The Elves of Otherworld
Like yōkai, trolls, giants, jinn, and a hundred other peoples, the fey are a vast family of sapient beings with countless sub-kinds and ethnic branches. Within that family sits the group humans lump together as “elves”: the long-lived, human-shaped peoples whose oldest halls and kinlands lie across Europe’s myth-ecologies.
“Elf/Elves” is not an endonym. It’s a human umbrella that stuck—useful in mixed company, a little vulgar in court. Among themselves they favor their own names and lineages: the Sidhe of Éire, the Sith of Alba, the Tylwyth Teg of Cymru, Les Fées of Francia, the Álfar/Alflar of the northern forests, the Mouras Encantadas along the northwestern Iberian rivers, and many more besides. They know they are kin, but not a monolith.
Shared threads exist—place-bonds, glamour and courtesy, craft as truth, names that carry power—but each branch keeps its own law, rites, and temper. Biology and “evolution” aren’t alien to Otherworld; they’re simply read through oath, place, and story rather than the lab. In everyday speech “elf” will do; in high society or scholarship it marks you as an outsider unless you can also speak the proper names.
What they share in common: grace, beauty, prowess, and poise. By human measures no elf reads as “ugly,” and the most radiant among them move with an effortless, almost ephemeral allure that has caught the eyes—and hearts—of gods. Beauty, for most elven peoples, is not only appearance but bearing: how one speaks, keeps an oath, and works a craft.
Elves are not humans with long lifespans and pointed ears. Human fantasy has softened them. In truth they stand closer to divinities than to mortals. They are true immortals: aging halts at physical adulthood; death comes only through violence, wasting illness, curse, or mischance. Their baseline sits near peak human capability, and many far surpass it—one might bend a metal rod in bare hands, run a ridge as if it were level ground, or slip between arrow flights with frightening ease. Add centuries of practice and you have warriors, judges, poets, and makers whose competence feels supernatural because, for them, it is.
Do not mistake courtesy for softness. Across branches they differ in law and temperament, but the constant remains: elves walk near the power of heroes and demigods, not the limits of ordinary men.
Eire — Aos Sidhe
The Aos Sidhe are place-bound aristocrats of hills, fords, lake isles, and ringforts. Their courts prize beauty as conduct: measured speech, precise craft, fierce courtesy. Poets and judges still matter; hospitality and guest-right keep hall and road safe. Folklore peeks through—banished queens in wave and hill, keeners who warn before sorrow, feast halls that open at Samhain—yet in the modern era they glide through galleries and councils as easily as they once crossed a moon-lit ford. Alba — The Sith Visceral, storm-veined, and clan-tough, the Scottish Sith ride under rival poles called Seelie and Unseelie. Seelie favors truce and measured mercy; Unseelie answers harms with ordeal and lessons that bite. Heather moors and sea-mist are their home ground; bean nighe warn at fords, baobhan sith hunt with a insatiable thirst for blood, and redcaps thrive where keepers have failed. Clan feuds are formal, but real—songs and blades settle what petitions cannot. Cymru — Ellyllon
Shining lake courts and hill raths hold the Ellyllon: graceful, exacting, fond of gifts that teach. Their stories remember lake maidens, cattle-boons, and the peril of breaking small household taboos. Music and measured generosity are valued; satire can correct as sharply as steel. Thin places cluster around wells and mountaintarns—cross politely, and you may leave with luck; cross rudely, and your “gold” might crumble to leaves by dawn. Albion — The Faerie Courts
Albion’s fae run by season: Summer’s largesse, Winter’s severity, Spring’s intrigue, Autumn’s reckoning—and the high style of a reigning queen trying to keep them from devouring each other. Brownies, piskies, greenwood lords, and courtly sprites all move under these banners serving its elven lords and ladies. Pageantry is weapon and shield: tourneys, masques, changeling disputes, and revels that tilt politics as surely as battles do. Galicia & Asturias — Mouras Encantadas
Along castros, bridges, and sea-cliffs dwell the Mouras Encantadas: treasure-warders and river queens with gold combs and serpentine grace. They test passersby with riddles, favors, and tasks that sound simple—lifting a stone at dawn, fetching water without spilling a drop—but always measure truth of character. Their cities are old as granite and salt; those who free an enchanted moura win more than wealth—they gain a patron with a very long memory. Francia — Les Fées
Les Fées rule polished courts where architecture itself holds enchantment: staircases that protect secrets, doors that keep promises, mirrors that demand honesty. Melusine presides as high queen with a council of godmothers, lake ladies, and forest dames as its rulers below her. Beauty is edged: boons come with terms, and slights are repaid in style. Expect salons, warded vaults, and intrigues that can be deadlier than any blade—ask the Tarasque that sleeps under certain river stones and it will tell you the smile of Les Fées maiden defeats dragons sharper then a sword. The Teutonwoods — Alben
In the deep, resin-scented forests the Alben keep to moss halls and root-vaults. The Erlking (often styled the Hunt-Lord) and his daughters ride the storm roads, calling the Wild Hunt to cull monsters and cow the faithless. Moss-folk, wood-wives, and night riders serve under antlered banners. Their etiquette is simple and sharp: keep the fire, mind the path, pay for what you take, and never try to outbluff the Hunt when thunder is on the ridge. Álfheimr & Niflheimr — The Alflar
Three kindreds, one people: the Ljósálfar of bright uplands, the Dökkálfar of shadowed forests and peaks, and the Svartálfar in crystal caverns allied with the dvergar. “Light” and “dark” are optics, not morals: duty and craft take precedence over softness or severity. Rune-lore, seer-craft, and iron-smart metallurgy shape their power. Expect champions who glitter like noon and scouts who are silence made flesh—each as relentless and fierce as northern weather. Mare Internum — The Nymph Realms
Here are the elves of the greater Nymph lineage: naiads of fountains and rivers, oceanids and nereids in sea-foam, dryads wedded to trees, lampades with underworld torches—and satyrs who turn music and mirth into power. Groves, springs, grottoes, and island palaces are their natural courts. They reward reverence for place and punish desecration swiftly; a single shared cup at the right shrine can earn a guide through storms no map can chart. Rodinia — The Vilas
Across the Slavic marches the Vilas reign in wind-bent meadows and birch-dark hills. Swan-maidens and storm-dancers, they prize freedom, courage, and elegant reciprocity. Hunters who spare a wounded stag may find themselves led home by a white-cloaked lady; boasters who trample dance-rings wake to weeks of ill weather and a lesson they will not forget. They bridge West and East, fluent in both, and their hospitality is as fierce as their pride.
“Elf/Elves” is not an endonym. It’s a human umbrella that stuck—useful in mixed company, a little vulgar in court. Among themselves they favor their own names and lineages: the Sidhe of Éire, the Sith of Alba, the Tylwyth Teg of Cymru, Les Fées of Francia, the Álfar/Alflar of the northern forests, the Mouras Encantadas along the northwestern Iberian rivers, and many more besides. They know they are kin, but not a monolith.
Shared threads exist—place-bonds, glamour and courtesy, craft as truth, names that carry power—but each branch keeps its own law, rites, and temper. Biology and “evolution” aren’t alien to Otherworld; they’re simply read through oath, place, and story rather than the lab. In everyday speech “elf” will do; in high society or scholarship it marks you as an outsider unless you can also speak the proper names.
What they share in common: grace, beauty, prowess, and poise. By human measures no elf reads as “ugly,” and the most radiant among them move with an effortless, almost ephemeral allure that has caught the eyes—and hearts—of gods. Beauty, for most elven peoples, is not only appearance but bearing: how one speaks, keeps an oath, and works a craft.
Elves are not humans with long lifespans and pointed ears. Human fantasy has softened them. In truth they stand closer to divinities than to mortals. They are true immortals: aging halts at physical adulthood; death comes only through violence, wasting illness, curse, or mischance. Their baseline sits near peak human capability, and many far surpass it—one might bend a metal rod in bare hands, run a ridge as if it were level ground, or slip between arrow flights with frightening ease. Add centuries of practice and you have warriors, judges, poets, and makers whose competence feels supernatural because, for them, it is.
Do not mistake courtesy for softness. Across branches they differ in law and temperament, but the constant remains: elves walk near the power of heroes and demigods, not the limits of ordinary men.
Eire — Aos Sidhe
The Aos Sidhe are place-bound aristocrats of hills, fords, lake isles, and ringforts. Their courts prize beauty as conduct: measured speech, precise craft, fierce courtesy. Poets and judges still matter; hospitality and guest-right keep hall and road safe. Folklore peeks through—banished queens in wave and hill, keeners who warn before sorrow, feast halls that open at Samhain—yet in the modern era they glide through galleries and councils as easily as they once crossed a moon-lit ford. Alba — The Sith Visceral, storm-veined, and clan-tough, the Scottish Sith ride under rival poles called Seelie and Unseelie. Seelie favors truce and measured mercy; Unseelie answers harms with ordeal and lessons that bite. Heather moors and sea-mist are their home ground; bean nighe warn at fords, baobhan sith hunt with a insatiable thirst for blood, and redcaps thrive where keepers have failed. Clan feuds are formal, but real—songs and blades settle what petitions cannot. Cymru — Ellyllon
Shining lake courts and hill raths hold the Ellyllon: graceful, exacting, fond of gifts that teach. Their stories remember lake maidens, cattle-boons, and the peril of breaking small household taboos. Music and measured generosity are valued; satire can correct as sharply as steel. Thin places cluster around wells and mountaintarns—cross politely, and you may leave with luck; cross rudely, and your “gold” might crumble to leaves by dawn. Albion — The Faerie Courts
Albion’s fae run by season: Summer’s largesse, Winter’s severity, Spring’s intrigue, Autumn’s reckoning—and the high style of a reigning queen trying to keep them from devouring each other. Brownies, piskies, greenwood lords, and courtly sprites all move under these banners serving its elven lords and ladies. Pageantry is weapon and shield: tourneys, masques, changeling disputes, and revels that tilt politics as surely as battles do. Galicia & Asturias — Mouras Encantadas
Along castros, bridges, and sea-cliffs dwell the Mouras Encantadas: treasure-warders and river queens with gold combs and serpentine grace. They test passersby with riddles, favors, and tasks that sound simple—lifting a stone at dawn, fetching water without spilling a drop—but always measure truth of character. Their cities are old as granite and salt; those who free an enchanted moura win more than wealth—they gain a patron with a very long memory. Francia — Les Fées
Les Fées rule polished courts where architecture itself holds enchantment: staircases that protect secrets, doors that keep promises, mirrors that demand honesty. Melusine presides as high queen with a council of godmothers, lake ladies, and forest dames as its rulers below her. Beauty is edged: boons come with terms, and slights are repaid in style. Expect salons, warded vaults, and intrigues that can be deadlier than any blade—ask the Tarasque that sleeps under certain river stones and it will tell you the smile of Les Fées maiden defeats dragons sharper then a sword. The Teutonwoods — Alben
In the deep, resin-scented forests the Alben keep to moss halls and root-vaults. The Erlking (often styled the Hunt-Lord) and his daughters ride the storm roads, calling the Wild Hunt to cull monsters and cow the faithless. Moss-folk, wood-wives, and night riders serve under antlered banners. Their etiquette is simple and sharp: keep the fire, mind the path, pay for what you take, and never try to outbluff the Hunt when thunder is on the ridge. Álfheimr & Niflheimr — The Alflar
Three kindreds, one people: the Ljósálfar of bright uplands, the Dökkálfar of shadowed forests and peaks, and the Svartálfar in crystal caverns allied with the dvergar. “Light” and “dark” are optics, not morals: duty and craft take precedence over softness or severity. Rune-lore, seer-craft, and iron-smart metallurgy shape their power. Expect champions who glitter like noon and scouts who are silence made flesh—each as relentless and fierce as northern weather. Mare Internum — The Nymph Realms
Here are the elves of the greater Nymph lineage: naiads of fountains and rivers, oceanids and nereids in sea-foam, dryads wedded to trees, lampades with underworld torches—and satyrs who turn music and mirth into power. Groves, springs, grottoes, and island palaces are their natural courts. They reward reverence for place and punish desecration swiftly; a single shared cup at the right shrine can earn a guide through storms no map can chart. Rodinia — The Vilas
Across the Slavic marches the Vilas reign in wind-bent meadows and birch-dark hills. Swan-maidens and storm-dancers, they prize freedom, courage, and elegant reciprocity. Hunters who spare a wounded stag may find themselves led home by a white-cloaked lady; boasters who trample dance-rings wake to weeks of ill weather and a lesson they will not forget. They bridge West and East, fluent in both, and their hospitality is as fierce as their pride.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Elves are humanoid mammals—pointed ears, expressive almond-shaped eyes, and movement that reads more feline than simian is a trait shared across all lines. They stop aging at physical adulthood; death comes by injury, illness, curse, or mischance, not senescence. Baseline physiology sits at or above peak human: denser musculature and superior proprioception/balance, fast reflex arcs, keen low-light vision, heighted senses and exceptional vestibular control. Innate magic augments homeostasis and healing, lets them endure cold, heat, and exertion with little visible strain, and makes their presence feel “charged” even when at rest.
Biological Traits
Phenotype varies widely. Skin, hair, and eye tones span and exceed human ranges—sea-blues, oak-leaf greens, moon-silver, night-blue among them—and may shift subtly with season or place. Height and build run from human-average to markedly tall or spare or sturdily built depending on lineage, yet individual variation is broad. Many show place-born adaptations (clean dark-sight underground, pressure-calm lungs near deep water, cold/heat tolerance in extreme climates). Sensitivity to coarse iron ranges by people and individual; minor contact is tolerable and may even have little to no effect for some, yet can be disruptive for others causing Iron Rashes and discomfort.
Genetics and Reproduction
Elven genetics are near-human: same basic biology, meiosis, and gestation mechanics, with cellular aging effectively halted after physical adulthood. The balancing cost of immortality is fertility—conception windows are infrequent, implantation is selective, and successful pregnancies are rare. Gestation tends to run longer than human (about a year), with wide natural spacing between births. Twins are uncommon.
Elves reach physical maturity at a human-like pace (late teens to early twenties). Because birth is uncommon, pregnancies are carefully safeguarded and widely celebrated. Cross-ancestry pairings with humans are possible but infrequent and unpredictable; viable children occur rarely and tend to inherit partial longevity rather than full elven immortality. Environmental stressors—violent trauma, severe magical disruption, heavy industrial pollution—are known to reduce already-low conception rates, so Earth-facing households take precautions.
Elves reach physical maturity at a human-like pace (late teens to early twenties). Because birth is uncommon, pregnancies are carefully safeguarded and widely celebrated. Cross-ancestry pairings with humans are possible but infrequent and unpredictable; viable children occur rarely and tend to inherit partial longevity rather than full elven immortality. Environmental stressors—violent trauma, severe magical disruption, heavy industrial pollution—are known to reduce already-low conception rates, so Earth-facing households take precautions.
Growth Rate & Stages
Elven development closely mirrors humans: infancy, childhood, and adolescence proceed at comparable pace, with physical adulthood reached in the late teens to early twenties. At that point senescence halts; appearance remains stable for the rest of life, though injury, illness, or misfortune can still end it.
After adulthood, “age” is social, not biological. Communities mark stages by mastery and service—child, youth/apprentice, adult, and elder—where elder is an honor earned through decades of proven craft, judgment, and stewardship rather than wrinkles. Because births are rare, families and guilds invest heavily in long apprenticeships, and many adults cycle through multiple crafts across the centuries. Chronological age can be muddied by time-slip between realms, so records lean on witness and reputation more than calendars.
After adulthood, “age” is social, not biological. Communities mark stages by mastery and service—child, youth/apprentice, adult, and elder—where elder is an honor earned through decades of proven craft, judgment, and stewardship rather than wrinkles. Because births are rare, families and guilds invest heavily in long apprenticeships, and many adults cycle through multiple crafts across the centuries. Chronological age can be muddied by time-slip between realms, so records lean on witness and reputation more than calendars.
Ecology and Habitats
Elves are as adaptable as humans and just as widespread. They settle deserts, coasts, forests, mountains, tundra, and cities, reshaping architecture, clothing, and daily rhythms to suit the place—and using magic to smooth the edges without defying the land. Over time a deep bond to home exerts a shaping pull: natives of waters grow effortlessly amphibious, cave-dwellers see cleanly in darkness, highland folk shrug off thin air and cold. Extremes common to an ancestral habitat tend to trouble them little.
Stewardship is part of habitation. Homes are built to harmonize with wind, water, and light; waste is mended or repurposed; travel follows established paths and seasons to spare breeding grounds and sacred sites. In Earth-facing cities, they recreate key cues—green courts, running water, quiet rooms, wards against iron noise—to keep senses balanced. Thin places and thresholds anchor communities, and reciprocity with the local ecology (offerings, maintenance, seasonal rites) is considered basic rent rather than piety.
Stewardship is part of habitation. Homes are built to harmonize with wind, water, and light; waste is mended or repurposed; travel follows established paths and seasons to spare breeding grounds and sacred sites. In Earth-facing cities, they recreate key cues—green courts, running water, quiet rooms, wards against iron noise—to keep senses balanced. Thin places and thresholds anchor communities, and reciprocity with the local ecology (offerings, maintenance, seasonal rites) is considered basic rent rather than piety.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Elves are omnivores with slightly more efficient digestion than humans. They enjoy meat as readily as grain, fruit, and dairy, and many traditional feasts center on hunting or fishing alongside breads, cheeses, and garden fare. The modern notion that elves are mostly vegetarian reads to them as a human misconception rather than a cultural truth.
Eating follows season and place: fresh, well-made, and minimally adulterated foods are preferred, with a strong bias toward local game, fish, oats/barley breads, butter, and orchard produce. Ferments (mead, heather ales, soft cheeses, pickled greens) are common staples; alcohol tolerance is high but purposeful—drink is for celebration, pact-sealing, or remembrance, not dullness. Short ritual fasts appear around certain rites or grief; long fasts are rare.
Cold iron taboos concern tools and architecture, not dietary minerals—trace iron in food is harmless. Utensils and cookware avoid coarse iron, favoring stone, bronze, or seasoned clay. Because their senses are acute, overly processed flavors, harsh chemical additives, and rancid fats are offensive; “simple done truly” beats complicated done poorly every time.
Eating follows season and place: fresh, well-made, and minimally adulterated foods are preferred, with a strong bias toward local game, fish, oats/barley breads, butter, and orchard produce. Ferments (mead, heather ales, soft cheeses, pickled greens) are common staples; alcohol tolerance is high but purposeful—drink is for celebration, pact-sealing, or remembrance, not dullness. Short ritual fasts appear around certain rites or grief; long fasts are rare.
Cold iron taboos concern tools and architecture, not dietary minerals—trace iron in food is harmless. Utensils and cookware avoid coarse iron, favoring stone, bronze, or seasoned clay. Because their senses are acute, overly processed flavors, harsh chemical additives, and rancid fats are offensive; “simple done truly” beats complicated done poorly every time.
Biological Cycle
Elves do not senesce, but they are strongly entrained to natural rhythms. Most show dawn–dusk peaks in clarity and grace; senses and “charge” rise around solstices, equinoxes, major storms, and festival eves like Samhain and Beltane. Lunar phase subtly shifts mood and focus, and the waxing/waning of local ley currents (“line-tides”) affects how quickly they recover effort and glamour after strain. After great exertion or grief, many observe a short “still season”—quiet weeks of low demand and restorative craft.
Fertility windows are rare and often synchronized to sky and place—first greening, certain full moons, or a local watershed’s turning. Periodic urges toward movement also appear: seasonal circuits to ancestral sites, night walks at new moon, or returns to thin places when the air feels “right.” In Earth-facing life they manage these pulls with routine, controlled light, water and wind sounds, and scheduled retreats; long separation from natural cues doesn’t age them, but it does dull spirit and edge until balance is restored.
Fertility windows are rare and often synchronized to sky and place—first greening, certain full moons, or a local watershed’s turning. Periodic urges toward movement also appear: seasonal circuits to ancestral sites, night walks at new moon, or returns to thin places when the air feels “right.” In Earth-facing life they manage these pulls with routine, controlled light, water and wind sounds, and scheduled retreats; long separation from natural cues doesn’t age them, but it does dull spirit and edge until balance is restored.
Behaviour
Elves across Otherworld—whether lake-born nymphs, northern Álfar, or hill-court fey—are wired for composure and intensity at once: high perception, slow pulse, long horizon. They prize elegance in thought and action—grace under pressure, precision in speech, beauty in work—and tend to sheath emotion behind poise. Reputation and mastery are core motivators; boredom is the unforgivable insult. They prefer contests that sharpen—wit, craft, skill—over blunt spectacle, and read rudeness, waste, and shoddy making as signs of inner disorder.
That poise casts a long shadow: a taste for poetic justice. Elves remember for centuries and repay harms with irony rather than noise—cutting verse, reputations unwound, lessons engineered to stick. Triggers are broadly shared: broken hospitality, treacherous deceit (while guile against a declared foe is a respected art), desecration of place, and any “good enough” work passed off as worthy. Mercy exists, but usually after the offender demonstrates understanding; cruelty for its own sake is despised, while cruelty framed as “beautiful punishment” is a known vice they guard against.
Cognitively they plan far ahead, tolerate delayed rewards, and lean toward curiosity over fear. Their heightened senses make them order-seeking—light, sound, texture matter—so they use ritual, breath, and social filters to keep balance. Public faces are deliberate (a courtesy, not a lie private bonds are fierce and loyal. Humor runs dry, paradox-loving, and often competitive; affection and rivalry come fastest to those who meet them in skill, sincerity, and style.
That poise casts a long shadow: a taste for poetic justice. Elves remember for centuries and repay harms with irony rather than noise—cutting verse, reputations unwound, lessons engineered to stick. Triggers are broadly shared: broken hospitality, treacherous deceit (while guile against a declared foe is a respected art), desecration of place, and any “good enough” work passed off as worthy. Mercy exists, but usually after the offender demonstrates understanding; cruelty for its own sake is despised, while cruelty framed as “beautiful punishment” is a known vice they guard against.
Cognitively they plan far ahead, tolerate delayed rewards, and lean toward curiosity over fear. Their heightened senses make them order-seeking—light, sound, texture matter—so they use ritual, breath, and social filters to keep balance. Public faces are deliberate (a courtesy, not a lie private bonds are fierce and loyal. Humor runs dry, paradox-loving, and often competitive; affection and rivalry come fastest to those who meet them in skill, sincerity, and style.
Additional Information
Social Structure
As varied as humanity’s: anything from city-states and court networks to village commons and guild federations. Hospitality norms and courtesy law recur across many communities, but there is no single “default” elven society.
Facial characteristics
Pointed ears and almond-shaped, highly expressive eyes are common. Facial symmetry and unblemished skin/hair are culturally prized, but features vary widely; subtle tells (e.g., unusual iris clarity) occur without being universal.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Originating in Otherworld’s European myth-ecologies, elves spread along trade routes, marriage alliances, and festival circuits wherever ley lines knot. Place-bound halls anchor old heartlands, but cosmopolitan enclaves thrive at river mouths, lake chains, mountain passes, and island corridors across Otherworld.
Earth-facing communities appear where “thin places” overlap major ports and cultural centers: discreet embassies in coastal cities and university towns, rural folds near ancient earthworks, and hidden courts layered behind museums, gardens, and bridges. Migration tends to come in pulses during ley surges; diaspora households keep language and courtesy while blending craft and law to pass unremarked in public and gather in private under their own roofs.
Earth-facing communities appear where “thin places” overlap major ports and cultural centers: discreet embassies in coastal cities and university towns, rural folds near ancient earthworks, and hidden courts layered behind museums, gardens, and bridges. Migration tends to come in pulses during ley surges; diaspora households keep language and courtesy while blending craft and law to pass unremarked in public and gather in private under their own roofs.
Average Intelligence
Typically above human average at baseline (long study, deep memory, strong patterning), but within human cognitive limits. Greatest edge is in concentration span and skill-stacking over centuries, not raw IQ.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Elves perceive the world at a finer grain than humans. Vision is acute in both low light and bright glare, with excellent color saturation, motion tracking, and depth judgment; many can read a face across a crowded hall or follow an arrow’s fletching mid-flight. Hearing reaches farther and resolves subtler timbres (footfalls on different floors, breath shifts, heartbeat cadence). Smell, taste, and touch are likewise heightened, giving them nuanced reads of place, craft quality, and mood—texture, temperature, and micro-vibrations register as clearly as sights and sounds.
Beyond the five senses, most elves feel the “pressure” of thresholds, the flow of glamour, and the tug of ley lines—an ambient extrasense for magic, intent, and place. This awareness aids balance, timing, and social read (when to speak, when to hold), and can be focused into brief “listening” trances to pick out truth from noise. The gift cuts both ways: crowded cities, harsh lighting, iron noise, and clashing scents can be tiring, so many learn breathwork, courtesy-filters, or light glamour to dampen input when needed.
Beyond the five senses, most elves feel the “pressure” of thresholds, the flow of glamour, and the tug of ley lines—an ambient extrasense for magic, intent, and place. This awareness aids balance, timing, and social read (when to speak, when to hold), and can be focused into brief “listening” trances to pick out truth from noise. The gift cuts both ways: crowded cities, harsh lighting, iron noise, and clashing scents can be tiring, so many learn breathwork, courtesy-filters, or light glamour to dampen input when needed.
Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms
No known obligate symbionts unique to elves. Ordinary pathogens and parasites affect them much like humans, with added sensitivities to Otherworld toxins and iron exposure. Frequent benign associations include household spirits, familiar animals, and tended plants rather than biological dependencies.
Civilization and Culture
History
A full chronicle would rival humanity’s in scope. What matters here: elves are a native Otherworld people whose deep evolutionary roots lie in Europe’s myth-ecologies. Many scholars hold that the nymph lineages are the oldest—river, grove, and sea dwellers from whom later elven branches diversified as cultures, climates, and story-currents shifted.
Across ages, elven peoples rose in place-bound city-states and court networks, traded and quarrelled with neighboring gods and spirits, and fought real wars against rival forces. When ley lines ran strong, they crossed into Earth often; when they waned, enclaves turned inward and history continued out of human sight. Today, as the lines quicken again, long diasporas, revived treaties, and Earth-facing embassies mark the latest chapter in a history that never paused when our folktales did.
Across ages, elven peoples rose in place-bound city-states and court networks, traded and quarrelled with neighboring gods and spirits, and fought real wars against rival forces. When ley lines ran strong, they crossed into Earth often; when they waned, enclaves turned inward and history continued out of human sight. Today, as the lines quicken again, long diasporas, revived treaties, and Earth-facing embassies mark the latest chapter in a history that never paused when our folktales did.
Origin/Ancestry
Otherworld Humanoid
Average Physique
Baseline sits near peak human with frequent outliers into “paranormal and even supernatural” speed, balance, and endurance. Expression varies by individual training and environment more than by any single “elf default.”
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Runs the full human range and beyond (sea-blues, night-blues, leaf-greens, moon-silver, etc.). Seasonal or place-linked shifts can occur. Freckling, metallic sheens, or faint vein-patterns appear in some lineages; cultural body art is common.
Related Ethnicities
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