Elves: The Elven Race in 5e Dungeons & Dragons - Web DM
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 20 авг 2024
- Web DM Podcast: bit.ly/2g49sUV
Check us out on Facebook - bit.ly/2oGKLOg
Twitter - @webdmshow
Instagram - web_dm
Jim & Pruitt on Save or Dice: bit.ly/2wnZOAv
Written & Hosted by Jonathan Pruitt & Jim Davis
Produced, Directed & Edited by Travis Boles
Complete 5e Classes Playlist: bit.ly/2oGuhG1
Unearthed Arcana LIVE episodes playlist: bit.ly/2oQOlYu
New to 5th Edition D&D? Check out this playlist - bit.ly/2pbZN1K
Music by
John Branch -branchoutguita...
Web DM Theme by
Kyle Newmaster - kylenewmaster.com
Motion Graphics & Logo Design by
Ryan Wieber - ryan-w.com
WebDM Fan Art by Adam Miller - www.adammillerart.net
Intro To 5th Edition - • 5th Edition Dungeons &...
Backgrounds, Feats & Spellcasters - • Backgrounds, Feats & S...
Inside Editions - • Inside Editions - Web DM
Getting Started in 5th Edition - • Getting Started In 5th...
Character Creation Part One - • Character Creation Par...
Character Creation Part Two - • Character Creation Par...
Campaigning “On Rails” - • Is Your D&D Campaign "...
Treasure - • Treasure: How Much Is ...
Player Styles - • Different Player Style...
Killing Characters - • Killing Characters Res...
Barbarians & Bards - • Barbarians & Bards - W...
Druids,Fighters, Monks, Rangers & Rogues - • Druids, Fighters, Monk...
Sorcerers, Warlocks, Clerics, Paladins & Wizards - • Sorcerers, Warlocks, C...
Beholders - • Beholders - A Classic ...
Kobolds, Goblins & Bullywugs - • Zombies in 5e Dungeons...
Red Dragons - • Red Dragons in Dungeon...
5e Dungeons & Dragons is here to stay, and Web DM is here to help!!! Jim Davis & Jonathan Pruitt have been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a combined 30+ years, and on Web DM they demystify, dethrone, and defrock this Dungeon we call Dragons! Subscribe to our channel for weekly videos on 5e Classes, Monsters, DM Tips, and more! Join Pruitt & Jim as we kick down the door and talk some serious Dungeons & Dragons!
Thanks for watching! Want more Web DM in your life? Get our podcast here: www.patreon.com/webdm
Web DM so if you were two make a all evil conically race set of adventurers but on a quest for good and not all of then were raised by good hearted and kind people of other races what backgrounds off the top of your heads not for greed can you think of that would sway those adventurers to the side of good? Just curious sorry if a big ask
the main elf god's name is Corellon (Core-L-On)
@@sambro6657 TM mm0ym;; nå tar ;;;yngre.y88 8c; t; t ;;;;yyyyy.myymy..yi.y.y.yy
The Verdan need a trilogy. Half orc & half Drow, too. Typically chaotically good at that..
Instead of making your elves vegan, you can go the Elder Scrolls route and make them revere plant life so much that they refuse to eat it. They only eat meat instead.
One of the reasons i still rank Morrowind higher than any other TES game: Dunmer, Ashlanders, beautifully interwoven tribal cluture into a around the player revolving prophecy intertwined with the cthulian sixth house and their gloomy, twisted and ancient strongholds. Beautiful and quite novel.
They eat ALL meat.
In my setting, the Elves are just a tribe of humans abducted by Fairies thousands of years ago. The elves CANNOT eat meat, because the fairies stole that part of their human essence to create the Half-Fey (which evolved into Halflings and Gnomes). While they were in the fairy lands, the energies of land mutated them into elves. When they got the chance, they fled back to their homeworld along with the Halflings. They took to the woods because their altered appearance frightened the humans, so they couldn't settle the more productive grasslands, forcing them to turn to fairy magic to garner the food they needed from the forests. Eventually the humans got over it, and the elves were allowed into the human lands, but there's some resentment there for their brief exile. Also, there are no half-elves, as the fairy magic turns the child of a human and elf into a full-fledged elf every time.
Nemesis the warlock Graphics and gameplay may be nowhere near the following games but setting and politics in that game make it the best.
Frankly its the atmosphere. It binds people. There is clan politics. There is the epic story of prophecy involving the character ("DIE FETCHER!"). Its imensely interwoven detail. It begins with the constellations in the sky woven into actual game mechanics and quests, up to the books in libraries, its eerie ashen deserts (Ghostgate) and dark and twisted swamps with as much twisted architecture of daemon (daedra) shrines, its cthulean elements in the non-named sixt house and its sinister and ancient strongholds. It doesn't look like much initially but at times it makes such good use of environmental effects that you just want to stop for a moment and enjoy the scene. Walking into your first thunderstorm (there is NO game coming even close to the use of weather effects, the got it juuust right, not even Skyrim comes close) or visiting the Ushilagro ashlander tents at night, when the wind chimes the flutes hung up there, reflecting green light in against the starlit sky (with its accurate moon and star mechanics). Its not up to technological standarts maybe but what use is technology if you don't have the feeling do something like THIS? Atmosphere is what this game does best still and far ahead of any competition. Yes, Skyrim's snowy peaks and icy storms with howling wolfpacks are quite good but it never quite reaches the fusion of elements this game achives. In fact, nothing does to this day. You can watch people walking into it, for example "HD - Lets play Morrowind [027]". And this is on Apple emulated ;)
Architectural styles off the top off my head: the temple city of Viviec with its canal and rock in the sky, the imperial forts and harbours, the commoners villages, the ashlanders tents, the ashlanders fortress cities (including the one built into the shell of a giant crab), the fungal mage island (where you have to levitate to navigate the towers), the crypts, the daedra demonic shrines, the sixt house strongholds which ooze of madness, the dwarfen ruins and so forth and forth...
This was the game which made Bethesda what it is today. Well... that and the dragons of Skyrim.
Elven paladin always brings to mind Glorfindel, one of the few entities in Tolkien's world capable of beating a Balrog 1v1.
No wonder the director of NASA called Glorfindel. ruclips.net/video/_YmDT2BgI-0/видео.html
Could also go the route of Feanor's sons who swore an oath to retrieve the silmarils.
Ecthelion
I have a concept that I've been meaning to play for the longest time which is a drow bard who came to the surface for the first time and just saw the beauty of nature, thus becoming a romantic.
Gliphtron
That's a good concept.
Used Plato's allegory of the cave
That is a pretty solid one.
That's actually an amazing idea. I also love the concept of a drow who loves flowers
If anything Elves would be the most likely to have a monoculture. They live the longest so would be most likely to carry the traditions of their childhood for much longer than humans. The reasons human culture evolves is because we change and adapt to our surrounding and forget/misremember the cultures of our past.
Elves wouldn't forget because they lived the cultures of the past and they wouldn't have to adapt to their surroundings because they could alter it through the strange magics they have mastery of.
I like the idea of them having cultures where they enslave/guide the other non-immortal demi-humans. An elf comes in with it's magic and wisdom and raises a clan of orcs from the mud, or maybe becomes the God King of a human culture.
Why wouldn't a primitive human culture think an elf is a diety? "He's been king since my great-great Granda' was a boy. Gave us all sorts of magics and pulled us from the mud. May the God-King protect his immortal self from our ignorance and raise us to prosperance"
the defining features of a culture may be shared among several groups but i would not expect diffrent groups to be the exact same as all the others. their will be defining diffrences despite the similarities.
Ive had a setting were the surface elves kinda wraponized the humans to fight Against The Drow. After that the humans became the powerfull Race cause they have more numbers than the elven.
@@toribiogubert7729 You mean weaponized?
Mind if I use the 'God King' idea?
Because that is freaking brilliant!
One idea I have for an elf character is a former adventurer who retired, because his party all died. Maybe they died in combat and only the elf survived, or maybe he just had to watch them all die of old age. Whatever the case, he was left behind while all his friends left for that undiscovered country, and it he was just devastated. He hobbled back to his home or wherever he happened to settle down, and fell into depression. A century-long depression, where he sat around and did nothing. And so, of course, by the time events conspire to drag him back into the adventuring lifestyle, he's got all this knowledge, but he lost all his character levels. He's completely gone to seed, and needs to regain his former power the hard way.
So in the party, he's the experienced one - the guy who knows a mimic from a mindflayer, and is properly paranoid - but he's pretty aloof. Not because he's an elf and therefore thinks he's better than everyone else, but because he's burdened with a powerful sorrow, and is afraid of getting too attached to this new group. Because it hurt, losing the last one, and he doesn't want to feel that pain again. So part of his character revolves around learning how to open up to his compatriots, and see their adventures from the perspective of the present, rather than worrying about the inevitable future. And maybe he does learn to care about these fleeting individuals, and has to accept that the good feelings he has now are worth the pain he'll feel when they are gone.
Naturally, there are more details to play with his characterization. If there are members of the new party that are reminiscent of the old - a party member is of the same race or class or background - he'll call them by the wrong name by mistake every once in a while. Or he'll make wildly off-base assumptions about a character, because his prior experience with, say, a dwarf or a monk was based on a single edge case or exception, and he doesn't realize that not every one of this group is like his old adventuring buddy. Or he'll speak with authority about a certain society, only to realize that his knowledge is out of date, and things changed while he was gone. Or he'll be paranoid of a particular kind of attack, because his old party had to deal with a certain kind of threat, and he can't let the old fears go. Or he'll absolutely refuse to let the party go anywhere near a dragon - even the rumored presence of one - because that's what got his last party, and the thought of his new friends meeting the same fate terrifies him.
I'm now very interested in a dwarf episode.
Elves: "We mostly ripped off Tolkien but we tried a lil to give them some distinction and uniqueness."
Dwarves: "We're 100% ripping off of Tolkien; heavy Scottish drunk stereotype, always smiths, etc."
In fairness, the stereotypical Dwarf is already interesting, the stereotypical elf is rather bland (are you playing Legolas or Drizzt this game?). There's actually a lot that COULD be done with elves, but too many writers are obsessed with Tolkien to go there.
You also left out the "Galadriel" stereotype (ie: powerful spellcasters).
For Dwarves, it's "are you playing Gimli or Bruenor this game?" And the problem is that Gimli and Bruenor aren't very different at all. :P
Honestly, while I love Galadriel, I have never seen a player try to play that archetype in a game. Maybe it's the power level she holds, or just a lack of imagination on the part of my players, or that they're not familiar with LOTR enough.
I wouldn't say many players probably try to imitate Galadriel herself. I would say, however, that the idea of the powerful elven archmage (very very popular, especially in, say, Forgotten Realms) was probably birthed with her.
Sean Hurley She is a good example of it, but the elves themselves are magical. Even Legolas. Tolkien's idea of magic is very understated, casting spells is extremely rare and they usually don't have a big showy effect.
One thing that Galadriel was doing through magic and through her ring of power is that she was hiding Lothlorien from the agents of Sauron.
In a Viking-inspired game I ran, I created a tribe of arctic elves that were inspired by the Water Tribe from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." They built wooden cities that floated on the water and were the caretakers of primordial water elementals.
Were they pillaged killed and raped by fine viking adventurers?
That sounds dope dude
Oooooh, that's actually pretty good.
A city made from seaweed, barnacles, polished oyster shells, coral, and shark bones rather than wood comes to mind. I like your idea.
Damn.
One of the best things I've ever heard re: how to play drow is to play them like they were Eastern Europeans born behind the iron curtain who are now gawking at life in America.
Now all I'm imagining is a bunch of Drow drunk on vodka & wrestling bears
@@SinerAthin wearing Adidas armor
Re: How to be a good Drow without being Drizzt or Emo: One of my players plays a young Drow who's main thing is that he doesn't understand anything about surface culture. "Is this food?" "Why are those children throwing soft frozen water at each other?"
Neville Teacy that's one way to do it!
Tfw I made Drizzt without meaning to make Drizzt
Camo's Vidya
I did that with my first D&D character.
_Xal l'Linath d'Eilistraee sila dos Lilbh'iahin_
(tr. Low Drowic: May the Song of Eilistraee bring you Joy)
Why has no one sacrificed that weakling to a dark god yet.
One of my first characters in 5e was a high elven battlemaster fighter with the noble background. Whenever he had downtime he was either playing chess, practicing his calligraphy or training. He was a cultured badass
First, I love Drow. They are my second favorite behind Half-Orcs. And I've played a LOT of Drow....
Against Type:
Paladin Oath of Ancients dedicated to Eilistraee. Rapier-wielding swashbuckler in a jester mask.
Moon Druid who only takes the shape of arachnids like Giant Spiders, Scorpions, and (if you're feeling clever) a horseshoe crab variant on the Giant Crab so he can swim. Want to fly? No problem. Talk to your DM about pulling the real-world tactic some young spiders do when they leave their mother and spin parachute like balloons that they dangle from and fly on the wind.
Wild Mage Sorcerer who was born of low caste and no family holdings. Born in a Faezress (sp?) area and thus affected during birth. The path of this character could go in any direction, but if you'll pardon the pun, he could be a real wild card in political dealings below should he/she rise to any level of power.
College of Lore Bard who takes the role of anarchist and uses propaganda and music to try and inspire Drow society to throw off the shackles of Lolth, fights (ironically) for equal rights for male Drow, and generally is a loud pain in the ass.
Drow diplomat using the Noble background and almost any class that seeks to establish trade with the surface for things unavailable below. Fresh or dried fruit, tobacco, or valuable surface woods.
There's a lot of choices if you wish to be more than "That evil Drow person"
I should also mention that we have a fellow player at our table who plays an Elf stereotype in the most against-type way.
Wood Elf Hunter Ranger.....but think Appalacia with a red cap that has "Make Faerun Great Again" on it.
I also have a Half Elf concept that's a bit against type. Half-Aquatic (see SCAG) Elf Berserker Barbarian. Sworn to fight the Sahaughin, but slowly becoming just as bloodthirsty as the shark people themselves.
Mike Gould great ideas!! Especially love the moon Druid one.
Mike Gould Those are some Out of the Box character concepts; i gotta love a hillbilly "keep Toril pointy-eared!" Ranger haha.
Those are fantastic
My home game elves are a combo of Eberron, and a Lovecraftian dreamland. A lost immortality, an obsession with necromancy, and a lost city Celephais, that all elves remember but can not remember how to find it.
To....meditation....🤨
Elves are my favorite race. I love the beauty, the long life, the reverence for the natural world in the case of wood else and the dash of haughtiness with high. Blood Elves are certainly my favorite fantasy race of all time.
The sheer comic outrage behind “How do they make bowstring?!” Absolutely killed me.
Drow Emo Bard - My Chemical Elfmance.
Venomm12 *My Alchemical Romance
tyler hilpisch yep, yours is better
tyler hilpisch *My Alchemical Drowmance
Venomm12 Gerard Fey.
I can see an Drow The Cure. The Cure did have a song about a giant spider that eats people . That could be a holy song for Lolth .
When you got to the part "We don't care, we're elves", I instantly thought of High Elves from Skyrim. Goddamn Thalmor...
The Ad&D 2nd edition had the Complete book of Elves , with a great little story about elven vengeance. Where the kids of a slain elf searched high and far for the dwarf who killed their father...when they found the dwarf he disappeared. Then every anniversary of their fathers death for years a dwarven body part would be left on the old dwarfs doorstep, arms, legs, hands feet, all from the same dwarf...but multiples of the same limbs...a left arm for years, a right leg for years.....Moral of the story: ring of regeneration makes for great revenge.
Let us not forget the greatest Elf that ever lived. The most famous bard in the world. the one the only. ELVISH PRESSLEAF!!!!!
Matthew kornman thank you. Thank you very much.
I'm stealing this!!!
He was the son of the elvish "Little Rascals" sweethearts: ElfAlpha and Darladriel.
What a minute! Those are fake ears! You’re an elvish impersonator!
Elves are cool and all but you know what's cooler? Jim Davis and Pruitt body pillows. Get on that.
Josh Buchholz
Ha!
Josh Buchholz But use their scared expressions like from the thumbnail of their Lich video
Finally, someone speaking for the people.
I think it makes sense that Elven culture is more homogeneous. Elves live for a long time, so the older Elves can maintain the culture with newer generations.
Humans live shorter and breed faster. They're more inclined to spread out and cover more territory. Those are catalysts for a change in culture.
I mean, I'm not against different Elven cultures, but this is likely to happen when groups of Elves have been separated for a very, very long time.
Elves are cool when they live forever. Especially when starting at level one at venerable age. "I'm a sorcerer and it took me ONLY 623 years to awake my bloodline," or "I finally passed my wizard exams after 945 years!" despite being attuned to magic and only studying.
In Germanic mythology, Elves are the manifestation of memories of our ancestors; they are the pagan saints in pre christian europe.
TheMeliaz in Shadow of the Demon Lord, the elf high lords are also the gods of the Old Faith, unbeknownst to most mortals. I bet it has a basis in the pagan saints you mention.
that's pretty cool. is there a special name for that kind of elf?
elves with divinity levels?
Elf or elves is the germanic name given to the concept for luck of the tribe, or continuation of the tribe, (elves do live a long life right?)and ancestral memories to be passed down or Ideal aspirations for the higher self.
Do you have any links for this? that's very interesting.
Imagine Ancient Pharaoh Egypt meets Hitler's 3rd Reich and with an old Japanese honor code and you basically have my take on the High Elves.
Oh, and did I mention they all smell like roses & are also responsible for preventing demons from consuming the world(which they LOVE to remind everyone about)?
Yeah, player interaction with those guys is always a blast! xD
I like the idea of properly Fey Elves being linked to the annual cycle; so they are all reborn on the Spring Equinox and age through out the year.
Are you telling me neither left or right nerd owns a pair of elf ears? Even Vulcan ears would have sufficed. #sad
Sad!
Thomas Middleton Beast Boy(DC Comics) has elf like Ears too.
Straight up read your name as Thomas Middleditch, I was like no way he watches this show!
Jim and John will henceforth be forever known as Left Nerd and Right Nerd
wait, are vulcan ears a thing? Do they market them as that instead of as elf ears?
Whenever I think of Drow and Drow culture all I can think about is "How come there are any drow left and why are they so powerful." The stagering amount of treatchery and backstabing they have in their own politics would have prevented them from comeing tougether under a common goal and would mean that all the Drow would be eliminated. Even kobolds understand the importaince of the tribe working tougether. No wonder drow are still inside the underdark
I had a lot of fun playing a Drow Oath of Redemption paladin in Out of the Abyss. The character worked pretty well. Got to smite a Priestess of Lloth and drop the line, "As you die, meditate on your God's reward for failure."
I play a Drow College of Satire bard, who is an insult comic named Androw Dice Tray. Maintains that certain level of nasty. Backstory of him becoming an adventurer was that he was banned from performing in inns and taverns because of a past event. he was being heckled, so he cast a illusion of the hecklers girlfriend and performed "acts" on it on stage. When naturally attacked for this, he cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on the guy.
XiaDun
Little boy blew....
He needed the money! OOOOO!!!!
To this day, my favorite character to play. Coming up with insults for Vicious Mockery. Some colorful uses of Suggestion also...
Perfect
Thank you for adding a character concept to my future repertoire. That sounds glorious
Little boy grey, cause he's a duergar!
Dice Tray *is* nasty: Tasha's Laughter is a brutal spell.
Gray Elves will always be my favorite. :)
In my own homebrew world (that I've been working on since AD&D 2nd Edition), I changed up the elves a little bit. Overall, demihumans are less-frequently encountered as the overly-ambitious Humans pretty much pushed them all away throughout history. I included my quickie descriptions of them below (from my old notes), though I did remove game mechanics from each one since I haven't even looked at them since my Pathfinder days years ago. Figured I'd share them in case anyone is interested in learning a little about them.
Oh, and the names I gave them use a light rolling "r" during pronunciation. :)
-----------------------------------------
Elves - Among the most withdrawn of the major races as a whole, elves have nearly become human myth and legend amongst the common folk; adventuring types tend to run into the fairer race more frequently however. Their chief deities are Artariel [Neutral god of spirit/the soul and primary deity of elves], Ilaine [Neutral goddess of nature] and Ermus [Neutral god of the arts, creativity, invention, and gnomes].
The Juri’vaal, or Young Elves, are commonly seen within the plains and forests of the world and are most likely to take a place of residence in a human city. They specialize in crafts that use plants and wood (though they prefer to avoid killing a tree for their own purposes). They are the most varied of the Elf subtypes, with various hair/eye color combinations, differing physiques, and even height. On average, however, they do not exceed 5½ feet in height and have less overall mass than humans. Young elves are the most common of the Elf subraces.
The Juri’vycus, or Pale Elves, are the next subtype of elves most commonly seen; they tend to lair in the mountains and arctic tundras. Their isolated regions lends them a certain amount of privacy that allows them to expand their knowledge in the arcane. With the exception of the Eleni’Dhurai, the Pale Elves have the slightest build of all the subtypes. Their eyes and hair tend toward earth tone colors in varying shades (brown, gray, green, and blue).
The Juri’vecyan, or Fury Elves, take up residence where other races tend to avoid: the center of a dangerous marsh, an overheated desert, or even the bowels of a long-forgotten cavern. They are survival experts and are among the land’s best hunters and scouts. They tend to have tanned skin and well-toned physiques compared to their cousins. They usually have the more pronounced of the “normal” hair colors: red, blonde, chestnut, and even auburn. They have the brightest eye colors (with sky blue, bright green and lavender as the most prominent); however, their eyes darken a few shades whenever they become impassioned (hence their name).
The Juri’volynn, or Shadow Elves, take their name seriously and live where the sun rarely (if ever) shines; they are the rarest of the subtypes, and they are rumored to be descended from the mythical Juri’aol, or “Drow” as humans have come to mispronounce it. Despite peasant rumors of their evil and deceit, Shadow Elves are not actually so natured; they are willing to share what knowledge they may have with individuals deemed worthy. Sometimes discovery of a Shadow Elf is enough to make one worthy. Contrary to the rough Common translation of their name, the Shadow elves’ skin tone can range from a light mist gray to as dark as a moonless night sky. Their hair usually grows long and full, the colors almost always contrary to the color of their skin. Their eyes, however, are dark to the point of being almost completely black, though in rare circumstances one will have bright colored eyes. In those instances, the colors are always different (like one eye being forest green and the other sky blue).
The Eleni’Dhurai, or Fallen Brethren, is a race of elves that have been cast out of the blessings of the gods. They are gaunt, pale elves with transparent wings; these wings are what have earned them the nickname “Wind Riders”. They cannot fly for very long, usually only about 1-2 hours on average before they need to rest. They excel in all things martial; their archery and swordsmanship are rivaled only by the best of any other race. While they do have the ability to use magic, they tend to focus on the more destructive spells (Elemental Fire and Earth, Force spells, and other Invocation spells), and they cannot heal magically (a curse from the gods that have forsaken them, they claim). However, they have strong natural healing and are generally over even grievous wounds in a matter of hours.
Personally, I have a severe Elf racism problem from my days of playing Dwarf Fortress, and that kinda carries over into my attitudes towards D&D.
"Wait, you won't accept wooden items because you're Elves? Um, okay, good thing we're dwarves and sell mostly stone equipment. By the way, are you interested in buying one of our many caged ravens? What, why not? The cages are also made of wood? Okay, okay, no need to get so offended, clearly I can't sell jack shit to you, so what are you willing to sell to me?"
"Oh, we Elves have a large selection of items forged out of wood!"
I have one thing to say to dwarf fortress elves
R E M O V E E L F
DarthVaderReviews That's why my depots could always be flooded. Water, Magma, naked gobbos, whatever was convenient
And they try to force you to stop cutting down trees.
One conception of elves I've seen and loved is that instead of these incredibly elegant, well-designed buildings, their structures are all a hodgepodge of contrasting styles because each elf just adds bits to their buildings as they need and see fit, without concern for the previous occupants' aesthetic tastes.
Over the thousands of years that elf buildings stand, this leads to some *very* unusual buildings that look more like a mad wizard's high school model project than Lorien.
Also, if nobody picks them as a race I generally play them up similarly to how WFRP does - they're these utterly terrifying beings, ethereal and unsettlingly graceful.
I have a setting where the Elves are somewhat different from traditional Elves. They are obssessed with the furthering of magic and industry, and there is actually very little care for nature among the accepted culture, but there are a group of rebel Elves that lived in what was basically the last forest in Elven territory.
A bit late but
I played a moon elf rogue recently. The backstory there was that he never really was into the whole superiority thing. He was born into a noble elven family and eventually fell in love with a human, so he decided to leave and live in human a city with his human girlfriend, who was a paladin. He learned to use his trickster talents not to steal but instead help his spouse to get through dungeons disarming traps, finding safer sneaky routes and killing evil. Next campaign I’m playing their son, who became a Shadow monk, inheriting his father’s stealthy talents and mother’s courage
I'm setting up a setting where drow are stillborn elves resurrected by death priests
Zombie Elf Baby = Drow... Nice!
In my setting, since elves are so long lived, they tend to job swap every 50 years or so. They will do this until they find something they truly enjoy doing and then they tend to stick with it and master it. They pick a name after their first 100 years and if they find that they are in constant contact with the short lived races, they will pick a second name so as to fit in more with those people.
I am not so into Warhammer 40k, but isn't the Eldar one of the best adaptations of elves? A once great ancient race which fell into such debaucery that they created the demon Slaanesh. That concept would work really well in a typical fantasy setting as well... elves as the remnants of a former great race in the world, watching for corruption and black magic because they they know from experience what such horrors can bring. It would mirror the sorrow and shame the Noldor of Middle-Earth feel from the kinslaying, that semi-secret great sin they committed in ancient history.
LordSplendid 40k Eldar are great. Always wanted to use their backstory for a homebrew.
Warhammer has elves called Eldar? I'm surprised The Tolkien Estate has not reacted since they stopped halflings from being called hobbits after the very first printing(s) of D & D.
Yeah, I find it weird that GW was willing to take the risk. But "The Hobbit" is a title of a book read by a ton of people. "Eldar" is a word used a lot in Silmarillion, a book read by much fewer people. Perhaps the case would not be so strong.
Well, they're space elves, so there is a thematic difference. The eldar are part of the sci-fi Warhammer game. Games Workshop basically took fantasy races and sci-fi'd them up for Warhammer 40,000. Eldar are essentially high elves and the Dark Eldar are the analogue for drow. They had space dwarves, called Squats, too, but we don't talk about them, anymore. There are also Space Orks (the 'k' differentiates them from the traditional orcs, with a 'c', in the fantasy game).
I love my eldar and yes, their backstory would make a great history for elves in a fantasy game. 40k eldar are so arrogant toward everyone else, because they were the masters of virtually the entire universe, at one point, but if you know how they destroyed their own civilization, that attitude is almost laughable. Literally, the only change you have to make is to swap magic in for technology and psychic ability. When you live a long life, you have to find something to make that life fulfilling. A class in an RPG is directly analogous to the Path that eldar follow. Going out to experience the world firsthand is just as valid a choice as reading about it in the history compiled by your people, if you can stand the inferior creatures you'll have to interact with. As long as you balance that arrogance with a naivety about the world that demonstrates that you aren't actually perfect, you could have a good character.
I think Warhammer is moving towards copyright-able race names like Aeldari and Drukari etc.
In my most recent game I made a point of avoiding monoculture for elves and dwarves. In addition to High Elf vs. Wood Elf, I also sketched out cultural differences between elves in the eastern half vs. the western half of the continent, and even created a splinter group of anarcho-communist elves.
As for farming out worldbuilding to players, I had one of my players create the dragonborn culture and he was way more creative than anything I would've come up with!
One great way to introduce Elves in your game is to have your party visit an Elven village. They are brought in to meet the leaders and are given some lodgings until they are retrieved.
And then you let them wait for three days.
You leave them guessing as to when they will meet the leaders but they are well fed and can sleep the best sleep they've ever had in the softest linen they have ever touched. In the meantime the Elf leaders have a round-table about the topic the party is bringing forth. The news, the McGuffing that is sought, the reason that they came. Remember the Entmoot that Tolkien described? That it took the Ents a day to just say their greetings to each other? In my mind the Elves live on this whole other timeline that we as humans find very different to relate to.
This would be even more fun if there's an Elf in the party.
In a renaissance inspired high fantasy setting my friends and I are building, I've completely overhauled elves. They are green skinned short humanoids with leaf-like hair, black eyes and antlers. They are essentially nature spirits who are intrinsically suited to agrarian hunter-gatherer societies, and as a result of the mass urbanization of the world are going extinct.
In said setting there are also Elf terrorist groups magic bombing civilization to return the world to a state of nature.
Personally I wish elves had no age limit. I think the book should tell you when they become adults and that is it. Flame Princess does that.
That's how it works in my group's homebrew setting, Elves can't really die of old age but they tend to die trying to recreate parts of the Fae ballads (because they think they're Fae but they aren't really, so they can't actually succeed).
None do unless sin or crime is in the mix at all. No species especially in a fantasy setting.
I currently play a CN Drow Monk, 25yr old, not emo, just excited to be above and enjoying the company of his party, escaped with his tiefling partner during a house war, hitched it to her monastery run by Githzerai and has been training with them ever since
I played a Drow in a one shot who was raised by Gnomes and knew nothing of Drow culture. He was obsessed with the sun despite his sensitivity to it and carried himself like a farmer. One of the best characters I’ve ever played.
Drow are so interesting for the simple fact that they are a tragic story of a bird having its wings clipped. They live long lives of emotion and passion, experiencing things in ways that other lesser races cannot even comprehend. Thus, to have a drow, a decrepped mockery of the elvish way, ceased and entrapped to worship anguish and hatred. I personally enjoyed the Drizzt novels, so far. I am currently on The Crystal Shard. I think it expresses the struggle of the drow, especially in Drizzt, as perfectly as I have ever seen it done.
25:23 Jim cracking up at the prospect of a four elements monk. so good.
I like the idea that elves/elfs really care which they are called. If you call them the wrong name they get greatly offended. Same with Dwarves/Dwarfs
I LOVED this episode. Elves are almost always my go-to race. I am SO READY for additional D&D race videos from Web DM
Drow bard turns his pain up to 11
My go to "Off-type" Elf is a Barbarian, played more like a ranger than not. If you don't tell anyone you're a Barb, most tables won't even pick up on it until you hit that rage button.
make Elf Lore be that when they get bigger muscles, they just get more dense, and don't actually get bigger, so you can have a stringbean walk up to an ogre and rip his head off or something.
D&D elves already have denser muscles than humans, being more slender without any decrease in strength- add in a natural predilection towards more of a martial/athletic body type, and it's not hard to imagine the physically strongest elves looking like an average human.
I had a setting where elves were definitely the conquerers because their homelands were crowded, stinking places where more and more children are born and hardly no one ever dies.
I've been playing a mystical archer elf. He was a straight ranger who was a bit of a lonely wolf of a military scout. He went to a new land to scout it out for his leaders. Then he had a world shattering run in with a god. He meditated and was dragged into a realm beyond reality where his mind broke and magic seeped in. he realised how he could mix his skill with the bow and magic. He became able to use his bow without ammo and became seeking of magic. he learnt of the goddess of magic and made it his goal to become the champion of that goddess, as well as gaining as much magic as possible.
regarding your Mad Max homebrew campaign setting. it could very well be that knowing what their history and potential is, especially regarding magic, that they always seem to hold back. never fully committing, always pondering what the consequences and repercusions are of their own actions and the events around them. having all that knowledge and knowing how a small pin prick can topple like a domino stone tens or hundreds of years down the line. sounds like a great premise for a character, let alone an entire race.
i always like the split between Elves using magic to ease their lives versus spending years and years on craftmanship to build jewelry, clothing, weapons etc. natural born spellcasters making use of spells almost every day but still putting in hours of dedication and effort into something non-magical.
the complete book of Elves is a nice read (from AD&D). it even includes some 'kits', folklore, stories, backgrounds and alot more. i am sure you can find a pdf of it on google
talking about archetypes, for me the aleven archer and elven minstrel spring to mind. whats not to like about a race living hundreds of years and gathering all the tidbits of information they can find. elven rogues can fun, retrieving elven items which have fallen in the wrong hands or are (still) to powerfull for non-elves to use properly.
My setting I'm working on, it's a large island that elves settled, so you had the standard three tolerating each other's existence on the island, until genies turned up and took over, a bunch of things happened for the genies to be overthrown, now there's aquatic elves, phoenix elves, demonic and devilish elves, half dragon elves in addition to the drow, high elves and wood elves still existing on the island because it happened roughly a century or two before the modern day of the setting.
Halfling next! #BilboSwagins
I've done the Elven Barbarian, but I cheated a little. He was originally a Human Outlander Barbarian (Classic), but ended up being murdered and reincarnated by an absolutely mental Druid for sh!ts and Giggles. That was some fun time :)
Also: "CORELLuminati" :)
Played D&D since 1981, just rolled up my first 5th Edition PC, a Drow elf rogue. Rolled awesome stats, cannot wait to see how he will work in this campaign. As far as surface elves, I always liked Birthright elves and their xenophobia of humans, who are seen as intruders in Cerilia. When rolling bloodlines, there was a high chance of having an Azrai bloodline, making a darker version of the standard D&D elf.
My setting I borrowed from Dragon Age and WItcher. They were an Apex civilization, ruling the entire world, under the rule of the seven God Elves (who were elves who ascended to godhood). Civil war broke from the followers of The Betrayer and the other god elves, one of the factions was losing the war and applied a plan to kill all gods forever, so they separated all planes of existence and giving the world the shape and rules of magic we have today. The faction who followed The Betrayer saw itself stranded in the Shadowfell, and in Mundus (material plane) the elven society collapsed, because everything depended on magic being everywhere and now it's not anymore.
A great take on elf like creatures, at once unique and capturing the grace and tragedy of tolkiens elves, is the tiste from the Malayan book of the fallen.
I am the only wood elf in my DMs campaign and while the species featured heavily in the world events, I was the first to have ever "seen" their territory. Therefore, he and I worked together to create the basic concept, and then he expanded upon it to still surprise me since my character hasn't been home in 80 years. It's really cool having unexpected things come out of familiar elements. Because of my experience, I felt kind of... Uneasy with their displeasure with the race.
There's an English proverb, "It takes three years to build a ship but three hundred years to build a tradition"; elves embody that while humans in the presence of elves are likely to toss that aside. Humans have only been on the scene for a fraction of the time and built great technological marvels... and their takeaway is they don't have to listen to the supposed "wisdom" of (in their view) a bunch of lazy savages who have wasted thousand of years frolicking in the trees. The rich culture and established knowledge of the elder races is anything but, and fit only for the dustbin of history. We humans are, of course, dead wrong.
It is interesting how the idea of human/elven supremacism is a cyclic trope. The trend nowadays seems to be playing elves as pointy-eared Nazis, a ball Skyrim kicked off and everybody else has been running with ever since.
Caelynne is a wood elf paladin, oath of the ancients, (dex based), who was a holy servant (and relic of a bygone time) of The Lady of Leaves, a slightly modified concept of the Faerun Elven Goddess of Nature. She existed at the time of the elven empire that collapsed due to a demon invasion. She had continued her vigil as a guardian of the ruins until visions came to her to depart. She likens her existence as a contrast to elven rangers or druids, whom tap into the magic of nature, while she yields herself as a conduit of the divine power that created nature. I really liked the concept and I really want to finish her story arch since the game we played in collapsed. But I thought it was a totally awesome combo. It wasn't maximized but it was very flavorable. :) I took inspiration from the concept of Second Age Elves from Tolkien and combined it with the Faerun lore. Made me a PC out of time, very strange and alien even to the nature worshipping Druid in the party. I liked the dynamic of serving nature vs serving that which created the nature. She also had a kindly attitude toward others who worshiped nature goddesses, as she would say they were all the same diety, (that was her understanding, not necessarily the truth) and constantly haunted by the past errors of her people (to right them is why she came out of seclusion).
In my homebrew world I take inspiration from The Witcher and Dragon Age. Elves native to Daenann, the continent my game takes place in once had a vast empire of their own. But tensions between them and the human kingdoms that also lived there rose to a boiling point and a bloody war began. Who started the war depends upon who you ask but what is certain is that eventually the humans reigned victorious. The elves were forced to assimilate into human society and are often treated as second class citizens. But there is a second faction of elves known as The Ultari, or Star Children. They're a faction of elves that originally came from an island called Sorestrine. They lived peaceful lives, devoting themselves to the service of their god. Sorestrine was a place where any could come to seek guidance and enlightenment. The Ultari believed that they were living stars that were given earthly bodies so they could guide the mortal races towards a righteous lifestyle. But 600 years before the events of the game I'm running Sorestrine was destroyed by a massive dragon. Only a few thousand Ultari managed to escape the destruction and they made their way to Daenann Following the disaster many Ultari believed that the destruction of their home was divine punishment for not doing enough to serve their god's will. And so they chose to convert the people of Daenann by force. They fought a long war against the humans of Daenann and eventually lost. They were allowed to remain there but their influence has greatly diminished. And so they turned to a far more subtle plan. Now they use their extensive arcane skill and cunning to manipulate events in Daenann to their advantage. Their goal is to create an environment where people would lose faith in the established power structure of Daenann and would be willing to turn to a new one.
Binging some webdm and i see the new episode in recommended! HELL YEAH
I like a drow who is super excited and happy about everything because he left the underdark and now everything is so fresh, colorful and bright. He loves the social life above ground and his only real fear is spiders.....
I'd love if you could cover what I think of the "core" races next! Half-Orcs, Humans, and Dwarves (and Elves, but y'all just did that)! Great video!
Riley Plaut-Deweese you would put half orcs as core ahead of halfings? Interesting. Love me some Urukhai though.
Riley Plaut-Deweese
We're on it.
JPruInc Awesome, thanks so much!
Just started a Desert Elf Barbarian- whirling dervish style. So far he's been a decent meat shield, but we'll see where he's going.
The Outlander nomad background fits well, and the idea of a 'rage dancer' works better for an extreme environment like deserts or wasetlands than for fancypants artsy elves.
He's actually on a coming-of-age pilgrimage a-la the Quarians- find something valuable and bring it back to the tribe.
There are 5 types of elves in my DnD campaign: wood elves, high elves (self broken down into): sun, moon, true high, and drow.
The elven capitals make up the elven nation, but no one likes one another. The wood elves keep to themselves, whereas the sun moon and true high elves all hate one another due to the difference in magic using. The drow? Well no one likes the drow.
"If you have your moment, just kill him! Make your speech afterwards, with his head in your hands!" I'm going to use this line next time one of our players gets off-track!
Glad I'm not the only one who has a character who moves from edition to edition... mine is an elf who has been branded, and exiled from elf society and trying to find a noble death joined a group of dwarfs... character class has evolved over the years - started as a ranger, through thief, bladesinger and now in 5e a monk/cleric
I like a elf character in a elf rare setting bluffing about their abilities and about the size and grandeur of their home. Like the trope of lying new kid in school.
Drow in my campaign setting are native to the northern polar regions. For half the year they reside within vast underground complexes dug into the permafrost, they worship Loki in the form of a massive polar bear.
One of my elven characters is from a clan of necromantic elves that were loyal to their own but callously utilitarian to the living (created soul gems and undead, etc). The clan was from a another plane, they had portals to various planes and locations, they had a pension for experimentation and they kidnapped people through those portals for experimentation. That plane was torn apart when they were experimenting with the core that powered the portals, which overcharged them causing the areas around them to be sucked into whatever location/plane those portals were attuned to. The character has that fey-like mischievous nature but experiments on the living and will, without pause, steal souls and commit other twisted acts if there is something worthwhile to be gained from it.
23:45 I have suffered and I will not rest until the entire world feels tje way I feel, through my music.
I'm currently playing an Elf who's an Abjuration Wizard. Spent his first hundred years studying under a Bronze Dragon who serves as an arcane adviser to a major port city. Easily the most fun I've had with any character. He's the most trustworthy in the party because he sees the bigger picture, yet everyone is always suspicious of him because of his arrogant and aloof nature.
I think cannibalism being an importantpart of wood elf society as a form of worship but also like not wasting things is awesome
Elves are definately massive jerks in just about any setting. They get away with it because they're pretty. It was refreshing to hear from folks who see similar aspects in elves as I do.
My campaign world has no playable elves. The closest thing is half-elf, which is more like a diluted bloodline in a world that hasn't seen a true elf in daylight for a thousand years.
Basically, the elves were far more developed than the other races and ended up screwing up their original planet. They brought the other races with them to a new planet, where their empire's initial ideal of responsibility over their lessers twisted in to enslavement, because they believed the other humanoids couldn't be trusted to be left in their own devices.
The elves were alien creatures compared to other humanoids and experienced time in a slower fashion. They didn't get stuff done and their empire crumbled in its stagnancy. While they were magically vastly superrior, the world was basically stuck in Bronze age for the longest time, because the elves were afraid of change. They found out their agelessness was gone in this new planet of theirs and they became obsessed about restoring their immortality. In that process, their Transmuters were given pretty much free reign over what they could do, and their empire gave birth to huge number of weird creatures and monsters in their search of agelessness.
Their situation only worsened with each generation as they lived "only 400 years" when it was last recorded. Their civilization was rife with inbreeding and weird transmutative experimentation on bloodlines by the time their empire fell to its own weakness in the face of slave rebellions.
In the current time that the PCs live in, what remains of the elves live deep in the Underdark and some of the cities procreate entirely by magical cloning, out of necessity and obsession about keeping bloodlines pure. They're served by other underdark races, like a version of gray dwarves, which they've basically brainwashed in to obedience and whom believe that the topside world is a apocalyptic hellscape, where the sun burns your skin and the air is toxic to breathe.
So yeah, they're jerks. And miserable. And the half-elves clip the ears of their children so their hated bloodline isn't so obvious to other humanoids, who now control the world.
I played a prideful elf once, he was the only elf in the campaign period. So I added the boss into the equation, that the boss decimated the elven kingdom and I was one of few survivors, he carried the pride and greatness of the race on his shoulders. Which made his ending finding a surviving elf and starting a family with her all the more heartwarming.
I played a Drow paladin of devotion that lived to create beauty in Eilistraee's name. She and her followers are a great avenue for good aligned Drow. The important aspect of his character was his devotion to create a better world by creating a more beautiful world. Easy mini goal was to acquire enough gold to buy Nolzur's Marvelous Pigments.
I've played quite a few elves (usually High elf or half elf) mostly because I primarily play magic casters, and the ability score increases that they have lend themselves very well to those classes.
Love the show guys. I had a somewhat out of the box idea for an elf - feel free to steal him. Like you mentioned, stereotype elves are aloof and distant. They have that Tolkieneque majesty about them. But what about an elf who has lived for 400 years and has realized that he has a veritable eternity to experience pleasure. So now he is constantly on the hunt for the next thrill, the next party, or the next high. Somewhat a cross between Dionysus and Hob Gadling from the Sandman comics. He's the life of the party, the loudest, rowdiest, drunkest epicurean seeker of debauchery, and because he's traveled the world seeking pleasure in all its forms he always knows where the party is at and how to get into whatever circles are throwing the biggest bashes ("Secret Eyes-Wide-Shut code word needed? Pshaw, I've got a list of them." or "We have to bring a gift to this guy - he likes chocolates from Maztica."). Of course, the stereotypical aloof elves HATE this guy as he's giving all of them "a bad name", but who cares - he plans to outlive all of them anyway. Sort of the Anti-Elf (and also kind of a throwback to original brownbook and redbox D&D where elves where whimsical and flighty compared to the stoic and dour dwarves). Maybe make him a storyteller bard - it would lend well to his travelling around the world, but would also serve as a great skillbase for his uberdiplomatic nature.
I’ve made a drow mystic, actually. She was literally exiled from her somewhat noble house when she utilized a relatively weak psychic push in a sparring match with a friend. She was taken in by a wood elf mystic who basically forced her to unlearn much of the hatred she was bred into in her society. However, the hatred wasn’t extinguished, merely redirected at drow society rather than topside.
In my campaign, the unconcern with monsters in the forest by the local wood elves just plain frustrated the half-elf in the party to no end. He was so happy to speak with "his folk" at first, but they refused to see things his way, calling him a "child", and he just wanted nothing to do with them in the end. It was fascinating.
my favorite kind of elves are the nomadic kind. desert elves who cruise around in huge fleet of sand skiffs.
the elder scrolls has probably the most diverse and interesting elves. high elves are magicky standard that want to destroy the world to ascent into godhood, dark elves are clan based warriors that worship an evil pantheon and later demi-gods (before they lost their lands), wood elves are cannibals that shapeshift into shoggoths, snow elves turned into blind bat-goblins after being enslaved by the dwarf-elves, who are magickteck steampunk engineers with facial hair that literally erased themselves from existance.
This video really made me feel better about my first character (who Im still playing). Hes essentially a drow who escaped the underdark for the same reasons you highlighted.
Honestly with eilistraee as Lolth’s primary adversary I’m really surprised there aren’t more Drow Bards. It was one of my first characters, she practically built herself.
Head a death in the family will be back later to enjoy
Sheogorath
Our condolences.
Thank you so much, I was on my was from PA to MD and my car shut off on the highway but I finally made it late but I made it
nice sympathy fishing. kek.
I think one character you guys didn't talk about that is really interesting is Jarlaxle Baenre, The flamboyant opportunist and his band of not so merry men.
In our playthrough of storm kings thunder (started last week and night stone's already f***ed, wish us luck--), my character is Scyonn Darkmoon, a half-elf prince who was raised in the Feywild. He started the journey with no idea what value gold or jewels had (after all, such things have no value to Fey creatures) he demanded payment in firstborns and memories as opposed to conventional riches, and he he viewed himself as better than every other character in the campaign.
Amazing stand-out moments are the time that he tried to pay an gnome shopkeeper in arrowheads, antagonised the party dragon born by refusing to refer to him as anything other than "beast", and totally underestimated the Zhentarim mercenaries because he expected them to be true to their word. As such, in a single session he learned the value of both gold and deception.
He also feels immensely insecure about his mixed heritage, choosing to wear a mask to obscure his indentity and refer to himself as a pure-breed eladrin
The Warhammer 40k's take on High Elven devotion and extremism is the best one out there, I think. Even the ones that doesn't become or didn't became the Dark Eldar. The ones that are found fit to become the mechas are especially interesting.
i personally had a concept for elves that kind of fuses wood spirits with traditional wood dwelling elves that i will call the wood-born. they are grown from the ground and will take on the element of they grew up in during their childhood stage. it is highly uncommon to find fire elves but it is rumored that the wood-born orcs are descended of elves that adapted to unfavorable environments. when the wood born "dies" however, their heart develops into a seed for a soul tree which will hold the soul of the elf and is seen as their final stage of live, as such the soul groves are fiercely protected as the trees are literally their living ancestors.
I like how R.A. Salvatore portrays elves.
Personally my favorite elves in popular culture is the dragon age elves.
Played a Drow Paladin of Conquest, but was CG - CN. He worshipped Selvetarm (secretly) and Eiliestraee, with the goal to free Selvetarm frol Lolth's grasp and bring him back to Eilistrae's hold. Additionnaly he loves sword dancing.
I rewatch these from time to time. Love Jim and Pruitt. (hopefully Pruitt is doing well and comes back.) HOWEVER... JIM... IN THIS VIDEO THERE IS A SMUDGE OR STAIN ON YOUR WALL ABOVE YOUR HEAD TO THE LEFT AND I THOUGHT IT WAS ON MY MONITOR AND I SPENT LIKE A SOLID TWO MINUTES TRYING TO CLEAN IT AND GETTING FRUSTRATED TO THE POINT OF WAKING UP MY WIFE. She says you owe her an apology and that I'm idiot. Well wishes from the both of us!
I actually have an elven king, Tychon, who has three wives and each wife oversees a different part of his kingdom. Military, economy and politics. Whenever he meets ambassadors or the human king of the west, he constantly talks over them and how the human kingdom won't last. While Tychon has been in power, he has seen the human kingdom come into it's own (about 194 years ago) and constantly tells the human king that he will watch the human kingdom eventually fall, like all the others. The players have already met the one of the queens, the Merchant Queen and they hate her and can't imagine how big of a jerk the king actually is and I love it.
In my long running game my Elves are from another dimension, and the elves that are on the material plane are kind of like researchers, historians, and spies. They only eat meat that is hunted, never raised. They are a bit less chaotic. They are mildly more egalitarian than humans, and much more so than Dwarves. Nobody is allowed uninvited into their realms upon penalty of a quick death, the trial is the act of intrusion, and ultimately they aren’t on the side of any race other than themselves. Individual elves might make friendships with humans or dwarves etc,but on the whole they only form alliances out of deep mutual benefit.
In one of my campaigns, the drow or "dark elves" were created by the moon/night goddess from regular elves in order to guard against the nocturnal nasties of the land.
I play a Drow noble that waged a rebellion against the traditional Drow government, and when she lost, she escaped to the surface. I tend to play her as someone seeking to become a noble in a surface government, and someone who wishes to found her own city.
I think my favorite version of Wood Elves is in Elder Scrolls. Pretty standard, they live in trees, at one with nature and so on, and they refuse to eat... plants. They are forbidden by their religion from harming any plant life in Valenwood, so naturally they're all carnivores, even cannibals in some regions.
Everything else is what you'd expect from the name, but they have sharp fucking teeth.
Holy shit. I just realized that an elf that levels enough into Druid is going to live to be 8000 years old at least. DAMN!
Guys, check out the Elves from the indie roleplaying game Burning Wheel. The Grief and Lamentations mechanic, and Spell Songs and Skill are awesome. Even for 5e i impose the Grief mechanic on my characters to reflect the Grief that accompanies an immortal existence in a tough world.