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Elves

Society: Isolationist, prizes scholarship and intelligence and the study of the etheric realms. Lives in castle-like sanctuaries, usually on the peaks of distant mountains or remote islands where they conduct their studies and experiments and write treatises. They tend to look down on other races as being inferior. Children are rare among elves, but are heavily guarded and are usually sent to be trained by a single teacher in the most isolated places possible.

Appearance: Taller than most humans. Eyes in all colors of the rainbow. Skin in various shades of gray, from pale ivory to deep ebony. Hair comes in many colors, although brighter shades such as yellow or purple are usually muted in tone. Although a variety of features can be found in elves, they tend to be slender.

Factions: "The Aristocrats". These elves are slightly more open to interaction with other races than other elves, although they seem to think they are destined to be the ruling class of the world. They dress with long flowing robes and hair. Families usually have a particular craft in which they excell, such as the manifacture of fine jewelry or apparrell. They mostly use magic/alchemy to make their lives easer and to help with crafting items. Although they value scholarship as much as other elves, music and poetry and political oratory are more important to them then the study of ancient runes. The ability to compose an extremely intricate musical piece or write the longest ballad (elven ballads are sometimes considered insanely long and boring by humans) is the subject of many a contest. Some elves take a more mercantile approach and plie their trade to the broader world, appearing in the courts of the most powerful rulers to sell their wares. These "merchant" elves may also rely on their musical skill, and although an elven ballad can be extremely longwinded and dry, it is considered extremely fashionable to have a elven bard to entertain your guests.
"The Scholars" These elves are more isolated, mainly because they tend to spend their lives in magical study, or in the study of other sciences, such as philosophy and grammatical forms. Debates are extremely common, and some elven companions can spend decades on a single intellectual conversation. They write extraordinarily long treatises on their theories, and often have their assistants (younger elves) act as scribes to record debates and keep track of various formulas. These elves will only venture into the outside world in search of ancient ruins or on the tale of the find of a rare rune. Occasionally, the richest human royalty will imploy an elven scholar to educate their young, although to the elves this is considered a disgrace and the learned teacher was probably banished for "an excess of bad logic" or "grammatical carelessness". These elves are more likely to allow their beards to grow long, as age is often the only means of determining societal status.
"The Lone Ones" This sect of elves is the most esoteric of all. They devote their lives exclusively to the preservation of ancient artifacts in monastary like museums. They dress in dark robes and wear masks over their faces, in order that the focus be on the duty and not on the person. Most of these orders have a vow of silence as well, although some will recite ancient chants. Typically an order will consist of an entirety of one gender at that location. There are no children as elves join these orders as adults.