Elf

Elves look delicate beside humans, but their gifts more than repay a slightly frailer body. High elves, the most widespread kind, rarely stand much over 5 feet; males weigh 90 to 120 pounds and females 70 to 100. Most have dark hair, deep green eyes and fine, sharply drawn features. Despite their outdoor lives their skin stays pale, and their builds are slim to the point of fragility. As characters they subtract 1 from starting Constitution and add 1 to starting Dexterity. All see 60 feet with infravision. They dress in cheerful but tasteful pastels, favoring blues and greens, and high elves often throw on grey-green cloaks that hide them instantly among the leaves.

Elves make a point of knowing their forest neighbors, friend or foe. Besides common and their own rich tongue, they may speak goblin, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll, gnome and halfling, and they eagerly pick up any way to talk with and learn from the creatures around them.

Elves fight carefully and play to their strengths. Gliding silently through woodland, they impose a -4 penalty on opponents' surprise rolls, and an elf hiding among the trees who is not attacking can be found only by something able to see invisible objects. Elven armies lean heavily on such scouts, who are seldom caught or even glimpsed.

Their iron wills give them 90% resistance to charm and sleep spells, and an elf who fails that check still gets a normal saving throw. Constant practice grants +1 to hit with short swords, long swords and any bow except a crossbow. An elven archer can move, shoot and move again in a single round.

Horses are awkward under the trees, so elves usually fight on foot, armored in chain, ring or scale mail, and nearly every high elf carries a shield. In a typical band, 30% bear spears, 20% swords, another 20% carry both a sword and a spear, 15% rely on bows, 10% pair a bow with a sword, and the last 5% wield two-handed swords.

Elven fighters and multi-classed fighters have a cumulative 10% chance per level of owning a magical item suited to their class, rolled separately for each class a multi-classed elf has; a 4th or 5th level fighter/priest, for example, has 40% for a fighter item and 50% for a priest item. Elven mages above 4th level use the same percentage, but a success yields 2-5 useful items.

Leaders accompany any band. Each 20 elves bring one fighter of 2nd or 3rd level (even odds), and each 40 add a mage of 1st or 2nd level (even odds). A group of 100 or more also has a mage of 8th level, a pair of 4th-level fighters, and a fighter/mage/thief who is 4th level in each class. Bands of over 160 answer to two fighter/mage/thieves of 6th level in each class, each served by a pair of retainers: one a fighter/mage of 4th/5th level, the other a fighter/mage/thief of 3rd level in all three. These are all extra to the band's count.

Elven women fight as well as the men. In rare cases (5%) a band includes a unit of 10-30 maidens mounted on unicorns, whose exploits are told with dread by every enemy of the elves.

Elves prize personal freedom and live in loose, independent bands of up to about 200. Each band acknowledges a royal overlord, who answers to a king or queen, but their laws are few by human standards and almost nonexistent by dwarven ones.

Camps are carefully hidden, ringed with lookouts and traps, and 65% of the time guarded by 2-12 giant eagles. Per 40 elves in camp, add a cleric of 4th level, a fighter of 4th level and a fighter/mage/thief of 2nd level to the leaders above. The camp is also home to fighters of 5th and 6th level, a cleric of 7th level and a fighter/mage of 4th/7th level. Females equal the number of males present, and children half that number.

Living for centuries, elves see little point in haste or short-term profit, and they puzzle over why other races are always hurrying. They surround themselves with lasting pleasures such as music and the natural world, keep tight family bonds, and hold friends of any race for life. Magic itself enchants them: an odd, useless but curious trinket wins more cooperation than two sacks of gold. They find dwarves grim and rule-bound, though they admire dwarven craft, and they pity humans for chasing wealth and brief power. After a few centuries, every elf departs for a distant, mysterious land to live out the rest of a very long life.

Other peoples know elves for their fine clothing, music and poetry. Within the forest, though, elves are its wardens, holding back evil and the raiders who would strip the woods bare and move on.

The rarest and most aloof elves are either silver-haired with amber eyes or pale blond with violet eyes; those with violet eyes are known as faerie elves. They wear white, gold, silver or yellow beneath deep purple or blue cloaks. Unlike their kin they devote themselves to study, writing remarkable works on nature, and they defend their isolation fiercely. Every grey elf bears a sword, and most add chain armor and a shield. Their mounts are hippogriffs 70% of the time and griffons the remaining 30%; griffon-riding bands guard their camps with 3-12 griffons in place of giant eagles.

Sylvan or wood elves are the untamed branch of the race, slightly darker skinned, with hair from yellow to copper-red and hazel, pale green or light brown eyes. They dress in browns, greens, tans and russets. They value strength over learning and 75% of the time steer clear of strangers. For war they armor themselves in ring mail or studded leather; half carry bows, 40% spears and 20% swords, and they prefer to lie hidden until the enemy is close. Most camps (70%) have sentries: giant owls (80%, numbering 2-8) or giant lynx (20%, numbering 1-6). They speak only elvish, the tongues of certain forest animals and that of treants. More neutral than good, they will kill wanderers who stumble on a camp to keep it secret.

Half-elves carry traits of both their elven and human parents. They grow to about 5 1/2 feet and up to 150 pounds, have elven infravision, and lack the elven sword and bow bonuses. They move fairly easily between human and elven communities, though prejudice sometimes surfaces. Their great sorrow is their lifespan of more than 125 years: long enough to outlive human loved ones, too short to truly belong among elves. Many simply drift between the two worlds and enjoy each. Their possible languages are gnoll, orc, goblin, hobgoblin, halfling, gnome, elvish and common.