Elves

Elves The First Mortals.

Elves, are fading remnants of the age of gods. When the world was young and gods and titans walked the earth, the splendor of great elven civilizations crowned the land. Now only ruins remain. The white spires if Scyllaea, jewel of the sea, are lost beneath the waves, a thousand secrets drowned. The great temples and pyramids of cursed Nys are dry as bones beneath the sun, buried by sand and desert winds.

Many ancient ruins cover Arkadia, their stones tumbled forgotten by all but time. Faceless elven caryatids stand in crumbling colonnades, open to the sky. Worn stones trace the lines of tumbled walls, and toppled columns lie like fallen trees among the heads of wheat and dry grass. So ancient are these elven ruins that none who live can claim to have known their builders, their secrets lost, riddled only now in the worn shapes of bare stone.

Sea, Sand, and Wood

Oreyan elves have tanned tawny or bronze skin with dark hair and eyes. Most wear their hair long and wild or bound it in a thick plait, though some crop it short.

Scyllaean elves have fair skin, with eyes of blue, gray, and green, as the sea. They have striking hair of black or gold, and typically wear it loose or in elaborate coiled braids.

Nyssian elves, or drow, have dark skin that ranges from obsidian black to onyx grey. Their hair is white, though it's common for Nyssians to shave their hair or dye it with henna. Their eyes range from blood red to canid shades of orange and gold.

Epithets. Elven surnames are epithets earned by an elf. They may be gained and lost throughout the elf's life. Young elves have only a single epithet, often given for their birth or appearance. Older elves may have several, give for their manners, occupation, or the deeds they have performed.

Elf Traits

Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age. Elves though long lived can age and die like all mortals. They reach adulthood in a century, and can live for over seven hundred years.

Alignment. Elves are vestiges of a lost age, their civilizations fallen. They are untethered by the laws of humans and are often chaotic. Oreyan elves are fierce protectors of all mortal life. Scyllaean elves, wild as the sea, are distant, veiled in secrets and prophecy. Both are typically good or neutral. The drow of Nys, however, cursed and driven beneath the sands, are more often evil.

Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.

Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision. Accustomed to ancient ruins and shadowed woods, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.

Immortal Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.

Trance. Elves cannot sleep. Instead they enter a trance, remaining semiconscious for 4 hours a day. While in this state you rarely dream, though such visions, when they come, are often seen as messages from the gods and ascribed importance. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefits that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.

Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish. Elvish is said to be the tongue of the gods, the language spoken before the age of men and bronze. Few written pieces survive, for the Oreyans do not write their secret tongue. Many fragments remain in the sunken ruins of lost Scyllaea, much sought after by the Ithean philosophers for their mystical secrets. The Nyssian are said to carve their words as pictures on the walls of stone tombs, sheets of lead, and scrolls of human skin.

Subraces. When you choose the subrace of your character, you can choose from among the following options or those presented in the core handbook.

Oreyan Elves

Oreyan elves are an ancient Amazonian race of warriors and huntresses. They have no walls or cities, but are one with the land, the arid hills and grass, the gnarled trees and tumbled stones. Many choose to live in the wilds, ancient woods, and ivy-covered ruins. Like the dryads, many are fearful and curious of the world of men. Others walk freely among humans, their hatred of the titans making them natural allies to those who would protect Arkadia.

Oreyan elves dwell primarily in the Oreya's Wood, a sacred forest stretching from Crixos to Ithea. Beset by the spreading blight from the south, many have been driven from their ancestral home. Others can be found throughout the wild places of Arkadia, ranging the mountains of Garagos in pursuit of orc marauders or guiding a band of Kryptan hoplites through dry manticore-infested hills.

Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increase by 1.

Huntress' Accuracy. Whenever you make a ranged attack roll and roll a 1 you can reroll the die, but you must use the new roll even if it is another 1.

Elven Weapon Aptitude. You have proficiency with the javelin, spear, war spear, simple bow, and recurve bow.

Amazonian Stride. Your base walking speed is increased by 5 feet.

Scyllaean Elf

Scyllaean elves are those descended from the few who heeded a prophecy of doom and escaped the fall of Sycllaea, that ancient and wondrous island city lost beneath the waves.

They came from the sea to Arkadia bearing great gifts from the gods, the fragmented arcane secrets of their fallen civilization. Seen by some as the children of Thessa, it is said they taught the first Itheans magic. Few of their kind remain, lost scions of those long cast adrift from their drowned home. Still, ancient magic clings to their scattered lineage, manifesting in powerful philosophers and seers, the legacy of lost Scyllaea.

Most Scyllaean elves dwell in Ithea, the closest city to the shattered islands of their lost home, where they are highly valued for their innate skill in magic and love of the sea. Others live as hermits along Arkadia's blue-green shores or the broken island ruins of their lost kingdom, hearing in the waves the muffled whispers of their ancestors, never far from the sea. Wherever they stray, they are marked by tragedy, beauty, and mystery. The most famed among them is the Oracle, an ancient and powerful seer, sequestered in the high reaches of Mount Hyperium.

Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.

Gift of Prophecy. When you trance during a long rest you are sometimes visited by prophetic dreams whose women's and portents may give you insight into the future. When you finish a long rest, roll 1d20. On a roll of 20 you can ask a single question concerning a specific goal, event, or activity to occur within 7 days. The GM offers a truthful reply. The reply might be a vision, a cryptic rhyme, or an omen.

Thessa's Trident. You learn the magic missile spell and can cast it once without expending a spell slot. You regain the ability to cast it in this way when you finish a long rest. at 3rd and 5th level the number of times you can cast the spell in this way without expending a spell slot is increased by 1. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for this spell.

Lost Knowledge. You are proficient in the History and Arcana skills.

Nyssian Elf (Drow)

Nyssian Drow are the cursed and mysterious people of Nys, the desert land across the sea. There only crumbling pyramids break the duns, the tops of great underground spires, uncovered in the sands by desert winds. The drow dwell in ancient stone tombs and cities, buried beneath the sands of their withered and dried land. They say the oldest tunnels of their underworld were carved by the massive jaws of the Great Wurm, the titan slain by Crixys. Their undying priests tend to its whispering husk, preparing for its prophesied return. Their highest caste are the pharaohs, liches beholden to the dead Wurm, their hearts sealed in canopic jars in pursuit of the true immortality that is the dark promise of their master.

Nyssian drow in Arkadia are exceptionally rare. In their esoteric culture, to leave their vast and sprawling tunnels is anathema. Once on the surface, touched by the sun, a drow's caste is broken. Unfortunately outcasts wander the sands of Nys, withered husks, their burned skin wrapped in bandages, white eyes seared blind by the sun. Some lucky few exiled drow are found by tomb raiders, Arkadians set out from Crixos, who sail across the sea to plunder forgotten treasure from the sand-swept ruins of cursed Nys.

Those that come to dwell in Arkadia are exiled, whether by choice or banishment, never to return. Most make their home in the blighted city of Crixos. Immune to the plague and imbued with proclivity for the undead, they are met by the Crixian priests with hostility and mistrust, begrudgingly accepted only for the utility of their strange gifts. They are welcomed by the Crixian Philosophers' school who hold no reservations about necromancy, viewing it as a tool with which to fight fire with fire. They offer Nyssian drow a place in their ranks in exchange for occult secrets and ancient embalmic formulae.

Darksight. While in bright light, you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight. While in nonmagical darkness, you have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.

Whispers of the Wurm. You learn the command spell and can cast it at will, without expending a spell slot, but you may only target Undead creatures when it is cast in this way.

Curse of Nyx. You are immune to disease