Elves

Basic Overview

A bipedal species which walks with a digiterigrade (on the toes) stance. As all members of the species produce both male and female reproduction cells they are considered monogendered. They are hatched from small leathery eggs and reach full size, between 4.5-5.2 tall, and between 25-32 kgs by the age of five, living to be between the ages of 160 to 200. Although in the Age of Wonders when the Darkening wzx treated they rountinely lived to the mid 300s.

Anatomy

Skull

Comparitive to humans, they have an elongated but shorter skull, giving them a vaguely cone shaped appearance.

Eyes

Their eyes are 2.5 to 3 times larger than a humans, have a bone covering behind the iris. They are capable of moving and tracking different things at the same time. Eye colours are purples, reds, yellows and rarely pale, almost white blue eyes. It is common for Elf eyes to be home to bioluminescant bacteria, a condition

They have 16 (10 top jaw 8 on the lower) undifferentiated small needle sharp teeth. Large pointed ears are anchored from the base of the lower jaw to roughly inbetween the eyex and are positioned far closer to the front of the face than on humans and can be moved at will by the elves, forming an integral part of their language.

Skeleton

With the exception of the cranial casing elven "bones" are generally long and thin, being closer in composition to human teeth. Their limbs only have two bones (not including hands feet, pelvic and shoulder girdle which are supported by two larger cartilaginous support structures and numerous air sacks, further reducong their weight.

Elven ribcages are not connected to their spinal columns. They have six u-shaped bones which have numerous cartilaginous protusions which each terminate in a subdermal osteoderms, shaped much like flowers, the overlapimg petals of which form an almost complete enclosure of their eight heart/lung analogs and is flexible enough that it extends over most of the digestive tract as well

In addition to their breeding habits meaning they dont have widened childbearing hips, thos ribcage makes their frames fairly tubular, and narrow, with their torsos being ⅔ the length of a humans of the same height. Elves do not have hourglass figures.

Arms and Hands

Elven shoulder joints are more densley built than human ones, with the extra mass being made of the electro-generitive organs known as the Hannaka, their upper arms are slightly shorter than on humans with a venemous spur protuding about an inch from the elbow. The fore arm is long and delicate, unsuitible for supporting heavy loads.

The Elven hand itself has five fingers, like a human hand, but the fingers each have six joints, two of which can hinge opposite direction from the others. Except for the thumb which is the same as that seen on humans. From the base at the back of this thumb extends a two inch long wickedly sharp venemous barb that can also deliver electric shocks from the Hanakka but is also used for electro sensing, and can pick up on magnetic fields.

The Elf hand has a split running partway down the centre which has two fingers and a thumb and on one side and just two fingers on the other. They have can operate these sets of fingers independantly from the other side of the hand.

The fingers have a sharp claw that protudes from the tip like a spike. Perfect for puncturing holes in trees or bug hills.

Legs and Feet

Elven legs are twice as long proportionately to their bodies as human ones. Endimg in a digiterigrade three toed foot Which has the five inch long poisonous and electrosensing spur coming off the heel.

The toe nails grow under the foot partially to protect it and are the toughest densest part on the elf body, the rest of the underside on the fun is covered in thick osteoderms to prptect the foot and lower leg from injury when the elves run, frequemtly at more than 40kms an hour for up to 14 hours at a time.

Tongue

Elves have two tongues that can extend about a foot from their mouths and are coated in a sticky saliva. They often use these like frogs do, to capture and eat small flying insects. Where the two tongues split there is an organ that can shoot a noxious slurry of chemicals that upon contact with the air can ignite and heat up to 80° celcius and burn for up to an hour.

Skin and Hair

Elven skin is generally orange, ranging from nut brown to light shades of red. Hair is generally extremely pale shades of blonde, silver, grey and can appear nearly blue. The hair darkens with age. Skin is dark naturally but brightens with exposure to uv, causing it to start absorbing various metals found in the environ,ent via osmosis. This results in iridescant skin the shimmers in the light

Environmental Concerns

Allergic to iron, which is not a natural part of the elf biology. Require a narrower set of conditions to survive than humans, with death by hypothermia being a distinct possibility at 7°.

They also have a much higher energy demand to humans, needing to eat their body weight in insects and fungus (their digestive tracts cannot handle non arthropod analogue meat or any plant matter)

Bipedal

4.3-5.2 feet tall

19-32 kgs

Life Expectancy 130 yrs

Electrosensitive, Telepathic, Innate Magic

Sees uv and infrared but relatively short sighted

Keen hearing

Dull taste/smell

Variable brain activation

Memory/personality leek

When two Elves love eachother very much (or one just wants to) a pool of crushed up insects decaying animal and fungal matter and basically anything biological and both elves spray their reproductive cells into the sludge and they will find eachother and form fertilized eggs which absorb nutrients from the ooze.

Over the space of six weeks these grow into tennis ball sized eggs, with most dying somewhere during this stage. If the nutrients are enough these eggs will hatch into ravenous Elflets. These will tear into the nearly blood and muscless mounds of flesh elves grow on their chests and are raised by the entire Elven court. Due to the bloodthirsty nature of elven young more than one is raised at a time, with any siblings being despatched and ground down to paste to feed the lucky choson one.

From hatching till about the age of four elves grow rapidly. But after that their bodies start rejecting red meat and they start undergoing puberty, a period during which their rapid growth halts. Biologically by the age of five their Hannaka and Third thru Eighth eyes are generally active, and they are capable of reproducing. Culturally they are only considered adults when they can run over 80kms (the average elf ranges 100kms) inside of a day.

Elves often dart between patches of wood, or termite analog or any other potential dozens of miles apart. This is because they need to eat their own weight in insects and fungus every three months or they will starve to death. This, in addition to a magical affliction known as the Darkening has prevented elves as a whole from settling down. Most still stict to hunter gatherer ways but can still make elaborate spidersilk and pteroleather cloths, nearly unbreakable glass (in place of metal) and have a complex oral and written tradition. Their Maunts (priest/teacher/parent class) know many secrets of chemistry and physics, even how to theoretically crack an atom.

They refuse to divulge the origin of that knowledge.

Insects and fungi.

Red meat when younger but lose the ability to process those foods when undergoing puberty.

One exception to the above, human blood gets elves drunk. An extreme minority engage in wild hunts, where a lone human will be seized, and drained of all blood and just left laying wherever they happened to fall. Human retaliation to this practice has meant a social taboo has formed amongst most of the elf courts. One who has drunk human blood, and Elves can sense who they are, is outcast from all normal (or Seelie) Courts

Most of these outcasts perish alone but a few have survived and now form a mirror culture (Unseelie)

These Unseelie Wild Hunts have a distinct resistance to the Darkening, especially amongst the Gloaming Court, who have settled down permenantly in Allalllallldianahalaramishandishar, but this is at the cost of their ability to do magic.

1-4 Elflet

5-120/150 years Adult

150+ Crone As an elf ages it becomes harder to focus the other eyes. Spells become more powerful, but more erratic. With even non magic wielders starting to randomly affect reality. Its not unheard of for Crones to randomly explode into nothingness.

But the more dire consequence is as an Elf becomes more and more a walking talkimg source of magic it draws the creeping ire of that ancient menace.

The Darkening.

Bio.ogical sleep cycle. Elves can sleep whilst running by shutting off portions of their brain whilst they are not in use. Ie a climbing elf has the section of their brain responsible for reading turned off and will not be able to read. They would have to stop climbing to be able to read again.

Task hyperfixation aside this means they only have to do the Tujuma or true deep sleep rarely. They make sufe to do this far away from other elves as a collection of elves brings the Darkening and a Tujuma affected Elf cannot be woken up by any means.

Elves view pronounse as I/me or us/ours. They are a species incapable of empathy viewimg their personal enemies as the enemies of elf kind. Elves often connect telepathically without realising it and personality traits and memories can bleed over unintentionally. For instance an elf named Zoran joined the Stunned Bassett Court, none of whom were named Zoran and within three months not only could they not identify which one Zoran was but they were all named Zoran, and as far as they were aware always had been.

This can and has been used by malicious actors to create spies and moles.

Elves view all property as interchangeable, a problem when they mingle with humans who do not appreciate an elf deciding they need a new shirt and just takimg one off someones clothes line.

Due to personality bleed rank and title mean little to them and they value running things by consensus over running things efficiently. The fact that they cant tell which elves are noble and which arent (any true elf will tell you all elves are noble and all others are not) has led to the humans referring to elves as the Lords and/or Ladies of the land (gender is a human construct, elves do not have biological sex, meaning there is no cultural basis for a gender split)

Live in malleable groups that form (generally around a Maunt who tends to a hive of Kith Spiders) that have anywhere from 3 to 40 members known as Courts.

These Courts are ruled by consensus with any who disagree with a Court just leaving to find another group.

As elves do not have a concrete sense of self this has suprisingly few long term effects on them or their society as a whole. Due to suffering a magical malady knowm as the Darkening which begins to take root at the first sign of any kind of stagnation Elves are mandatorily hunter gatherers with only the human-blood thirsty Unseelie Elves having somewhat of a resistance.

Small chin and almost vestigial nose. Eyes are very large and can vary along a wider array of colours, reds, yellows, white and purples commonly than humans

The Neck, the Szale

Elves have an extremely variable intellect level, but it rises and falls, in a general sense based on group size. It was said before the times of the Darkening that a Council of 1000 Elves made Andiar by meditating.

Eyes

Elf eyes have a shorter range than humans, and the fact they are rarely pointing at the same target makes their depth perception not as good either. But they can see a broader range of light than humans, into both the UV and infrared spectras.

Ears

Elven hearing is much more acute than in humans. They are capable of learning to echolocate, although this is not an innate skill. What their ears are used for in the wild is eother detecting predators or searching for insects crawling under bark or other coverings.

Smell and Taste

The nose and tongue just be condensed into on section as elves are only capable of detecting two flavours, good and bad.

Electro-sense

Elves have the ability to generate a mild electrical field from a muscle known as the Hanakka. This is expressed from the venemous spurs on the hands elbows and ankles of the elves.

They can use this field to sense and connect with the minds of eachother, and can learn to do so with humans, artificial intellects and halflings. This sixth sense and language is known as Thism. Dwarves are completely immune to Thism but can still be detected physically. This is the origin of the common elven belief that dwarves do not have souls.

Third Fourth Fifth and Sixth, Seventh and EightjEyes

Elven brain house a row of 6 nerve clusters, which in the distant past were vestigial eyes.

Much akin to the amygdala these eyes all perform functions important to the running of the body and its effective transition into puberty. But these eyes seem to be linked at a deep fundamental subatomic level to the fabric of reality itself. Elves describe spellcraft as the opening and shutting of these eyes to control the flow of the Six Strings of Magic.

This means that with the exception of the Giant Kings (who are ⅓ elf ⅓human/halfling and ⅓Thri-Keen) they are the only known inherently magical species of sentient beings known to the Skorkowsky Institute.

Bioluminescant Bacteria: Occasionally Infests Elf eyes, means they can see in complete darkness but long term causes blindness.

Kith Spiders: A eusocial species of spiders. Controlled by the Elvish Maunts who direct their efforts imto making stylish clothes, rope and other necesitties.

Wizards: Humans who have either undergone genetherapy to incorporate elven genetics in order to use magic or be descended from such an induvidual. Were said to be the first step to curing the Darkening and all Seelie hold on to the childish hope in their throats (the symbolic centre of cognition in elven philosophy) that if the broken remnants of Humanity can just pick themselves up after the Forth Becoming nearly wiped them out, that they can resume progress on that goal. That someone will save them.

Elves choose their own names, often picking for themselves a title.

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Elves once controlled a vast interstellar empire fuelled by magic and created adtificial gods. It went into a state of civil war and the last Prime Minister of this Great Empire made one final god with his last wish, that his people should survive but that they would never take root again, for the sake of all life in the Universe