elves

Elves

Avarazhan’s elves are best defined by their meekness, mystical artistry, and otherworldly beauty. Their culture is as charming as it is mysterious; few outsiders are ever blessed to experience their arcane ways. The Elves admire nature, magic, and pageantry, devoting much of their unusually long lives towards achieving unimaginable feats in their crafts. Elves see beauty in many things, particularly in nature and the earth that surrounds them. An elf’s perception of intellectual ideas, such as psychology and sociology, often comes from long-lived experience. Slow to strong emotional responses, elves tend to remain aloof and flexible amidst the unpredictabilities of life.

Yet, this apparent is not emptiness. When Ashiera, Paragon of the Elves, signed the Great Pact, she bound her people to watch the Realms across the generations, acting only when a threat had ripened beyond ordinary sight. Her Wardens of Will fiercely keep that charge — patient, far-seeing, and a bit mysterious to their shorter-lived neighbors. To outsiders the Elves operate under a shroud of secrecy and unpredictability. Elves, classically, often arrive late. The Elves, for their part, find the hurried races quite loud and impulsive.

Elves are characteristically deft and nimble. They are shorter than humans but taller than dwarves, often below 5 feet tall up to around 6 feet in height. Their lean, wiry frames typically weigh between 120 and 165 pounds. The dichotomy of sizes between men and women is quite minor.

Elven society famously exists amidst remote environments far away from the other races. Out of respect for nature, elves are usually self-sustaining hunter-gatherers, and typically do not desecrate their lands by clearing and plowing them. Elves from these rural communities don’t travel regularly, but an elf’s long life often leads to wanderlust. Sometimes, elves will immerse themselves into the culture of other men — likely out of curiosity, though there are several famous examples of cross-cultural zealots. Elves who thrive in the cities are viewed highly and often ascend to leadership. An elf committed to fighting the good fight undoubtedly brings incredible martial and magical skills to any fortunate ally.

Traits

• Ability Score Increase: +2 Dexterity
• Age: Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
• Size: Elves range from under 5 to about 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
• Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision: You have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in 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.
• Unclouded Will: Elven perception runs deep, and an elf’s will is read long before it can be touched. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
• Trance: Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”). After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit as 8 hours of sleep.
• Hunter’s Arms: Every elven childhood, whatever the clan, includes the hunt. You have proficiency with the spear, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
• Languages: You can speak, read and write Common and Elvish. While the language between Elvish clans differ in significant ways (they are not mutually intelligible), modern simplified Elvish combines the common dialects for speaking to foreign traders and other Elves. Standard Elvish is always written in the Common script. Regardless, the Elvish languages are lyrical and poetic, supplemented by thousands of years of Elvish music and chronicles.

Veldtwin

Veldtwin elves are the most common kinds of elves. Their exceptionally thin, athletic builds and keen senses allow them to move naturally amongst the massive trees, groves and thickets of the Veldt, Avarazhan’s impressively dense and tall forests. Although the Veldtwin, colloquially called wood elves in Common slang, inhabit a wide space of land, they do so in small communities hidden away from the average traveler’s path. A Veldtwin village strives to leave the forest as it found it - homes are woven into living flora rather than cut from it, and paths are grown rather than cleared. Veldtwin elves are curious and clever, often leaving their homes to join the rest of the world for years at a time before retreating to their temperate recluse. In fact, many Veldtwin get along so well with the outsiders that they are frequently found permanently residing among them. The Veldtwin elves exhibit physical colors similar to Inazria’s men, but more often include shades of copper, darker brown, or red. Their eyes are between green, brown, or bright hazel tones.

• Ability Score Increase: +1 Charisma
• Language: You can speak Veldtwin. Veldtwin words are short and consonant-heavy, resulting in a “choppy”, lighthearted sound. Their script is simple and quickly written.
• Fleet of Foot: Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.
• Mask of the Wild: You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.
• Verdant Passage: The thickets of the Veldt part for those born to them. You can move through nonmagical undergrowth, brambles, and dense foliage without being slowed by them, and you can do so without taking damage from thorns, spines, or similar natural hazards.

Sarukhwin

Called silver elves, Elves of the Rock, or simply rock elves in Common slang, the Sarukhwin of western Avarazhan’s plateau region are a shrewd people with a particular interest in the astrological and metaphysical world. Sarukhwin children famously spend their long school years devoted to arcane and astrological magic within the plateau’s academies (in many cases, these institutions are older than the Great Pact itself). They developed a rich tradition of studying the night sky, called the Shabnegah Samiteha, which has been kept without a single missed evening since before the earliest Ledger records. The tradition is quietly held to be among the oldest unbroken rituals in the world.

What makes those academies singular is less their age than their company. Three kinds of student have shared the plateau’s cloisters for some three thousand years: the astrologers who chart the sky and keep the Shabnegah Samiteha, the Magi who came looking for the theory beneath it, and the Astralists, whose gift bends space and time without ever bothering to explain itself. The plateau is thought to encourage the last of these, and the rock elves are quick to point out that it lies nearer the stars than any country in Avarazhan. Three thousand years of arguing with living subjects is how the academies earned the right to be believed.

However, Sarukhwin academies are known to be fiercely stubborn about the nature of their work. Generations ago, debate sparked over whether readings of the stars could be shared with outsiders, seperating the great academies. Although such discussions are old-fashioned and quite rare these days, its factions still color Sarukhwin politics and culture today.

Unlike other elves, the rock elves’ emphasis on reason and logic creates a culture enshrined by law and order. Sarukhwin political policy is highly complex. By the other elves, they are perceived as extremely rigid and somewhat arrogant or hubristic. Sarukhwin typically have silver, bronze, or darker skin tones, with hair of black, blondish-white, red, or dark brown shades. Their eyes can be silver, gold, or hazel colors. The rock elves are slightly taller than other elves on average, but not so thin as their Veldtwin cousins.

• Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence
• Language: You can speak Sarukhwin, a complex language developed over several centuries. The script is very intricate, detailed and challenging to read. Sarukhwin poems are visual and literary works of art. Spoken Sarukhwin involves many kinds of sounds.
• Astrological Attunement: Whenever you make an Intelligence (Arcana) check related to celestial phenomena, astrology, or magical history, you are considered proficient in the Arcana skill and add double your proficiency bonus to the check, instead of your normal proficiency bonus.
• Star Omens: Once per long rest, while under a night sky, you may consult the stars about a course of action you plan to take within the next day. The GM gives you a truthful omen: favorable, unfavorable, or mixed.

Sythiaq

Inhabiting Avarazhan’s far eastern tundras, the rare Sythiaq, also called white elves, snow elves or even Elves of the East in Common slang, have existed as small, close-knit villages for centuries. Generations of enduring some of the most difficult terrain in the world has developed capable, careful hunters. Sythiaq are known to be prudent and fiercely independent, if not a little bit stubborn. Despite this, white elves understand the dangers of their homeland: blizzards and windstorms of the far east’s wintry desert are not a kind place for the typical traveler. The Sythiaq have made incredible medical advances of their own and have produced many life-changing medicines and practices. As a result, Sythiaq villages typically feature well-equipped search and rescue teams for rescuing wanderers ill-equipped to traverse the wastelands.

Snow elves are thorough thinkers and naturally skilled at discerning the morality of others. They rarely have the time or motive to travel north or west towards other Elvish villages, let alone urban society. The relatively shorter, stockier white elves of the frozen far southeast exhibit blue or copper undertones throughout their sheet white or gray skin. Their hair comes in black, silver, mint green or bluish-white with little in between, and eyes resonating light blues, greens, grays and hazels.

• Ability Score Increase: +1 Wisdom
• Language: You can speak Sythiaq. It is a highly unique language with very little in common to the other Elvish languages. Traditionally, the Sythiaq language had no script, but has recently adopted the Common script for official purposes.
• Snowstrider: You are naturally acclimated to cold climates. You ignore difficult terrain caused by snow and ice, and you leave no tracks in snow.
• Whiteout Sight: Your vision is unimpeded by snowfall, fog, and blizzards, and you are immune to snow blindness.
• Detect Empathy: Creatures have disadvantage on Deception checks made against you.

Cahokari

Scattered across the northern Kystriland islands and parts of northern Inazria live the Cahokari, a group of rather distinct elves known for their agriculture, carefree attitudes, and strong history of martial mercenaries. Often just called night elves or dark elves by other Inazrian natives, the Cahokari are responsible for orchards and farms that produce much of the world’s flavorful crops. Their famous mercenary tradition grew from those same orchards: during the Forty Great Wars of the early 2nd Generation, armies marching the northern roads attempted to pillage nearby farms to feed their soldiers. Unfortunately, they quickly learned that the Cahokari were no ordinary harvesters: the warriors of rumor and legend of battles far away were the very same farmers they had unknowingly crossed. The battle was lost, contributing to the end of the war, and the survivors began paying for what they had failed to take. Ever since, Cahokari companies have earned an impressive aura about them, sought out widely as arms-for-hire under storied banners across Azergad, governed by a code that treats the signed contract as sacred and the employer’s politics as none of their business.

Most soldiers serve some seasons abroad before they come home to tend their family fields. It is a Cahokari saying that “an orchard is a campaign that always pays.” Physically, the Cahokari are distinguished by their robust builds and deep purple, blue-black, or rich brown skin tones that seem to shimmer slightly under moonlight. Their eyes are small and thin, ranging from deep violet to silver, and their hair is typically black, deep blue, or silver-white.

• Ability Score Increase: +1 Strength
• Language: You can speak Modern Cahokari, a straightforward dialect of modern Elvish influenced by vocabulary from Old Cahokari and the form of Common spoken by north Inazrians. Notably, since Old Cahokari and Inazri are closely related languages, Modern Cahokari is still written in its own version of the Inazri alphabet.
• Eye for Intent: You are proficient in Insight. By observing a creature or armed company for one minute, you can accurately judge its martial skill relative to your own, its discipline and morale, and whether its arms are functional or for show.
• Agreeable: Your disposition is lighthearted and easygoing, encouraging others to trust you more easily. You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill.