Greetings,

Are there any fiercely savage, warlike elven societies? I thinking about elves that exhibit strong insularity, where warfare holds a prominent place in their culture. These elves dedicate themselves to rigorous warrior training, ruthlessly hunting and dispatching any outsiders intruding upon their territory. Consequently, they seek only robust and healthy offspring capable of becoming formidable warriors or adept hunters in adulthood.

I have been thinking about this for a character concept, wherein the character's mother origjnally comes from such an elven society.

During her early years, my character's mother, Cae, suffered severe injuries, leading to the loss of an arm. As having only one arm would preclude her from becoming a hunter or warrior in adulthood, her people deemed her a burden. Her family, considering her "dead," abandoned her in favour of their other healthy, "living" children and she was taken to the edge of their territory and cast out, never to return   

It was assumed that she would die of exposure and starvation and then become part of the cycle of life, to be reborn again as a new, healthy child.  

When Cae’s mother gave birth to a new baby girl, she named her Cae—assuming that this was her daughter reborn.  Unbeknownst to her however, the original Cae had not been reborn, as she was not dead, although she had come very close to to death (an experience that would stay with her and left her changed forever), but she was discovered by a merchant caravan and, against the odds, clung tenaciously to life.  Eira, a half-elf merchant among the caravan, took her in, nurtured her back to health, and ultimately chose to adopt her.  

Renouncing the life of a traveling merchant, Eira settled in Waterdeep, where she established an unexpectedly successful hat shop.  She also spent years patiently undoing the conditioning that Cae had been subjected to in her early years   

Cae (the original) would eventually grow up to take over her mothers business and become beloved by her customers—she became involved with a halfling (the son of a local tailor) and they eventually had a child together, before making their relationship official and merging their two businesses into one tailors and hatters to the rich and good, and not so good of Waterdeep.  

So, I am curious, do any of you know if there are societies of elves that exist within the official forgotten realms lore, that have cultures like this.   

I don’t want to use the Drow because of the themes and how Drow are often used as allegories of a savage race of people.  

Thanks.  

-Edit-

My character is going to he the child that Cae had.  A half-elf with a halfling and an elf parent, called Abor. 

I'm pretty sure Astral Elves are warmongers but 1) that's Spelljammer so might not apply here and 2) I'm not sure if that's me making up lore for those empty books or if it was actually in there. 

Quote from Brian_Avery >>

Although often overlooked for this the Wild, Green, or Wood elves are perhaps the most aggressive militaristic caste of elf. They wear tribal tattoos and paints and 'hunt' within the boundaries of their domain, usually a wood or forest of some size.

Since your race is half-elf this is mostly for story? Just to have a race to fill the role you want for your character, maybe work with your DM to make a large tribe of Wild elves serve your purposes.

 
That’s interesting.  I didn’t think of Wood Elves for this either.  I always think of Wood Elves as being a bit like nature loving and peaceful.

Eberron has wild marauder elves.