Elves

Of the land, of creation, you were born to the ancestry of what might be the eldest children left. You and the dwarves, or as your people know them, the dwari, are unsure whom is eldest, but know it is one or the other. You come from a people whom remember, at least through legend, mythology and the long memories of life spans measured in centuries, the world before the Sundering. At least in the broad strokes, and it is thus that you also know the truth, regardless of your own cultural or inherited stances on how such things should be practiced, of arcane magick.

You are children of creation, perhaps some of the only ones truly left. Those of elven blood, all of them, are tied at least in some small fundamentally measurable way, to the Dreamweave. It is just as much a progenitor of your kind and of you as your own flesh and blood parents. Those of elven blood more commonly than any other Ancestry, are Touched by Arcanis, even if only slighly, a mere brushing peck on the forehead from a doting parent or guardian. Regardless how light or heavy the influence, the Dreamweave leaves its mark upon all of Elven blood, and you are no exception. As you came of age, you learned what that means, how it manifests, and what, if anything you would need to do to handle this influence in your life. Your people are of the soul of the world, of Meanma, truest in form, claiming ties back to the Faei.

Even your name draws upon this heritage in some amount, be you of Woad or Skye, in some way your name will sing in the language long gone, but not forgotten, the syllables of some part of it, if not all of it, in the language of Arcanis, of Creation itself, merely given alphabetical form in Elthain. Or at least thus is the influence of your people's beliefs when it comes to their Weave-Name, a name very specific and holding great power in Elven Lore and culture.

Naming Traditions

Unisex names

Most any given name, that is what one would call a first name, is both sacred and without gender. Usually elves will be quite protective of this name, and instead have a second codified 'persona' name that they might discover or choose. It isn't a nickname all the time, though that can be how it is discovered. The reason for this is because their 'true' names are culturally significant. Much in the ancient tradition of Faei, a lingering holdover from that cultural ancestor, those of Elven blood belief, somewhat rightfully, that your true name, the name spoken and given at birth, even should you abandon it for any reason, holds great power. This belief is tied in some part to fact, to hear those of the Magisterium and many of the Churches tell it.

Though not nearly concerning enough to protect as heavily and with as much paranoia as some Elves do, there is power in that which was gifted unto you by your own blood at the moment of birth. It is tied to your very soul, for good or for ill, whether you kept it or not or wish it or not. It is one of the anchors tying you unto reality and without it you could simply start to unravel, the magick holding you amidst the material realm becoming vulnerable and unstable. It can also be used by things from beyond Dreamweave, things from the Void, to make their assaults and dark magicks of unreality more potent in their affects, harder to resist, by being used as an anchoring for such heinous things. Thus the tradition of 'anchor names' and 'person names'.

Example Anchor Names: Beryimel, Hadarai, Ivellios, Vondiras

Example 'Person' Names: Anissa, Hermes, Thalli, Vittoria.

A note in regards to this tradition and elven naming traditions in general

It is worthwhile to note the amount this traditional structure is concerned over varies wildly depending on the elf. Those whom live among large amounts of their own fellow longer care far more often, as do those older. The younger generations are seeing a drift away from this structure, wishing to trust more, love more, and be more connected to the world around them, and less paranoid. More and more elves are forgoing discovering or 'choosing' a person name and to the chagrin and shock of their elders, simply going by their anchor name, living openly, fearlessly within their true identity.

Furthermore what is most interesting is the lack of gendering in the names is so poignant and such a root linguistically that even those whom do identify as androgynous or those few whom might have the coin and accept the risk to alter permanently their physical form, uncomfortable in the body and biology they were born to, with the aid of an Emerald Magister, that it is almost unheard of for such realizations or changes to come with a name alteration. The concept of a 'dead' name is wholly foreign to elvenkind, since your name has literally nothing to do with your biology and thus that is irrelevant to its existence.

Excerpt from some of Rafiq's early notes on Elves and Elven nomenclature and naming traditions

Family names

Elven naming traditions when it comes to family names, differ a little from region to region. However by and large they are tied to tribal or community factors as well as making reference overt or subtle to the Dream-weave and some notable affinity based on family lineage. Family names are also genderless, the elven language and people in general having next to no gendering noticeable within their linguistics outside of very directly referring to someone in conversation, and even then such terms are only used with people one is very familiar with and confident of their identifiers. Otherwise one would use proper names or more formal and less gendered terms.

Example family names and their rough translation into Valarian Common: Solavirr (Firekissed), Unitavii (Waveborn), Ilmassit (Wind-dancer), Amakiir (Gemflower), Zastriel (Starborn), Yigvastil (Sunblessed).

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Elthain is perhaps the oldest language left that is still spoken with any regularity, again between themselves and dwarves they are unsure now, as both existed before the Sundering, even if in their infancy, and thus the historical record is uncertain. Elthain sings, it follows the tempo of creation in many ways, seeming to have a persona, an identity, all its own, as if alive. It hums with energy, has the rhythm of a pulse or heartbeat and linguistic depth and structure in how it is spoken that can only be described as a 'soul' or sorts. Stressing different syllables can give words entirely different context, your tone, pitch and pace of delivery is part of the language, at least if you are an elf. Thankfully they are generally pretty understanding of non-native speakers, and over the centuries terms, oft known between elves as 'terms of infancy'. These terms are emotional descriptors, words like those in the Common Tongue used to crudely (in the minds of elves) describe one's emotional underpinnings. These have come to exist, most often seeing use in conversation either by elven children still struggling to learn and master their pitch and the intricate nature of the syllables, stressors and defining tones and inflections, or by non-native speakers to help with clarity given the almost musical requirements of the language are a further layer of difficulty many non-elves are simply unwilling to learn and master.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Elves are ancient beings, and see more than most, touched by Arcanis as their race is. They do not just see the physical, they see into the Dreamweave, the Aether. They see the aura of essence, the elemental forces of creation that flow and ebb around everyone and everything and in those gem like hues, when it comes to intelligent creatures, there is information to be garnered. Though made up of all the fundamental energies, for life and the physical bodies of living things require all of them in various balances, the surrounding ebbs and flows, the auras if you will, communicate much. For some it indicates magickal potential or capability depending on its strength, or for those trained on magisters, being dominated massively by one hue in particular. For most, it is far more subtle, less strong and more shades and hues of energy flickering and flitting that communicate emotions, intentions and general traits and influences. Those more stoic for example will have soil and stone like hues flickering and flitting around them, those with more fierce passionate personalities will have sparking and flitting embers and flame like hues of reds and deep oranges.

These auras are like an emotional spectrum, a reading of personality and influence greatly how elves view others when it comes to attraction. They understand the complex energy relationships of both emotions and the manna itself, and therefore, able to see their own, they generally can understand compatibility potentials far more than others from merely meeting and viewing another person using their Aethyr Sight.

When it comes to general beauty, elves have always valued sapience and sentient thought as much as the physical form. Being well balanced, equally in tune with mind and body, is a beautiful dream and goal. They admire the natural world and creative forces therein, seeing beauty in all that it has to offer, in its own way.

Gender Ideals

In many ways a foreign concept, barring the idea of life givers and life guardians. This is the sole acknowledgement that seems to remain within elven norms that hints to the natural understanding of their need for sexual reproduction. Those capable of bearing children are life givers, to be treasured, worshipped and cared for particularly when they are pregnant, and when they have given birth and are rearing the child/children. They should be supported, community wide, for they literally give life to the future. Life guardians are typically everyone else, and more specifically a stereotypically 'male' role. Their job is basically protection and support, the idea being to watch over the young, the mothers and the communities, provide them with guidance and aid as best you can manage. Even this is more generalization and less cultural enforced practice or judgement based

Relationship Ideals

Elven relationships are uniquely passionate and long forged. Because of the heightened level of knowledge from their Aethyr Sight, when an elf forms a romantic relationship, or indeed relationships as they are not monogamous, first of all barring some great and catastrophic change between one of the pair (or more) involved it is a tie for life. Secondly they are perhaps the least likely (though not unheard of as half-elven children do exist, they can reproduce with humans though it is quite low odds) of any of the ancestries to become truly and wholly romantically involved outside their own kind, or at least longer lived races (Dwarves which is exceedingly rare, or Forgeborn, also exceedingly rare).

Humans seem a unique exception rarely, something about their passion and zest and zeal for life perhaps. This is because of the hardship that is obvious of course, the fact that elves measure their life in centuries, not decades, and so in most every and any case for such a relationship, they would have to watch their lover grow older, grow old, grow infeeble and then die, all whilst they would have barely aged a day physically and likely still have centuries of life left. The sheer pain of such a thing just isn't sensible and therefore barring notably rare, almost bard's tale level circumstances, you won't see elves engaging in romantic relationships with halfmen, humans, gnomes, or tanturs.

Elves as Characters

Traits: Humanoid, Elf

Age: Elves much like dwarves measure their life in centuries not decades. Much like dwarves they are estimated to live well into their fourth century, even perhaps seeing their fifth before any real risk of dying of any 'old age' related natural cause will afflict them. They are slightly older on average than dwarves, seeming to live between 425-475 years should they die of old age, on average. The eldest elf known died at 544 years of age, only slightly older than the eldest dwarf. However elves wear this age and knowledge differently than dwarves, living less of a hard, worker/warrior style life like their ancient cousins of stone. No elves live more philosophically, more in tune with the world around them, more tied to creation. They are sagely, carrying the wisdom and intellect of the forces of Creation, some minute amount of it anyway.

Hit Points
6

Size
Medium

Speed
35 feet

Attributes

Boost to Dexterity

Boost to Intelligence

One Free Boost

Flaw to Constitution

Languages

All elves start play fluent in Valarian Common and their people's ancient language of Elthain. Furthermore they of course gain any language appropriate based on their Cultural Background or any other such selection. Beyond this, they may pick a number of other languages they speak equal to their Intelligence Modifier (minimum 0). These selections must be common languages that are prevalent in the area you are/you hail from.

Night Vision No negatives to Perception using sight at night or in low-light or night conditions. Only true deep darkness (underground, magickal causes) affect you.

Sleep Immunity: All elves are immune to sleep effects, elves do not truly sleep, they enter a meditative state, but are still aware to the world around them. You cannot be forced into a magickal sleep of any kind, though such spells or affects can make you lethargic, instead inflicting you with the Slow (X) Status based on your save result (Critical Failure is Slow (3), Fail is Slow (2), Success is Slow (1) and Critical Success is unaffected.)

Aethyr Sight: You can see into the Aethyr, the realm of manna, which overlays our own, seeing all about you the flowing currents and thrumming rivers of manna of every which color. This allows you to see spell forms and tell whenever anyone is attempting to cast Arcane Magick. You can kind of filter this out and see like normal at will. This means even if someone is trying to be stealthy and using silent spell or other such metamagick, if you can see them, you know they are casting magick. Furthermore you also gain +2 to any Perception rolls to sense motive any individual as you are able to read their emotions, broadly, off how manna around them is behaving.

TTRPG Inspiration Block

Average Height: 7'-8'6" (2.1-2.6 metres)
Average Weight: 170-230 lbs (77-104 kgs)
Common Hair Colors: The two new heritages on Valerick have distinctly different norms/common hair colors and thus need to be listed below in subset;

Skye Elves: Gold, Amber, Yellow, Silver, Copper

Wylde/Woad Elves: Crimson, Turqoise, Honey, Silver, Flaxxen, Mossy

Common Eye Colors: Once again the two new heritages on Valerick have distinctly different norms/common colors for their eyes and thus need to be listed below in subset;

Skye Elves: Black, Brown, Grey, Green, Gold, Silver, Turqoise

Wylde/Woad Elves: Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Emerald, Gold, Silver

3 Most Common Adventurer Professions/Classes: Magister/Wizard, Hunter/Ranger, Shaman/(Druid or Sorcerer)
3 Least Common Adventurer Professions/Classes: Breserker/Barbarian, Warrior/Fighter, Brawler/Monk