A Treatise on Elves
Recently some friends and I were discussing the nature of elves in fiction and in ttrpgs. It has always been my contention that when it comes to elves, they should be as alien as possible. I’m beginning to ponder my own setting, with an eye toward perhaps running a game for someone other than myself soon (or, soonish) and so I thought it might be time to start considering how I would like to see elves depicted.
What do I mean by “alien” when I talk about elves? I think that, rather than the typical tree inhabiting, pointy eared human-adjacent beings with some magic prowess and infravision, I want elves to lean into really being distinct from humans. In my conception there are three different types of elves: wood elves, deep elves (my take on “dark” elves), and city elves.
Wood Elves
Let’s start with how we can approach wood elves in a new way. First, yes, tall and slender with pointed ears and long, gangly arms and legs. Wood elves in my setting would have dark skin, rather than pale skin, ranging from reddish brown of cedar wood to a gray-brown of oak bark, or the orange tint of redwoods, the deep brown of a chestnut or acorn, etc. Second, their culture is based around sacred groves. At the heart of the sacred groves is a sacred tree, called the Mother Tree. This is where things get interesting.
Wood elves form a symbiotic relationship with their grove. This is more than just living among and protecting the trees and wildlife; the Mother Tree bestows upon each elf in the community a Rider, a seed that – when implanted into the elf – forms a low-level psychic link between members of the elf community. The host elf, no matter how far away from home, can sense communal joy in times of holiday, or communal grief at the loss of a beloved community member, etc. The Rider integrates with the host, making the blood of wood elves green, and making them likely to sprout flowers or leaves or small vines from their skin. This is considered a holy thing, and the removal of the Rider is both extremely dangerous to the host, but a major societal taboo.
In addition to providing a low level psychic link, elves believe that upon death (which also results in the wilting of the Rider seed), the soul of the departed will return to the Mother Tree which preserves the memories of generations. High druids of the elven society consume the sap of the Mother Tree to experience visions of the past and future.
How would I stat this?
Well, I don’t want to get too into stats here yet, but I’m certain of a few things. One, I’d definitely keep infravision. I’d also want to make them resistant to magic. But I’d also want to give the Rider some flavor, perhaps a table where on a 1 the sprouts are purely cosmetic; 2-3 the sprouts are thorny vines that increase unarmed damage; 4-5 the sprouts are flowers that can be distilled into a poison; and 6 the sprouts are berries that can be made into a healing potion.
For downsides: The Rider requires access to sunlight. Too long spent without access to sunlight starts effecting the health of both the Rider and the elf host. Prolonged enough it can lead to death. The psychic link could also be a potential detriment, perhaps making them weaker to psionics.
City Elves
These are my more bog-standard elves. They’re elves that are descendants of those who were either exiled from, or chose to part with, their groves. They look like Wood elves, except they lack a Rider, and all the benefits and disadvantages of that. I haven’t yet decided if elves and humans have compatible reproduction yet, but if they do this is where most half-elves come from. Ostracized from the community groves, these elves tend to live within human society, though they are rare and often distrusted, they form communities of their own on the fringes of cities.
Deep Elves
I have long contested that Dark Elves have no business being blue or blue-black. They should, in my mind, be pale, frightening looking things, with big fish-like eyes and semi-translucent skin. They should also be bioluminescent with strange glowing markings that stretch along their skin from neck to toe. The pattern of these bioluminescent markings is unique to each elf, with certain elements recurring along family lines.
Deep elves are cursed beings that retreated to the underdark after a pact with some great chaotic god or devil went wrong. They have sharp hearing and can see in all but pitch dark.
In some dark parody of the wood elves, these drow are cannibals, believing that eating the flesh of the dead returns their essence to the community (dwarves use stories of drow eating dwarf children to keep their young in line). They are not necessarily evil, per say, though their ideas of right and wrong may seem warped. They are especially adept at illusion magic and eat mostly mushrooms and fish and insects. As a result of their diet they are resistant to poison.
Few Deep elves leave their home in the mythic underworld, as they are extremely sensitive to sunlight.
Their society is matriarchal and secretive. They frequently war with dwarves over resources. Some clans form alliances with myconids.