What are the Elves like in your setting?

What are the Elves like in your setting?

Belligerent and numerous.

Dark Elves: not!dunmer
High Elves: not!altmer
Snow Elves: THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL, AS WE MAKE OUR WAY TO HEAVEN, THROUGH THE NAZI LIIINES!

They come in three flavors; Jewish tricks, howling warmongers, and imperialist huntsmen.

Gay

They are all gay, every single one

Gay

Like bacon wrapped chicken with cheese and jalapeño stuffed inside.

first of all, that guy is significantly more pretty than the woman

to answer your question:

the Elves are the premier power in the Old World at the time of the human exodus, having the entire western side of the continent in their sphere of power. they as a general rule of thumb keep everything on the west side of the Winter River, while the other races, dwarves that got BTFO by goblins and now live in a giant forest, Roving clans of Minotaur in the fertile grasslands, Goblins who rule the mountains after taking it form the dwarves, and the crazy things that live in the previously occupied human lands, take what they can in the east

Filthy cocky worthless slum bums.
Good for nothing but gay sex.

>Implying elves are not all just the same but different color schemes.

My elves tend to be cunts who get killed by the players. Even when I don't want them to. Though when don't i want a dead elf?

Didn't include them in my setting.

>Taller than the average human. (Look leaner but that's just because they don't 'naturally' have bulk to fill out this height)

>Ears range from 3 to 6 inches long and stick right out the sides and the last third to all of it is covered in a fine, velvety coat of fur matching their hair color (always ending in white tips though). Ears also can be wiggled around consciously over a pretty wide range of motion.

>They have antlers which grow up to a foot and a half from their head. How you wear them will depend on which sub culture/tribe you hail from, social standing, and a list of other things. (Various nobles will use a mix of magic and metal wires to guide their antler growth like a bonsai tree and decorate them whereas most soldiers will with clip them entirely or keep them to short, sharp points)

>Skin hues tend to range around browns and golds, sometimes going into more human-like tones.

>They have four long fingers (explicitly because their gods thought 'fingers are hard and pinkies are useless anyway') and three long toes (the third toe is from their heel) they can pick things up/grab things with them

>They USED to look like upright, winged, elk, wolf things made of plants and wood. Their gods reshaped them to honor humanity for sharing their home and world with them.

picture pretty much unrelated.

Catlike, capricious, and cruel.

Their long lives, extended even further by drugs and magic, lead to ever-increasing decadence as they fight a losing battle against boredom.

They once ruled a thriving empire but it shrank steadily inwards as their rulers' perversity took precedence over maintaining their power.

They rarely leave their territory and, when they do, it's to raid the surrounding human kingdoms for new slaves and/or to thin their own numbers.

I see what you're doing.

Natives of magic-infused areas around the world. Typically drunk. Historically fighting each other. Often leave their homelands in hopes of getting away from the other elves fighting each other. Now have a not entirely undeserved reputation for beating their wives, which can be a big problem when they marry a member of another race because they lack the miraculous healing abilities of elves.

They're a bunch of creative types that are narcissistic enough to share their creations, but unwilling to look at the work posted by others.

I've based them off the posters in this thread.

There's four nations of them. We've got:
- gypsy elves who fight like Romans,
- redneck elves who alternate between fighting like Romans and berserkers,
- ridiculously sugarcoated high elves who don't have to fight because they're sheltered
- and a second nation of redneck elves because the two nations are right next to each other.
Other than that I ripped them straight out of Dwarf Fortress. My players like it.

aggravatingly perfect, homosexuals derived from a derivative of some bastardized representation loosely based on Tolkien's elves from some guy who only read LOTR and didn't really understand it.

A surrogate for all the pretty, popular, well-adjusted kids in high school who scorned me for my poor hygiene and anti-social ways.

Non-troll answers:
-savage, vengeful, high on hallucinogenic blue paint, but they make good food.
-physical manifestations of man's heritage and dreams.
-Spess Vikings

clever, if too post-modern for my taste.

I will say I like this though, but does this mean elves are not the sort of beings you'd see in any sort of hero role?

and this. The magical healing is interesting. But are they just drawn to the magic infused areas, or were they other races a long time ago and changed?

these elves sound delicious. And I'm not even a dragon.

Oi, I'm reading them, but usually I just lurk. I don't have any problems with these elves, so I don't reply.

Long-lived militaristic huntsmen with a thirst for knowledge.

Ghosts who have had most of their identity scoured away by time. Though that's most of the human-like races.

Gifted by all three gods, which makes them powerful but insane.

Growth blessing them fast breeding, and healing, Preservation blessing them able to live forever, and Destruction blessing made them quick to anger and act violently.
The blessing of Destruction is particularly strong when interacting with other elves, as their violent nature sparks off each other.

Because of this, while they can live forever, the median age is for elves to die is in the mid twenties. Most common cause of death being other elves.

Some elves to seperate themselves from the blessing of Destruction, but like all powerful godworkings the act was dangerous and costly.
The Shriven suffer forms of madness all their own, and rarely live past 50. The most common causes of death being suicide and euthanasia.

>elves that share much of what they have with other cultures, but prefer not to interface directly with them, electing instead to silently observe
this sounds good too

>I will say I like this though, but does this mean elves are not the sort of beings you'd see in any sort of hero role?

'Hero' and 'villain' are relative terms. The elves act according to their nature, which just so happens to be inhuman.

Elves have heroes that embody their values, but those heroes would be villains to the humans that they kidnap and kill.

Translation: it would take a Drizztian defection from decadence to get a good-guy elf in my setting.

Their civilization has stagnated, but it's stable -- why should they change?

They were made by the gods(actually just one particular god who was in charge of making all the races) and put in the magic lands. Whether the elves were made to occupy these already existing areas or if the elves and the lands were shaped that way together is a highly debated subject among religious scholars. The healing is a sort of magical evolutionary adaptation to them consistently fighting and trying to kill each other.

I like viewing elves like colonial age Brits. Posh, self assured and absolute conquerers

This is Slaaneshian levels of fucked up.

Catching them as slaves. My old DnD setting used that idea where you grafted elf skin onto yourself to gain their immortality. It didn't work but it was a great excuse to slaughter dozens if elves. Our favorites were the pure virgin females, ripping away their sweet innocent flesh and brutally ending long lives full of joy and love. It fulfilled me in a way no other role-playing ever has. We tried using the torture rules in DnD after a while but we often ended up getting so deep into the narrative that we completely forgot about them.

Mostly dead. A few individuals exist as prized slaves.

Fuck off, Craig.

>Immortal
>Decadent as fuck
>Act out their "superiority" via getting other races to worship them or bend others to slavery
>Have a special fucking hatred for those who have access to magic
>Cant procreate but live a decadent life as those on the top of their part of the world
>Main religion centers around the worship of their goddess mother and her slumbering black dragon of a son.
>Capital city is literally built around a sleeping dragon the size of mount Everest.

Well Veeky Forums how you guys think they are?

Physically more akin to folkloric goblins or Christmas elves than Tolkien elves: 3 feet tall with large ears, noses, and eyes, and clawed hands and feet to help them dig and climb.

I recognize the artist from when he worked on Sandman I think.

Most elves are immigrants from an ancient schism that allowed the Faewilds to enter into the Material world. Basically they colonized an inhosipitible part of the forests that was isolated due to being cut off by water. When humans finally explored it they found two varieties of elves. Wild elves, more in tune with their Fae ancestry, and the civilized elves who had begun to emulate their world within the Faewild as best as possible. However they've begun to intermingle with humans recently, and with the inception of a united city, begun to share with them the wonders of their creations.

Their entry into the world was precipitated by the Four Fulcrums, which also make up their gods, and whom have two forms, as Elements (to create the world) and as Inevitable (which run the world). Leviathan is Time, and so on.

Orcs and Drow also trace their lineage to their ancestors and the rulers of Elven Culture known as Sylvans, also referred to as "Ascended Elves" for they become one with the world around them.

I really like this, my corrupted by magic Drow might just have a bit more flavor from you user, thanks, considering I was thinking of running the Underdark soon.

I like my elves just to preferably be good or decent people who can get along with humans and other people.

Pic related.

Non existent, along with all the other nothuman but human fantasy races

I like my elves with a side of Lovecraftian horror.
>Long ago an ancient and decedent empire sought to curb its decay through supernatural means.
>The court sorcerers summoned, and pacted with a powerful demon lord of the outer dark.
>A gate was opened and demon spirits flooded into the city.
>The creatures merged with the hapless citizens creating a nigh immortal race of demon hybrids.
>These Eldar look mostly human at first, if they can hide their solid black eyes and white hair.
>Over time they become more pale, and etheral, until they fade away into a demon spirit, ready to start the cycle anew.
>The Eldar are cyptic, and sinister folk. They will raid neighbouring human kingdoms. The best and the brightest will be turned over to the sorcerer priests for comversion. The rest enslaved, and dominated through alchemical means.

Isn't that pretty similar to the supposed background of Mind Flayers?

Good thing Elric breaks all of that.

>I really like this, my corrupted by magic Drow might just have a bit more flavor from you user, thanks, considering I was thinking of running the Underdark soon.

I'm flattered that you like them! My players /loathe/ the elves, as they've only just barely survived an attack from a raiding party.

They're currently planning to infiltrate elvish territitory to rescue a friendly NPC. They don't know that she's already been served up as an entrée.

Well that's a little dark. I like them for the purposes of drow. I like the matriarchal spider obsessed group but you managed to get dark eldar in there a bit. Plus I wanted them to have reasons for creating mutants other than their exposure to what's tantamount to an Elder God. No Lolth, just a god who takes the form of a spider to please her servants.

>Well that's a little dark.

I've described them as 'catlike.' If my elves are cats, to them the humans are 'mice.'

To be fair, we're playing a darker game than most, and you're free to leave that stuff out in your interpretation.

I can't lay claim to the idea of cruel, inhuman elves, after all.

Good luck with your game, user!

Undead.
After a cataclysmic event a few centuries in the past their race was eliminated and raised as various undead races according to whatever sin the individual committed most of.
There aren't any living elves.

Eh I've killed NPC's before, but never as dinner, though in likelihood it might happen at some point (after all a new rival for the party is the Gnoll Avatar of Lamashutra)

My elves are very peaceful and isolated now for the most part. There is a massive elven population that live in gilded cities in the western continent, totally unexplored by the main focus of the game, the people of the eastern continents. In the west however the elves have been at war for thousands of years against the humans. They both wage war for lands, plunder, slaves, and status. This creates a large number of half elves whick are hated by both sides. Due to this the halfbreeds live the life of bandits, raiding and looting when they can. On the Eastern continents the peaceful tree dwelling elves weren't ready for the hatefull atracks from bands of halfelves which have sailed to their land for easy pickings.

Crazy as Fuck. Basically think of them as Tieflings, with all the Edgelord "I have Fiend in me" replaced with Fey Folk Fuckery, Baby-Snatching, and "FILLING YOUR FACE-HOLES WITH KNIVES IS FUN!!!"

Also, Half-Elves are a result of Kidnapped children that have been infused with Fey Magic, while the offspring of an elf and a human would be a Subrace of Elf.

There was an old Veeky Forums thread where elves were the monkeys to the human apes. They had long arms and brachiated, used massive bows comparable to ballista, and blacksmiths were hermits living on the forest floor. I thought that it was pretty cool.

A disenfranchised and scattered people, generally looked down upon by most as disreputable and untrustworthy.

Elves being a powerful and prosperous race of wizards, warriors, artisits and craftsmen is always good.

50% Bosmer, 50% Discworld.

To stay in the real world they have to ingest reality and people are the "realest" thing.

how is that diskworld?

Sure, no worries.

Here's something else that you might like: the elves take ostentatious ornamentation to a ludicrous level.

Every brick of every building is intricately carved and fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. Furniture is similarly carved, then varnished smooth, then polished to a mirror shine.

Clothing is baroque, multicolored, and often decorated with precious metal threads. Fashion changes on a whim; a priceless outfit that took years to craft can be worthless a day later.

When elvish ladies get their nails done, they have designs etched into the keratin and painted different colors. Elves of both genders do the same to their teeth, but use precious metals instead of paint in the designs.

Elves practice extensive tattooing and turn their bodies into living works of art. When they get bored of the designs, they have the skin stripped away, heal, and start again.

The stripped skins are used as decoration.

Essentially, it is /impossible/ to be overly descriptive when you're talking about the elves in my setting.

I figure anyone that got the reference would know what dickbags the DW elves are so explanation would be uneccesary, anyone that didn't know them, well too bad cause it's a shitload to write out on a cell.

>When they get bored of the designs, they have the skin stripped away, heal, and start again.
>The stripped skins are used as decoration.
Fucking elves, man.

Militant woodsmen, with treetop cities in the rainforest.

Witcher continent elves + Lorwyn elves + some bosmer and wargames woodelf traits.

That got a reaction out of my players, too.

Waste not, want not.

To the (theoretical) players, largely unseen or unheard of. During the founding of the kingdom, the elven royalty granted a boon on the first king, an Oathstone. The ancient standing stone allowed those of royal blood to call on the Aen Seidhe in times of need and in exchange, the elves were allowed to share the land and live among humans. A time of need came generations later and when the king called for aid at the Oathstone, he received no answer. The pact broken for unknown reasons, all elves were forced from the kingdom by magic and were never allowed to enter again. It is believed that if the oath was fulfilled, the kingdoms would become one again, but that is largely considered a tale for children, as is the existence of elves. Few know the truth, save for scholars who have bothered to read the oldest tomes of history and those who live close to the Dryad Arbor and have seen mysterious shapes in the trees, always watching.

Dead.

they are annoyinh low lvl mobs to kill and grind XP with. its great, they cant fight and die so much but keep talking shit. really pisses my players they love killing an entire village of them.

elves being general dickbags isn't really unique to diskworld, and needing to eat people doesn't scream dickbag so much as 'predator'.

I just didn't catch any 'enjoys pain and fucking with people' in your description.

True that.

IIRC the Discworld fey didn't even know what pain was, their toys just made noises and flailed about before they broke.

I have them in my campaign as typical elves... arrogant, closed off and oblivious to the outside world, and monocultural. A race that's been dying for centuries, but they refuse to believe it. Their distant elven cousins have been wiped out (for varying reasons), leaving just the "sylvan" or "true" elves left.

Just elf filler.

possible. Still, that sounds like fuckery, while needing to 'ingest' people just sounds like being a predator.

While you might be scared of a predator, you don't hate them. And diskworld elves deserve hatred more than fear.

They're essentially the Non-Men from Prince of Nothing. Immortal, ageless, but the majority of them have fractured psyches at best from the sheer length of their lifetimes. Their memories have started to wane, and they can only recall their past glory in moments of extreme violence or stress. Some are worse than others, but they have little in the way of civilization anymore.

Oh they only need to eat people to stay in meatworld, if they skip the snack they just have to go home where there's no toys.

>What are the Elves like in your setting?
Dead. Seriously.
Just about a century ago, the Elves of the northern continent went to war with the ones of the western continent. Long story short, it was a very brutal war that the west nearly won. On the brink of defeat the northern leader feeling his people had betrayed him, poisoned his cities water supplies with a magical plague. This transformed the northern Elves in to monstrous things that hunted down and pretty much exterminated anyone with more than an eighth to a quarter of Elven blood heritage. Which is a shame since most of the cool magic stuff from both empires only works for people with Elf blood.

The campaign takes place in the power vacuum and wastelands created by this war.

So dod the monsters kill one another too?

A part of my !not Austria-Hungary/ HRE in space. They have grey to deep grey skin, either black or grey/white hair and obviously long pointed ears.
They are often considered dull and overtly serious since most elves people meet are in the armed forces and take their job seriously.

>So dod the monsters kill one another too?
Some do, as they themselves carry the smell of elven blood. But to most the blood of other corrupted seems to be unappetizing.

The army of the west fought heroically to protect their citizens but, since the fact the corruption was transmitted from attacker to victim was known in the early days of the spread, there wasn't much they could do. As far as we know currently they all died.

>was not known

More or less Dark Eldar in a fantasy setting.

The result of alchemical experiments to create superior slaves, Elves are a product of bathing Goblins in chemicals and magic rituals. Before they could become commonplace, the empire fell, and the Elves revolted and conquered the eastern lands, spreading the idea that they are a foreign power that invaded from a distant land to the east. They are arrogant, xenophobic, impervious to aging and disease, and sterile. The Elves keep the Goblins as slaves, as they are the source of creating new Elves.

Most Elves spend their times politicking and backstabbing each other to gain status, though their are some that seek their thrills elsewhere. Common entertainment events are Elven gladiators proving themselves in combat, though others will go and attempt to mount and break the steppe rhinos in the area. Due to their magical nature, Elves commonly can not use traditional magic, and they interfere with the flow of magic. Instead, those that practice magic use their own magical blood to fuel their rituals and spells.

A tiny elite aristocracy over the trolls where only the youngest actually look like elves.

Depends on the setting.

But usually? Balkanized.

There are two "kinds" originally split due to a difference in beliefs.
Ones believed that communion with nature and its preservance was the only rightful way to live (and rather eagerly enforced this on the human kingdoms as well), while the other part believed in strict upbringing, a powerfull army and using druids for resource gathering.
Now they have split looks wise as well, mostly due to one part living way more south than the other.
Technically its Druids vs the elf version of Sparta.

>typical closet fag behavior
Loving Every Laugh

Technically, they're the same species as humans. The elves are the remnants of ancient noble houses that sought to prolong their lives and power via arcane means. Unfortunately, as the human mind really can't persist for much over a century, these immortal arcanists tend to grow slowly demented and eventually completely nutters. They're still powerful and often form houses of their own, both to consolidate power and to control their own if one gets too old and too senile.

The first great, forgotten empires were those of elves. Long-lived, quick to grasp magic, able to learn the seasons and tame the plants and animals, the elves built great cities along the rivers of the East. Uruk, Ur, Akkad...these words are the last whispered memory of the glories of the past.

The elves looked up men, and saw their use. They gathered up tribes of mankind and established dominion over them. Men knew nothing of magic, of strong metals or swift chariots. They were easy to rule. They worked in the elves' imperial cities, marched in their armies, and even mingled their bloodlines together. The elves had come to clasp mankind to their bosom.

In their arrogance, the elves did not realize the power wielded by their servants. Mixed-blood children--more common by far than pureblood elf births--were favored for important imperial positions. They began to control the crops, taxes, armies, and roads. And so the humans began to learn the secrets of their masters-turned-kinfolk. After millennia of servitude, they could no longer be controlled. Cities burned, and empires fell. The palaces of the elven priest-kings became the homes of their mixed-blood and human usurpers, many of whom pointed to their elven lineage as proof of their right to rule.

But in this age of men, those bloodlines have drawn thin and scattered. It is rare that a king of the East can truly claim to be descended from elves--though almost all of them do. Many elfblooded lines became increasingly alien and inbred as their descendants tried to preserve their birthright--most notably in Egypt, whose feeble pharaohs were finally swept away by Alexander.

The new empires of the West--the Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, and others--have no desire to claim kinship with elves. They are empires of men above all else, and view all things Eastern with suspicion. Individuals with significant elf heritage are a rare sight in the West, and true elves are unheard of.

It is said, though that elves still live far to the North, beyond even the Gauls and Germanics, in great forests that men fear to enter. Some whisper of elves deep in the mountains of Africa, underground, waiting for their chance to reclaim the glory and wealth of Egypt. But most of all, travelers will tell you that far to the East, beyond the reach of Alexander's amies, an even greater empire of elves rules over uncounted multitudes of men. It is said that these elves have learned from their cousin's mistakes, and they preserve the rule of their highborn caste with all their powers of magic and steel.

So elves created anime?

The ancient empire was actually closer to what a half-elves are. Elves are the hippy/magic obsessed offshoots, while humans are what became of most of the rest. I also dialed back the lifespans (any every other player race for that matter) significantly from the default DnD ones so they don't live that much longer than humans

No. Not even elves are that depraved.

All-female race, even if they pretend otherwise

Mortal descendants of the True Elves that crossed from the mystical world of Fae into the mortal plane millenia ago. Over time, they lost their faeric nature and became mortal, but also lost their vulnerability to iron.

Long story short, True Elves first established in the ancient forests of the world. When a cataclysmic war unrolled many of them returned to Fae,but some stayed,survived and thrived in their woodland homes. These remnants developed a culture of nature worshipping, tree hugging and general armony, until a group True Elves returned and started what would become the Golden Empire. Centuries later, the Empire turned into a tyrannical regime which would collapse from within due to inside conflict and civil war. That was about five hundred years ago respect the setting's "present".

There are three types; elves (like in "high elves"), who make the majority or elven population. Full with guilt (pretty much like post Nazi germany) and trying to fit in the human kingdoms 'cause no one elves wants them around.
Wood elves, who are more like their Fae ancestors (more like 2 meters tall, with slightly elongated faces, long canines and some even have a thin layer of fur). Xenophobic, belligerent and deep into the "survival of the fittest" philosophy. Live in the deepest,oldest forests of the world just like their predecessors,sometimes in the company of other creatures more powerful, who act like their spiritual leaders. Some tribes worship wood giants as the children of the earth.
And then,the grey elves; racist,cold motherfuckers, the offspring of the Golden Empire's nobilily. They want their empire back, but are building their strength in underground fortreress built in resemblance to the old elven palaces for an upcoming surface invasion. They're magic masters and really like biomancy,using sorcery to manipulate and change existing lifeforms to their whim. Duergar,derros,hobgoblins,bugbears and most of the beastmen species are the result of their tinkering.

How do they reproduce? Are they monogendered?

Just like Dracs

We've basically taken their perception of themselves being superior to a rediculous degree. In a sense, they're nazis.
I also have my character call them "keeblers" as a racial slur.

Dead.
Light, Dark and Rasta elves were locked in a perpetual war to determine which subrace was the dominant and purest one. Their kingdoms were weakened by centuries of costant struggle.
Then, our absolutely not LE cleric, that totally doesn't worship Asmodeus, didn't convince our group to orchestrate the rise of an Orc leader capable of uniting the tribes into a cohesive horde, our fighter didn't train their generals in tactics, our wizard didn't provide instructions for their shamans and buffs together with the cleric to the horde and our rogue most certainly didn't start assassinating key elven figures.
We don't know why the Orc supreme leader likes us so much either.

There is nothing typical about all of that.

elves are more like native Americans and the dwarfs are like European colonists. 10 trees have enough resources to support 1 elf. dwarfs rip up 7 trees can support 1 dwarf. dwarfs and elves are at war with one an other with no end in sight. (dwarfs just need trees to support there caves)

humans are farmers and just want the land. elves don't trust humans but they don't expand too far into there land to rip up there trees and dwarfs see humans as elves who don't have trees to rip up and don't care about the trees.

humis are everyone's second enemies

>animu elves in glass armour

why must you rape my soul

more pressing matter elf slave what do

Please, just kill your unfunny self already.

Contact the mods.

that's not bad
do they have elven physical traits?

>burned their own civilization down in a civil war
>survivors rebuilt, aided in early development of human culture
>condescending and back handed in their treatment of lesser races
>shamelessly sexual but highly conservative about one's role in society
>lost a war with the setting's Dragonborn-esque race and most of thier southern lands with it
>introduced humans to religion
>got mad when humans developed their faith beyond what Elves believe
>naturally born magic users, to the point they don't understand the idea of being unable to wield it naturally
>think Dwarves are freaks of nature for having absolutely no magic capability
>racist as hell toward Orcs, who don't really give a fuck about them
>aren't aware they are the cast away attempt by the setting's gods to create new bodies for their own decaying forms, abandoned when one of the gods was killed by the transfer process

They have a culture more akin to pacific islanders than Tolkien elves. That, and they're vaguely fish-like.

In my settings elves are always slaves. I once changed groups and at first the new players felt sorry for the elves...Then they started talking to them and where just fine with them being slaves.

i dont think he was trying to be funny dude. elves tend to be gay most of the time.

Sounds edgy user.