Winged Elf

Winged elves live far from other peoples, high on mountains or deep in remote forests. They look even more delicate than other elves, with sharper, more angular faces, but their glory is a pair of soft, beautiful wings, usually white, though shades all the way to black have been seen. An elf who loses its wings is deeply pitied by its kin, and since elves hate being pitied, a wingless one often leaves to make a life elsewhere.

Their eyes are slightly larger than other elves' but share the colors of high and grey elves. Hair is usually white or black, with many exceptions. When nothing demands their attention, their gaze drifts somewhere far away. They seem natural outdoors and awkward inside buildings or underground. Ordinary clothes catch on their wings, so they wear toga-like wraps that fold easily around body and wings alike.

Earthbound foes think in two dimensions; winged elves think in three and exploit it ruthlessly. Besides elven infravision, they have remarkable sight outdoors or aloft, able to pick out details over a mile away or beneath a forest canopy, which makes them superb scouts. At a distance they look like big birds, so enemies who see their silhouettes often ignore them, sometimes at the cost of nearly an entire army. Relentless hunters, they track down fugitives from a battle and usually kill anyone who might report them.

Heavy gear hampers flight, so they fight with light arms, favoring the sword, bola and lasso, and gain +1 to hit with all three. Any blade longer than a long sword throws off their flight with its momentum; bastard swords and two-handed swords are used only on foot and get no bonus. Their wings also spoil the smooth draw a bow requires, so unlike other elves they gain no bow bonus.

Below half their hit points they are too weak to fly and must fight on the ground; until they drop below a quarter, they can still glide short distances. They can leap 10 feet high. Their wings catch fire easily and burn fast, and burned wings need several weeks to heal before they can fly again. Some enemies like to hurl a fireball into a flight of them and watch them fall, so winged elves never fully trust fire-wielding mages, even elven ones.

They are also claustrophobic and cannot stand tight spaces, least of all underground. A confined winged elf makes a Wisdom check each day; on a failure it goes temporarily mad, becoming violent, catatonic or panic-stricken until it reaches open sky. After more than four failed checks the madness is permanent until cured by heal or similar magic.

A winged elf can carry up to its own body weight in flight, but anything beyond light encumbrance drops its maneuverability to class D. They can be fighters (never rangers or paladins), mages, clerics or multi-class combinations of these; no winged elf rogue has ever been recorded. Each five in a group include a fighter of 3rd level or better, and each ten a mage of the same level. Twenty are led by a 7th/7th fighter/mage, joined by a 6th-level fighter, a 5th-level mage and a 6th-level cleric, besides the leaders of the four fives and two tens.

In some lands winged elves go by an older name, and other races have spun myths about them. Some mischievous young elves have visited humans posing as messengers of a higher power. Elders forbid this because it sends humans searching for them, but the ban has not stopped the young, though the pranks have grown far rarer as the race becomes more numerous. Men and women share power equally, and women often hold more posts of authority.

Two kinds of community are especially common, and they always settle near each other to stay in touch. One is bred for war, living by a warrior's code of honor and glory under war chiefs. Humanoid nations fear these elves above all others; they lack other elves' reverence for life and live for battle and the ruin of their foes, yet they are hearty, proud, loyal forever to those who earn their trust, and determined to live every moment fully. The other knows little of fighting and devotes itself to art, thought and diplomacy, a society of artists and philosophers who create for pure joy.

The two live in complete harmony and deep mutual respect, often swapping their young so each child can taste the other way of life. Oddly, after a few decades away, most are eager to return to the life they were born to. Other, more balanced societies exist, but none thrive like this pairing of warriors and thinkers, whose creative and destructive drives together make the race formidable.

Winged elves are devout without preaching. They worship almost only the elven goddess of air and weather, believing she personally makes their survival possible and takes a closer hand in their lives than other elven gods do in theirs. Her worship keeps the warrior communities from sliding into rigid lawfulness and leaves them elves at heart.

Open forges singe feathers, so they make their weapons of glass and obsidian in closed furnaces, and their glassmiths are masters. Metal weapons come only by trade. Glass blades can fail: on a natural 20, roll 1d6, and on 1-3 the weapon shatters.

No one knows whether winged elves arose naturally or through powerful magic. A few claim they are the original elves from whom the rest have fallen; most believe magic fused elves with their beloved giant eagles. They stay in touch with other elves but hold themselves above worldly affairs, caring little unless something touches them directly, and mostly avoid other races, though some insist on seeing the world.

Despite rumor, they do not lay eggs. Their bones are hollow like a bird's, without which they could not fly, and this makes them frailer than other elves. Flight is hard work and somewhat painful, but the thrill far outweighs the ache. Each hour aloft requires a Constitution check; a failure grounds the elf for at least half an hour per two hours already flown.

Mages prize their wings for brewing potions and making wings of flying and pay handsomely for them, while evil giants mount them on war helmets as trophies. Winged elves live only about 300 years, feeling the pull of the unknown more strongly than other elves. Knowing their time is short, they act more like humans, taking life seriously and packing in as much as they can, though without human frenzy.