Races of Azura: Elves

Elves

Elves of Azura are divided into five sub-races of Dark, Gold, Sea, Silver and Wood elves each with their own distinct physical characteristics and cultures. In addition, each elven sub-race has their own language. Dark, Gold and Wood elves have a life span of 150-200 years while Sea and Silver elves can live as long as 250 years. Elves of one sub-race who mate with another have a 75% chance of the child born being the same elven race as that of the mother. The silver elf is the only exception to this rule.
Azuran elves have the standard AD&D elven resistance to sleep and charm, and the standard bonus to surprise and finding secret doors. Elven infravision allows them to see 60 feet in darkness. An Azuran elf initially can speak High and Low Elven, and at least one or more of the Elven languages (Dark Elves, Wood Elves and Sea Elves have their own dialects distinctive from the Gold and Silver elves). On Azura, all elves can become druids, however elven druids cannot be multi-classed.
The Elven race has been involved in a centuries long battle with the northern barbarians, and their race is dying out as the barbarians have been slowly winning this war by attrition (humans breed far faster than the elves). As a result, elves are resigned to extinction, and have a very depressing outlook on life (both theirs and others)…their observations and comments are fatalistic in the extreme. They are also extremely warlike, and very few elves live beyond middle age as it is considered their birthright to die in battle against barbarian hordes, taking as many of the hated humans as possible with them. All their great achievements are not in art, poetry, or music….but the art of war, and their blades, bows and especially warships are considered the best in the world. Their one advantage in the war, magic, has even taken this branch as they have developed many new combat spells for use in the battles. Art, music and poetry are looked at as frivolous and useless….unless it can be used in the war, all other abilities are considered superfluous. Every elf at sometime in his life is expected to serve in the elven military for at least one “season”; failure to answer the call of his “house” will cause a elf to become outcast…not only to be shunned by his people, but killed on sight if his status is known!

Dark Elf: Dark elves are a sub-race who prefer to live in subterranean caves both deep underground and near the surface, or in dark tree-choked forests. Their communities are scattered across the Azuran world but are most common in caverns beneath Saerelia and in caves along the mountainsides of the Kasian islands.
Azuran dark elves are not as susceptible to sunlight as dark elves in other worlds. While they suffer a -1 to hit if exposed to direct sunlight, light or continual light spells, dark elves can walk freely on the surface at night and during twilight hours. A heavy forest canopy can also provide enough protection from sunlight during the daytime.
Ordinary Dark elves are also not as magically inclined as some similar elves on other worlds. All Azuran dark elves are able to cast faerie fire, dancing lights and darkness once each day; however they have no other innate magical powers beyond those which all elves have and have no magic resistance beyond the initial 50%. Only those Dark Elves that worship malign powers are able to have such powers as increased magic resistance and natural spell ability.
Most dark elves are chaotic evil; however, some clans of neutral and good alignments are known to exist. Evil dark elves are called “Drow” and they have made a bad reputation for other dark elves, often raiding forests and other communities to capture prisoners, which are then transported and sold as slaves in the underworld. Non-evil dark elves try to distance themselves from their drow brethren by serving as reliable merchants between surface dwellers and those of the underworld.
Dark elves receive a +1 to hit whenever they fire any crossbow.

Gold Elf: Gold elves are common throughout Azura with the largest communities located on the western islands of Azura. The large island of Saerelia and its great forest is considered the spiritual homeland of all gold elves although their communities can be found as far away as Azeria and the Kasian islands. The Telarian island chain is also heavily populated by gold elves with several large cities in the area founded by their clans.
Virtually all Saerelian and Telarian elves are members of one of the many houses of elves led by a noble family of silver elves. These elves are referred to as ‘bound’ elves which denotes their blood ties and responsibility to their particular house. Above all else, bound elves owe their allegiance and loyalty to the nobles and other family members of their house. They are also equally responsible for the defense and care of their house’s woodland domain.
Gold elves who are not bound to a particular house are called ‘free’ elves and are common in other parts of Azura where elven houses led by silver elf families do not exist. Free elves on the Telarian islands are treated as outcasts by bound elves who view freedom from a house’s rule as neglect of elven responsibilities. Saerelian elves are more tolerant of free elves who visit the great forest but will engage in only casual relations with them.
Most gold elf communities have strong relationships with humans and demi-humans. Often times gold elves will engage in trade, join military alliances and even worship the gods of humans. Relationships with sea elves are also very close particularly among the Saerelian elves. Gold elves often trade forged weapons and other surface items with sea elves in return for valuable waterwood from the underwater Blue Forest which they then use to build their ships.
All gold elves have distinctive gold colored eyes which distinguishes them from other elven sub-races. Apart from their differences in eye color, elves of Saerelia are almost physically identical to wood elves of Memeyria. However, gold elves have a lighter shade of skin and hair the further north they live. Elves of the Telarian islands are very pale with almost blonde-yellow colored hair.
Gold elves receive a +1 to hit whenever they fire a bow or use a longsword.

Sea Elf: Sea elves can be found in any temperate or tropical body of salt water on Azura. The largest civilization of sea elves inhabit the Blue Forest which covers a large part of the ocean floor west, south and southeast of Saerelia.
Sea elves have some contact with land elves, trading with them sea treasures and waterwood in exchange for forged weapons and tools from above, however they generally do not engage in relationships with other land creatures such as humans. Sea elves even choose to isolate themselves from other aquatic races except for those naturally found within their underwater forests. They are constantly warring with nearby sauhagin kingdoms in the Shards and smaller malenti communities throughout the Southern Isles.
Sea elves cannot become mages although many do become a special kind of underwater druid. These druids along with their sea elf followers serve as guardians of the underwater forests and the creatures who live in them.
Sea elves receive a +1 to hit when using a trident or a spear in combat.

Silver Elf: Silver elves of modern Azura are believed to be the descendants of the last Lyrian elven king and his noble family. They are the most rare of the elven sub-races and can be found in small numbers living amongst the gold elf clans of western Azura. A silver elf can only be born of two silver elf parents meaning that any pairing between a silver elf and another elven sub-race (or any other race) invariably results in the child being of the other race. Due to the purity of their bloodline, silver elves are often referred to as ‘pure elves’.
Every Telarian and Saerelian gold elf clan (House) gives their allegiance to a family of silver elves who serve as their house’s nobility. Silver elves serve as spiritual as well as political heads of each elven house. They marry amongst themselves to continue their noble bloodlines or they marry gold elves within their house to further tie them to the people they rule. All gold elves within a house are blood related to the family of silver elves to whom they give their loyalty.
In the bloodwar vs the barbarian hordes of the north, Silver elves rarely enter battle themselves, as their lives are seen as too precious to waste. When they do participate it is as a general directing troops, or as a high level mage casting spells, or a priest healing troops far away from the battlefront.
Silver elves are very rare outside of the Telarian and Saerelian elven houses of western Azura. As there are no known independent communities of silver elves on Azura, every silver elf can trace their lineage back to a noble house of the elven homelands in west.
As spiritual leaders of their houses, silver elves worship only gods from the silver elf pantheon but allow gold elves of their houses to worship whatever gods they choose, even human ones. Silver elves are usually pale like Telarian gold elves and always have silver hair and amber colored eyes.
Silver elves receive a +1 to hit whenever they fire a bow or use a longsword.

Wood Elf: Most wood elf clans inhabit the tropical and temperate regions of Azura which is why they are also known as southern elves. The heart of their society is considered to be in the land of Memeyria, where their sacred forest covers the southern third of the Saerelian island. Wood elves also heavily populate many of the islands south and southeast of Saerelia and have many large communities throughout the Southern Isles as well. To lessen the burden on the land, wood elf settlements are usually never larger than a village or small town.
Wood elves believe they have been charged by their gods to nurture and protect the woodlands in which they live and their society has been shaped to best accommodate this responsibility. They strictly forbid the worship of gods outside the wood elf pantheon (even other elven gods) and shun any sort of contact with outside races and cultures. Any wood elf found guilty of consorting with outsiders or not fulfilling their duty to their gods or clan can be ostracized, enslaved or exiled and in the most serious cases they can even be executed.
Wood elves believe their myriad of customs and restrictive mores help to maintain their focus on their duty to their gods and allow them to become more attuned to the natural world around them. Although outsiders regard their culture as rigid and intolerant, wood elves enjoy living in harmony with their forests and the woodland creatures who inhabit them. As a result of their devotion to the forest and its well being, they have also developed unusually close relationships with a wide variety of magical woodland creatures such as treants, dryads, centaurs, pixies, and brownies among others. Wood elven druids are common and are considered to be some of the most powerful of their class on Azura.
Wood elves believe that their elven bloodline is the most pure of their race and consider the gold, silver and dark elven sub-races to be degenerate offshoots of their own. For this reason relationships between wood elves and their cousins have greatly deteriorated over the past centuries and sometimes border on outright hostility. Wood elves remain on good terms with sea elves who they see as faithful caretakers of the underwater forests much like they are for the surface forests.
Relationships with humans and other races are usually strained when they exist at all. Often times humans are viewed as no less a threat to the wood elves forests and way of life as other humanoids and monsters they have to contend with. However the further east from Memeyria a wood elf community is located the more likely it will be tolerant and attempt to coexist with nearby human settlements.
Wood elves have a darker complexion than their gold or silver elven cousins, their hair color ranges from yellow to coppery-red, and they have a wide variety of eye colors including different shades of brown, green and hazel.
Wood elves receive a +1 to hit whenever they fire a bow.

Classes:
Silver and Gold Elves may be Fighters (Standard, Corsair, Paladin, or Ranger); Priests of Elven Gods (or Druids), Mages (Standard, or specialized as Enchanters or Water Wizards only); or a Thief (Standard, Outcast, Scout, or Thief Artificer). Elves may dual class as a Ftr/Mage, Ftr/Thief, or Mage/Thief.
Wood Elves may be Fighters (Standard or Ranger); Guardian or Sea Rangers; Priests (of Wood Elf Pantheon only) or Druids, Mages (Standard only), or a Thief (Outcast or Scout only). Wood Elves can dual class as Ftr/Mage, Ftr/Thief or Mage/Thief.
Sea Elves may be Fighters or Rangers (Sea Rangers only), Priests (of Sea Elf Gods only) or Druids. Sea elves may not dual class.
Drow Elves may be Fighters (Standard or Deep Ranger); Priests (of Dark Elven Gods only), Mages (Standard or Enchanters), or a Thief (Standard, Outcast, Scout or Thief Artificer). Drow may dual class as Ftr/Mage, Ftr/Thief, Mage/Thief or Mage/Priest.

Half-Elves

Half-elves in Azura can only be the result of a human and elven pairing. The children of two half-elves will always be human and the children of a half-elf and an elf will always be elven. Due to this genetic reality, half-elves cannot have their own societies but instead share (or endure) the human or elven culture to which they are born. The life span of all half-elves is between 100-125 years.

Dark Half-Elf: Half-elves descended from dark elves have all the same basic abilities and restrictions as other half-elves. Dark half-elves are very rare due to the lack of social contact between humans. Depleting their numbers even more, many dark half-elves are slain at birth along with their mother if they are born in a drow community. Those who are born to humans or non-evil dark-elves must endure a life of discrimination and ostracism. Due to the disdain most humans and demi-humans express towards them, dark half-elves tend to shun human and elven society altogether.

Gold Half-Elf: Half-elves of gold elf stock are by far the most common sort found throughout Azura. More than any other sub-race of elf, gold elves have the closest relationship with humans sometimes sharing religious beliefs, commercial interests and military alliances. Therefore it is only natural that some humans and gold elves would engage in close social relationships resulting in many gold half-elven offspring wherever these two societies meet. Gold half-elves always possess the characteristic gold eye color of their elven parent.

Sea Half-Elf: Sea half-elves are typically born either able to breathe air or water, only very rarely both. As a result, many sea half-elves die at birth either drowning deep in the ocean unable to breath water or suffocating on the surface unable to breathe air. The high mortality of sea half-elf infants combined with the lack of contact between sea elves and humans make the sea half-elf very rare.
Water breathing half-elves are accepted freely by other sea elves, although the same can not be said of air-breathing half-elves who are viewed by sea elves in the same light as other humans. Water-breathing half-elves can even achieve positions of power in sea elf communities since, unlike sea elves, they are able to become magic-users.

Silver Half-Elf: The genetic traits of silver half-elves are so dominated by their human traits that a half-elf of this type can often be indistinguishable from other humans. While many silver half-elves possess some of the physical features inherited from their elven parent they can often pass for pure humans rather than as a half-elf. The only clue of a Silver elf parent is the eye color, which tends towards a amber-grey color and can be quite striking.

Wood Half-Elf: Half-elves descended from a wood elven parent are rare and live almost exclusively in human societies. Wood elves severely punish those of their clans who develop social relationships with humans and most wood elven clans sacrifice their half-elven offspring immediately after birth as penance to their gods. Other clans will raise the half-elf as a virtual slave who is ostracized from normal elven society until he is old enough to be exiled. Wood half-elves born in human society do not suffer the same discrimination but are still uncommon due to the lack of social contact between wood elves and humans. Wood half-elves often have the coppery red hair of their elven parents.