Can someone help me make my own subtype of elves because the only generic subtypes are high,dark...

Euuugh there's a difference between muscley elves and ones that look like they've been flayed

Their skin is supposed to look and feel like bark.

To be fair, drow did not go bdsm until after 3.0 and only got off the ground when dragon magazine stopped checking submission for cum stains.

Elfskimos.

Huldra.

sea elves

Antitankelf

Keebler.

I've tinkered with the idea of having elves that kinda took elements from how dwarves are great master blacksmiths and miners (and so on), but instead have elves be master lumberjacks and woodworkers.

Keeps some of the traditional forest-y elements elves have going on with a bit of a twist.

Elves that are scientifically inclined and are more powerful the further they are from nature?

how can i prevent my elves from becoming mary sues?

Sky/Mountain elves

Just make them people, give them strengths and weaknesses, do not let your players play 300 something years old elves, drop the entire "we were once so fucking great but aren't anymore"-trope, give thme a more active role in the world that sets them up against other races/factions, give them their niches, but only so many, don't make their culture monolithic.

here are my elves

Doromithi,exileborne or the taintless ones-the first exileborne came from wood elves created from the blood of their god Raedreth The Pariah Sorceror, when their god rebelled against his father and leader of the pantheon because he wants to be free from his control, his children fled before they meet their brethrens wrath and they settled in the mountainous forest continent of Doromithea,since all elves need a source of magic to prevent them from aging quickly and withering into dust,so their god commanded them to harvest manastones from obelisks possessed by the spirits of their dead,since mana is pure magic neither of light and dark,the elves gained the name the taintless ones,unlike their other brethren,they buiild their own buildings rather than summoning them or commanding trents to build,because their magic within their bodies is pure their lifespan is 200 instead of 1000 years due to mana not being enough to slow their aging,the races they meet on the continent are dwarves,orcs,goblins,undead,demons and the human kingdom of Vladimir, unlike other elves they have a decent relationship with the local dwarf kingdom,since the doromithi have the least magic of all elves they have to rely on magitech powered by mana they built that the dwarves gave the knowledge to do so,they have a fragile alliance with the Vladimirian humans because they have a grudge against the high elves and the void elves,they kept the alliance to prevent the undead and demonic hordes from corrupting the continent,when the former Seer King Sieghert died his illegitimate son Silas The Corsair was chosen by the council of princes because he is the firstborne child, most of the doromithi complained about their new Seer King because he is an outsider and a lowlife and the current monarch struggles to clean his name.im going to post part 2 when finished

i hope their not mary sues

Not dwarves. Dverga

Elves in og nordic folklore were just kinda whatever, gods, natural spirits, fucking ghosts of the dead and sometimes just your ancestors
It was more of a catch-all term
The "original" dwarves were a more specific type of being afaik, dark skinned greedy and jealous magical master craftsmen, that's all beaide the point though, by Tolkien's time there was hundreds of years worth of local folklore that had derived from those earlier myths and combined with myths from other cultures into something wholly new
Tolkien didn't invent luminous otherworldly ubermensch elves or stumpy subterranean jew dwarfs

>elves are the incredibly pure souls of great heroes, powerful wizards, kings and queens, reincarnated and brought to life in the magical fairy circles of the oldest and most sacred forests in which they protect and dispense wisdom and knowledge to the mortal descendants they watch over

>dwarves are the souls of all the defeated soldiers, innocent men, women, and children, who died in battle/because of war drawn to and brought to life deep within mountainous caves and caverns, far from the world of mortals, and thus their constant fighting, where their souls can gain peace by shedding the memories of their past lives and either live out the life that was denied to them or redeem their honor by successfully protecting their mountain territories from invading enemies

Does this sound good, or is it too mary sue?

Doromithi Army part 1
Bladeguard-the standard melee infantry armed with a curved sword and armour made of wraithsteel, doromithi commoners usually join their ranks to protect their kingdom Salendor or just for glory,honor and money
Nocti Arrows-archers that uses night magic for stealth they are the range equivalent of the bladeguards

Shard Gunners-their guns powered by manastones are created by the alchemist magi,unlike dwarven guns they have infinite ammo but if the gunner forgot to reload the weapon will explode killing the user and damaging nearby units
Red Daggers-elite scouts of the doromithi kingdom of Salendor, they are recruited from orphans or children of criminals Stag Knight-to get recruited to their ranks one must tame his own Stormheart stagbut most of the aspirants never come back alive,stag knights are armed with spears blessed by their god Raedreth
Alchemist-Magus-since most doromithi have low magic levels the ancient exileborne sages found another way,they can fuse manastone with their tools,potions and technology and with the help of dwarves the alchemist-magi class was created alchemist magi uses transmutaion spells and their homunculi familiars and they are armed with shard pistols

Doromithi Army part 2
Drake Knight-just like other drake tamer schools,doromithi drake knight schools are very easy to enter but hard to master,unlike other tamer schools which assign already tamed creatures,the student must summon his own creature.see drake knight mounts below

Tempest Dragon -when the exileborne arrived at the continent,they brought purestain dragons with them,when the dragons laid their eggs at Stormheart Valley,their offspring mutated due to the high amounts of wind magic in the area and caused the new generation of dragons to breath tornadoes instead of fire,their skin became albino and they are larger than a purestain

Ba'al Dragon-the tempest is not the only type of breed to be born in the infamous valley,the place also had high amounts of thunder magic and caused the offspring to mutate blue skin,breathes electricity but smaller than purestains and it was named after the storm demon prince of Goetia, Baal

Redseer-not all taintless ones have low amounts of magic,the ones who have high levels become redseers, redseers have access to all kinds of magic but they cannot master higher levels,the training requires them not to fall to the influence of both light and dark
Chemglaive Thrower-when the exileborne traded magitech with the dwarfs they chose the blueprints for the glaive thrower and made their own version with projectiles that releases a chemical when it hits the target and it can melt weak metal and flesh

But there were actual Dwarves in the Edda, granted, they were described as these dudes who sprouted out of the ground when Odin founded Asgard.

they came from maggots eating Ymir's fllesh

Ye boi, then they became the greatest smiths of all time that four of them were able to bargain a necklace in exchange for one night each with the goddess of love.

say no more

Cocksleeves

Doromithi Army part 3

Fenrik Warrior-unlike other doromithi of Saledor,one of the exileborne ships crashed north of the Isles of chills,the doromithi their created a survivalist culture,they became the Fenrik tribes,they worship Raedreth like the other doromithi but they also worshipped Fenris the wolf spirit that taught them how to survive and tame direwolves

Dire Chariot-When the Fenrik tribes tamed the direwolves they used them for transport and for hunting food they used them for chariots and when the undead hordes invaded the Isles of chills,they used the dire chariots to protect their land and destroy the undead
Wyrdflamer-when the alchemi-magi tried to create liquid mana,the result of their experiment was a mysterious flamable liquid called wyrdslime,when used in their new flamethrower weapon the flames can destroy magical shields and can mutate its victims

Part 4 coming soon and i'll be back later

They were described as pale skinned and dark haired. The link between them and dwarves comes from their names being used interchangeably in some stories. Tolkien based the Noldor off of them and was initially going to call them gnomes, then realized that was gay.

Nothing is "mary sue" about it. The elves seem like a cool idea, but the dwarves seem like you're trying too hard for symmetry.

>pic related

Easy enough. Nix the extra-long lifespans, make them just long by human standards, but not so long that elves have the time to outclass humans.

If you make them snobby, make it bite them in the ass sometimes. Or, better yet, don't make them snobby - I particularly like subverting the usual Elf-dwarf rivalry to make a Elf-Human rivalry over /trade/ with the Dwarves, where the Dwarves only really care who pays them more. Makes it easy to always have some conflict going, and the three change sides all the time, since there's some weird semi-triangle trade going on. Also gives an excuse to make the Elves less xenophobic, which can change a suprising amount of texture.

Pic also related. Put their "spawn" somewhere weird when you're worldbuilding. I put them on a set of temperate islands. It meant they had to get vbery very good at boats, and that gave them a neat niche to make them feel unique and different from the Humans, who had a lot of land. Maybe throw them down a volcano and then try to have them build a civilization literally from ashes - think dunmer. Or toss them down at the north pole, and have Santa's Avengers with Reindeer archer cavalry.

Or just take away the nature focus. Or give it some weird cultural justification that the elves tend to circumvent because they're people too.

Basically if it doesn't work as a Human civ, it shouldn't work as an elven civ. We're the same species after all.

I rather like the dwarf idea. Gives some reason to their status as grudge bearers and eternal defenders while also giving room for them to grow spiritually. Honestly sounds more interesting than their elven counterparts, and this is coming from someone who almost always prefers elves to dwarves.

To add onto that last bit, make every Elf an individual. This also goes for every species - every NPC you make should be at the very least an archetypal personality seen through the cultural lens of his civ. Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Orcs, Goblins, Naga... They can have vastly different civilizations, but unless you want to make them truely starfish aliens, it's best to make them human in personality, and then make sure no civ is a civ of hats. Not every dwarf should be a forgemaster, axe lord, or walking steel armor stand. The most interesting dwarves are the ones who do weird shit like become druids and shag trees, or sail the oceans like tiny islanders.

Likewise, the most interesting elves will be the ones who are contrary to their society in some way. If the society loves trees, maybe make an elf who's just terribly allergic to pollen, and has started to resent nature. Maybe not to a Captain Planet villain level, but enough that he seeks out the inner-city and tries to stay away from fertile lands. Maybe he ventured to the desert with some comrades and now tries to keep a similar culture in a vastly different landscape.

Likewise, if the human nations are fragmented, give a good reason why the other races aren't, or fragment them. Differentiate the cultures, even if it's only which end of the egg they break when making toast - although note that two people who hate each other will change a lot just to not look like the other guy.

A brief rundown of a faction of elves from my setting.

>The Silent Elves.
The Silent Elves are few in number and are an isolationist faction that dwell far away from other civilizations.
They live exclusively in lofty fortified citadels that are entirely comprised of networks of extremely tall towers connected by walkways and parapets. These citadels are known as "The Great Repositories" and are few in number and are all almost identical.
Each tower is lines filled with bookshelves, stacks of scrolls and parchments, and racks of documents and manuscripts each cataloged in a meticulous fashion.
The repositories are a painful place to visit to anyone other than the elves who live there as the sheer silence that permeates the halls is nigh deafining, with those who stay within for more than a few hours likely to end up a form of tinnitus.

The Silent Elves themselves comprise entirely of historians, lorekeepers and librarians and seek to gather, classify and catalog all known written knowledge in the world.
Depending on which career path they take, the majority of Silent Elves are required to undertake the 'Vow of Silence' upon reaching adulthood, and those who do not take the vow still seek to remain silent as much a possible.
Those who have made the vow, communicate with outsiders through written word or through simple hand gestures and body language.
Many of the elves and those who have become masters of silence have limited telepathic abilities which allow them to project 'writing' into the minds of 'readers' - those trained to receive these messages.
This writing appears in the readers mind not as an audible thought, but as a series of words being 'written' in their mind's eye.

Silent elves are rarely seen outside the repositories and those who are fall into three categories.
The Authors, those who travel to investigate 'gaps' of knowledge and return to the Repositories with new tomes of knowlege.
The Lore seekers, who traverse the land to gather new or lost knowledge.
The Scribes, Scriptorians and Indexers who travel between the repositories to ensure that they are identical transcribe missing entries.
The Exiles, those who deliberately broke, or refused to take the Vow of Silence and instead chose to seek a different life among the other races of the world. Exiles will often attempt to become Authors or lore seekers in attempt to return from exile.

Silent elves are sometimes nicknamed Shh-Elves or 'Shelves' by other races, making fun of the 'Shh' gesture they supposedly make to outsiders who visit them.
They do not seem to appreciate this.

Anyone have the dope masked elves screen cap?

Elf on a shelf?

do they have warriors

...

Ground elves are shorter and stockier than most other elves, they prefer living in mountainous or hilly regions, often underground where they dig up mineral wealth for trade and craft. Unlike forest elves they have a preference for strong beer over wine, and are known as industrious craftsmen and blacksmiths. To further differentiate them from normal elves they often grow long beards that they fashion in many ways.

The Silencers who protect the entrances and halls of the repositories and the lore-keepers, librarians, and archivists within.They are trained in graceful combat techniques and are skilled and efficient fighters, focusing on 'Silencing' any disruption to the library by whatever means appropriate.

In ages past, 'Librarian-knights' used to be sent fourth on crusades to gather knowledge that was being 'withheld' from the Silent Elves. But due to their effectiveness and the other races learning not to hoard knowledge from the Silent Elves, the knights are no longer required and thus the repositories do not train their youths in this pursuit anymore.
Each repository may have several 'former knights' who have taken upon new roles due to their longevity.
The closest equivalent to them still widespread would be the Silencers or the Peacemakers -who serve as custodians, bodyguards and protectors to those knowledge and who travel between repositories.

Authors and Lore-Seekers have combat training to help accomplish their missions, and exiles almost always have learned to fend for themselves.

just take the existing subtypes and add different cultures to them, like wood elves in my setting are either cajun/appalachian influenced or macedonian sheperdfolk types. Culture is more important than racial bonuses.

Christmas elves though...

No, they were specifically referred to as having dark skin, and are also called elves. Just look it up, practically every single link online refers to them as dark skinned elves.

Doromthi army part 4

Elk Wagons-they are the transport for the doromithi army and commoners,since the land has no bisons to drag their wagons,they used doromithean giant mooses


Alchemist Cleric-a hybrid between a magic healer and a doctor,alchemist clerics are very expensive to hire due to its advanced medicine and usually hired by the military and royal houses,some alchemist clerics heal the poor due to pity,however they are infamous for using untested medicine that either heal,kill or even worse

Wyrd Rocket Battery-one of the deadly uses of wyrdslime is infusing it with liquid mana creating projectile that doesnt reduce its victims into ash but turn them into mutant cancerous blobs that produce toxins that can kill friend or foe

Corvus Chariot-The corvus chariot is dragged by great ravens created by their god Raedreth even he himself choses ravens this as his form if he was to talk to mortals,its either driven by a bladeguard captain or a redseer,the chariot is mounter by a shard machine gun

oops misspelling-choses ravens as his preferred form

what is their relations with other races and elves

make them human empires that happen to live longer, make them use gun powder like everyone else, give them more ethnicities

Very quiet.

Doromithi army part 5
Covenshrine-a mobile shrine dedicated to their sorceror god Raedreth,the redseers can summon his Ravenlords and tenshi,the shrine can also both light and dark magic


Manabomb Trebuchet-Unlike other trebuchets it fires deadly manacharged bombs


Wyrdthunder Tank-this siege engine is powered by crystalized wyrdslime called wyrdstones,unlike dwarven tanks it fires wyrdlightning that causes the targets to evaporize into wyrdslime the ones who survive the attack is turned by the radiation into foulspawn

Homunculoid Brute-one of the controversial creations of the alchemist magi was a mutant created with ogre and orc blood injected into a artificial womb and the abomination was born

Lightning / Power/ Electric Elves
Nicknames Sparks by the other races, these elves have a culture and society based around capturing, harnessing wielding lightning from deadly storms.
They are aggressive, short-tempered, impulsive and arrogant, believing themselves to be superior to the other elven races, other races even moreso.
They are known to attack those who have what they want, taking their needs before moving on. They do not see any problem with this, as those in possession of their wants don't deserve them as much as the elves do, especially if they are unable to even defend what the item in question.
They strike quickly and deftly in raids against their enemies and are gone before their opposition has a chance to muster an response to their offense.
Highly mobile and are often seen chasing after
Their spellcasters use magic that manipulates the weather and thus a sudden stormfront or rolling fog may mask an oncoming raiding party.

always gotta have the upvoting snippets at the bottom

Doromithi army part 6 Fenrik tribes subfaction
Fenrik Lycan-Unlike human who are bitten and turned into lycans, Fenrik warriors who are favoured by Fenris turn into lycans,unlike other lycans they are much larger than human ones

Wolf Knight-unlike the more formal Saledor knights,they are more feral and barbaric,armed with a selenblade,they are a threat to any enemy that uses ethreal entities in battle

Raven Druid-when the exileborne abandoned their wood elf kin,their nature magic became limited and the training of druids stopped with the exception of the Fenrik tribes their druids are blessed by both Raedreth and Fenris to use both nature and night magic,they are armed with a ravenblade they can summon Ravenlords and tenshi for a limited time unlike covenshrines

Ursa Bear Rider-the ursa bear is the most dangerous to tame in the Isles of chills,thats why riders are very rare but their bears could rip apart a siege engine

Aztec Elves

>elf races based off of native americans
Fuck yes.

Elves
High Elves
Dark Elves
Wood Elves
Deep Elves
Outsider Elves
Tropical Elves
Acid Elves
Progressive Elves
Micro Elves
Tech Elves
Electro Elves
Ambient Elves
Garage Elves
Funky Elves
Tribal Elves
Hip Elves

Doromithi army part 7 Mercenary Guild
Guild Corsair -these mercenaries are usually the hired bodyguards and henchmen of rich houses or criminal organizations, their weapons are created by unlicensed alchemist covens to make their shard rifles,managrenades and wyrdsteel swords

Sea Dragon Chariot-unlike sea elf tamers, mercenary guilds torture sea dragons into submitting them and find a rider that is favoured by the dragon,unlike other dragons it breathes hot or freezing water,the current Seer King Of Salendor was once one


Kraken Chariot-kraken chariots are very hard to control underwater but it goes very fast on land its very slow but its long arms can rip apart foes and it can breath hallucinatory gases

Oblivion Cannon-the oblivion cannon is the most deadliest of weapons created by unlicensed covens of alchemist magi,it takes very long to reload since it needs void magic to power, it fires a voidwell that could crush enemies and buildings with its gravity

my elves are basically outsiders from other elves since they are exiled and they never meet another elf subrace for 1000 years and they have high technology but the dwarves in my setting still has the most advanced magitech and their culture has been influenced by dwarves and a human civilization similar to Russia

user, do you really need that many elves?

do they have familiars aka magic pets

trip hop elves running through the forest in tracksuits talking with weird modulations in their speech patterns. while flailing their arms around.

Trips seeking elves, always looking for repeating digits. Every 100 years, someone finds what the elves call octs, and then the elves descend upon the other races, butchering them in the name of their black god.

Doromithi History-first arrival-the wood elves that were born from Raedreth's blood once followed the culture of their cousins,when they escaped to Doromithea they had to adapt to their surroundings and built small towns and had little experience building large buildings and walls because they lost most of their nature magic, when the dwarves of South Doromithea explored the northen parts of the continent, they thought the taintless ones were a wood elf invasion force, but the doromithi noticed them and asked questions about their presence,the dwarves were suprised that they did not know about the war between their wood elf kin and the dwarves took pity to the unexperienced doromithi and the dwarves allowed them to join their schools and the first Seer King Adalard The Chosen sent 100 thousand doromithi to gain knowledge to build bigger cities and weapons,when the doromithi completed their training the Seer King gave the dwarves copies of magical lore and they signed a peace treaty, one decade later the cities were complete and the kingdom of Salendor was born,however this peace would not last because a newcomer to the continent has arrived

Doromithi History-Vladimirian War-400 years later the doromithi were improving their magic and technology,the redseer,alchemist magus and alchemist clerics classes were created,the doromithi explored further north of Doromithea at the Isles of Chills and rediscovered their lost brethren that became the Fenrik doromithi,when the doromithi and dwarves explored the eastern parts of Doromithea they discovered humans building towns and bases they tried to talk to them but they attacked with no explanation and the Vladimirian war started,it took 7 years for the war to end,when the doromithi,dwarves and the humans of Vladimir were both attacked by undead coming from all side,so the 3 main races joined together to fight off the undead and killed the lich that was responsible for the attack,the casualties of the 3 were great,the humans of Vladimir explained the reason for their attack was because their civilization on the continent Slavis was dragged into the war between 2 unknown types of elves and dwarves,they attacked both sides because they thought the war is still on going,so they agreed to a peace treaty but tensions are still high

Doromithi History-Age of Magitech-24 years after the war,the main races of Doromithea focused on prosperity,the dwarves found a way to fuse magic and technology,when the doromithi and human scholars were taught about this they made their own version of it,the dwarves were more tech based,while the vladimir humans were trying to balance tech and magic,the taintless however focused more on magic,they built manabombs,the first shardgun and the creation of wyrd based magitech,the alchemist magi were responsible for their innovations however some covens created deadly weapons and biological abominations that gangs used them on a daily basis and caused the council of princes to allow only supervised covens were allowed and be sanctioned while the illegal covens were killed,exiled or hiding with mercenary guilds,weapons are not the only magitech created,the sanctioned covens created advanced building tools,farm equipment,and the wyrdengine,this age lasted for 600 years and it might be still on going,however during the end of the age sightings of pale looking elves and beautiful blonde ones appeared nearby the Saledor's territory,the doromithi have meet their fears about the coming of the other ones