The Elves
The Eternal — crafted from moonbeams and the echoes of ancient songs
The First Crafted
Overview
The Elves are beings of sublime beauty and terrifying power, crafted by the lunar spirit Aethara, the Moonweaver, from moonbeams and the echoes of the ancient songs the Fae sang to gather the worlds. They are not First Born — that title belongs to the Fae alone — but they are among the oldest peoples of Lumeris, native to this world in a way most races are not.
With near-immortal lifespans stretching across millennia, the Elves have watched civilizations rise and fall, entire peoples arrive through the Luminous Veil, and the very shape of the world reshape itself around them. They guard the Starwood Dominion with fierce devotion, their enchanted forests hiding secrets older than recorded history — older, some say, than the convergence itself.
Other races call them proud. The Elves call it perspective — when you have watched a hundred human empires bloom and crumble in a single lifetime, caution is not arrogance. It is memory.
Physical Description
Elves are tall and slender, possessed of an effortless grace that other races find either mesmerizing or unnerving. Their features are delicate and ageless — an Elf of two hundred and an Elf of a thousand may look near-identical to outside eyes, their true age betraying itself only in the depth and weight of their gaze.
Their hair and eyes carry the colours of the sky they were woven from: silver, moonlight-white, gold, midnight black, and deep forest green; eyes of blue, violet, silver, gold, or emerald, often holding a faint inner luminance — a remnant, the Elves say, of the moonbeams Aethara threaded through them. Their long pointed ears are sensitive enough to track a heartbeat through a stone wall, and they move with a silence that seems to bend the air around them.
- ◈Tall and slender, typically standing between 5.5 and 6.5 feet
- ◈Ageless features that barely shift across centuries of life
- ◈Skin ranging from moonlight-pale to sun-kissed gold, sometimes with a faint luminous quality
- ◈Hair of silver, moonlight-white, gold, midnight black, or deep forest green
- ◈Eyes of blue, violet, silver, gold, or emerald, often holding an inner luminance
- ◈Long, delicate pointed ears sensitive enough to track a heartbeat through a wall
- ◈Move with effortless grace — unnervingly silent even across dry leaves
- ◈Appear youthful well into their final centuries; an Elf's true age shows only in the eyes
- ◈Lifespan of 800 to 1,200 years, with elders who remember the Age of Arrival
The Weaving
Origin of the Elves
In the age after the Fae forged the Luminary Heart and bound the dying worlds into Lumeris, the world was young and raw with magic. The Feywild still pressed close against the material plane, and the songs the Fae had sung to gather the convergence still echoed through the fabric of reality like ripples in deep water.
From those echoes, Aethara, the Moonweaver — a primordial lunar spirit aligned with the Feywild's light — drew her materials. She did not carve or mold. She wove. Gathering moonbeams, the fading echoes of the ancient songs, starlight, and the wind of the young Starwood, she threaded them together the way a musician composes a melody, and from that composition the first Elves took form.
This is why the Elves call themselves the First Crafted. The Fae were born of Lumeris. The Elves were made from Lumeris — woven from its light, its song, and its memory. Every Elf carries those threads still, and it is from them that Elven magic, longevity, and sorrow all descend.
From Moonbeams
Sight & Beauty
From Ancient Songs
Memory & Magic
From Starlight
Longevity & Spirit
From The Wind of the Starwood
Grace & Freedom
Thus the Elves became the stewards of the Starwood — the great forest that had given them breath. They built no cities at first, preferring to live among the trees as Sylvari, the Green Mother, the living spirit of the wood, stirred into wakefulness by their presence. For an age of peace, the Elves knew only starlight, song, and the slow growth of the forest they tended.
Then the sky began to fracture, and the first of the dying worlds fell inward toward Lumeris.
The Convergence
The Long Watch
When the Shattering of Eternities tore reality apart and drew the remnants of countless dying worlds into Lumeris, the Elves did not flee. They could not — the Starwood was their mother and their body both. From the highest spires of the Dominion, they watched the convergence unfold: continents stitched from the corpses of other planes, seas overlaid upon seas, entire civilizations uprooted and dropped screaming into unfamiliar soil.
And they made a choice that would define them forever. The Elven houses divided. Some, led by what would become House Dawnbow, raised wards around the Dominion's borders and withdrew — choosing to preserve what they had been given rather than risk it on the chaos of the arriving peoples. Others, who would come to call themselves the Wanderborn, walked out of the forest and into the Age of Arrival, driven by curiosity, compassion, or simply the restless thread of wind Aethara had woven into them.
That division has never healed.
The Secluded Elves of the deep Dominion see the Wanderborn as restless and imperilled — diluting their birthright among races who will be dust before a single Elven century closes. The Wanderborn see the Secluded as fossils, preserving a past so carefully that they have forgotten how to live in the present. Both are, in their way, correct. And both are still, indisputably, Elves.
In the centuries since, the Elves have watched human kingdoms rise and crumble a dozen times over, seen the Orc bands prove their honour, the Dwarves build mountains of stone and oath, and the Fae — the First Born — grow distant and strange. Through it all, the Starwood endures, and the Elves endure within it, patient as moonlight, proud as the stars.
An Elven proverb holds that the shortest unit of time worth measuring is a human lifetime — and the longest is the silence between two songs in the Eternal Choir. Everything else, they say, is weather.
Their Way of Life
Culture
Elven culture is built around memory, mastery, beauty, and the long view. They think in centuries, not years, and everything they create — from a song to a city to a blade — is made to outlast the maker. An Elf does not build for their lifetime. They build for the lifetime after that, and the one after that, because they expect to be there to see it.
They Place Great Importance On
Elven homes are woven as much as built — living spaces grown from and into the great trees of the Starwood, lit by captured starlight and song-glass that holds illumination for centuries. They favour height, openness, and the presence of growing things. An Elf will happily spend a decade perfecting a single carving, because what is a decade to a being who measures their life in millennia? To an Elf, beauty is not decoration. It is a promise that something was worth the time it took to make.
Kindred of the Eternal
Elven Subraces
High Elves
The Auralan Heights
Radiant elder-kin & keepers of arcane tradition
The only race that prepared for the convergence. Masters of the arcane architecture that underlies reality, organized across five Lorewright Courts of arcane specialization.
Explore the Auralan Heights →
Sylvan Elves
The Verdant Weald
Forest elves bound in covenant with the wild
The people most unchanged by the crossing. They walked into the nearest ancient forest, listened, and began again — carrying the seeds of their dying world to grow new forests in Lumeris.
Explore the Verdant Weald →
Dark Elves
The Umbral Spires
Masters of shadow and starlight in endless dusk
Pale-skinned elves shaped by a world without sunlight, organized across five Great Houses of scholars, shadow-walkers, mages, diplomats, and warriors — carrying star-reading and shadow magic traditions of unmatched depth.
Explore the Umbral Spires →
The Divine
Religion & Spirits
Aethara, the Moonweaver
Creator goddess of moonlight, song, memory, and the Elves themselves. When the world was young and the Fae had just forged the Luminary Heart, Aethara gathered moonbeams and the echoes of the primordial songs and wove the first Elves from them. She is not worshipped as a distant deity — the Elves call her Mother.
Caelthir, the Star-Father
Spirit of the stars, navigation, and prophecy. Said to be Aethara's consort, who scattered his own light across the sky so the Elves would never be without guidance. Seers and astronomers invoke him when reading the fates woven into constellations.
Sylvari, the Green Mother
The living spirit of the Starwood itself — not a goddess who rules the forest, but the forest made conscious. She is the reason the Dominion's trees move, whisper, and remember. The Elves do not worship her; they speak with her.
The Eternal Choir
Not a single figure but the collective spirit of every Elven ancestor who has ever lived. The Elves believe the dead do not pass on — they join the Choir, their essence becoming part of an endless song that sustains the Starwood and guides the living.
The Three Lights
Moonlight
Memory
Starlight
Destiny
Dawnfire
Renewal
Elves do not fear death. They believe their essence returns to the Eternal Choir — joining the ancestral song that sustains the Starwood. After an age, some are reborn, carrying faint memories of songs they never learned.
The Starwood Dominion
Cities of the Eternal
Aethel'Lorien
The City of Silver Spires
The heart of the Starwood Dominion and seat of the High Council. Built among the eldest trees, its crystalline spires catch and refract moonlight across the canopy. Here the great houses convene, and here Aethara is said to have woven the first Elf.
Known For
Common Classes
Sylvermere
The City of Still Waters
A city of mirrored lakes and pale stone bridges, where the water is so calm it reflects the stars perfectly. Elven diviners read fate in the reflections. Its libraries hold histories older than the convergence, recorded in song rather than text.
Known For
Common Classes
Vael'Anduil
The Observatory City
Perched on the Dominion's highest cliffs, its great telescopes track the celestial alignments that Lunari astronomers also study. The Elves of Vael'Anduil have mapped every star visible from Lumeris and named most of them. They were the first to document the thinning of the boundary.
Known For
Common Classes
Thornwatch
The Border Fortress
The Dominion's outermost bastion, where the enchanted forest meets the lands of younger races. Garrisoned by House Dawnbow, its wards have held against incursions since the Age of Arrival. Few outsiders pass its gates uninvited.
Known For
Common Classes
Moonhollow
The Hidden Grove
A sanctuary city that exists partially within the Feywild's reflection of the Starwood. Reachable only through Veil Margins known to the Elves, it is where the oldest and most powerful rituals are performed. Even among Elves, few are permitted entry.
Known For
Common Classes
Starfall Court
The Wanderborn Gate
The only Dominion city that openly welcomes outsiders — a trade hub on the Dominion's edge where the Wanderborn return to share what they have learned among the younger races. Loud by Elven standards, vibrant by any other.
Known For
Common Classes
Bloodlines
The Great Houses
House Starweaver
Mages, seers, and astronomers who trace their lineage to Aethara's first weaving. They guard the oldest song-vaults and claim the clearest sight of the constellation-fates.
House Dawnbow
Warriors, rangers, and border guardians who hold Thornwatch. They have protected the Dominion's edges since the Age of Arrival and take pride in never having lost a wall.
House Silversong
Bards, diplomats, and historians. The keepers of Elven memory — they record events not in text but in song, preserving the past in forms that outlast stone.
House Greenroot
Druids, forest wardens, and healers who speak directly with Sylvari, the spirit of the Starwood. They tend the living forest and its ancient trees.
House Moonshadow
Scouts, spies, and veil-walkers who move between the material world and the Feywild's reflection. Few know their true numbers, and that is by design.
House Goldleaf
Artisans, enchanters, and smiths. The finest Elven craft bears their mark — blades that never dull, song-glass that holds light for centuries.
House Nightbreeze
The Wanderborn — travelers, merchants, and tale-keepers who choose to walk among the younger races. Other houses see them as restless; they see themselves as curious.
House Frostthorn
Northern Elves adapted to the Dominion's coldest reaches. Survivalists and hunters who guard the mountain passes few others can endure.
Names of the Eternal
Common Elven Names
Feminine Names
Masculine Names
Neutral Names
House Surnames
Game Mechanics
Playable Race Traits
Starting Attributes
STR
+2
Strength
INT
+6
Intelligence
DEX
+5
Dexterity
CON
+3
Constitution
STA
+2
Stamina
WIS
+5
Wisdom
CHA
+5
Charisma
HP
+10
Health
Upon creation, Elves are allowed +3 SPL.
Their arcane birthright grants greater magical flexibility — used to deepen spells or acquire new ones, up to level 5.
Racial Abilities
Age
Elves reach adulthood around 100 and can live between 800 and 1,200 years. Some elders remember the Age of Arrival.
Size
Medium. Most Elves stand between 5.5 and 6.5 feet tall, slender and graceful in build.
Speed
30 feet.
Darkvision
Accustomed to twilight forests, Elves can see in dim light as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light.
Keen Senses
You have proficiency in Perception. Your hearing is acute enough to detect a whisper across a crowded hall.
Arcane Affinity
Born of woven magic, you have advantage on Arcana checks and begin with one additional cantrip of your choice.
Fey Resilience
You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
Trance
Elves do not sleep. Instead they enter a meditative trance for four hours, reliving fragments of the Eternal Choir's song, and gain the rest of a full night's sleep.
Eternal Memory
Through trance, you can recall any event you have witnessed with perfect clarity, and faintly sense memories carried from past lives.
Languages
You can speak Common, Elvish, and Sylvan.
Allowed Classes
Elves Are Often…
- ✦Patient
- ✦Perceptive
- ✦Graceful
- ✦Loyal to house and kin
- ✦Curious about the long arc
- ✦Protective of beauty
- ✦Honour-bound to oaths
- ✦Comfortable with solitude
They May Struggle With…
- ◈Pride
- ◈Detachment
- ◈Slow to trust younger races
- ◈Melancholy
- ◈Holding grudges across centuries
- ◈Reluctance to act hastily
- ◈Grief for what time has taken
Society & Laws
Elven law is house-based and overseen by the High Council of Aethel'Lorien. Disputes are judged by elders and Moonweaver-priests. Oaths spoken under starlight carry the weight of binding magic — to break one is to wound one's own soul. Justice may involve ritual penance, oaths of service, exile, or, in the gravest cases, the severing of one's name from the song-vaults.
The gravest offences
Relationships With Other Races
Humans
Elves find humans fascinating and exhausting in equal measure — brilliant in their brevity, gone before an Elf finishes mourning them.
Dwarves
A respectful rivalry. Both races build to last, but disagree on whether stone or song is the worthier medium.
Felari
Elves see a reflection of themselves in the moon-touched Felari, though they would never say so aloud.
Fae
The Elves revere the Fae as the First Born — the race whose songs gave the Elves their beginning. The feeling is not always mutual.
Orcs
Elves once dismissed Orcs as violent. Centuries of watching their band-loyalty has tempered that judgment into cautious respect.
Drakari
A quiet kinship of pride. Both races carry the weight of fading legacies, and both refuse to let them die quietly.
The Chronicle Ends… For Now
Final Lore Summary
The Elves are the First Crafted — woven from moonbeams, ancient song, and starlight by Aethara the Moonweaver in the dawn of Lumeris. Near-immortal, proud, and patient beyond mortal understanding, they have watched every other people arrive through the Veil and settle into a world the Elves were made to tend. Whether they guard the deep Starwood or walk among the younger races as Wanderborn, every Elf carries the same inheritance: the light of a young world, the memory of its first songs, and the quiet, unshakeable certainty that they will be here long after the rest has changed.
They are moonlight given form.
They are the song that does not end.
They are the Eternal — still watching, still waiting, still woven from the first light of Lumeris.