There are three main races of Elves that inhabit the lands of Millenia. Understand that though these are distinct races, they all are of the same species; that is to say that Elves regardless of race can interbreed, have the same genetic structure, and if such a thing were possible could be organ donors for each other.
The Grey Elves, also referred to as “High Elves” (a term most Grey Elves find distasteful), or “Sylvan Elves” are generally considered to be the leaders of Elven-kind, even though many Elves would dispute that assertion. Greys are the tallest of the fair races, averaging about 6’5” but with thin frames, long fingers and toes, and are quite agile for ones so tall. Fair of complexion, and with eye color and hair color tending toward metallic colors such as gold, silver and platinum, Grey Elves generally also wear clothing that is comfortable, flowing, and of subdued colors.
Wood Elves, sometimes referred to Wild Elves or Grugach, outnumber the Grey Elves by a ratio of at least three to one, but they have not shown an interest in leadership roles, and most Wood Elves are quite content to be the workers, hunters, and tenders of the forests that all Elves love. Wood Elves tend toward much shorter than their Grey cousins, averaging about 4’5” up to a rare 5′. They share the slight frames of the Grey Elves, but their skin, hair, and eye colors are predominately reflective of their forests, with greens, browns, and other earthy colors. Wood Elves also generally favor sturdy, useful clothing made of natural fibers and colors, and many are very adept at camouflaging themselves to become very hard to spot in forest environments.
The Drow Elves, those of the ebony black skin and stark white hair, currently share the forests with their Wood Elf cousins, but tensions are high between them. Lolth does not yet have the Drow firmly in her evil grasp, and the great war of the Drow and the Wood Elves has not yet come to pass. The Drow still live above ground, although they do share a tendency towards cliff-side caves and hollowed out areas underneath the largest old-growth trees for their homes.
Recently, things have come to pass inside the newly appeared Dwarven kingdom involving a Dwarf and her Drow companion that may alter the future of the Drow race; the Dwarven Clan-Father has allowed them to continue to travel together, and the Drow has come into the favor of the Clan-Father after he greatly assisted a Cleric of the Clan. If relations between the Drow and the Dwarves continue to improve, it may hamper Lolth’s efforts to get a strangle-hold on the Drow, and this may in turn tip the balance of power amongst the Elven races.
As a species, Elven women always breed true to their own race regardless of the ethnicity of the father of her children. That is to say that if a Grey Elf mother gave birth to children whose father was a Wood Elf, about 99% of the time the children are born as Grey Elves. The very race circumstance where the child is born of the race of the father, that child becomes the father’s responsibility to raise amongst his own kind. If the father of the child is not available, perhaps because he died, then a suitable alternative of the same race of the father must be found so that the child will be raised amongst her own kind.
There is no cruelty in this; the mother retains much control over the raising of the child, as well as unhindered contact. Her culture demands the separations of the races, but Elves love their children as much as any race and they do not neglect them.
Some Elven story-tellers sing of other lost races of the Elves, such as the fabled Winged Elves, the Avariel, but most consider them just children’s stories and do not believe such a people exist. No Avariel has been seen in recent memory (which is quite long by Grey Elf standards). Far to the north there is said to be a race of Elf that has adapted to the extreme cold for so long that they have become their own race, and many Elves have said that they have encountered Elves that live exclusively under the sea. Again, though, most Elves consider all of this just fiction.
The oldest of the Grey Elves, the Elders of their kind, are rumored to know what happened to the Giant race that once inhabited Millenia, but if that is true none of them speak of it. The Giants disappeared from the face of the land at least fifteen hundred years ago, and that would put some of the oldest Grey Elders in their youth at the time. If they do know anything about what happened, they refuse to say.
Dice Mechanic 