Appearance: Elves usually tend toward the tall side because of their long, lithe legs. Of course, the thing that greatly stands out is their tall, pointed ears. Their complexions are fair, white, smooth skin, which tans well when the time is given. Hair colors can vary, though are most often either near the blacker end or the whiter end, with usually very little in between except for the occasional brown, but hair almost never appears anywhere else on the body, with the occasional sparse patch. Eyes are most often dark greens or blues, colors of nature and especially the forest. Clothing trends currently are light, airy clothing, which drapes from the body and flows in the wind, giving them very unearthly appearances, making them looking as if they're above others. Those more down to earth will usually wear more practical clothing, though.
Abilities: The Elven people usually show a greater tendency toward the academic and the arcane than fighting, though they are renowned for archery skills. Some attribute their skill in archery to their extremely keen sight, which helps them in many other things as well. They also have very long life spans, unaffected by natural death it seems. This allows them to expand their knowledge further than shorter-lived races, sometimes attaining such mental prowess that they begin to lose emotion and begin thinking only in the realm of factual, actual information. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing has yet to be seen, as many of these so-called 'elders' have been great leaders, though a few have also been horrible tyrants worried only about their personal power.
History: Elves are one of the oldest races, though not quite the oldest. They have a long history of poetry and art, as well as epic battles and amazing feats of magical skill. It is hard to tell what of this is true history, and what is Elven ego. No one may ever know, truly, and it seems to move closer to fact with each beautiful retelling of the greatest parts by Elven bards. This is, of course, a very regular occurrence because of how much they enjoy hearing about how great they are.
Transportation: Many Elves simply prefer walking or running, maybe jumping through the branches of the trees they like to live in, so they never really made any great leaps in developing new forms of transportation, however. They do credit themselves with one great invention, which is the magical basis for teleportation spells. It is said that an Elven mage, Elmedre Shim-Tallsune first began working on a spell to increase traveling speed when very young. After five hundred years of work, they say, he could make himself run so that it seemed he would simply disappear and reappear in another place. Later in life he was able to do that, creating rends through which one could walk and appear in another place. They take great pride in this, and Elven teachers of basic magic always tell the story to their students.
Religion: Aside from worshipping the gods and goddesses attached to certain elements, such as Dio and Aidon, they also worship the Mother Goddess, Althena. They link Althena with nature, each of the elemental deities being only a lesser part of the awesome power. Shrines to Althena dot the countryside of areas Elves populate, some built around living trees. There are also several great temples to her, which draw in most of her non-Elven followers.
Language: The official language of Elves is Tshi-Sa-Nu, a beautiful, lyrical language that sounds like music to the ears. Of course, because of human expansion, many simply speak Common both outside and inside their society. Tshi-Sa-Nu is now mainly used in religious rituals and sometimes magical ones as well, but has fallen out of common usage.
Society: Elven society is amazingly complicated and bound with traditions and rules that are said to be as old as Elven civilization itself. Despite their carefree, nature-loving, mightier-than-thou appearances to most of the other races they are actually quite rigid socially. All Elves follow a King or Queen, who divides the power of the continents and Psychic islands between five Regals, representatives of that element. Each Regal can divide his territory among Watchers as he or she sees fit. Above the Regals, however, is the Althenian Council, who advise the ruler, can override their power and choose another ruler with a unanimous vote, and control the process of choosing a new ruler without an heir. They have a strict heritage system for determining power, and in the absence of an heir have numerous challenges to determine who shall begin the next line of kings or queens. They have no strong gender bias, women and men sharing equal power among the Elves, but families are usually matriarchal, led by strong women who are also caring mothers. They also have a strongly guarded secret, the ritual of Sine Tu-chi Fiza. No other race, none at all, knows of this ritual, and Elves don't like to talk about it even among themselves. This is a ritualistic suicide that is to be performed when one can simply no longer go on living, or can't take their slowly increasing detachment from emotion and society. Of course, the Althenian Council can determine when certain Elves should go through with the ritual, especially if they've become simply nuisances. There are stories, though, of rogues who escaped and live now, hermits, with amazing knowledge and power, but nearly unable to even comprehend the world anymore.
In The World: Elves have some people in each element, the least of which is the Fire continent because of their tendencies toward anger and brute strength. Most Elves lean toward either Water or Air, with a good number of Psychic and Earth elementals as well. They almost always separate themselves from others with large egos and stuck-up attitudes, but treat each other with respect. They are generally isolated as far as government and social structure, barely following the rules of human kings even within their lands, certain that they will be protected.
