ELVES: ANCIENT DANDIES, RAKES AND NE’ER DO WELLS

Playing an Elf:

Elves are not only eternal and patient, but also compassionate and peaceful. At least that’s what they’ll tell you. While not every elf is arrogant, they have a great deal of trouble admitting fault around the “younger” races based on their extended lifespan. This had led them to frequently interfere in the politics of humans, Orcs, and even sometimes Dwarves “for their own good”. Unfortunately, sometimes they have even been right, those who forget history and all that.

Many elves use Sorcery, the magic of channelling one's inner power. This makes them particularly good at the magic of the mind, nature, and the soul, as well as healing magic. There’s a reason they live long lives while still interfering in everyone's business.

Elven Culture at home in Tennemere is a web of politics, decades-long schemes, and entrenched rival factions. To an outside observer, the Houses appear rigid and fixed. But over the course of a hundred years, a political move that takes months is but the blink of an eye. This makes Elves increasingly paranoid at the best of times, but increasingly so outside of their homeland, where everyone around them seems to be making piles of terrible decisions at breakneck speed.

Eleves do, however, have one saving grace: all of them believe themselves to be moral and good. While a human and Orc who are down on the luck can become nihilistic and say “it doesn’t matter, you just gotta look out for yourself” that type of attitude doesn’t last long with elves. Not that they are punished within their culture (in fact, a little ruthlessness goes a long way), but after a few years of such misery, an elf will succumb to their greatest flaw: boredom. An elf gets bored without purpose beyond themself. Their entire culture is centered on making the world around them better, as working solely for personal gain reaches a plateau that is shorter than the potential of grander ideas.

It’s not that they think they’re better than everyone else, or that the other races can’t handle themselves without Elven meddling. It’s that every elf has some grand project they are involved in, and they view themselves as a piece of middling importance compared to those around them. This is not humility. It is boredom with the person they see in the mirror, who remains unchanged over the decades.