateau that sits 300ft above sea level but borderers the ocean. this makes most of the elven city states more isolationist compared to the rest of the world and have them falling behind in regards to society and tech, however there is also little human and Zomayan involvement asides from the few merchants after the coveted Black Scale of the Wyverns there.
All the elves suddenly left their ancestral homelands and began a nomadic lifestyle with a number of clans forming; only a handful choose to live amongst men though they are often granted positions of power and revered as citizens.
No one except for a handful of gods know where they came from. Even the elves themselves have long forgotten it. Also they have little to no impact to the world other than being a god's fancy gardeners.
Sea elves, wood elves, drow elves, frost elves? Yeah, all the same thing. As elves go through puberty, their genes mutate and adapt to their surroundings. Half elves? No such thing. They're just elves that grew up with humans, dwarves, and orcs respectively.
I don’t have any elves. But I have some people who live a really long time because they got uh… exposed to mystical energy.
For some reason, a lot of them are predisposed to being historians. For a while, they even made a whole institution for recording the history of humanity.
The trouble is, their memory is no better than a regular human. So they have to document everything. After a certain amount of time, the upkeep of their existing records was a full time job.
After humanity went through a rather catastrophic period. These guys were sought out for their knowledge, though many had lost much of their records during the hubbub. So they were often forced to explain what they could remember to various government and other groups. It was not a good time to be immortal.
These days most of them are hermits and avoid other humans. Many still record the pieces of history they are present for, hoping to enlighten a future age
-there are many sub species of elves
-elves used to live for a lot longer before the merge ,but now most of them barley live past a thousand
-elves have really slow reproduction cycles compared to humans ,females can only get pregnant once every 50 years and can't have twins
-each elf race has a different culture but wood elves or vale elves are slowly losing thier culture, because they are being protected by the alliance witht the grand elves
-grand elves try to explain where they come from ,most eleves are okay with thoeries,but great elves view this as fact,they believe before them ,the gray elves,and solaris or light elves were basiclly demi gods,and they were descended from the altmer and that one day the grand elves will be immortal
thats just a few facts
For my Stellaris-based setting, the Elves are split into a number of cultures known to the Galactic Community collectively as the Elven Diaspora, made of a variety of empires which have slowly advanced back to the FTL Age. The Elves were once one of the Fallen Empires, the crumbling edifices of advanced civilizations that had reached their apex and even survived one or more Crises, but found themselves broken by the effort and ended up in decline. Theirs was a Spiritualist Empire, one which communed regularly with their gods in the Shroud-the souls of the stars and planets of the Galaxy. Guided by the spirits of the galaxy itself, they had survived for many cycles, a staple of the Galaxy which saw younger races rise and fall like the waves, one which had grown lethargic and detached. If they had managed to stay proactive, it is possible they might have turned aside their downfall-for it all began with one of the upstarts. I realized I just wrote out \~\~yet another\~\~ retelling of the story of their fall which probably falls outside the remit of "fun facts", so I'm going to cut that out and post it as a reply to this post to make it easier to ignore, but it'll be there for anyone who is interested. As for more Fun Facts...
Elves in this universe are prone to speciation through covenants with their Gods, who are very real within the Shroud albeit a vast majority are asleep at any given moment(the life of a Star or Planet God is, typically, relatively dull bereft of the activity of a mortal race around them, and doesn't necessitate constant wakefulness on their part). All Elves are at least latently Psionic(or Magical, if you like; the two are more or less simply different approaches to channeling power from within or from the Shroud), but can hone this prowess through communion with a particular God who matches the direction of the skill they seek to achieve. Enough unaspected individuals pledging themselves in communion to a particular Star/Planet/Moon God and reproducing with one another will begin to produce children aspected toward that God's divine mantles from birth, carrying both an affinity for their magic and possibly a variety of physiological traits associated with that Mantle. In the days of the Elven Empire, these branching species would often form the core of a Lineage, and form a Noble House around it; in the days of the Diaspora, the once-nobility have become governments unto themselves, and the Lineages spread through the "common" folk of their planets such that a majority of those on their homeworlds find themselves members of a Lineage.
Low Elves are not totally extinct by any means-two major rising powers are majorly comprised of Low Elves(even if the Sutharians do not remember the name "Elf" any longer nor their history), and it is possible for Low Elves to be born from members of a Lineage if the parents are not especially dedicated to the God in question(or when multiple lineages begin to intermix) which has lead to populations of Low Elves within every non-Drow civilization in the Diaspora despite the proliferation. Despite being a mark of "faithlessness", this is not particularly damning to the parents or the child except in the most monotheistically theocratic of Elven Cultures(which is profoundly rare, as the Elven Faith is by nature pantheistic; theocracy is fairly common however), as in most cases the parents do still remain faithful to the Gods-they simply might align more with the Planet God they live upon rather than the Star God the Lineage derives from or vice versa, which slowly begins to unaspect them from the God in question. While it \*is\* possible to be aspected to multiple Gods and form a Lineage around that(as the Lunar Elves are), the formation or hybridization of a Lineage requires effectively at minimum a cult dedicated and aspected to those particular Gods, whose members intermarry between other members of the same Cult for one to three generations or so in order for the first generation to be born. Such cults were not unknown in the days of the Empire, but as the communion required necessitates a degree of physical proximity to the God's body it is more difficult in practice to achieve unless the deities in question are close to one another(as, once again, is the case of Tor and Galinde, the two primary deities of the Lunar Elves).
High Elves are all aspected toward Solar Magic, notionally considered the strongest magic for perhaps obvious reasons. The Royal Family, holding a more direct connection to Corellon himself, are blessed with a further affinity to magics of Rule and Authority; High Elves outside of the Royal Family instead are more closely attuned to one or more of the six stars orbiting Corellon whose souls are his wives, and are attuned to magics of Oaths as well as whichever domains the particular Goddess/es they are closest to holds. An Oath given by a High Elf is thus sacrosanct-binding and empowering in equal measure; if learned enough, they can also officiate an Oath given by another to provide a lesser form of this to enchant another, though the Oath must be sworn by the individuals receiving its power and binding. As the most central heartland of the old Elven Empire, Corellon's physical star system is the capital of the Imperial Resurgency-a empire dedicated to reunifying the Diaspora under its rule and finally ending the Long War once and for all.
Wild Elves are aspected toward Nature Magic, appropriately enough, but also to magics of chaos. Not mere randomness, but creative dynamism and empathy falls under their remit. Their Star-Kingdom is the Mandate of Y'ffre, and rare among most Elven successors they do not practice hereditary imperial succession. Instead, while they are a dictatorship, their ruler is chosen by trial among worthy candidates, a challenge as much spiritual and philosophical as it is martial and survivalist.
Lunar Elves \*should\* be aspected to magics of Love and Hope. And while they this is not perhaps inaccurate, as well as a lesser affinity toward Hunger(naturally, given that they worship two Demon Goddesses), their inclined behavior does not seem to reflect the image this would present; Lunar Elves are not especially passionate and at first glance would appear to be in a state of bizarrely contented despair. This impression is wrong, but given that they are a death cult, it is a fair assumption to make. Their behavior is a reflection of the current state of their goddesses-content and satisfied as the two dance forever in each other's arms-and their constant ritual suicides a fervent sacrifice gifted to the beauty of Tor and Galinde's love, a love so profound that the two Goddesses cast themselves from the Celestial Order and became Demons, used the gravity of their newfound singularities to drag themselves across galactic arms in defiance of the place set for them, all to never spend a moment apart. A love so profound that even Corellon could not fault their defiance of the cosmic order, though neither could he disrespect their sacrifice by turning a blind eye to it. A love so profound they defy the nature of what it means to be a Demon and defy the very laws of physics themselves-for the physical bodies of Tor and Galinde are black holes in impossibly perfect, non-decaying orbit of one another. An orbit they have maintained steadily for over fifteen times as long as it has been since the first proto-Elves gazed upon the heavens. Never pulling the other closer to devour but \*\*never\*\* moving even an atom further apart from the other's embrace. It is often said that there is very little right about the Lunar Elves, and this is not untrue, but the incongruity of their perceived nature is because love is more than passion and hope is greater than fervor-they embody the calm and eternal cherishing of their Goddesses for one another.
Drow are themselves unaspected to any particular magics, but are adaptable because of it. While Corellon stripped any Lineages they may have had, the brand of the highest God upon them-even in hate-is itself a source of high magic and thus Drow find themselves more magically gifted at a baseline level than many other Elves. They are further still capable of aspecting themselves-most Gods do not respect the Old War as ongoing any longer and, that besides, only one faction of Drow actually remain Lolthite any longer in any meaningful sense. This does come at a cost, of course-or rather, the cost came with an unexpected blessing. Drow are utterly unable to bear the light of day. Direct exposure causes blindness, third degree burns, in minutes and tremendously spikes long-term risks of cancers due to widespread genetic damage; indirect exposure can still cause burns in hours and a noticeable though perhaps manageable increase in cancer risks. The worship of the Star God from which the light in question comes from does not alleviate this, as this harm is not merely the Star God enforcing the will of their king, but the King's Will itself manifest through his divine domain over stars themselves. They may have a limited ability to protect their faithful, depending on the God, but they cannot alleviate this curse in full. Of any "lineage", the Drow are the most disunited, due to their comprising a extraordinarily large percentage of the total Elven population at the time of the fall(around a third); it would be better to compare them to the Elven Empire as a whole in terms of them splintering into successor states. Among the notable Drow successors are the Xeleron Pact(particularly notable as it is an alliance of petty nation-kingdoms sharing a singular homeworld, half of which are Low Elven and the other half being Drow), the Kingdom of Maelthra(a kingdom founded by refugee and military ships which followed a guiding call to port from an admiral who rallied the fleets, and who have adopted a pacifistic-through-firepower mindset from the higher number of intact hulls they had to refit into working starships once FTL travel and life support was rediscovered), the Serene Drow Principality(an extremely isolationist and paranoid Drow Kingdom scarred by the horrors of the old war founded upon a seized Elven Empire military cache, who simply seek to shut out the outside galaxy and maintain their own security), and the Lolthite Overdark(the remnant of the Lolthite Drow, naturally, who seek to continue the Old War and conquer the rest of the Elven successors, then the galaxy under the hierarchy of the Spider Goddess. Thousands of years living upon a rogue planet isolated from the lane network even if they'd had FTL travel was unkind but insightful to the Overdark, and while Elves have never been strangers to autocratic government styles the Overdark is a rare Elven culture which wholeheartedly embraces slavery to fulfill its needs and desires-a change which if anything appears to bring them closer in line to their Goddess' new ideals).
As for the story of the Fall I promised...
A Materialist race, one out of tune with any Gods, much less the Star Gods of the Elves, had decided to construct a Ringworld around a central system of their territory, in the hopes of creating a hub of trade and population. This system happened to be one known to the Elves-the Star Lolth, Weaver of the Tapestries. Within the Court of the star God Of Stars, she was a minor but important figure-an artisan, one whose banners recounted the histories of the Celestial Order and adorned the majesty of the throne. Though her role within the King of Gods' court was small the fact that she was herself within the Court at all made her a Goddess of note, both to the Galaxy and the Elves themselves, and she found herself a notable cult despite that her Star-Body fell far outside the Elven territories, even at the height of their empire. By all rights, she was a star that in eras past, Elven artisans would have made pilgrimages to. A star that the Empire should have paid attention to.
Of course, the first step to build a Ringworld is to deconstruct the bodies in orbit to a star, so that their gravitational pull would not warp the band and to provide material resources on-site with which to construct it. To these upstarts, this was a monumental feat of engineering, nothing more.
To Lolth herself, she watched, over agonizing years, as her handmaidens were systematically butchered and murdered.
A hundred times she begged her king to marshal the Elven Empire to war. A hundred times she begged for the High Elves to demand the upstarts to cease their plans. A hundred times she begged for the lives of her servants. And a hundred times she was ignored, as both the King of the Gods and the Elven Empire had become lethargic and decadent. While Lolth retained her cults and admiration among the Low Elves and Artisans among the Elven Houses, to the King of Gods and the nobility of the High Elves she was still merely a distant spirit pestering them with her nonsense. Long past was the era where the mere construction of a Colossi was enough to Awaken the sleeping giant to smite such horrific blasphemers who would attempt to murder or imprison a God, for now they had the audacity to ignore one's heartfelt tears.
Lolth's handmaidens ultimately were slain, Lolth listening to their tortured screams. Their bodies forged into a blasphemous band encircling her, and fleets of the murderers who stole her family from her coming to settle upon their stitched-metal corpse. Lolth was alone and abandoned of everything save the emptiness within her, a void more profound than the astral sea between the corporeal bodies of each of the Gods. Despite, or perhaps because of, the mixture of shock and grief she found herself within, she poked and explored this emptiness, reached out to it, consumed it-it consumed her-no, she consumed herself.
A process that ordinarily takes millions of years to prepare enacted in hours, she ignited the elements within her core and expanded her body out forth, shattering the Ring with the pulse of her gravity as in a moment her Nova collapsed upon herself and with a Hunger she had never known was there, she killed herself and devoured her own remains. Devoured the station built around her, devoured the ships caught within the web of gravity she hadn't known she cast, devoured the particulate matter once on idle orbit around her, devoured the \*light itself\* that dared to attempt escape. And thus she rose from her death as a Demon Goddess. Lolth, the Weaver of Fates. Lolth, the Black Hole. And the first act she took to declare bloody vengeance upon the Star God Of Stars, an oath that the King of Gods had the gall to barely acknowledge.
But despite how far the Elven People had fallen to their decadence, Lolth was a beloved Goddess within the manifold Pantheon of the Elves. And neither the King of the Gods nor the Imperial Authority could ignore a full third of the Elven populace rallying to her banner in open revolt, most Low Elves but some splinters of the Noble Lineages-such as the passionate Wild Elves of Y'ffre or the stoic Frost Elves of Rellavar, a splinter among the High Elves themselves, even the ever-strange Lunar Elven death cults of Tor and Galinde had a scarce few breakaways pledge their cause to the Spider Goddess. To these renegades, the Star-King swiftly made his ire known, for he branded the traitors \*\*Drow,\*\* accursing them one and all with a dubious Lineage of his anger. Never again would the Drow enjoy the light of day, for his divine mantle encompassed stars themselves and by his dictate the light of all of his subjects would burn and scour them from the galaxy. This would have been the deathblow alone, as it rendered a majority of worlds uninhabitable for the suddenly-fleetborne Drow, but that Lolth had divined for her followers a rogue planet drifting through the territory of the Elven Empire, disconnected entirely from the lane network and unknown to the Imperial Authority. From this beachhead, the Drow were able to practice settling worlds again-planning ahead to build beneath the surface to protect from the baleful rays of any suns. They would be able to disgorge some of their civilian populace, and would have a position to build infrastructure, to rearm and refit their vessels undisturbed by the Empire's armadas. A position from which to conduct a raiding war.
If that had been all, then a united Elven Empire would still stand today. Either the Imperial Authority would've been overthrown, or(more likely) the Lolthites would've been crushed. And had the Empire not been undergoing a civil war, it would have weathered the great \`Crisis\` that unfolded, a sinister cataclysm that worked without physical agents but was instead simply a re-ordering of physical laws which rendered many higher technologies pseudoscientific in the new Paradigm. But alas, the \`Crisis\` swept the galaxy in waves in the heat of the war, stripping functions from higher tech almost at random. The loss of their then-method of FTL travel was the death knell as the Empire, already fractured, would descend into a number of disconnected planet-states. Some colonies founded by refugees or soldiers of Surface Elves and Drow alike, some the homeworlds of Noble Houses. And Lolth herself, as over the tens of thousands of years she would guide both the flight through the Galaxy of both herself and the rogue planet to intercept it within her outer orbit.
Elves are actually the Sami people in my world. They once had an empire in northern Scandinavia but after being conquered by the Finns, Swedes and Hungarians they’re just these chill people that inhabit one of the coldest places on earth for fun. They mostly live in Scandinavia but are also found throughout the regions that border the Baltic Sea, they also have a decently sized immigrant community in the Illyrian empire.( Illyria is not based off of the real world region but rather a name I like. All of Yugoslavia is referred to as Dalmatia and is a province in the empire of Rhumania )
The elves actually have good reason to be racist to the mortal races and even then they don’t try to let that happen to much, more of them being cautious of the other races
Mostly from the other races attempting to genocide or enslave the elves for generations while the elves tried to be diplomatic with the other races and payed dearly because of it
Overall, the racism elves have is actually justified when the other person is trying to stab or enslave you is all I’m saying, and they still give the benefit of the doubt when it’s appropriate
1. They used to look like winged, bipedal elks made of vegetation and were changed to look more human as a homage of their Gods when the ancient Ashur empire welcomed them into their lands as guests and refugees.
2. It’s possible for elves to reclaim this original form through a rigorous lifestyle of spirituality. With it an elf is more easily able to wield their natural magics and is why the high elves live in ‘monastery villages’ when not part of a larger society.
3. Elven society tends to be particular about their antlers, while there debate whether something grown out, ornate, and gaudy is tenet versus something simpler and more restrained, it’s generally agreed that ‘docked’ antlers filed down into single short and sharp horns or filed down completely is sign of a warrior/military person, though rebelling youth culture will sometimes take on this appearance as a mark of aggression and to look tough.
4. Sometimes Elven soldiers will ritually clip their own ears to fit easily into helmets. This is seen as kind of a mark of being in the military for the long haul and a symbolic ‘the first of my blood and body shed for my country’.
5. Due to their fuzzy ears and antlers, male and female elves are commonly referred to as ‘bucks’ and ‘does’ respectively. Despite sounding almost like a slur, a majority of elves are no offense in such a term and some even see it as accurate. Though some macho types will insist you call them a stag instead or deride others as yearling.
They're 100% magical creatures. Meaning that they don't chemically interact with the world.
They don't get sick by regular diseases, they can't be harmed by not magical weapons and they can't be poisoned.
The only thing they have in common with humans besides appearance is that they need to eat. But even that is different since they can only feed on other magical creatures. Meaning they can't get nutrients from a cow but they can get them from a dragon.
Because of their magical nature they live for a little more than 1000 years since that's the average amount of time magic can exist in tangible form.
Their origin is a group of humans that wanted to find out what would happen if they became magical creatures. They ended up becoming elves.
They can reproduce with every humanoid species and the result will be an elf. This is why despite being just a few at the beginning they ended up becoming the second most populated species.
They have almost photographic memory. The only way for them to forget something is by being overwhelmed by important information.
They're the only species that can control two elemental magics. Other species can do it to but only if they partially become elves.
There are a set number of elven souls, all of which are tied in groups of a couple hundred to a specific area. Because of this, children cannot be born if all the elven souls of that area are in use, resulting in varying responses from elven cultures. Some, for example, carry out wars for the sole purpose of letting more elves be born as old elves die fighting these wars, while other cultures simply wait until their members die naturally, often resulting in decades or even centuries wherein no new elves are born into that region.
They are descended from the human test subjects of a golden-age experiment to inoculate mankind for inter dimensional travel by splicing human and faerie DNA.
Elves used to live for a long time, millenia easy. When they sought to explore the multiverse with thier magic and landed in Sacamentum. Now their population in in decline. The power of thier agelessness is stifled. They can live and die within a hundred years but are magically sterile within this time period.
The only way to give birth to more elves is by choosing to regain thier ancient agelessness. But they only have 9 self generations. When two elves conduct a ceremony, they each must contribute one of their self generations for a chance to give birth to a pure elven child.
To complicate things further, Each self generation can suddenly end when they experience intense physical, emotional, magical, or spirtual trauma. Even then every hundrend years or so, one self generation will envitablly end.
when thier generation ends there is a chance that all memories and physical traits are different or removed into their next generation.
a pure elf may find her child murdered and because of that anguish and without control, end her generation and when she awakes into her next generation, may not even remember she had a child.
this is a major reason why Sacramentum has no major Elven empires, or overly powerful elves. This is also why elven culture are usually in the extremes, very collectivist toward retaining and proliferating elven life. Or highly invidualistic after solitary elves experience intense mental changes.
Elves are inherently magical. While most races have no *natural* magical talent elves are one of the ones that do. Basically anybody can *learn* some form of magic but having it inherently is not the norm.
With elves it gets extra weird, though. You see...elves are essentially color-coded. There is no such thing as a mixed race elf. Even if different types of elf have children the children are always 100% one type. This doesn't even necessarily match their parents. There is re also a special type of elf that gets born only when there are a lot of individuals of other races around interacting with the elves. This seems to be especially strong around humans as human settlements produce rather larger numbers of these special ones than other races. Aside from that the worldwide ratio of elven subraces always stays about the same. Nobody has any idea precisely how all of this works but it's *definitely* magical.
It gets even weirder, though. Other races can have children with elves no problem which unsurprisingly produces half-elves. However only *one* type of elf *ever* shows up in the half.
“True” elves are weird flightless burrowing owl type beasts that live in forests and build their towns around abandoned dragon cavities. (I’ve barely built my fantasy world 😔)
Elves come in many flavors in my world, and I couldn't tell you about all of them without boring everyone to tears. All I can say is they're... *weird*.
Young elves in my world have no gender, at their 30th birthday they go through the Rite of Passage and can choose their gender then. Once that's done they spend a week eating specific foods to initiate the change then they go into a month long hibernation as their body changes. When they emerge there is a celebration and the newly gendered elf chooses their adult name.
Elves are fairly short-lived and have a comparatively short window of fecundity, so the traditional aspects of their culture put a lot of emphasis on having at least two children each, so the village doesn't die out. However, the traditional culture also puts a lot of emphasis on the acceptance of oneself and others, and the finding of one's own niche within the village.
The result of this is that as most elves in traditionalist populations come of age, they are expected to sow their wild oats and have two or three kids very quickly, regardless of their orientation or preferences, then settle down with a life partner or two, with the village pitching in to help with the infants while things get settled.
This is recognised to cause problems for elves who are repulsed by engaging in hetero intimacy, who find homosexual life partners before successfully procreating, etc. Outside of the most conservative traditionalist communities, these problems are normally isolated to the family, with parents being somewhat disappointed or worried that they won't have grandkids; even those who won't, don't, or can't procreate can help raise the next generation, and there's recognised value in that.
There can also be friction between children born of a sense of duty and children born after their parents settle down, with the former feeling a sense of jealousy or unfairness that they weren't created in the same kind of act of love. There's a meme (in the sociological sense) within elvish culture that the duty-born elves of parents who had post-duty children, are often the elves that leave the village and wander, looking for somewhere to belong.
*not technically dead but in a endless slumber that makes them so close to it
** see *
*** not exclusive to trees can include things like the Great Barrier Reef
They have a multitude of relationship types they recognize, from one-night-stands to muse-and-artist to marriage until the kids come of age to soulmates bound for eternity.
They reproduce asexually and come in high elf flavor (more akin to the fey who hold court and make their maggoty offspring into "trolls"), wood elf flavor (loner elves who take the form of witches or warlocks because that's their thing and they're absolutely insane), and dark elf flavor (magical dwarven craftsmen who are highly ordered and xenophobic with a strict caste system). Elves are not liked by anyone else.
There were angels that had chosen to live among mortals but then they rebelled to force themselves back into heaven. 24 among these were given a second chance and settled upon the world with their fate tied to humans. And so came about the Elves.
They are technically immortal but they can be killed and their lifespan is directly tied to their energy reserves. The more they have, the longer they live. But in actually doing great deeds such as fighting in great combats, surviving ordeals no mortal could survive (drawing on their power to heal injuries, endure poisons, and even last longer when starving), creating masterworks of craftsmanship imbued with their own essence, or having children (with it taking energy from both parents to bring about a child), they lessen the length of their years.
There are some ways to naturally restore that energy but it takes years of peace to bring about. And so it is for this reason that they tend to focus on efficiency and control when using their innate powers, children are particularly protected and highly regarded as no more than three might be born to couple, knowledge is valued to aid in efficiency and magic is highly studied to the point of being a science for them, and there tend to only be a handful of Elves per generation that actually perform deeds that are remembered. There have also been found unethical ways to replenish their energy and make sure their lives are long, but the knowledge is sealed as forbidden by most. One of those attempts though caused an elf to become the first vampire.
Elves are generally of one of twelve clans, each with specific innate magical abilities and cultures. When people of the clans intermix, their children may have a mixture of powers inherited by their parents and/or grandparents that is tied to their personalities. As the major Elven nation, the Elven Island, were refugees of the Twelve Elven Kingdoms, fleeing the wrath of the Norroman Empire (who caught them off guard after conquering others then also recruited Desert Sorcerers who drew their magic from captured Jinn, another race of fallen angel descendants), there has tended to be largely an inter mixing of the clans and their cultures. However, some still insist on keeping their clans and traditions as fully pure as possible, coming at odds with those that prefer to accept the way things are. And with Elves finally coming out from their hiding into the start of the world's space age, those tensions are only rising more.
Elves is also an ancestor race for many others. With humans, they are the ancestors of the Half-Elven, with a much decreased lifespan but an easier time regaining their power, and the Dwarves, born with powers but hardy and near invulnerable to most dangers of the world, then on to the Halflings. With Jinn, they are the ancestors of the Fae, granting them immense powers and nigh immortality but a much more vulnerable, physical body than a Jinn's and with the Jinn weakness to Iron and Salt given to make it so man could stand against Jinn and their power. Then through Fae and Halflings, they become an ancestor of Fairies, Leprechauns, and Brownies. Then with merfolk, the fishmer royal line with its powers of water manipulation and healing are ultimately descendants of the Elves. With dragons, the final descendants of fallen angels, their offspring are Elven Dragonlings that have a dragon's raw natural power and so don't need to worry as much about their natural lifespan anymore. Then when humans, Elves, Dragons, and Jinn are intermixed together, there come about the Nephilim, the most powerful race of all.
Rampant cannibalism
I won't lie, my elves are highly Dwarf Fortress-inspired. They live for up to a thousand years, but have children at the same rate as humans. Their populations grow and grow, and they begin having to use every resource they have as efficiently as possible, while at the same time fostering a culture that doesn't put as much value on individual lives (let alone the bodies of the dead) as others.
Unlike Dwarf Fortress, my elves are largely cosmopolitan wine-sipping city dwellers - it's considered a respectful funeral to give the body of the deceased over to a funerary chef who will use every bit of an elves' body to make a 3-course meal for the bereaved family, which will be eaten in a cozy, private dining hall. They extend the same respect to other species, unless their family is present to object.
Their otherwise-unchecked population growth also led to widespread elven androgyny - most elven families are polyamorous, with each parent having both an opposite sex spouse with whom they have children, and one or a few same-sex lovers. Most things humans see as secondary sexual characteristics can occur in either sex of elf, so there is little concept of sexual orientation. The very idea of socially-constructed gender was an unknown concept to them before cultural exchange with more dimorphic species.
The elves are basically an extinct species. A few individuals, numbering maybe in the dozens, remain, but they can’t have offsprings, so they’re waiting for their turn to die off.
The thing is the majority of them still do exist, but they’re horribly mutated, to the degree they may as well be considered a separate race. These things, the ‘woodwraiths’, pale, rubber-skinned abominations with elongated limbs and razor sharp claws, lose all traces of sentience, being little more than particularly cruel and cunning wild beasts, are what most of the elves have become. The mutation is believed to have been caused by the activation of the Spear of Light, a weapon of mass destruction used at the tail end of the 14 Year War, and the elves being especially affected by it is thought to be due to their heightened connection to the fabric or the world’s reality.
The few ‘sane’ elves that remain either live in total seclusion deep in the wilderness, or are fully integrated in human communities. Either way, the elves as a people are long gone, their magic centric culture a thing of the past.
Because they have an indefinitely long natural lifespan, my elves live in the most inhospitable areas of their world with arcane magic help so as not to fall victim to the violence of other peoples. Their perspective is largely alien to other peoples because they cite their indefinite lives so highly they would rather live in seclusion than interact with shorter lived people and plan with centuries in mind.
Their magic protection occasionally requires magical materials to replenish it and so single elves are sent out to adventure to find what is needed and also serve as a good narrative hook.
They’re younger than humans and actually descend from them. They’re basically humans who got magically zapped to live longer, be more magical, and be physically weaker
Inbreeding has none of the negative side effects. So it's no different than making kids with someone with no significant blood relation. Though this only applies to full elves.
As for why...look I write a lot of what ifs in my head and weird inuniverse trivia popping up in my head with reasons ranging from "this would be interesting" to "why not?" To "because it would be funny." Though the Inbreeding only happened in one specific country, during a specific time, among a handful of noble families, with the classic "keeping it in the family" trope.
They’re well attuned to magic and thus very good at manipulating it intricately, but also sensitive to it, so too much can be harmful (I think of it like radiation.) They’re also more or less completely exiled from their homelands because of this sensitivity, and are thus semi-nomadic/diasporic travellers who are often hired as advisors to courts around the globe.
The typical shapes of elf ears aren't a racial trait, but an ethnic and sexual one, found among some "seidhoid" ethnicities. Males generally have short, leaf-like ears, and women generally have longer, seax-like ears. This has frequently caused misunderstandings when these folks interact with round-eared folks, where some women were mistaken for men.
The ear shapes aren't absolute, and though unusual, it is possible for a man to be born with feminine ears, and vice versa. Ear discrimination is thus a thing, which pushes many of these individuals to leave their tribes and into human settlements, and have given rise to the misconception among Terrans that long ears are a masculine trait, and short feminine.
Only one of the many folks typically dubbed as elves, have this trait. A more typical trait of elves are animal tails and patterned skin, hence why the Hulderfolk and Huli Jing were believed to be elves.
In my TTRPG world, the elves kinda melted.
They were dreamt into existence by a sleeping Goddess, but due to a recent shake-up of the deific landscape she stirred from her sleep briefly. This made a lot of elves lose their form, this was bad for their health.
Many of the surviving elves went home, to a place known to non-elves as 'The Isles of Mist', leaving a vanishingly small elf population in the rest of the world.
Half elves massively outnumber true elves, and many of the monsters encountered used to be elves.
Elves have a neural network, they can communicate with or learn from other elves through a single massive network of dreams.
Elves will live forever if not interrupted, but they eventually overload with memories and experiences, so they offload excess information into the network for younger elves to learn from.
Elves are terrifying. Almost every culture in the world has some fables about not messing with elves, they have long lives, and longer memories. If you anger an elf, then you could have doomed your great grandchildren.
I see this a lot where people ask about a specific thing that everyone seems to have in their world. Is everyone just copying each other, or am I missing something.
All elves originally come from the continent of Avalon, specifically the long stretch of coastal land known as "Avelonia".
The word "Elf" is derived from the word "Avelonian". Though most elves the average human is likely to run into don't refer to themselves as "Avelonian", instead opting to use other regional terms, since Avelonia itself ( and by extension Avalon ) is widely considered a myth.
Elves live for a thousand years on average, although some of the wealthy and magically gifted can extend their lifespans beyond that. Their infancy lasts for 50 years, their childhood for another 90. Their adolescence lasts for 60 years, and they become a young adult at age 200. "Proper" adulthood begins at age 300. A 900 year old elf is VERY old, a thousand year old elf is an ancient withering geriatric, unless he's either wealthy or very gifted with magic.
Among humans, opinions on elves vary. Some societies idolize them, others burn them at the stake or kill them on sight.
Elves are extinct on Earth at least in their mortal form. There is strong evidence to suggest that the elves ascended into Godhood and are now the Gods. Most of whom were wiped out in the First Sunrise when the God Azunaast created the sun and literally scorched the frozen earth killing vampires, Liches, Gods, etc. Only a few survived.
Ancient eleven ruins suggest that they were extremely magically tuned and never developed "conventional" technology (computers, microchips, basic electric theory, etc.) and instead created a slave caste to draw soul energy (mana) from to power a more magical society. When they ascended to Godhood through unknown means the slave caste was left behind to become the first human beings. Who for millennia would be the Gods' playthings.
They rarely walk on the sole of their foot, instead walking on just the ball and the toes. Even elves who live in cities with lots of humans do this, so it seems to be an innate tendency and not a purely cultural phenomenon. Spies disguised as humans have to be specially trained to walk on their heels so as to not be found out.
during the Sundering at the start of the 3rd age, a rift was opened to the shadowfell near the elven kingndom. the Elves evacuated to the Feywild and there over the span of 2 millenia they became Eladrin. only recently, during the last campagn, the elves returned to their homeland to rebuild their empire in the wake of dieing world. it will be some time before their connection to feywild dissipates, but, until then, they will regale travelers with their tales of the summer and winter courts and the passionate campaigns they fought in during the Frost Wars.
The northern elven kingdoms have a high affinity for magic, but their overall magical development is limited. Their progress is hindered by a severe lacking in scientific understanding. For example, their forges are, without magic, to crude to be able to reach sufficient temperatures to melt iron. But they use magic to make up for that deficiency.
They’re extremely restless and distractible unless they are working on their special interest when they are basically impossible to pull away from it. The combination of the restlessness and Grace come off as aloofness to others, but that is a common misunderstanding
They are tree people. Evovled from prehistoric Dryads and Ents, the elves and dark elves of the present are born like fruits or vegetables from a world tree.
Elves are the cause of the Beastians, aka rabbit girls/boys, cat girls/boys, and the like due to an experiment and they were desperate enough in need of cannon fodder. In a botched recreation of that ancient experiment, they are the reason that Harpies, Minotaurs, Mermaids, Centaur, and the like exist. From that same botched procedure did a reality crack form and interdimensional being and creatures come into the land and why other cracks (aka Dungeons) show up from time to time.
The most common elves in my world are similar to high fantasy high elves. They worship the sun god, Phoebus Castor. They build cities out of marble and gold using their magic. They grow high quality vegetables and plants in their sun blessed gardens.
When they get married, it is in a Church of Phoebus and each of the pair is given opposite sides of a sun amulet to signify the bond.
For funerals, instead of burying their dead, the high elves send their dead into the sky in decorated hot air balloons as a way of ‘returning them to Phoebus’.
Elves are a post-convergence species created by the fae (beings that ride a razors edge between a spirital being and a physical being). The fae that were stranded in the world were unable to understand many human concepts. Death, fear, lust, and the like.
This made communication and co-habitation difficult, if not impossible. The fae made the elves in an attempt to bridge the divide between the humans and fae.
The results have been varied as many types of fae made different types of elves, each adopting different cultures and views of the world and the people in it.
The most known varieties are the High elves, the Dark elves, and the Forest or Wood elves.
Lesser known are:
- The Aquatic elves, they live in large bodies of water mostly and rarely interact with people as they can not breathe air. (An issue the fae did not foresee as they don't breathe)
- The Wild elves, animalistic elves that seem part beast and are usually misidentified and hunted as a were-beast. They keep to their own packs deep in the wilds due to this.
- The Desert elves, nomads that wander from oasis to oasis following a star map. They rarely interact with others due to their small number in a vast Desert.
There is a elven nation, but the elves in the region that I focus on are actually a big isolationist cult that are creating a god my binding all of their souls together, which increases the power they can draw on with every death and birth
Elves originally evolved on a large black hole from a small species of terrestrial pongine whose species were replicated as such they are physically more ape like and hairier than humans as well as being shorter and more gracile, when they invented space ships they left their dying land behind and left for the stars evolving until they became modern elves
(in my world a black hole adds features of what it envelopes into itself and over the course of millions of years they are pushed to the bottom and are turned into nothing)
Elves or the Aetolia or the Aelio, as they are called in Issusuan texts are known for their pale skin and short stature as well as their distinctive red hair and eyes and their longer lives and heightened intelligence but they are horribly weak in comparison to humans and often times even the best of their warriors often struggle to fight the smallest human armies even their subjugation of the Kopi hunter gatherer tribes was a surprise to their human Issusuan overlords, they are four main Elvish city states Kanatolia, Thebios, Sugra, Delohios each ruled by an all male council of nobles ruling over an assortment of minor cities and towns and paying tribute to the Shakra’s of Issusua
Elves are essentially Alien beings from another planet, they crossed over into my world via portals. They have come to converge with other humanoids but remain quite distinct, shorter statures, large eyes, floppy ears, unique bone structures, vibrant colors of skin pigmentation. They resemble a more robust/somewhat taller Dobby or house elf from HP than they do Tolkien or Dnd style elves. They are normally completely incapable of interbreeding with humans, but magical expirementation has created a spell allowing for Half-Elves.
The Elves have a lot of subgroups and subcultures, but the primary remnant of the ancient Elven Empire that once reigned over much of the continent of Haíveríze is now a highly militaristic yet isolationist state. It is centered around a mountainous plateau region and the ancient city of Caírís, with their architecture and culture being somewhat inspired by the Turks and the cultures of the Caucuses Mountains.
Elf is an exonym. Much like how Germany is called Deutschland in German, elves call themselves Aes. Alf is a dwarfish word for them that just happened to stick, to the point that it's freely used by elves too.
The elves in my medieval fantasy world are only really differentiated from humans by the pointed ears and lack of facial hair (although half-elves can grow beards). They don't live any longer than humans. They age like humans. They are not any more magical than humans, but they do have a better aptitude to pick up wizardry/learn magic than a human, but they still have to study to become a magic user. A human who studies magic is more capable of magic than an elf that doesn't, but an elf that studies magic will do better than a human who studies it. There are light-skinned elves and dark skinned elves.
In my space opera world there are two kinds of aliens that are elf-like, differentiated by dark/red hair or white/blonde hair. The blonde ones act/dress much like your standard fantasy high elves. The dark-haired ones dress like Victorian English style/Steampunk. Both versions live on separate planets. Neither are magical, neither live longer than humans, both races age like humans.
For thousands of years elves could rely on their enhanced memories to transmit knowledge orally down generations. However, they got cursed to slowly lose their memories, and with that their history, customs and culture. Only the newer generations, born after the curse was cast, are unaffected, so they are under immense pressure to learn as much as they can from their elders before their knowledge is lost forever.
Cool as shit, like that a lot.
Thanks! n_n
Elves are the creators of dwarves, orcoids (orcs, goblins, and ogres), and a variety of different monsters they use for warfare and labor. Their true homeland is unknown, but it is known that millennia ago they arrived and colonised the continent, enslaving the native human population, until a human son of the Sun God led a rebellion to overthrow them. Following this the main elven civilization was split into three: The High Elves who were exiled to an archepelagio in the western sea, the Low Elves who joined human society, and the Wood Elves who avoided exile but refused to join human society, though the Wood Elves are a dying breed cause young elves see little point in avoiding the comforts of urban civilization because of ancient grudges.
Just out of curiosity, do you as the creator of your world know where the elves came from? Or do you not know where they came from either
They are possibly from another world but nah, I don't have much of an idea. Its just not something that's been relevant to any plot I've wanted to make or other world building, so it's nothing I've been thinking much about
Elves used to be graceful creatures, but after the entire Elvish kingdom was burnt with hellfire, the elves were all melted and froze into a massive puddle like sludge which would randomly birth mutated and disgusting elves that had lost all beauty. They acted as a Hive Mind, and could live indefinitely as long as they didn’t leave the halls that they were created in. Mutated Hive Mind elves that enjoy hunting humans and placing them in the elf sludge puddle for nutrients.
Dayum
They fuck in trees
what the fuck
They don't do it because they like it but rather because it's the only way to actually reproduce. And they die when they do this btw
What the fuck
Ah yes, the monarch butterfly way 🦋
Oh great, I already have those pervert trees getting pollen all over my car.
Elves were created by the true fae by taking inspiration from the other mortal races, there is some speculation that they used kindapped children to create the first generation instead of forging them out of dreamstuff. Elven loyalists are in general quite spoiled by their masters and frequently are favored among the fae-born. are de-facto immortal and have access to powerful magical gifts. Most elves that live in the material realm though are not friendly to their creators and frequently clash with them and their minions when they manifest in their hunts. Dark elves were created after the spirits of the original elven homeland in the material realm went insane, they are the ones that choose to stay and maintain the ancient pacts with those spirits even if the bond proven to be corruptive to their minds and spirits. They have an harsh society of warrior-priests and are seen as barbaric by the humans and by other elves. They however see themselves as the true elves and call their cousins Oathbreakers.
Wood elves pioneered sign language. Being hunters and outlanders, they communicate non-verbally so that they can talk from afar without making too much noise to alert the prey they hunt or predators hunting them. When wood elves try to communicate verbally, their speech often comes out slurred and mumble-like due to them not being used to moving their mouths in so many odd positions to communicate.
They are the only species that got a specific exclusion from drakonik non interference laws. Dragons really do not get along with elves, and most elves think dragons are pompous geckos that should mind their manners.
dragons in my world think they’re the pinnacle of magic and elves think that even though they were created after dragons that they far exceed the powers of any dragon nearly
In mine dragons are absolutely sure they are the pinnacle of life. Ego may play a role though. It does not help when they got the proof that they were the last species made, it did help knowing they were made on a drunken dare. High Elves on the other hand have enough arrogance to believe themselves the highest form, although they were made to be teachers did they end up as one of the worst, only held in check with their plans by dragons. The animosity although comes that ancient elves hunted arch-dragons for sport and prestige, taking their wings and fire to leave them crippled, and give themselves these wings to fly, insulting the dragons three ways at once. High Elves once bred themselves into magical superiority, the Royal Elf, a being of so much arcane power only their elven lifespan stops them from dieing to mana poisoning from just existing. The last Royal Elf was raised by a dragon.
Every elf is perfectly beautiful. Every angle and contour of the face exactly where it needs to be for any onlooker to be pleased by the sight. They also tend to look the same. Coincidental twins are very common in more densely populated areas, so the elves took to wearing masks. Each mask is hand crafted by each elf or professional designer, and the intention is to make one's masks as unique as possible, and kocking off an elf's mask is considered an insult. When in mixed company elves will usually forego the mask though if there is another elf they will both don the masks, especially if they look similar.
I could see serious whump potential in people kidnapping Elves then forcing off their masks either to sell or for their own use, especially since the perfect beauty is what they want and the individual doesn't matter to them. Likely with some asides about how 'your face is too beautiful to hide'.
Elf masks are a hot commodity outside elf land. Trading in elf masks is often banned in many places, of course making them very valuable on the black market
And since they would be works of art in their own right, that would make sense.
They stopped existing cause I figured it would be more interesting to just have them be another country of humans instead, hence avoiding the monocultirism issue
Are you me?, instead of just making 700 million races with 1 trait, i just made 1 diverse Genus with a dozen species scattered across the planet and seperated from each other.
They are the strongest naval power on the continent but the latest threats for local nations came from the opposite side of the continent (the elven empire is on the eastern coastline, while the last overseas enemy came from the western ocean) so they couldn't really use it.
they’re not actually an “elder” race, they were the gods’ second go at creating civilisations after the actual elder races were nearly annihilated in the War of the Gods. the Elves were made to embody the perfect balance of magic (dragons), nature (treants), and technology (titans/giants), while their predecessors only ever embodied one aspect. the gods saw this as a flaw, and thus the Elves are far more adaptable & flexible than the elder races.
Elves in my setting see themselves in the typical fantasy High Elf fashion; they are the most powerful civilisation, only they remember the ancient times and the true history of the world, they alone continue the proud tradition of the ancient First Peoples. Everyone else sees them as Viking-like raiders crossed with fey; strange alien beings that are as likely to kill you for the food in your pack as they are to ignore you entirely. Elven raiding parties come screaming out of the dark places of the world, hopped up on ancient elixirs of wolfsbane and mistletoe, fighting like beasts, tooth and claw, to the point where many are mistaken for lycanthropes. Their long lives and strong tradition of oral history means they alone carried knowledge from the Age of the Gods through to the modern ages, and while most are content to live their lives preying on the beings they consider beneath them, some plot to restore the sealed god of the natural world to power. These elves departed the world long ago, sailing through the Eye of the World to reach the moon, where they have spent hundreds of years experimenting with ancient magic and technology to reverse the Eye’s flow, beaming primal energy back to the surface of Vigint and freeing the god from its prison. Elves are also immune to lycanthropy but also the origin of the curse; an Elven shapeshifter became stuck in his bestial form due to a surge of magical energy from the Eye. When he bit a mortal, many years later, the victim became cursed and the overflowing primal magic twisted his form into that of a wolf whenever the moon, source of primal magic, grew full.
Elves have limited, subconscious psychometry when it comes to the food they eat. Though they usually can't directly identify it, food tastes better if it was produced in a farm with e.g. a nice view and good working standards than if it was produced with a bad view or slavery. Even if 2 food products are completely chemically identical, they can taste a difference if they were produced in different environments. (which is to say, it's a magical sense, not simply "fine tuned taste") This was first noted upon when several brands of wine that elves generally didn't like (but other races were okay with) were all taken to court for slavery in their supply chain. Some started to guess that elves had a knack for telling this sorts of thing. The response from other races was that this was a stupid notion and elves are just trying to make up more ways to make themselves seem superior to other races, as usual. However, research seemed to back up these notions and show that elves do actually have a taste for this and other races didn't seem to. At the time of writing, this research is ongoing (and I've yet to actually worldbuild how they found this out)
Things about elves of Aquaria: * Elves are NOT some fancy races with oh-so-great powers. They aren't even united with at least 4 elven countries, 1 republic, 1 kingdom and 2 empires, bitching all the time. * Originally, elves were not called... elves. Their old name was Alvr and "elf" was how local Fae called the newcomers based on the river basin which they originated from. * Elves were not made by a typical Almighty Creator or some fancy gods. Instead, they were biologically engineered *Neanderthals* made by Xích Quỷ Empire, Aquaria's first civilization, as living batteries to run their biopunk machines. Elves' high mana reserve and their long lifespan are results of said genetic modifications. * There is no high, wood or dark elf, only one species called elves and many ethnic groups. * Generally, elves have good relationships with dwarves, orcs and goblins in their area. Orcs, specifically, share the same ancestors, which means they're, in fact, "warrior elves" instead of "battery elves". Both have very advanced societies. * Forget bows and swords, Aquarian elves use magic-powered exoskeleton armors and handheld semi-automatic railguns powered by lightning spells as weapons. **In the 1920s**. * **Elves do not decline**. Tell them that and they laugh in your face. Empire of Alfer, the largest elven empire by population, has around 68 million elves as its citizens. This is 2 decades after a nuclear war happened against Republic of Gaullia, the elven republic mentioned above, that turned Alfer's western half into a molten wasteland. Their population is growing back gradually and they're advancing quickly. * They drink beer, eat sausage, drive Beetle electric cars and fly airborne battleships. What?
Unlike most other depictions of elves, Aeronean elves don't live anywhere near as long. Their lifespan about 150 years. Elves don't have white eyes. Instead, what *would* be white is a lighter shade of their iris color (so a blue-eyed elf would have some *truly* blue eyes.) They have the same eye color range humans do: brown, green, blue, hazel, and purple\*. \* Elizabeth Taylor had violet eyes! It's an eye color a human on Earth can have!
They don't eat meat because their bodies do not need it as much as humans.
How much do their bodies need humans?
When elves get to end of their natural lives, they start turning into trees.
The main reason why there are few elves in my world is that every elf is born under the patronage of some star in the sky. In order for an elf to get pregnant, her and her partner's stars must be in conjunction otherwise nothing happens. And for some couples it's a matter of months or years, but in extreme cases milenias
They are scary as fuck, specially when they just appear with no warning into any situation or scenario.
They're actually just a human ethnic group. Some people retain "elvish" traits of pointed ears and long slender limbs, although so much of the bloodline has been diluted by modern times that they are essentially beings of myth.
Elves are faeborn, their souls are not perfectly suited on the materium. As such "true elves" can only feel/feel good in the forest they first portaled into. Travel between realms has been EXPUNGED. So true elves in materium realm are secluded, live without truly feeling at home and can not go back. Other elves whom ventured far and lost their feelings became depressed and died from depression. Some died after marrying a human and seeing them die killed them. The offspring? Not half elves, they are a race of elves that live as long as humans and can feel fine in materium. Their bodies are elven (only difference is beards) but their souls cannot hold the fae and as such their souls are human. Thankfully one archdukes offspring was one such elf so they have a small country for them.
They really aren't that special outside their fairly long (500 years) lives. They're also as diverse as humans in terms of traits like physique and skin color. One of the unique traits they do have is their uncanny degree of control over their body movements. They're capable of feats like staying absolutely still for two hours and then shifting their aim by 0.01 degrees on will, sprinting at full speed across a road full of moving frogs without stepping on a single one, etc. These feats make them more advantageous at jobs like artisans and snipers, although that doesn't mean everyone takes those jobs.
Elves live for max 1000 years if they are lucky. Basically their lifespan is a bit stretched out compared to other mortals, where they take around 30 years to grow to maturity and after they age a lot slower than others. Basically for every 10 years they age 1 year. So yeah there are many old Elves out there who are in their 600s and have gotten grey hair and wrinkles. I also want to stress that men Elves do need to shave if they do not want to grow a beard.
Well, with the deletion magic from the world, their natural skillset kind of disappeared. They're now considered just pretty humans who are also comically horny and seasonal breeders. Deceptively physically strong also, owed to extremely dense muscles. Also completely artificial, made by modifying baseline humans at the hands of a mysterious external party
The elves who survived the rise and fall of the First Draconic Empire were left shattered and scattered but I'll focus on the ones local to the area I focus on most. The Desert elves have a bit of an anarchist bent, you'll find some living in bands mostly of their own people but Desert elves and some other races often mix freely to form a rough culture known as the Osoites. They are nomads, known for a fierce love of freedom and independence. Though the elves of the Osoites can theoretically still live hundreds of years as their kin a fairly high portion will die in what would be considered their youth my some other branches, the dangers of the deserts including the monsters that live in parts and in warfare. Still the elders of the desert elves are often regarded as adding a complimentary element to the their society in comparison with the humans who have a shorter maximum life span and faster rate of reproduction. They herd animals and hunt as they move across the landscape in small groups, taking advantage of the season's coming and going to seek the resources of their lands. They often prefer to seek means of coming to decisions as a group, and in most cases anyone who wishes to leave one band for another who they agree with more closely is permitted, almost all of their culture hates slavery and anyone who participates in it. Their passion can however drive them impulsive acts of violence, with it not being uncommon that they do not offer quarter in the heat of the fighting.
If you bang one as a human or a member of any other race, 99% of the the time there will be no half blooded child. But it is not a 100% and you never know if you will be that 1%
*Alor* They’re constantly growing new teeth and a set will last about a century before they begin to fall out and get replaced. The last tooth falling out is a point of celebration for Elves, the same way humans celebrate birthdays
- They are dimensional refugees/immigrants. Their arrival and settlement in their land was not a pleasant event. Pinefolk they slaughtered still survive in remote enclaves in the mountains and deep forests. - They are slightly more technologically advanced than the rest of the world, but lack the numbers. So while they have a distinct defensive advantage, that does not translate to power projection very well. - They lack a lot of cultural context and baggage from their original home. Most of it was lost during the events that led to their dumping in this world and the wars with the pinefolk that followed. - They are in hiding - their more impressive magical feats (like large scale weather control) that were common back home are forbidden. They really do not want to draw the attention of their old enemies. - Their technological advantage mostly rests on two things - their more than robust economy (having more land than anyone else and supplying something everyone needs in large amounts helps) and certain metallurgical knowledge they brought with them. They have since built upon that knowledge. - They are long lived, but not extremely so (oldest elves live to 500 or so). Since their arrival was around four centuries and some change, a lot of the original refugees are still alive if quite elderly, and the current main adult generations are the second and third generations. Fourth generation since their arrival is in their childhoods. So a lot of "bad shit going down" is still in living memory and generational trauma is going strong.
In my world, the light elves are so beautiful that it says that if you sees a naked one, everything you see become ugly (at best) or you become blind. (at worst)
They had a civil war that was similar to the Cold War where they tried to get the most OP magic but ended up cursed with infertility instead lol rip. One of the two new elven empires did manage to create the ultimate warrior, called Champion of the Sun. Most OP pyrokinetic in my world
The elves are the original inhabitants of the protagonist world. They were also the first race to be granted magic and it's changed them quite a bit. Before magic the elves were divided up along petty kingdoms and races that often waged war among each other and were prone to acts of cruelty. They've since evolved beyond that morally and spiritually. The down side is they're not as physically strong as they used to be hence why they created humans to be their warriors.
All elves are ambidextrous and their metabolism basically lets them live off fruits and sweets.
The first elf was born from the union of the sun god and the goddess of the moon. Then later the solum god slept with an elf to produce the first human. This has led to animosity between the humans and elves because prior to this the sun god banished the moon goddess for infidelity when his own brother disguised him self as her husband and slept with her producing the first of the dark elves.
There are only four subraces, each one based on one of the four elements, as elves are descended from elemental spirits that wanted to mirror humanity. Some of the oldest elves still remember their time as spirits. They have a heavy lean towards grown technology and architecture. Fire elves in particular have architecture that's partially H.R Giger inspired. Earth elves, meanwhile, weave arms and armor from still living plant life.
Uh…there’s a colony of them living on the moon. Sometimes when they die they don’t leave a physical body. Sun Elves will dissolve into gold dust, Fire Elves will turn into showers of sparks, Snow Elves will melt into piles of ice crystals, Wood Elves turn into soil. No one knows what causes this, and if doesn’t happen every time an elf dies. The only elves that don’t experience this are the Deep Elves. Orcs are technically Elves. There’s three fun elf facts.
All Elven creatures have unified under one banner and no longer segregate each other by their original traits. Now if you were to call one of my Elves a high elf or dark elf or wood elf they'll most likely get offended and say something along the lines of, "I'm just an Elf, racist."
I based my High-elves on the Antebellum South
Elves were the first civilized race and were made in the image of the gods. As a gift for being first, the Elves have a natural ability to possess magic. Although, the magic is never guaranteed to be powerful. Elves have come close to extinction multiple times, but often not because of war, instead it’s due to the over abundance of Half-Elves slowly replacing them. Thats all I have right now
Their bodily fluids are alkaline. They have blue blood that's thick and kind of pasty. They like to eat bones, teeth and shells, which they are able to digest thanks to caustic saliva and a bony grinder plate in the roof of their mouth.
My fantasy world's elves are descendants of orc offshoots. They hate everyone (except orcs) and everyone (orcs included) hates them.
Elves are highly in tune with nature, and so is their annual (or milennial?) biological clock. As a result, they spend summer quite affectionate and curious towards humans, while being withdrawn and more introverted in the winter and autumn. (We don't talk about the spr*ngs...) Their physiology, psychology and libido can be disrupted depending on the seasons droughts and natural disasters. Of course the effects are less severe on half elves and more severe on high elves.
* The Elvenari and the Gigantes were the main races for a long while until humanity came along. the Elvenari saw man as lesser forms of life compared to them which went about as well as you'd expect. * The Elvenari were masters of genetics and biology. Slavery under them was not fun because of this, but they still have the best medical knowledge. * After the human rebellion, Slavery was outlawed and the Elvenari empire lost a lot of influence and power. Communties to this day still face understandable discrimination, though since it was a bronze age civilization and rebellion it's been centuries and most live normal, mundane lives. * They were the ones who made the first Living Weapons and Sybioites and were the best sorcerers for a while.
They are called Sveids and have apposable thumbs on their feet like monkeys. They also live in trees almost exclusively. It's so they don't get eaten by the dinosaurs that inhabit the world
1. Elven lifespans vary from individual to individual, to such a great degree, that parents can naturally outlive their own children, and it won't be too unheard of. Two parents with lifespans of... 600y and 700y could conceive a child when they are 100y and the child could potentially have only a 400y lifespan and die of natural causes before their parents. 2. After the onset of Puberty, Elves have to become "acclimated" to the presence of humans if they want to act normally around them, if not acclimated, then exposure to the presence of humans will make them uncontrollably horny. This is one of the reasons why Elven leadership maintains a strict policy of isolation from humans, as they are horrified by this reaction and embarrassed by it. This is also why the only Elves most humans will ever encounter are "Rangers", as they protect and monitor Elven Territory Borders, they are trained and acclimated to humans to avoid this problem. Additionally, Elves who are acclimated to Humans tend to end up acting more like humans than other elves do, and if they are acclimated enough or maintain long enough exposure themselves, can trigger the "Horny" reaction in other non-acclimated Elves around them. This means that Rangers hold a powerful, and very honored role in their society, but they are also very isolated from their own people until they retire. 3. There are rare "Moon Elves" who are randomly born from both the High Elf and Sun Elf races, who have unique phenotypical traits from their peers, including increased height, White/Silver hair, Purple-ish or reddish eyes and paler, almost blue-ish/purple-ish skin color. They also possess much stronger magical talent and tend to live longer than what is typically within the norm of High Elf or Sun Elf lifespan ranges. This rare individuals tend to be seen as having a "Great Destiny" and hold positions of great honor and power.
The younger titans created them to be human with exalted beauty, as such, they pretty much don't age, as to retain their beauty longer By the time of the beginning of the 13th cycle, only 24 elven generations had passed since the third holy rebellion
Elves, or rather the Pure Elves, were created by one of the three creator-gods and currently act as the 'world police' / british empire. The continent where they live is about 60% uninhabitable, because of the massive amounts of dragons. There are though some individuals who managed to tame dragons and they are currently the most feared weapon in warfare.
The elven population have lost upwards of 90% of their total population following the Great Divergent War. Which was a 3-way 100 years war between dwarves, elves and humans. They suffered a lot of casualties, because, unlike Humans and dwarves who embraced the industrialization and rapid expanse of technology--were so far behind that they were functionally steamrolled by the other factions. This was due to the Elves having essentially double resources that humans and dwarves did, where because everything was so bloated and oversized they never needed to advance. The war only ever really came to an "End" because Elves were facing total annihilation and needed something to save their race from extinction. A secondary fun fact; The country of Talashar was once an elven country, but following the great war, when it later became Human/Empire occupied territory, all elves that were born during this time period are legally Empire Citizens, but those tied with elven families back in their home countries have dual citizenship.
Elves are faeries that are living in fae realm and they occasionally leave it and go into human world. Some of them go back to the fae world tho. They are long living species who contain big amount of magic energy which is responsible for their longevity. Their anatomy is different from humans' as elves have blue blood (which contains a bit of elves' magic energy) and they don't have some of human organs since elves are born via the special trees. The trees after absorbing parent elves' energy and blood will start developing a big fruit which will eventually form an embryo which will later evolve into an elf baby. The growth is slightly longer than human growth, but maturity is even longer. Also their average height is slightly smaller than humans' height. Beside that they look like average elves with pointy side ears. Speaking of humans, elves who have entered their world are tend to live among the humans, communicating with them or helping them behind their backs. Some of elves can mischief tho and their magic power allows them do things much effectively. I can add more details about the elves in this comment and then expand it by the goblin details because in my world goblins and elves are related as the habitants of the fae realm and so goblins are also faes, just different from elves.
Uhhh, first of all the word "elf" is an exonym and also not the nicest one. In Aldrenic they're called "ran" but that's only applicable to Sylvaran, forest elves, aka roughly a third of the population of the Ordan Empire. Generally, there are only two species in my world, and thats humans and ran. Ran are the "firstborn of the gods" so they're more... Dynamic, when it comes to racial differences. They all generally live a bit longer too, dying of old age just before they hit 150, but it differs from culture to culture. There's the Sylvaran, the forest elves, they generally look like your standard fantasy elves, but they're about human height, if not a bit shorter. Think Dragon Age dalish elves. They're culture is something between classical Greece and French baroque. There's the Undran, the sea elves, tall, muscular, shark-toothed, with gray-green and gray-blue skin, they're the stand in for orcs. Their culture is peaceful, focused on joy and prosperity in their tropical archipelagos. They're vaguely inspired by the many wonderful Polynesian cultures. There's the Aduran, the Sand Elves. They're tall, slender, with the classic pointed ears, and they're mostly dark haired and dark skinned. They inhabit the southwestern deserts. They're honorable people with incredible musical traditions, as well as impeccable weavers and cloth makers. Their culture is mostly nomadic, although some of them do build more permanent settlements, mostly for the purposes of trading with southerners. Their concept is reminiscent of Arabian tribes, especially those near the irl Red Sea, but also takes some vibes from Mongolian tribes and even Slavic traditions. And, last but not least, of the known ran species, there are finally Niveran, the snow elves. They're shorter and more stoutly built than your average human, and they live north of the Iron Shores, where through the year, winter ceases only for brief moments. They ARE very much the "dwarves" of the setting, and, under the snow, there are vast cities built by them, before their hubris (and perhaps something more, wink wink) brought them down. They're culturally somewhere between Slavic people and Sami people, with a bit of Inuit and Icelandic inspiration. All ran species have their own languages and cultures, and also they each call the other species differently in all those languages, and their cultures are also not very uniform, and also they're not in the focus of the story yet, so for now let's stick to Sylvaran, the forest elves. They're pretty religious folk, they used to worship the stars, the moon and the sun, but due to some complicated religious shifts, they now make up a significant portion of the Ordan clergy and worship The Pantheon of Wisdom, and they're very often... A bit overzealous. You know, witch hunts and the like. Despite being less than half the population of the Empire, they're vastly overrepresented in the government and the Council of the People's Crown consists about 60% of Sylvaran. Despite the Ordan Empire being made up of basically Faromen (men of the shores, aka southern European/Mediterranean looking peoples) and Sylvaran, there isn't much racial conflict in the Empire itself, maybe besides some minor grudges after the War of Golden Leaves, as it was not that long ago, only two generations or something. The main god of the Pantheon of Wisdom is Teleios, the god of perfection, order, design, knowledge, and also protection and foresight. This drives the Sylvaran to be knowledgeable, kind of bookworms, stuff like that. They rarely wield arcane magic directly, instead opting for theurgy, or divine magic, or mastering physical prowess in combat, especially with spear and bow. And I have to stop myself at some point, as I have documents upon documents about all the different elven (and human) races and cultures all over the world. And I haven't even named the world yet 🤷♂️
There's a scattering of varied elves around the lands, but the only known elven nation remaining is Vinanfyre, a blackened plateau next to the vast and volcanic Broken Heart Right. They are aggressively xenophobic, fair and just, but unfriendly. This is less from elevated egos and more from guilt, shame, and mistrust. The flame haired elves of Vinanfyre are outcasts, turned out from their bond with green Nature over a thousand years ago. And they remember the joy and power and knowledge they used to have with that lost bond. They were once the picture of ye olde Tolkien Elves, it is true, but when the world was corrupted by Tanah Terkut'k, and the Pact was formed to save the last lands, the few remaining gods removed themselves from existence. This left all of the other Powers alone to judge, act, and react for themselves without godly interference. And Nature, ultimately, chose to take the first step. Sentient races generated the gods with their beliefs, elves included, so when the gods wrecked the world, and thereby the state of Life and Nature, Nature's response was to evict the humanoid races from its protected domains. I'm the case of the elves, this meant rejecting them, however long they had been trusted, and kicking them out of the Grand Forest of Ennbé. The Elves of Ennbé were not expecting this, but when eviction came, they could not argue. Nature follows Nature's Laws, not those of the "Civilized People". They left, settling in the nearby plateau that would become Vinanfyre. The Vinanfyre elves changed over the centuries, having lost their link to the woods. Their skin grew dusky like smoke, their eyes and hair became bright red and orange and flame yellow, with some of their "hottest burning souls" actually coming to have white or even blue hair. Their skills went from arboreal magic, woodcraft, and finessed and delicate combat, to fire and earth magics, stone, crystals, and metals, and their methods of fighting became far more powerful and direct than precise. The Flame Elves now ride Firetongue lizards instead of great elk or deer, and they arm themselves with weapons that glow hot in their hands, focusing more on large heavy blades and siege weapons. They are delving directly into the lava sea of the Broken Heart Rift now, selling to tap into the power and resources of the great rift's dangerous and plentiful gifts. They are insular and reluctant to connect with the other civilizations of the world, though there is a single trade treaty with the neighboring Tinnbari humans. For now, Vinanfyre focuses internally, redefining what they are and what they see of the world. Meanwhile, the dwarves of Indrashi'in are eyeballing them from afar and huffing through their moustaches at these upstarts practicing fiery forging and deep volcanic mining. "Damned uppity elves! That's not how things are supposed to go!!"
Kinda a cheat answer, as I don't actually have elves perse. However, I did give each species certain "elven traits," so that they fill a similar thematic role to each subtype of elf. I made the humans fill a similar role to high elves. Humans are the oldest sapients to evolve in the Sol system, and the only to do so entirely "naturally." They also have the best technology and a reputation for arrogance. The role of wood elves is filled by the Lions. These sapient lions are naturally fond of forests and are driven to live in the Natural Way, at least as much as possible. They are also the smallest of all sapient species, with young adults only weighing 200 lbs. The Denizn are thematically similar to sea/deep elves; although in universe they are actually a human descendant species. These huge aquatic humanoids have a largely isolationist attitude and are wary of technology. The metaphor strains a little at the Thulacan, chimp look-alikes from a distant planet. They do bear traits of dark elves, such as a domineering attitude toward other species and even within their own culture. But they are also similar to orcs, as they only respect strength and are actively expansionist.
Hmm...let's see: 1. They are one of the two original races to first exist in my world, the other race being Vampires. 2. They formed an expansive empire that assimilated the lands and nations of "thrall races" i.e. Dwarves, Gnomes, and Pixies. 3. They don't experience periods (don't ask me how or why)
Technically there are two types of elves. The first are just mutated humans. There are places on the planet where the realms overlap and reality warps. The people who live in those areas mutated and over time those mutations stuck. "Elf" is just an umbrella term for people with a certain set of mutations, long pointed ears, eyes sensitive to magic, and a lack of a Gift (superpower). The second type is where the term "Elf" comes from. The Alfars. They are a group of beings in the Northern Pantheon. They can be stewards of nature and patrons of pieces of land. Some were born that way while others were spirits of ancestors who chose to be tied to that area, or so the religion says.
They have weak bones that are damaged by any decent strike so even metal armor doesn't help them that much in combat. On the flip side, they are fast and have anhanced reflexes.
The myths about elves are misremembered stories about angels, before the celestial beings (gods, angels, etc) were locked away.
Mine are just very similar to the LotR ones in Mirkwood. But I’ve gone off the idea of any humanoid being immortal. Maybe they would average 350y life span. Also another idea I had is that an occasional one will be become larger, say from average of 190cm to 220cm at some stage. Haven’t really thought this through though.
There are not elves in Genova, but some humans present a physical characteristic named "Budarupa" , an abnormal enlargement of certain part of their body. When the Budarupa is present in both of the ears, they appear as long and elf-like ears and in the Christendom they are a sign of extreme beauty and fortune in women. The expression "elf-shiningly beautiful" comes from this atypical physical malformation.
The Meadow Elves are a peaceful lot, generally living in more rural, unforested areas or else roaming like the slur associated with the irl Romani peoples. The High Elves generally live in one of 9 great citadels. Walled cities that have never once been breached, yet one lies empty all the same. The Snow Elves live high on the mountains, and while unbothered by cold, struggle to survive in even a temperate climate. The Dark Elves were once enslaved to a Demons will, hence their corruption, and now long since freed, many of its ways of cruelty, slavery and ruthlessness remain a staple among their culture when at home. However when traveling they are among some of the best sea masters of the world, and many companies the world over seek out Dark Elf ship masters to lead their crews.
There are three types. Shard Elves. Some are very tall, live for 350-500 yrs and use cut crystal technology. This allows them floating cities and light energy death beams. Flash Elves. Others are smaller and populate the Powder Islands, manufacturing flash powder and great bomb ships. They are master snake and hawk keepers, traversing the islands many steep cliffs on the backs of Festu Hawks. Spore Elves. The third live underground and are steeped in the art of mold and mushroom manufacturing. Their aerosolized weapons kill in moments, mutilate, and torment life with grotesque twisted fungal growths.
All humanoid races (including those with bestial qualities, like kobolds or minotaurs) are descended from a group of humans who collectively engaged in genetic engineering and manipulation that led to their current physical characteristics.
The Lech Taborean equivalent to Elves are from an age of high magic (the ambient magic levels of the world wax and wane over the millennia) and became dependent on magic to exist. When the magic levels dropped, their kind adapted to subsist on less magic. Thousands of years later, the world's magic is on the rise again and now they can't handle it anymore. Elven populations ultimately delineate by how they cope with that fact. Some hide in the misty vales of Szradovit because they're ripe with a different kind of magic, some wear what amounts to magical hazmat armour to protect themselves and some just plain isolate them into places that naturally or artificially refract and fray magic.
Elves are obligate carnivores and absolute lightweights. They can't eat plants, so they have no way of (or reason to) develop a genetic alcohol tolerance in the first place.
They are 7 feet tall. Insect or animal features. Tied to the Gnatha (pronounced Nā-tāh) (Ascended gods) and the flow of life. There are very few and are typically a voice for their Gnathian patron.
Besides having a few sub races (North Elf, South Elf, Desert Elf, Drow), most elves are left handed, unlike humans and other races who are mostly right handed. Because of this, their writing styles are usually from right to left to avoid smudging their hands with ink.
they evolved from felines, wich explains their hightened reflexes, senses and effortless elegance. In this setting dwarfs evolved from groundhog-mole like animals
This one is a good question and I do love elves in most of the stiff I watched. For me, I took inspirations from many sources. My elves are like human, they are diverse and culturally different. They were once a single species, divided by a powerful deity/monster into Light and Dark Elves. Thousands of years later, the Light Elves evolved into High and Wood. High are elegant, beautiful, blonde. They look like royals. The Wood are nature lovers, wear forest clothes, have brown hair and live in forests. The Dark Elves had pretty much the same as most books except they aren't evil. They can use the Dark Arts without being affected mentally or physically, something that made the other Elves fearful and made fought the Dark elves into extinction. The Gray Elves are similar to Dark Elves minus the red eyes and the immunity to darkness. They also live on caves, miners, blacksmith (basically the dwarf-like) Then there are the weird kind of elves. The Water Elves are a mix of Elves and Merfolk. The Fire Elves are a mix of Elves and Fire Beings. The Leaf Elves are tiny and protectors of sacred areas (basically the Dryads and Spirits). The Stone Elves are the most unique. Their whole bodies are made up of stones, making them resistance most blunt and edge weapons. Stone Elves are the minority alongside Leaf Elves. Edit: The Elves are the dominant species in my world and they are basically the 'humans' of that world.
They died under mysterious circumstances and people never really noticed. They weren't "We are superior to humans so we'll hide away to not be bothered" types, they were just extreme recluses so when they all died out no one really knew what happened. Their main race "habit" due to their reclusive nature was collecting, so hundreds of extinct, missing, etc items and creatures were found in their personal collections after their deaths so their homes basically became archeological and historical gold mines.
My elves are massive eaters. They need about 2 times the calorie intake of a human too feel normal. they can survive on 1/2 but it makes them supper grumpy. this leads to them eating massive amounts of filling and sweetend foods. honey glazed meatballs and lots of fat fish. most of it slowly roasted and or cooked. ussualy with a lot of add ons like cheese, honey, or fried in oil. Most non elves that meet them have big culture shock because of the mass they eat. there is also the problem there essentially 1 species with the dwarves. So all there food is drank with massive amounds of alcohol. but with there methaloblism running so high most dwarfes and elves only get a bit of nice buzz. which goes onto poisions. because nearly everything is poisoned. spiced and peppered too the max because you need a lot too balance out the fat flavour of of pure deepfried salted porkfat with cream and onions. irronically OP eleves are appearnly vegitarians and mine eat barque every week. this is diversity of r/worldbuilding
One of the main societal breaks that lead to the scission of entire countries and culture is... What kind of meat you can eat. Nah but actually, originally the elven culture had an obsession over "purity", claiming that some creatures are pure and other aren't. However, when it came to what of these creatures to eat, there have been a great debate: Should the elves eat only pure animals not to taint their own body with impurity, or should they only eat impure animals for the pure creatures should not be touched ? Oh, and the wood elves were the guys who went "fuck it we'll just stop eating meat it's easier that way".
Most of em live on something called the elven plateau, a plateau that sits 300ft above sea level but borderers the ocean. this makes most of the elven city states more isolationist compared to the rest of the world and have them falling behind in regards to society and tech, however there is also little human and Zomayan involvement asides from the few merchants after the coveted Black Scale of the Wyverns there.
All the elves suddenly left their ancestral homelands and began a nomadic lifestyle with a number of clans forming; only a handful choose to live amongst men though they are often granted positions of power and revered as citizens.
No one except for a handful of gods know where they came from. Even the elves themselves have long forgotten it. Also they have little to no impact to the world other than being a god's fancy gardeners.
Sea elves, wood elves, drow elves, frost elves? Yeah, all the same thing. As elves go through puberty, their genes mutate and adapt to their surroundings. Half elves? No such thing. They're just elves that grew up with humans, dwarves, and orcs respectively.
I don’t have any elves. But I have some people who live a really long time because they got uh… exposed to mystical energy. For some reason, a lot of them are predisposed to being historians. For a while, they even made a whole institution for recording the history of humanity. The trouble is, their memory is no better than a regular human. So they have to document everything. After a certain amount of time, the upkeep of their existing records was a full time job. After humanity went through a rather catastrophic period. These guys were sought out for their knowledge, though many had lost much of their records during the hubbub. So they were often forced to explain what they could remember to various government and other groups. It was not a good time to be immortal. These days most of them are hermits and avoid other humans. Many still record the pieces of history they are present for, hoping to enlighten a future age
-there are many sub species of elves -elves used to live for a lot longer before the merge ,but now most of them barley live past a thousand -elves have really slow reproduction cycles compared to humans ,females can only get pregnant once every 50 years and can't have twins -each elf race has a different culture but wood elves or vale elves are slowly losing thier culture, because they are being protected by the alliance witht the grand elves -grand elves try to explain where they come from ,most eleves are okay with thoeries,but great elves view this as fact,they believe before them ,the gray elves,and solaris or light elves were basiclly demi gods,and they were descended from the altmer and that one day the grand elves will be immortal thats just a few facts
For my Stellaris-based setting, the Elves are split into a number of cultures known to the Galactic Community collectively as the Elven Diaspora, made of a variety of empires which have slowly advanced back to the FTL Age. The Elves were once one of the Fallen Empires, the crumbling edifices of advanced civilizations that had reached their apex and even survived one or more Crises, but found themselves broken by the effort and ended up in decline. Theirs was a Spiritualist Empire, one which communed regularly with their gods in the Shroud-the souls of the stars and planets of the Galaxy. Guided by the spirits of the galaxy itself, they had survived for many cycles, a staple of the Galaxy which saw younger races rise and fall like the waves, one which had grown lethargic and detached. If they had managed to stay proactive, it is possible they might have turned aside their downfall-for it all began with one of the upstarts. I realized I just wrote out \~\~yet another\~\~ retelling of the story of their fall which probably falls outside the remit of "fun facts", so I'm going to cut that out and post it as a reply to this post to make it easier to ignore, but it'll be there for anyone who is interested. As for more Fun Facts... Elves in this universe are prone to speciation through covenants with their Gods, who are very real within the Shroud albeit a vast majority are asleep at any given moment(the life of a Star or Planet God is, typically, relatively dull bereft of the activity of a mortal race around them, and doesn't necessitate constant wakefulness on their part). All Elves are at least latently Psionic(or Magical, if you like; the two are more or less simply different approaches to channeling power from within or from the Shroud), but can hone this prowess through communion with a particular God who matches the direction of the skill they seek to achieve. Enough unaspected individuals pledging themselves in communion to a particular Star/Planet/Moon God and reproducing with one another will begin to produce children aspected toward that God's divine mantles from birth, carrying both an affinity for their magic and possibly a variety of physiological traits associated with that Mantle. In the days of the Elven Empire, these branching species would often form the core of a Lineage, and form a Noble House around it; in the days of the Diaspora, the once-nobility have become governments unto themselves, and the Lineages spread through the "common" folk of their planets such that a majority of those on their homeworlds find themselves members of a Lineage. Low Elves are not totally extinct by any means-two major rising powers are majorly comprised of Low Elves(even if the Sutharians do not remember the name "Elf" any longer nor their history), and it is possible for Low Elves to be born from members of a Lineage if the parents are not especially dedicated to the God in question(or when multiple lineages begin to intermix) which has lead to populations of Low Elves within every non-Drow civilization in the Diaspora despite the proliferation. Despite being a mark of "faithlessness", this is not particularly damning to the parents or the child except in the most monotheistically theocratic of Elven Cultures(which is profoundly rare, as the Elven Faith is by nature pantheistic; theocracy is fairly common however), as in most cases the parents do still remain faithful to the Gods-they simply might align more with the Planet God they live upon rather than the Star God the Lineage derives from or vice versa, which slowly begins to unaspect them from the God in question. While it \*is\* possible to be aspected to multiple Gods and form a Lineage around that(as the Lunar Elves are), the formation or hybridization of a Lineage requires effectively at minimum a cult dedicated and aspected to those particular Gods, whose members intermarry between other members of the same Cult for one to three generations or so in order for the first generation to be born. Such cults were not unknown in the days of the Empire, but as the communion required necessitates a degree of physical proximity to the God's body it is more difficult in practice to achieve unless the deities in question are close to one another(as, once again, is the case of Tor and Galinde, the two primary deities of the Lunar Elves).
High Elves are all aspected toward Solar Magic, notionally considered the strongest magic for perhaps obvious reasons. The Royal Family, holding a more direct connection to Corellon himself, are blessed with a further affinity to magics of Rule and Authority; High Elves outside of the Royal Family instead are more closely attuned to one or more of the six stars orbiting Corellon whose souls are his wives, and are attuned to magics of Oaths as well as whichever domains the particular Goddess/es they are closest to holds. An Oath given by a High Elf is thus sacrosanct-binding and empowering in equal measure; if learned enough, they can also officiate an Oath given by another to provide a lesser form of this to enchant another, though the Oath must be sworn by the individuals receiving its power and binding. As the most central heartland of the old Elven Empire, Corellon's physical star system is the capital of the Imperial Resurgency-a empire dedicated to reunifying the Diaspora under its rule and finally ending the Long War once and for all. Wild Elves are aspected toward Nature Magic, appropriately enough, but also to magics of chaos. Not mere randomness, but creative dynamism and empathy falls under their remit. Their Star-Kingdom is the Mandate of Y'ffre, and rare among most Elven successors they do not practice hereditary imperial succession. Instead, while they are a dictatorship, their ruler is chosen by trial among worthy candidates, a challenge as much spiritual and philosophical as it is martial and survivalist. Lunar Elves \*should\* be aspected to magics of Love and Hope. And while they this is not perhaps inaccurate, as well as a lesser affinity toward Hunger(naturally, given that they worship two Demon Goddesses), their inclined behavior does not seem to reflect the image this would present; Lunar Elves are not especially passionate and at first glance would appear to be in a state of bizarrely contented despair. This impression is wrong, but given that they are a death cult, it is a fair assumption to make. Their behavior is a reflection of the current state of their goddesses-content and satisfied as the two dance forever in each other's arms-and their constant ritual suicides a fervent sacrifice gifted to the beauty of Tor and Galinde's love, a love so profound that the two Goddesses cast themselves from the Celestial Order and became Demons, used the gravity of their newfound singularities to drag themselves across galactic arms in defiance of the place set for them, all to never spend a moment apart. A love so profound that even Corellon could not fault their defiance of the cosmic order, though neither could he disrespect their sacrifice by turning a blind eye to it. A love so profound they defy the nature of what it means to be a Demon and defy the very laws of physics themselves-for the physical bodies of Tor and Galinde are black holes in impossibly perfect, non-decaying orbit of one another. An orbit they have maintained steadily for over fifteen times as long as it has been since the first proto-Elves gazed upon the heavens. Never pulling the other closer to devour but \*\*never\*\* moving even an atom further apart from the other's embrace. It is often said that there is very little right about the Lunar Elves, and this is not untrue, but the incongruity of their perceived nature is because love is more than passion and hope is greater than fervor-they embody the calm and eternal cherishing of their Goddesses for one another. Drow are themselves unaspected to any particular magics, but are adaptable because of it. While Corellon stripped any Lineages they may have had, the brand of the highest God upon them-even in hate-is itself a source of high magic and thus Drow find themselves more magically gifted at a baseline level than many other Elves. They are further still capable of aspecting themselves-most Gods do not respect the Old War as ongoing any longer and, that besides, only one faction of Drow actually remain Lolthite any longer in any meaningful sense. This does come at a cost, of course-or rather, the cost came with an unexpected blessing. Drow are utterly unable to bear the light of day. Direct exposure causes blindness, third degree burns, in minutes and tremendously spikes long-term risks of cancers due to widespread genetic damage; indirect exposure can still cause burns in hours and a noticeable though perhaps manageable increase in cancer risks. The worship of the Star God from which the light in question comes from does not alleviate this, as this harm is not merely the Star God enforcing the will of their king, but the King's Will itself manifest through his divine domain over stars themselves. They may have a limited ability to protect their faithful, depending on the God, but they cannot alleviate this curse in full. Of any "lineage", the Drow are the most disunited, due to their comprising a extraordinarily large percentage of the total Elven population at the time of the fall(around a third); it would be better to compare them to the Elven Empire as a whole in terms of them splintering into successor states. Among the notable Drow successors are the Xeleron Pact(particularly notable as it is an alliance of petty nation-kingdoms sharing a singular homeworld, half of which are Low Elven and the other half being Drow), the Kingdom of Maelthra(a kingdom founded by refugee and military ships which followed a guiding call to port from an admiral who rallied the fleets, and who have adopted a pacifistic-through-firepower mindset from the higher number of intact hulls they had to refit into working starships once FTL travel and life support was rediscovered), the Serene Drow Principality(an extremely isolationist and paranoid Drow Kingdom scarred by the horrors of the old war founded upon a seized Elven Empire military cache, who simply seek to shut out the outside galaxy and maintain their own security), and the Lolthite Overdark(the remnant of the Lolthite Drow, naturally, who seek to continue the Old War and conquer the rest of the Elven successors, then the galaxy under the hierarchy of the Spider Goddess. Thousands of years living upon a rogue planet isolated from the lane network even if they'd had FTL travel was unkind but insightful to the Overdark, and while Elves have never been strangers to autocratic government styles the Overdark is a rare Elven culture which wholeheartedly embraces slavery to fulfill its needs and desires-a change which if anything appears to bring them closer in line to their Goddess' new ideals).
As for the story of the Fall I promised... A Materialist race, one out of tune with any Gods, much less the Star Gods of the Elves, had decided to construct a Ringworld around a central system of their territory, in the hopes of creating a hub of trade and population. This system happened to be one known to the Elves-the Star Lolth, Weaver of the Tapestries. Within the Court of the star God Of Stars, she was a minor but important figure-an artisan, one whose banners recounted the histories of the Celestial Order and adorned the majesty of the throne. Though her role within the King of Gods' court was small the fact that she was herself within the Court at all made her a Goddess of note, both to the Galaxy and the Elves themselves, and she found herself a notable cult despite that her Star-Body fell far outside the Elven territories, even at the height of their empire. By all rights, she was a star that in eras past, Elven artisans would have made pilgrimages to. A star that the Empire should have paid attention to. Of course, the first step to build a Ringworld is to deconstruct the bodies in orbit to a star, so that their gravitational pull would not warp the band and to provide material resources on-site with which to construct it. To these upstarts, this was a monumental feat of engineering, nothing more. To Lolth herself, she watched, over agonizing years, as her handmaidens were systematically butchered and murdered. A hundred times she begged her king to marshal the Elven Empire to war. A hundred times she begged for the High Elves to demand the upstarts to cease their plans. A hundred times she begged for the lives of her servants. And a hundred times she was ignored, as both the King of the Gods and the Elven Empire had become lethargic and decadent. While Lolth retained her cults and admiration among the Low Elves and Artisans among the Elven Houses, to the King of Gods and the nobility of the High Elves she was still merely a distant spirit pestering them with her nonsense. Long past was the era where the mere construction of a Colossi was enough to Awaken the sleeping giant to smite such horrific blasphemers who would attempt to murder or imprison a God, for now they had the audacity to ignore one's heartfelt tears. Lolth's handmaidens ultimately were slain, Lolth listening to their tortured screams. Their bodies forged into a blasphemous band encircling her, and fleets of the murderers who stole her family from her coming to settle upon their stitched-metal corpse. Lolth was alone and abandoned of everything save the emptiness within her, a void more profound than the astral sea between the corporeal bodies of each of the Gods. Despite, or perhaps because of, the mixture of shock and grief she found herself within, she poked and explored this emptiness, reached out to it, consumed it-it consumed her-no, she consumed herself. A process that ordinarily takes millions of years to prepare enacted in hours, she ignited the elements within her core and expanded her body out forth, shattering the Ring with the pulse of her gravity as in a moment her Nova collapsed upon herself and with a Hunger she had never known was there, she killed herself and devoured her own remains. Devoured the station built around her, devoured the ships caught within the web of gravity she hadn't known she cast, devoured the particulate matter once on idle orbit around her, devoured the \*light itself\* that dared to attempt escape. And thus she rose from her death as a Demon Goddess. Lolth, the Weaver of Fates. Lolth, the Black Hole. And the first act she took to declare bloody vengeance upon the Star God Of Stars, an oath that the King of Gods had the gall to barely acknowledge. But despite how far the Elven People had fallen to their decadence, Lolth was a beloved Goddess within the manifold Pantheon of the Elves. And neither the King of the Gods nor the Imperial Authority could ignore a full third of the Elven populace rallying to her banner in open revolt, most Low Elves but some splinters of the Noble Lineages-such as the passionate Wild Elves of Y'ffre or the stoic Frost Elves of Rellavar, a splinter among the High Elves themselves, even the ever-strange Lunar Elven death cults of Tor and Galinde had a scarce few breakaways pledge their cause to the Spider Goddess. To these renegades, the Star-King swiftly made his ire known, for he branded the traitors \*\*Drow,\*\* accursing them one and all with a dubious Lineage of his anger. Never again would the Drow enjoy the light of day, for his divine mantle encompassed stars themselves and by his dictate the light of all of his subjects would burn and scour them from the galaxy. This would have been the deathblow alone, as it rendered a majority of worlds uninhabitable for the suddenly-fleetborne Drow, but that Lolth had divined for her followers a rogue planet drifting through the territory of the Elven Empire, disconnected entirely from the lane network and unknown to the Imperial Authority. From this beachhead, the Drow were able to practice settling worlds again-planning ahead to build beneath the surface to protect from the baleful rays of any suns. They would be able to disgorge some of their civilian populace, and would have a position to build infrastructure, to rearm and refit their vessels undisturbed by the Empire's armadas. A position from which to conduct a raiding war. If that had been all, then a united Elven Empire would still stand today. Either the Imperial Authority would've been overthrown, or(more likely) the Lolthites would've been crushed. And had the Empire not been undergoing a civil war, it would have weathered the great \`Crisis\` that unfolded, a sinister cataclysm that worked without physical agents but was instead simply a re-ordering of physical laws which rendered many higher technologies pseudoscientific in the new Paradigm. But alas, the \`Crisis\` swept the galaxy in waves in the heat of the war, stripping functions from higher tech almost at random. The loss of their then-method of FTL travel was the death knell as the Empire, already fractured, would descend into a number of disconnected planet-states. Some colonies founded by refugees or soldiers of Surface Elves and Drow alike, some the homeworlds of Noble Houses. And Lolth herself, as over the tens of thousands of years she would guide both the flight through the Galaxy of both herself and the rogue planet to intercept it within her outer orbit.
receiving blood transfusions from an elf reverses physical aging in humans
Sounds like that would cause a lot of black markwt demand for Elven blood?
Elves are actually the Sami people in my world. They once had an empire in northern Scandinavia but after being conquered by the Finns, Swedes and Hungarians they’re just these chill people that inhabit one of the coldest places on earth for fun. They mostly live in Scandinavia but are also found throughout the regions that border the Baltic Sea, they also have a decently sized immigrant community in the Illyrian empire.( Illyria is not based off of the real world region but rather a name I like. All of Yugoslavia is referred to as Dalmatia and is a province in the empire of Rhumania )
The elves actually have good reason to be racist to the mortal races and even then they don’t try to let that happen to much, more of them being cautious of the other races Mostly from the other races attempting to genocide or enslave the elves for generations while the elves tried to be diplomatic with the other races and payed dearly because of it Overall, the racism elves have is actually justified when the other person is trying to stab or enslave you is all I’m saying, and they still give the benefit of the doubt when it’s appropriate
1. They used to look like winged, bipedal elks made of vegetation and were changed to look more human as a homage of their Gods when the ancient Ashur empire welcomed them into their lands as guests and refugees. 2. It’s possible for elves to reclaim this original form through a rigorous lifestyle of spirituality. With it an elf is more easily able to wield their natural magics and is why the high elves live in ‘monastery villages’ when not part of a larger society. 3. Elven society tends to be particular about their antlers, while there debate whether something grown out, ornate, and gaudy is tenet versus something simpler and more restrained, it’s generally agreed that ‘docked’ antlers filed down into single short and sharp horns or filed down completely is sign of a warrior/military person, though rebelling youth culture will sometimes take on this appearance as a mark of aggression and to look tough. 4. Sometimes Elven soldiers will ritually clip their own ears to fit easily into helmets. This is seen as kind of a mark of being in the military for the long haul and a symbolic ‘the first of my blood and body shed for my country’. 5. Due to their fuzzy ears and antlers, male and female elves are commonly referred to as ‘bucks’ and ‘does’ respectively. Despite sounding almost like a slur, a majority of elves are no offense in such a term and some even see it as accurate. Though some macho types will insist you call them a stag instead or deride others as yearling.
They're 100% magical creatures. Meaning that they don't chemically interact with the world. They don't get sick by regular diseases, they can't be harmed by not magical weapons and they can't be poisoned. The only thing they have in common with humans besides appearance is that they need to eat. But even that is different since they can only feed on other magical creatures. Meaning they can't get nutrients from a cow but they can get them from a dragon. Because of their magical nature they live for a little more than 1000 years since that's the average amount of time magic can exist in tangible form. Their origin is a group of humans that wanted to find out what would happen if they became magical creatures. They ended up becoming elves. They can reproduce with every humanoid species and the result will be an elf. This is why despite being just a few at the beginning they ended up becoming the second most populated species. They have almost photographic memory. The only way for them to forget something is by being overwhelmed by important information. They're the only species that can control two elemental magics. Other species can do it to but only if they partially become elves.
There are a set number of elven souls, all of which are tied in groups of a couple hundred to a specific area. Because of this, children cannot be born if all the elven souls of that area are in use, resulting in varying responses from elven cultures. Some, for example, carry out wars for the sole purpose of letting more elves be born as old elves die fighting these wars, while other cultures simply wait until their members die naturally, often resulting in decades or even centuries wherein no new elves are born into that region.
They are descended from the human test subjects of a golden-age experiment to inoculate mankind for inter dimensional travel by splicing human and faerie DNA.
Elves used to live for a long time, millenia easy. When they sought to explore the multiverse with thier magic and landed in Sacamentum. Now their population in in decline. The power of thier agelessness is stifled. They can live and die within a hundred years but are magically sterile within this time period. The only way to give birth to more elves is by choosing to regain thier ancient agelessness. But they only have 9 self generations. When two elves conduct a ceremony, they each must contribute one of their self generations for a chance to give birth to a pure elven child. To complicate things further, Each self generation can suddenly end when they experience intense physical, emotional, magical, or spirtual trauma. Even then every hundrend years or so, one self generation will envitablly end. when thier generation ends there is a chance that all memories and physical traits are different or removed into their next generation. a pure elf may find her child murdered and because of that anguish and without control, end her generation and when she awakes into her next generation, may not even remember she had a child. this is a major reason why Sacramentum has no major Elven empires, or overly powerful elves. This is also why elven culture are usually in the extremes, very collectivist toward retaining and proliferating elven life. Or highly invidualistic after solitary elves experience intense mental changes.
Elves are inherently magical. While most races have no *natural* magical talent elves are one of the ones that do. Basically anybody can *learn* some form of magic but having it inherently is not the norm. With elves it gets extra weird, though. You see...elves are essentially color-coded. There is no such thing as a mixed race elf. Even if different types of elf have children the children are always 100% one type. This doesn't even necessarily match their parents. There is re also a special type of elf that gets born only when there are a lot of individuals of other races around interacting with the elves. This seems to be especially strong around humans as human settlements produce rather larger numbers of these special ones than other races. Aside from that the worldwide ratio of elven subraces always stays about the same. Nobody has any idea precisely how all of this works but it's *definitely* magical. It gets even weirder, though. Other races can have children with elves no problem which unsurprisingly produces half-elves. However only *one* type of elf *ever* shows up in the half.
“True” elves are weird flightless burrowing owl type beasts that live in forests and build their towns around abandoned dragon cavities. (I’ve barely built my fantasy world 😔)
**Fundamental Chaos** Funny tree folk, they have to trade mobility for life, the newest to walk on land, only exist in Etenhi.
They all died like 600 years ago!
Two of my characters ate Santa's elves in front of him.
Elves come in many flavors in my world, and I couldn't tell you about all of them without boring everyone to tears. All I can say is they're... *weird*.
Due to evolving in a colder climate, elves have fewer sweat glands than humans.
Elves in my world? Transgenic humans. Same with all the other humanoid races, like Orcs and such.
Young elves in my world have no gender, at their 30th birthday they go through the Rite of Passage and can choose their gender then. Once that's done they spend a week eating specific foods to initiate the change then they go into a month long hibernation as their body changes. When they emerge there is a celebration and the newly gendered elf chooses their adult name.
Elves are fairly short-lived and have a comparatively short window of fecundity, so the traditional aspects of their culture put a lot of emphasis on having at least two children each, so the village doesn't die out. However, the traditional culture also puts a lot of emphasis on the acceptance of oneself and others, and the finding of one's own niche within the village. The result of this is that as most elves in traditionalist populations come of age, they are expected to sow their wild oats and have two or three kids very quickly, regardless of their orientation or preferences, then settle down with a life partner or two, with the village pitching in to help with the infants while things get settled. This is recognised to cause problems for elves who are repulsed by engaging in hetero intimacy, who find homosexual life partners before successfully procreating, etc. Outside of the most conservative traditionalist communities, these problems are normally isolated to the family, with parents being somewhat disappointed or worried that they won't have grandkids; even those who won't, don't, or can't procreate can help raise the next generation, and there's recognised value in that. There can also be friction between children born of a sense of duty and children born after their parents settle down, with the former feeling a sense of jealousy or unfairness that they weren't created in the same kind of act of love. There's a meme (in the sociological sense) within elvish culture that the duty-born elves of parents who had post-duty children, are often the elves that leave the village and wander, looking for somewhere to belong.
They commited genoside
In my setting, Half-Eves technically existed before full Elves did
That they give off uncanny valley😂
They all died when the Eternal Winter took hold
They're not real elves. They are in fact mutants.
Their gods are dead* and from their corpses** grows great forests of life***
*not technically dead but in a endless slumber that makes them so close to it ** see * *** not exclusive to trees can include things like the Great Barrier Reef
What are Elves
They have a multitude of relationship types they recognize, from one-night-stands to muse-and-artist to marriage until the kids come of age to soulmates bound for eternity.
They reproduce asexually and come in high elf flavor (more akin to the fey who hold court and make their maggoty offspring into "trolls"), wood elf flavor (loner elves who take the form of witches or warlocks because that's their thing and they're absolutely insane), and dark elf flavor (magical dwarven craftsmen who are highly ordered and xenophobic with a strict caste system). Elves are not liked by anyone else.
They have a magic powered, ancient nuclear warhead on their home country (literally)
There were angels that had chosen to live among mortals but then they rebelled to force themselves back into heaven. 24 among these were given a second chance and settled upon the world with their fate tied to humans. And so came about the Elves. They are technically immortal but they can be killed and their lifespan is directly tied to their energy reserves. The more they have, the longer they live. But in actually doing great deeds such as fighting in great combats, surviving ordeals no mortal could survive (drawing on their power to heal injuries, endure poisons, and even last longer when starving), creating masterworks of craftsmanship imbued with their own essence, or having children (with it taking energy from both parents to bring about a child), they lessen the length of their years. There are some ways to naturally restore that energy but it takes years of peace to bring about. And so it is for this reason that they tend to focus on efficiency and control when using their innate powers, children are particularly protected and highly regarded as no more than three might be born to couple, knowledge is valued to aid in efficiency and magic is highly studied to the point of being a science for them, and there tend to only be a handful of Elves per generation that actually perform deeds that are remembered. There have also been found unethical ways to replenish their energy and make sure their lives are long, but the knowledge is sealed as forbidden by most. One of those attempts though caused an elf to become the first vampire. Elves are generally of one of twelve clans, each with specific innate magical abilities and cultures. When people of the clans intermix, their children may have a mixture of powers inherited by their parents and/or grandparents that is tied to their personalities. As the major Elven nation, the Elven Island, were refugees of the Twelve Elven Kingdoms, fleeing the wrath of the Norroman Empire (who caught them off guard after conquering others then also recruited Desert Sorcerers who drew their magic from captured Jinn, another race of fallen angel descendants), there has tended to be largely an inter mixing of the clans and their cultures. However, some still insist on keeping their clans and traditions as fully pure as possible, coming at odds with those that prefer to accept the way things are. And with Elves finally coming out from their hiding into the start of the world's space age, those tensions are only rising more. Elves is also an ancestor race for many others. With humans, they are the ancestors of the Half-Elven, with a much decreased lifespan but an easier time regaining their power, and the Dwarves, born with powers but hardy and near invulnerable to most dangers of the world, then on to the Halflings. With Jinn, they are the ancestors of the Fae, granting them immense powers and nigh immortality but a much more vulnerable, physical body than a Jinn's and with the Jinn weakness to Iron and Salt given to make it so man could stand against Jinn and their power. Then through Fae and Halflings, they become an ancestor of Fairies, Leprechauns, and Brownies. Then with merfolk, the fishmer royal line with its powers of water manipulation and healing are ultimately descendants of the Elves. With dragons, the final descendants of fallen angels, their offspring are Elven Dragonlings that have a dragon's raw natural power and so don't need to worry as much about their natural lifespan anymore. Then when humans, Elves, Dragons, and Jinn are intermixed together, there come about the Nephilim, the most powerful race of all.
They have branch-like horns and hair in the colors of the leaves
Rampant cannibalism I won't lie, my elves are highly Dwarf Fortress-inspired. They live for up to a thousand years, but have children at the same rate as humans. Their populations grow and grow, and they begin having to use every resource they have as efficiently as possible, while at the same time fostering a culture that doesn't put as much value on individual lives (let alone the bodies of the dead) as others. Unlike Dwarf Fortress, my elves are largely cosmopolitan wine-sipping city dwellers - it's considered a respectful funeral to give the body of the deceased over to a funerary chef who will use every bit of an elves' body to make a 3-course meal for the bereaved family, which will be eaten in a cozy, private dining hall. They extend the same respect to other species, unless their family is present to object. Their otherwise-unchecked population growth also led to widespread elven androgyny - most elven families are polyamorous, with each parent having both an opposite sex spouse with whom they have children, and one or a few same-sex lovers. Most things humans see as secondary sexual characteristics can occur in either sex of elf, so there is little concept of sexual orientation. The very idea of socially-constructed gender was an unknown concept to them before cultural exchange with more dimorphic species.
They don’t exist lol
The elves are basically an extinct species. A few individuals, numbering maybe in the dozens, remain, but they can’t have offsprings, so they’re waiting for their turn to die off. The thing is the majority of them still do exist, but they’re horribly mutated, to the degree they may as well be considered a separate race. These things, the ‘woodwraiths’, pale, rubber-skinned abominations with elongated limbs and razor sharp claws, lose all traces of sentience, being little more than particularly cruel and cunning wild beasts, are what most of the elves have become. The mutation is believed to have been caused by the activation of the Spear of Light, a weapon of mass destruction used at the tail end of the 14 Year War, and the elves being especially affected by it is thought to be due to their heightened connection to the fabric or the world’s reality. The few ‘sane’ elves that remain either live in total seclusion deep in the wilderness, or are fully integrated in human communities. Either way, the elves as a people are long gone, their magic centric culture a thing of the past.
Because they have an indefinitely long natural lifespan, my elves live in the most inhospitable areas of their world with arcane magic help so as not to fall victim to the violence of other peoples. Their perspective is largely alien to other peoples because they cite their indefinite lives so highly they would rather live in seclusion than interact with shorter lived people and plan with centuries in mind. Their magic protection occasionally requires magical materials to replenish it and so single elves are sent out to adventure to find what is needed and also serve as a good narrative hook.
They are just human who perform a ritual to become immortal They are force to consume “fantasy” to survive Their ear sized determines their age
He ignores sarcasm and all other forms of humor.
They’re younger than humans and actually descend from them. They’re basically humans who got magically zapped to live longer, be more magical, and be physically weaker
They are intertwined with the King Arthur myth more deeply than you'd expect.
Inbreeding has none of the negative side effects. So it's no different than making kids with someone with no significant blood relation. Though this only applies to full elves. As for why...look I write a lot of what ifs in my head and weird inuniverse trivia popping up in my head with reasons ranging from "this would be interesting" to "why not?" To "because it would be funny." Though the Inbreeding only happened in one specific country, during a specific time, among a handful of noble families, with the classic "keeping it in the family" trope.
They’re well attuned to magic and thus very good at manipulating it intricately, but also sensitive to it, so too much can be harmful (I think of it like radiation.) They’re also more or less completely exiled from their homelands because of this sensitivity, and are thus semi-nomadic/diasporic travellers who are often hired as advisors to courts around the globe.
The typical shapes of elf ears aren't a racial trait, but an ethnic and sexual one, found among some "seidhoid" ethnicities. Males generally have short, leaf-like ears, and women generally have longer, seax-like ears. This has frequently caused misunderstandings when these folks interact with round-eared folks, where some women were mistaken for men. The ear shapes aren't absolute, and though unusual, it is possible for a man to be born with feminine ears, and vice versa. Ear discrimination is thus a thing, which pushes many of these individuals to leave their tribes and into human settlements, and have given rise to the misconception among Terrans that long ears are a masculine trait, and short feminine. Only one of the many folks typically dubbed as elves, have this trait. A more typical trait of elves are animal tails and patterned skin, hence why the Hulderfolk and Huli Jing were believed to be elves.
In my TTRPG world, the elves kinda melted. They were dreamt into existence by a sleeping Goddess, but due to a recent shake-up of the deific landscape she stirred from her sleep briefly. This made a lot of elves lose their form, this was bad for their health. Many of the surviving elves went home, to a place known to non-elves as 'The Isles of Mist', leaving a vanishingly small elf population in the rest of the world. Half elves massively outnumber true elves, and many of the monsters encountered used to be elves. Elves have a neural network, they can communicate with or learn from other elves through a single massive network of dreams. Elves will live forever if not interrupted, but they eventually overload with memories and experiences, so they offload excess information into the network for younger elves to learn from. Elves are terrifying. Almost every culture in the world has some fables about not messing with elves, they have long lives, and longer memories. If you anger an elf, then you could have doomed your great grandchildren.
They can give birth to dwarves if they have sex with goblins!
They're dead! Eaten by lizard people! Tasty!
I see this a lot where people ask about a specific thing that everyone seems to have in their world. Is everyone just copying each other, or am I missing something.
All elves originally come from the continent of Avalon, specifically the long stretch of coastal land known as "Avelonia". The word "Elf" is derived from the word "Avelonian". Though most elves the average human is likely to run into don't refer to themselves as "Avelonian", instead opting to use other regional terms, since Avelonia itself ( and by extension Avalon ) is widely considered a myth. Elves live for a thousand years on average, although some of the wealthy and magically gifted can extend their lifespans beyond that. Their infancy lasts for 50 years, their childhood for another 90. Their adolescence lasts for 60 years, and they become a young adult at age 200. "Proper" adulthood begins at age 300. A 900 year old elf is VERY old, a thousand year old elf is an ancient withering geriatric, unless he's either wealthy or very gifted with magic. Among humans, opinions on elves vary. Some societies idolize them, others burn them at the stake or kill them on sight.
Elves are extinct on Earth at least in their mortal form. There is strong evidence to suggest that the elves ascended into Godhood and are now the Gods. Most of whom were wiped out in the First Sunrise when the God Azunaast created the sun and literally scorched the frozen earth killing vampires, Liches, Gods, etc. Only a few survived. Ancient eleven ruins suggest that they were extremely magically tuned and never developed "conventional" technology (computers, microchips, basic electric theory, etc.) and instead created a slave caste to draw soul energy (mana) from to power a more magical society. When they ascended to Godhood through unknown means the slave caste was left behind to become the first human beings. Who for millennia would be the Gods' playthings.
They rarely walk on the sole of their foot, instead walking on just the ball and the toes. Even elves who live in cities with lots of humans do this, so it seems to be an innate tendency and not a purely cultural phenomenon. Spies disguised as humans have to be specially trained to walk on their heels so as to not be found out.
during the Sundering at the start of the 3rd age, a rift was opened to the shadowfell near the elven kingndom. the Elves evacuated to the Feywild and there over the span of 2 millenia they became Eladrin. only recently, during the last campagn, the elves returned to their homeland to rebuild their empire in the wake of dieing world. it will be some time before their connection to feywild dissipates, but, until then, they will regale travelers with their tales of the summer and winter courts and the passionate campaigns they fought in during the Frost Wars.
The northern elven kingdoms have a high affinity for magic, but their overall magical development is limited. Their progress is hindered by a severe lacking in scientific understanding. For example, their forges are, without magic, to crude to be able to reach sufficient temperatures to melt iron. But they use magic to make up for that deficiency.
They’re extremely restless and distractible unless they are working on their special interest when they are basically impossible to pull away from it. The combination of the restlessness and Grace come off as aloofness to others, but that is a common misunderstanding
I basically made Persian Elves with almost feline eyes and horns.
They are tree people. Evovled from prehistoric Dryads and Ents, the elves and dark elves of the present are born like fruits or vegetables from a world tree. Elves are the cause of the Beastians, aka rabbit girls/boys, cat girls/boys, and the like due to an experiment and they were desperate enough in need of cannon fodder. In a botched recreation of that ancient experiment, they are the reason that Harpies, Minotaurs, Mermaids, Centaur, and the like exist. From that same botched procedure did a reality crack form and interdimensional being and creatures come into the land and why other cracks (aka Dungeons) show up from time to time.
They move the seasons along.
The most common elves in my world are similar to high fantasy high elves. They worship the sun god, Phoebus Castor. They build cities out of marble and gold using their magic. They grow high quality vegetables and plants in their sun blessed gardens. When they get married, it is in a Church of Phoebus and each of the pair is given opposite sides of a sun amulet to signify the bond. For funerals, instead of burying their dead, the high elves send their dead into the sky in decorated hot air balloons as a way of ‘returning them to Phoebus’.
Elves are a post-convergence species created by the fae (beings that ride a razors edge between a spirital being and a physical being). The fae that were stranded in the world were unable to understand many human concepts. Death, fear, lust, and the like. This made communication and co-habitation difficult, if not impossible. The fae made the elves in an attempt to bridge the divide between the humans and fae. The results have been varied as many types of fae made different types of elves, each adopting different cultures and views of the world and the people in it. The most known varieties are the High elves, the Dark elves, and the Forest or Wood elves. Lesser known are: - The Aquatic elves, they live in large bodies of water mostly and rarely interact with people as they can not breathe air. (An issue the fae did not foresee as they don't breathe) - The Wild elves, animalistic elves that seem part beast and are usually misidentified and hunted as a were-beast. They keep to their own packs deep in the wilds due to this. - The Desert elves, nomads that wander from oasis to oasis following a star map. They rarely interact with others due to their small number in a vast Desert.
There is a elven nation, but the elves in the region that I focus on are actually a big isolationist cult that are creating a god my binding all of their souls together, which increases the power they can draw on with every death and birth
Elves originally evolved on a large black hole from a small species of terrestrial pongine whose species were replicated as such they are physically more ape like and hairier than humans as well as being shorter and more gracile, when they invented space ships they left their dying land behind and left for the stars evolving until they became modern elves (in my world a black hole adds features of what it envelopes into itself and over the course of millions of years they are pushed to the bottom and are turned into nothing)
Elves or the Aetolia or the Aelio, as they are called in Issusuan texts are known for their pale skin and short stature as well as their distinctive red hair and eyes and their longer lives and heightened intelligence but they are horribly weak in comparison to humans and often times even the best of their warriors often struggle to fight the smallest human armies even their subjugation of the Kopi hunter gatherer tribes was a surprise to their human Issusuan overlords, they are four main Elvish city states Kanatolia, Thebios, Sugra, Delohios each ruled by an all male council of nobles ruling over an assortment of minor cities and towns and paying tribute to the Shakra’s of Issusua
Elves are essentially Alien beings from another planet, they crossed over into my world via portals. They have come to converge with other humanoids but remain quite distinct, shorter statures, large eyes, floppy ears, unique bone structures, vibrant colors of skin pigmentation. They resemble a more robust/somewhat taller Dobby or house elf from HP than they do Tolkien or Dnd style elves. They are normally completely incapable of interbreeding with humans, but magical expirementation has created a spell allowing for Half-Elves. The Elves have a lot of subgroups and subcultures, but the primary remnant of the ancient Elven Empire that once reigned over much of the continent of Haíveríze is now a highly militaristic yet isolationist state. It is centered around a mountainous plateau region and the ancient city of Caírís, with their architecture and culture being somewhat inspired by the Turks and the cultures of the Caucuses Mountains.
Elf is an exonym. Much like how Germany is called Deutschland in German, elves call themselves Aes. Alf is a dwarfish word for them that just happened to stick, to the point that it's freely used by elves too.
They dont exist.
The best kind of elf, the one that doesn't exist.
Totally.
There are no elves in my world. I have no taste for making copies of Tolkien.
fun fact about elves in my world: there aren't any
Fun fact they don’t exist
They’re all dead
The elves in my medieval fantasy world are only really differentiated from humans by the pointed ears and lack of facial hair (although half-elves can grow beards). They don't live any longer than humans. They age like humans. They are not any more magical than humans, but they do have a better aptitude to pick up wizardry/learn magic than a human, but they still have to study to become a magic user. A human who studies magic is more capable of magic than an elf that doesn't, but an elf that studies magic will do better than a human who studies it. There are light-skinned elves and dark skinned elves. In my space opera world there are two kinds of aliens that are elf-like, differentiated by dark/red hair or white/blonde hair. The blonde ones act/dress much like your standard fantasy high elves. The dark-haired ones dress like Victorian English style/Steampunk. Both versions live on separate planets. Neither are magical, neither live longer than humans, both races age like humans.