Elf

Key Similarities with Faerun's Version

•  The elves of Adra are originally from the Feywild. In the ancient past, some of the Eladrin broke off from their brethren, vowing to explore and settle the prime material plane. In doing so, they founded one of the earliest Kith civilizations, though early divisions would eventually cause the elves to split into distinct groups and divide themselves. Today, the elves are completely separated from one another, in one of the most diverse families of subrace in Adra. See Blackwood Culture, Valenteran Culture, Drow Culture, Shadar-kai Culture, or Fey Culture for more details.
• Elves can enter a kind of trance, a deep meditative state that allows them to remain semi-conscious while in a sea of tranquility. While elves may use this meditative technique to forgo sleeping should they need to, most elves will still sleep regularly as a form of comfort and especially as a form of companionship.
• Elves, the longest lived of all Kith, tend to accumulate untold wisdom and experience over the course of their long lives. Because of this, elves do not generally consider other elves to be full-fledged adults until their 100th birthday. Still, elves have a concept of physical adulthood, and simply have different words to refer to physical adulthood and spiritual adulthood, with translators often becoming confused at the distinction.
• Elves use their long lives and immense skill to master crafts well beyond the capabilities of most mortals in Adra. As such, elven craftsmen, artists, warriors, and scholars are revered around the world for their rarified abilities. Despite this, elves tend to keep to their own kind, rarely sharing their abilities with the rest of the world.

Key Differences with Faerun's Version

• Elves are beautiful, indeed perhaps some of the most naturally endowed with beauty among the Kith of Adra. However, their beauty is often a kind of alien beauty, with sharp cheek contours, wide open pupils, and hair that approaches the smoothness of silk.
• While elves do not age in the same way that humans do, they do age. Once elves reach 500 years old, they usually begin to go grey, and will even eventually wrinkle and show other signs of aging, if always less pronounced than aging is in humans. The aging of elves is so slow that elves may, towards the end of their life, become frail and slow for multiple decades before they pass away - indeed, sometimes an elf dying of old age may feel their body failing on them so gradually that they have weeks from when they notice their decline to when they will actually die, allowing many elves to set their affairs in order with a fair warning.

Subraces of Elf

• Drow: The dark elves, or drow, are the descendants of ancient elves that were captured and enslaved by Duergar raiding parties. The survivors became corrupted seemingly by the same process which corrupted the duergar, and today drow live almost entirely in the subterranean world of the Underdark, often taking part in complex and rather refined slave economies, with certain powerful matriarchs at the center of their power structures. Drow tend to have grey - blue hues of skin, and usually have bleached white hair. Unlike other elves, Drow are Restricted.
• Eladrin: The eladrin are the oldest kind of elves, the living ancestors of all other elves. They live in the Feywild, spread across its four domains, the four seasonal courts, summer, autumn, winter, and spring. Each court has its own ideals and subculture, which has a great deal of influence on the eladrin from each one. Eladrin are the most naturally vibrant of the elves, with verdant skin colors, bright and bold eye colors, and dazzling hair. Eladrin must return home to the Feywild regularly or they will slowly start to wither and die. Unlike other elves, Eladrin are restricted.
• High Elf: The High Elves are thought to be (at least by tradition) the most direct descendants of the first elves to leave the Feywild and come to Adra. They tend to have more natural skill with magical power, and their heritage means that in both the Blackwood and the Empire of Valentera, High Elves tend to serve in the highest echelons of soceity.
• Sea Elf: The Sea Elves are elves whose ancestors have lived near the ocean for as long as anybody can remember. In some cases, sea elves may even be elves whose not-too distant relatives were influenced by elemental magic, turning them to amphibious creatures capable of thriving in the water. Today, most sea elves live on the coasts of the isle of Valentera, though some do live elsewhere. Their skin tend to be shades of blue, green, or most often, a mixture of the two.
• Shadar-kai: The shadar-kai were once regular elves who escaped into the Shadowplane to make a home for themselves away from the influence of others. Eventually, in order to survive, they made an ancestral pact with the Goddess of Death, Lothal, and now the shadar-kai serve as the living servants of Lothal, completely accustomed to the darkness of the Shadowplane, and acting as her servants both there and in Adra Prime. Shadar-kai tend to have charcoal-grey skin, and often have very large pupils, or perhaps eyes that look completely grey or black. Unlike other elves, Shadar-kai are Restricted.
• Wood Elf: Wood elves are often thought to be some of the simplest elves, having physiologies which are slightly more accustomed to life in the woods than others. They also, unlike High Elves, seem to have no particular affinity for the magical arts, at least compared to most other Kith. Wood elves are mostly found in the Blackwood of Zaltia, though some can be found in other places, with a notable minority to be found in Valentera. There, the wood elves are associated with rebellion and rabblerousing, due to the frequent presence of resistance movements taking refuge in the Dioses Forest and in other woodland regions.

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