Dark Elves



Physical characteristics:

As with all sub-race of elves, Autumn Elves are clearly distinguished from their seasonal cousins by their dark olive skin, and striking golden, hazel or pale green eyes. As their name suggests, Autumn Elven hair bears the colours of autumn, ranging from fiery copper and strawberry blonde to a dark green in some cases. They stand at an average of between 5' and 6', and usually weigh between 9st and 12st with a slender but athletic build. Preferring to dress in more luxurious clothing, they often craft their clothes from silks and rich cottons and choose to use colours that match their autumnal surroundings; reds and other earthy tones. Autumn Elves are slightly more agile and stronger than the other seasonal elves.

Psychology:

Autumn Elves, like Summer Elves are usually very composed and level-headed. Whilst they appear aloof and imperious to other races, Autumn Elves have no aversion for venturing out of their woodland homes, and sometimes enjoy being amongst other civilizations for long periods of time. They hold a great love for art, dancing, singing and music, and take pleasure in learning other culture's arts and music, as well as their own. However, they possess impassioned views, holding firm to beliefs and judgements; they are not quick to anger, but once angered will fiercely defend that which they believe in. The only things Autumn Elves have intolerance for is the desecration of nature, and will fervently fight anyone who actively seeks to destroy it.

Abilities:

Like all elves, they are naturally dexterous, agile and intelligent. However, Autumn Elves have a number of abilities that is unique to their sub-race. They can move swiftly through rough terrain and forests, and are preternaturally aware of surroundings, especially natural surroundings. They are more easily able to communicate with animals and nature, and as such feel more of a connection to them. Additionally, Autumn Elves have a natural penchant for learning music and art, and more quickly learn to play instruments and write music than other elves.

Culture:

Wood elves consider themselves the heirs of the ancient eladrin empires established prior to the Crown Wars, but they share few of the cultural characteristics that marked such early realms as Aryvandaar and Ilythiir. Although a proud people, wood elves feel that compassion is a greater virtue than strength and wood elven realms are less concerned with expansion than they are with maintaining amiable relations with their neighbors. Wood elves are not nomadic, however, as is common amongst the wild elves and instead are organized into scattered, carefully concealed villages united under a gerontocratic hierarchy composed of village councils consisting of the most distinguished families' eldest members. These councils are often advised by local druids, whose influence plays no small part in wood elven politics and who frequently serve as the webbing that bind any number of villages together as one realm.

Compared with other Tel-quessir, wood elves have a notable disinterest in the arcane arts. To a wood elf, the wizard's spells are little different from the mason's castle walls or the tiller's plow - a means of controlling the natural world, which is contrary to the common ethic of living in harmony with nature rather than trying to dominate it that so many wood elves espouse. As such, wood elven adventurers are more likely to take on careers that do not require the use of arcane magic. In particular, many are drawn to the path of the fighter, the ranger, or the rogue, relying on their natural-born skill to overcome obstacles. Compared with other Tel-quessir very few wood elves go on to become spellsingers or bladesingers. The one major exception to the wood elven taboo on arcane magic are the arcane archers, who count among their number several wood elves. Other wood elves from more remote areas are drawn to the ways of the barbarian while many religious wood elves become druids with clerics often seen in much the same light as wizards. Those wood elves who do become clerics might eventually become hierophants. Many wood elven adventurers also became Harpers prior to the organization's decline in the Era of Upheaval.

Art and leisure:

Wood elves commonly feel that they are in harmony with their natural surroundings and an examination of their art helps to justify this belief. While wood elves do not wander like wild animals as the wild elves do, wood elves do their best to make a minimal impact on their natural surroundings, a fact reflected in their architecture. Frequently, wood elven homes are made of natural fieldstone or carefully furnished wood but on occasion wood elves have been known to do without even these creature comforts, living in the limbs of mighty trees or sheltered caves, rejecting furniture or any possessions they cannot carry with them. So close do wood elven villages resemble their surroundings that humans have been known to wander through one without even noticing. Increased contact with other races since the end of the Retreat has caused some of these cultural practices to come into question but for the large part the wood elves of today live much the same as their ancestors did.

In keeping with their naturalistic inclination, wood elves are not particularly fine metalworkers and have no interest in developing any such skills. However, wood elves are among some of the world's finest carpenters and stoneworkers, masters in the crafting of bows and arrows as well as in leather tanning. Wood elves have even developed a number of specialized arrows, including those that fly further than usual as well as some that are used as signal devices. So carefully guarded are wood elven crafting secrets that even experienced fletchers from other races have difficulty emulating wood elven designs. Wood elven leather armor also often doubles as camouflage, disguising a wood elven hunter from potential enemies. Compared with wild elven designs, wood elven crafting often looks surprisingly elegant, although they are often made of the same materials and use similar methods, reflecting some of the difference between the two elven subraces.

While wood elves feel that is best to make a minimal impact on their surroundings, the race has no particular aversion to meat-eating and are passionate hunters. Many hours of the typical wood elf's life is spent on the hunt, which is both a practical activity and a pleasurable one. Most of the time that wood elves are not hunting they are enjoying themselves at ease within the highest branches of their forest homes. Wood elves do not, however, commonly keep pets, but instead form bonds with local wildlife in a manner similar to that of a ranger. Wood elves are particularly fond of mountain lions, pumas, and leopards.

Magic and religion:

Wood elves are generally uncomfortable with most forms of magic, viewing wizards and other arcanists with no small amount of distrust. Clerics and other divine spellcasters fare little better in wood elven eyes, which see their prayers as a useless call to distant and alien gods. However, wood elves are largely at ease with the ways of the primal magic used by druids, barbarians, shamans, and wardens, which they feel is the truest expression of supernatural power - or rather, a reflection of nature itself, used to protect the wilderness. However, wood elves are not completely adverse to arcane magic and wood elven bards, sorcerers, and wizards are far from unknown, although wood elves as a whole have no particular tradition of the Art.

Like other Tel-quessir, the wood elves largely worship the Seldarine, but unlike their kin, they do not do so exclusively. Many wood elves have a special place in their heart for the gods Silvanus and Mielikki, whose protection of the wilderness is something the wood elves themselves try to espouse. Among the elven gods, the wood elves most commonly worship Solonor Thelandira and Rillifane Rallathil, who like Silvanus and Mielikki, have particular connections to the untamed wilderness. Solonor, as the god of archery, is perhaps the most popular god amongst the wood elves, who will sometimes invoke him as their protector and patron deity just prior to a battle.

Relations with other races:

Although a proud people themselves, wood elves often feel that their Tel-quessir kindred too often put on an air of superiority and xenophobia that is ultimately detrimental. Wood elves look to the examples of the ancient eladrin empires and, seeing failure after failure, feel that their aim should be compassion and humility, rather than political or military strength. Unlike many of their kin, wood elves feel that their fates are inextricably tied to that of Faerûn's other races and they make no effort to pull away or isolate themselves. Ironically, so reclusive are wood elven settlements that in spite of their open nature, wood elves rarely actually see people from outside their race.

Of all the humanoid races of Faerûn the ones most familiar with the wood elves are the humans and dwarves native to the North, who often live within the vicinity of the fey. Still, few humans or dwarves have ever actually met a wood elf and when they do it is often largely by chance. However, when meetings do occur they are largely friendly and like the moon elven eladrin, wood elves see themselves as allies and teachers of humanity, rather than as rivals. Wood elves also have a long tradition of friendship with the shield dwarves of Ammarindar dating back to the reign of Earlann, which has carried on into the present. Wood elves also feel a kinship with the sapient giant owls, with whom they form a symbiotic relationship; in return for the elves acting as protectors for the owls, the birds of prey often act as advance scouts for wood elven warriors.

Gnomes and halflings are less frequent guests among the wood elves, but they are generally seen favorably. Conversely, wood elves, like most Tel-quessir, have a strong contempt for orcs, as well as for gnolls, though their reasons are less about the ancient enmity between Corellon and Gruumsh and more out of the devastation that raiding parties often bring to the forests that wood elves hold dear.

Homelands:

Wood elves are the most common of the elves in Faerûn and can be found in many scattered groups across the continent. Many can be found in the Elven Court (Semberholem, Tangled Trees, and the old Elven Court itself), the Great Dale, Tethyr, the Western Heartlands, the Forest of Lethyr, the High Forest, and the Wealdath.