City Elves

Alienages are closed communities of elves living in human cities, often walled off and found in the poorest, more crime-ridden parts of the city, while elves in villages lacking alienages make their home in barns or sheds. Their inhabitants are typically impoverished and survive by taking menial and unrewarding tasks or even begging. In the most desperate cases, they might leave the alienage to steal or murder.

Though overall treatment varies kingdom to kingdom, city elves are universally second-class citizens. Elves are, by law or prejudice, unable to join most organizations or hold decent jobs, and the law often turns a blind eye to their abuses.They are often seen as beautiful by humans despite their low status.

Having been heavily discriminated by humans for so long, some city elves try to hold onto their remaining heritage. Artifacts from Arlathan and an abiding deep pride in their close-knit communities bolster city elves trying to make ends meet in an otherwise hostile world. As such, elves that leave the alienage and try to enter human society are heavily looked down upon as "flat ears". Families that do try to leave alienages and live among humans will most likely be forced to return because of violence against them.

Most city elves have adopted the faith of Andraste and the Maker, while some still pray to the elven gods in secret due to the prohibition of the elven pantheon in Andrastian society.

Marriage is highly important for city elves; it is the rite of adulthood in elven communities and will often be prearranged in order for new blood to join an otherwise concentrated gene pool. The absolute worst thing an elf could do is marry or breed outside their race since only humans are born between elven and human unions; which is adverse for such limited communities that depends on each other and tradition for day-to-day survival.

Dalish Elves

Dalish elves seek to recover, inherit and preserve the knowledge and sacred treasures of the two fallen kingdoms. They lead nomadic lives as a means of survival, wandering throughout Thedas. Due to the numerous threats they face from Andrastian humans, the Dalish are known to be wary and apprehensive of outsiders. Their clans date back to the ruling clans of the Dales and the Dalish themselves are their descendants. Many Keepers are descended from the nobility who governed the Dales. The Dalish are considered to have the "purest" blood from the time of Arlathan. They still revere the elven pantheon, and in a ritual to commemorate reaching adulthood each member of a tribe will have the symbol of their chosen God tattooed on their face.

The Dalish travel around the more remote reaches of Thedas in aravels, special wagons with large triangular sails and rudder-like devices on the back. In addition to being pulled by Halla, a type of horned stag that the Dalish do not consider beasts of burden but noble companions, aravels use magic to move through the forests quickly and easily. While travelling, they carry their children in padded slings. The Dalish are familiar with many natural remedies humans have forgotten or ignored, such as chewing pieces of bark from certain trees to cure a headache.

Roles among each clan are stringent and clearly defined. A keeper serves as a leader and spiritual guide, and working in tandem with them is a hahren, who reiterates the elven lore and tends to the children. Other important positions are being the designated warleader, hearthmistress and crafter. There is also a designated Halla Keeper. Elves can also be a Hunter or a Healer. Each position has an apprenticeship stage, an example being how an elf must kill and present a beast of the forest all by themselves to become a fully-fledged hunter. The Keepers are the Dalish mages, though each clan will seldom or never have more than two fully trained mages.

The Templars are aware that each Dalish clan has a Keeper, but largely let such apostasy go rather than upset existing human-elven relations.

    The Dalish, in turn, are aware that their mages are tolerated only so long as they behave, and thus make it a point to never overstay their welcome in any human land.

A Race Divided

The Dalish elves and city elves in particular have a strange and bitter relationship, dating from the splitting of the People after the fall of the Dales. Some Dalish view their city brethren suspiciously and with pity as "flat-ears," culturally human elves who are no different "than their shemlen masters." To some, they are seen as having given up on and forgotten their culture, and the hope is to teach these elves their past when a new homeland is founded. Not all Dalish share this view of the city elves, however.

On the other hand, some city elves see the Dalish as near-myths: strange and savage "wood elves" living far from humans and preying upon the unwary; and yet somehow noble, as well. To others, the Dalish are seen as "savages", primitive elves who refuse to see the promise of the alienage, and live off the land in ways the average city elf could not. Indeed, city elves who choose to leave or live beyond the Alienage are labeled "flat-ears" as well by their city kin, ironically similar to how some Dalish view the Andrastian elves, and subject to violence or resentment from other city elves.

And yet, for all this uncertainty, city and Dalish elves still interact positively now and then. For Alienage elves who seek to leave their home due to desperation, poverty or abuse, wandering Dalish clans are often seen as a sort of "last resort" haven. They are normally willing to take in a refugee from the cities and to largely refrain from attacking a city elf on the road, despite their uncertainty, and train them in the ways of their Creators and culture. Similarly, Alienages may take in a Dalish elf who has broken with their clan voluntarily or involuntarily.

The Evanuris

The elven pantheon, also known in elven as the Evanuris, comprises five gods and four goddesses, whom the modern Dalish elves call "the Creators". The pantheon is led by Elgar'nan the All-Father, God of fatherhood and vengeance, and Mythal the Protector, Goddess of motherhood and justice. There are also references in elven mythology to another race of gods, called "The Forgotten Ones", the enemies of the elven pantheon. It is said that Fen'Harel was the only one able to walk freely between the two clans, and they both thought of him as one of their own.

Interestingly, though the elven gods are responsible for the gifts of the world—and in some cases for recreating it—they, too, were created by and are not creators of the world according to elven belief. Unlike the Old Gods, these gods were never claimed to have walked in the mortal world or have directly challenged the Maker. Their current location is uncertain, as they do not, apparently, interact with the mortal world. However, elven belief holds that the Fade, or "Beyond" as it is known to the elves, is considered a holy place and the gods are trapped there in the "Eternal City".

In elven history, orbs called "foci" were sometimes used to channel the power of the elven gods for various reasons. These items were usually associated with a particular member of the elven pantheon. Their power required a great deal of energy to unlock.