Elf
Race Details
“I have never imagined such beauty existed,” Goldmoon said softly. The day’s march had been difficult, but the reward at the end was beyond their dreams. The companions stood on a high cliff over the fabled city of Qualinost.
Four slender spires rose from the city’s corners like glistening spindles, their brilliant white stone marbled with shining silver. Graceful arches, swooping from spire to spire, soared through the air. Crafted by ancient dwarven metalsmiths, they were strong enough to hold the weight of an army, yet they appeared so delicate that a bird lighting on them might overthrow the balance. These glistening arches were the city’s only boundaries; there was no wall around Qualinost. The elven city opened its arms lovingly to the wilderness.
— Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman, Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace, living in the world but not entirely part of it. They live in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires glittering with faerie light, where soft music drifts through the air and gentle fragrances waft on the breeze. Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry, and the good things of the world.
Slender and Graceful
With their unearthly grace and fine features, elves appear hauntingly beautiful to humans and members of many other races. They are slightly shorter than humans on average, ranging from well under 5 feet tall to just over 6 feet. They are more slender than humans, weighing only 100 to 145 pounds. Males and females are about the same height, and males are only marginally heavier than females.
Elves’ coloration encompasses the normal human range and also includes skin in shades of copper, bronze, and almost bluish-white, hair of green or blue, and eyes like pools of liquid gold or silver. Elves have no facial and little body hair. They favor elegant clothing in bright colors, and they enjoy simple yet lovely jewelry.
A Timeless Perspective
Elves can live well over 700 years, giving them a broad perspective on events that might trouble the shorter-lived races more deeply. They are more often amused than excited, and more likely to be curious than greedy. They tend to remain aloof and unfazed by petty happenstance. When pursuing a goal, however, whether adventuring on a mission or learning a new skill or art, elves can be focused and relentless. They are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. They reply to petty insults with disdain and to serious insults with vengeance.
Like the branches of a young tree, elves are flexible in the face of danger. They trust in diplomacy and compromise to resolve differences before they escalate to violence. They have been known to retreat from intrusions into their woodland homes, confident that they can simply wait the invaders out. But when the need arises, elves reveal a stern martial side, demonstrating skill with sword, bow, and strategy.
Hidden Woodland Realms
Most elves dwell in small forest villages hidden among the trees. Elves hunt game, gather food, and grow vegetables, and their skill and magic allow them to support themselves without the need for clearing and plowing land. They are talented artisans, crafting finely worked clothes and art objects. Their contact with outsiders is usually limited, though a few elves make a good living by trading crafted items for metals (which they have no interest in mining).
Elves encountered outside their own lands are commonly traveling minstrels, artists, or sages. Human nobles compete for the services of elf instructors to teach swordplay or magic to their children.
Exploration and Adventure
Elves take up adventuring out of wanderlust. Since they are so long-lived, they can enjoy centuries of exploration and discovery. They dislike the pace of human society, which is regimented from day to day but constantly changing over decades, so they find careers that let them travel freely and set their own pace. Elves also enjoy exercising their martial prowess or gaining greater magical power, and adventuring allows them to do so. Some might join with rebels fighting against oppression, and others might become champions of moral causes.
HAUGHTY BUT GRACIOUS
Although they can be haughty, elves are generally gracious even to those who fall short of their high expectations—which is most non-elves. Still, they can find good in just about anyone.
Dwarves. “Dwarves are dull, clumsy oafs. But what they lack in humor, sophistication, and manners, they make up in valor. And I must admit, their best smiths produce art that approaches elven quality.”
Halflings. “Halflings are people of simple pleasures, and that is not a quality to scorn. They’re good folk, they care for each other and tend their gardens, and they have proven themselves tougher than they seem when the need arises.”
Humans. “All that haste, their ambition and drive to accomplish something before their brief lives pass away—human endeavors seem so futile sometimes. But then you look at what they have accomplished, and you have to appreciate their achievements. If only they could slow down and learn some refinement.”
Elf Names
Elves are considered children until they declare themselves adults, some time after the hundredth birthday, and before this period they are called by child names.
On declaring adulthood, an elf selects an adult name, although those who knew him or her as a youngster might continue to use the child name. Each elf’s adult name is a unique creation, though it might reflect the names of respected individuals or other family members. Little distinction exists between male names and female names; the groupings here reflect only general tendencies. In addition, every elf bears a family name, typically a combination of other Elvish words. Some elves traveling among humans translate their family names into Common, but others retain the Elvish version.
Child Names: Ara, Bryn, Del, Eryn, Faen, Innil, Lael, Mella, Naill, Naeris, Phann, Rael, Rinn, Sai, Syllin, Thia, Vall
Male Adult Names: Adran, Aelar, Aramil, Arannis, Aust, Beiro, Berrian, Carric, Enialis, Erdan, Erevan, Galinndan, Hadarai, Heian, Himo, Immeral, Ivellios, Laucian, Mindartis, Paelias, Peren, Quarion, Riardon, Rolen, Soveliss, Thamior, Tharivol, Theren, Varis
Female Adult Names: Adrie, Althaea, Anastrianna, Andraste, Antinua, Bethrynna, Birel, Caelynn, Drusilia, Enna, Felosial, Ielenia, Jelenneth, Keyleth, Leshanna, Lia, Meriele, Mialee, Naivara, Quelenna, Quillathe, Sariel, Shanairra, Shava, Silaqui, Theirastra, Thia, Vadania, Valanthe, Xanaphia
Family Names (Common Translations): Amakiir (Gemflower), Amastacia (Starflower), Galanodel (Moonwhisper), Holimion (Diamonddew), Ilphelkiir (Gemblossom), Liadon (Silverfrond), Meliamne (Oakenheel), Naïlo (Nightbreeze), Siannodel (Moonbrook), Xiloscient (Goldpetal)
Subrace
Ancient divides among the elven people resulted in three main subraces: high elves, wood elves, and dark elves, who are commonly called drow. Choose one of the two subraces presented below or one from another source. In some worlds, these subraces are divided still further (such as the sun elves and moon elves of the Forgotten Realms), so if you wish, you can choose a narrower subrace.
Elf Traits
Your elf character has a variety of natural abilities, the result of thousands of years of elven refinement.Ability Score Increase
Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age
Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
Size
Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
Speed
Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision
Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Keen Senses
You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Fey Ancestry
You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
Trance
Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and Elvish. Elvish is fluid, with subtle intonations and intricate grammar. Elven literature is rich and varied, and their songs and poems are famous among other races. Many bards learn their language so they can add Elvish ballads to their repertoires.
Eladrin (Variant)
This version of the eladrin originally appeared in the Dungeon Master's Guide as an example for creating your own subraces.
Creatures of magic with strong ties to nature, eladrin live in the twilight realm of the Feywild. Their cities sometimes cross over to the Material Plane, appearing briefly in mountain valleys or deep forest glades before fading back into the Feywild.
Ability Score Increase
Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Elf Weapon Training
You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
Fey Step
You can cast the misty step spell once using this trait. You regain the ability to do so when you finish a short or long rest.
High Elf
As a high elf, you have a keen mind and a mastery of at least the basics of magic. In many of the worlds of D&D, there are two kinds of high elves. One type (which includes the gray elves and valley elves of Greyhawk, the Silvanesti of Dragonlance, and the sun elves of the Forgotten Realms) is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type (including the high elves of Greyhawk, the Qualinesti of Dragonlance, and the moon elves of the Forgotten Realms) are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.
The sun elves of Faerûn (also called gold elves or sunrise elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blond. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-white, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold.
Ability Score Increase
Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Elf Weapon Training
You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
Cantrip
You know one cantrip of your choice from the wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it.
Extra Language
You can speak, read, and write one extra language of your choice.
Wood Elf
As a wood elf, you have keen senses and intuition, and your fleet feet carry you quickly and stealthily through your native forests. This category includes the wild elves (grugach) of Greyhawk and the Kagonesti of Dragonlance, as well as the races called wood elves in Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. In Faerûn, wood elves (also called wild elves, green elves, or forest elves) are reclusive and distrusting of non-elves.
Wood elves’ skin tends to be copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green. Their hair tends toward browns and blacks, but it is occasionally blond or copper-colored. Their eyes are green, brown, or hazel.
Ability Score Increase
Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
Elf Weapon Training
You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
Fleet of Foot
Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.
Mask of the Wild
You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.
That's wrong, moon elves are not the same as wood elves. Moon and Sun elves are high elves, a subrace of elves, and sun and moon elves are subsubraces. Wood elves are a different subrace.
I am aware. I’ve had about 10 people reply to this since I posted that, which was like half a year ago.
Wish we got the Shadow Elves from the Mystara setting. Or does someone have a good idea what their specs should be?
Both sun elves and moon elves are high elves. My knowlege about D&D only goes back to 3.5 so they might have done changes, but I've never heard anything about moon elves being wood elves.
The Aereni Wood Elf race isn't eligible for the Wood Elf Magic feat according to D&DBeyond. Is there a reason for that or is it just an oversight?
I'd probably rule it more on the line of that each individual Eladrin appearance depends on which court they have a close bond with. Maybe a sorcerer's grandmother dallied with a Knight of the Summer court and her favorite grandchildren show favor the signs of her ephemeral dalliance. Maybe a young paladin fell to winter when he sworn vengeance for his foster family that was slain by a roving band of orcs.
Stuff like that. I'd have the players choose which court their character is close enough, and only a major event that changes a part of their personality would shift which court they are visibly representing.
Is it possible for a wood elf to have pale skin?
They are actually Elven in Origin, as was The Raven Queen before she attempted to open a Portal to the Elven Homeland, their proverbial Garden of Eden, which they'd been previously Banished from, and had the Elf known presently as Lloth (Leader of the Drow; the Cursed Followers of Lloth which ventured into the Abyss with her) as well as a specific group of Wizards (forever Cursed to only thrive in Chaos & Ruin) not stolen The Raven Queen's Stored Magic (which all of the ancestors of The Shadar-Kai provided willingly; in an all-or-nothing gambit to return to the lands where they live eternally), The Raven Queen might have actually been successful, as her Spell didn't completely Fail, for if it had she herself would have been consumed by it as a result. Instead, though she did Die, her Body remained and was shunted to the Shadowfell, where she lived on (so to speak) as an Undead, hellbent on Vengeance against those whom betrayed her.
That is also why the Drow do not start out speaking Undercommon, as they would technically have more exposure to Abyssal, not Undercommon, however they also look down upon the other Races, thinking lesser of them simply because they are not Elven. The Drow are commonly Greedy, Selfish, Brooding, and usually out to be everyone's undoing, as these are the Values of their Elven Goddess: Lloth; Elven Goddess of The Abyss.
Such as:
Read it more carefully:
"if you have no cover or if you’re under observation."
on top of that:
"you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest."
Meaning that you can do it when you have nowhere to Hide, once, OR you can do it when someone is observing you, once, but if you have nowhere to hide & someone is watching you, then you are incapable of hiding in this way.
You should also brush up of the Definition of Observing; Observing does not mean they are Watching you, as that would mean they are looking directly at you & tracking your movements. Observing Means that they are aware of your presence, and generally tracking your movements through the Area, however you are not the only thing they are paying attention to, for example; if they lack a direct Line of Sight (approx 60 to 90 degrees Field of View from Eyes) You could be considered Observed, or if you are behind someone/something that is attacking them (somewhere to Hide).
It doesn't take much of a distraction to actually accomplish this Feat, & can be as simple as pointing in the distance behind them & shouting "I'm Distracting You!" & triggering the Ability the moment they look away. You still however need to meet the requirements.
Sun & Moon, not Wood & Moon.
Sun & Moon Elves are both High Elves.
Wood Elves are technically Mutts (Mixed Blood between all other Sub-Races to such a heavy degreee that they are considered their own Race)
Old Wild Elves are the Eladrin, as they grew up in The Feywild.
Old Moon Elves are the Shadar-Kai, as they grew up in the Negatively Charged counterpart of The Feywild; The Shadowfell, & are the closest to the Progenitor Elven Race out of all Elves.
If you are finding 5e to be expansive & overwhelming then I have bad news for you: I started 11 Years ago in 3.5, & there were 3x if not more the number of Checks, on top of that you had no generalized Skill-Sets, such as Swimming, you'd simply Sink like a Rock, even in the middle of the Ocean, or the middle of a calm Koi Pond.
Elves take things at a slower pace than humans, so for them to get a lesser advantage is actually par for the course. Each Race has their own Distractions preventing them from having any single advantage. Dwarves for example are fighting a War against Duergar & Mind Flayers (Time Traveling Tentacle People that eat Brains)
Additionally, for every +1 you get in something; you then have a +5% chance of Success. At Lv 20 with Expertise in a Skill, that Bonus is a massive +(6*2), which translates to a whopping +60% chance, making a Natural 20 total to 32, throw on a Guidance from a Cleric and it can reach 36 (1d20+(6*2)+1d4), putting you in the Ballpark of Demigods like Hercules, as a 36 Athletics Check would have you setting Olympic Records, whilst a 36 History Check would have you knowing everything about something save the Forbidden Lore that is only stored in the Libraries of The Gods themselves & kept under close Guard at that. 36 Arcana Check? You know the Lichdom Ritual like the back of your hand, both Good & Bad variations, & even know that it can be made stronger under certain conditions, as well as knowing at least 1 of those conditions [More Souls are required for each step]).
Monk's Ki is actually pretty well balanced, because once they've run out of Ki, they're just a Commoner with strong punches. The Exotic Weapons such as the Japanese Kunai, Egyptian Kris, & Ninja Sai, as well as various other Weapons are actually covered in the Rules, you just didn't pay close attention to the Weapons & Monk Sections, specifically the Martial Arts section near the end.
As far as Multi-Classing:
Also, Elves used to live literally forever, literally Ageless, however that was forever ago. I actually favor Elves, and study heavily the intricacies & Lore of many Races, but have most heavily studied Elves & Magic specifically. To give you an idea of the Skill with which I played my Elves, I would favor the languages of Giants & Faeries in 3.5 which are very lethal encounters for Elves, the Giants being Mortal Enemies, whilst the Faeries are the worst of all Pranksters when angered or frustrated, and I topped it off by playing a Dark Mage Alchemist.
Additionally, they haven't even finished adding the 4e Races yet, as the Ant-Folk have not been added to the Playable Roster yet. 4e was so heavily in depth that there was a sliding scale Range Penalty, Flat Footed Penalties, stricter Encumbrance Rules forcing you to list EVERYWHERE you had ANYTHING, tracking everything down to which Pouch contained how many of which Coins. 5e is FAR simpler!
Mark of Shadow is for the Realm of Ravinica, specifically in the Book: Guildmaster's Guide to Ravinica, as it deals with one of the Guilds in that Megalopolis.
Shadar-Kai are the Elves that grew up serving the needs of The Raven Queen in The Shadowfell after her Ritual Backfired and the people responsible either Hid or were Cursed with a Divine Curse, capable of even affecting Gods. Lloth managed to avoid it, but it cost her everything; as she hid in The Abyss, which transformed her mentally & physically.
Lloth & The Raven Queen were both very close relatives to the Elven Progenitor Race, and the people that served them weren't far off in relation. That was all more than 5 Elven Generations ago though. The Raven Queen is now a Self Hating Undead obsessed with Knowledge & the Natural Order, & Lloth is a Drider that wants to see the world Burn.
Eladrin (Variant) is in the DMG (Dungeon Master's Guide). If you Purchase the DMG you'll gain access to it on this page. It was the example used for creating your own Elven Races, as was Sea Elves I believe.
Wood Elves, Drow, even Shadar-Kai are capable of suffering from varying degrees of Albinism, aka being Albino.
What Eternetin is referring to is the original lore of the Shadarkai. Them being elves is new as of 5th edition.
Where does it mention that they weren't Elves? Because I recited their Lore, where they've been Elves since before The Raven Queen was living in The Shadowfell, so I would be interested to know where in The Forgotten Realms they are not listed as Elves.
That's kinda the thing though. The Shadar-kai actually predate the Raven Queen in terms of edition and game.
In 3/3.5, they were described as humanoid-like fey. The Shadar-Kai were first introduced in 3.5 and while they did speak "elvish, sylvan, and common" that needs to be taken with a grain of salt as that's quite common for fey creatures. For example Dryads share all those qualities and are not fey.
in 4th edition they were associated with the Raven Queen (as this is the edition she was introduced in), and their "fey" aspects completely went away. In that edition they were simply human like humanoids.
If you check out art from both of those editions (and verify the book they're sourced from) you'll see none of them have elf ears.
Also, if you get the chance I recommend checking out Dragon Magazine Annual 2009. If not to double check my sources, just because it's a great book in general.
Okay, so I have the players handbook in hardcover, and I have a drow character I want to import. Do I have to buy the handbook AGAIN just to import her?