The elves in my realm tend to be more the Tolkien kind then the typical rpg kind as far as height goes – most elves, male and female, are near the six foot tall range; low end height to be about five-and-a-half foot tall. It would be extremely rare to find an elf shorter than five-and-a-half foot tall, just as it would be extremely rare to find an elf that was not lovely to look upon. Elven skin tones come in all the same colors as humans. Most elves have green eyes, and you can also find elves with yellow, lavender, and silver-colored eyes and elven eyes appear to be much a kin to human eyes in setting and size. Elves in my realm do not have long, pointed ears – elven ears are like human ears that have come to rounded points at the top-back (Lord of the Rings movies). There tends to be less diversity of facial features amongst elves as compared to diversity within the other peoples. It does not help in differentiating amongst elves as most have somewhat androgynous facial features. Elves in cooler climates tend to have lighter colored hair and slightly more rounded facial features and ears than elves in warmer climates. Elven communities can be found in cold, arctic forests as well in humid, tropical rain forests. And, not every forest has elves. Elves make up somewhere between 20 to 25 percent of the peoples of the world and they are not going quietly into the night, they are standing their ground firmly.
For those elves that are Gifted and can become greatly attuned to the magical forces of the universe they may have extremely long lives, as into the few thousands of years.
Many elven communities tend to be hypermiltaristic due to centuries of war-driven human encroachment on elven lands. You can read more about this in the entry “The Great Theft: of Elves and Humans and Magic“.
Some elven communities that are on relatively good terms with the neighboring humans, and for some centuries, have let forests grow back on some areas of the wastelands/no-man’s-lands and use the lumber to trade with humans.
Like with the dwarves, elves tend not to have large-scale conflicts amongst themselves, although smaller, more inter-personal conflicts arise.
Elves are not going away to some haven. They have planted their flag and will not be driven away by the locust-like humans and their insatiable appetite for land and resources. Elves and dwarves work together to protect each other from encroaching/marauding humans.
The forests of the elves are dripping with magic. To set a foot into an elven forest is to step into a battlefield/fortress. Contingents of dwarven engineers can be found in some elven lands and some elven mages in dwarven lands.
You will see elves in human settlements to trade and as diplomats – and they are there to see what the hell the humans are up to. Elves have embassies in the larger human cities. Rarely an elven district or quarter in a human city – almost always confined to the embassy and its grounds or close by. Some elven shops can be found in human cities depending on the elves’ history with the humans in that area. These elven shops would not be selling magic or arms and armor. These elven shops tend to offer high end goods from the forests: excellent clothing such as boots and gloves made from various pelts, deerskin; wonderful flowing gowns; organic-looking furniture of the finest wood; wonderfully carved and tuned instruments of all kinds; smoking pipes; various curios; sculptures and carvings of animals and such; high-end purses, cases, satchels and other fine leather and animal skin goods.
Not all relationships between elves and humans are icy. The nature of the relationship of course all depends on what the humans did to the elves as the elves never, as a rule amongst themselves, ever initiate or instigate conflict with humans.
Elves do occupy areas humans do not go in or have not yet set foot in.
Some older elves and/or those that have suffered much due to humans may want to exterminate the plague that is humanity – some small percentage of elves do. Some naturally malicious elves (and such a thing does exist), whether wronged or not, are willingly to find any excuse to end humanity and tend to nonchalantly keep some of their brethren’s anger against humanity well-stoked. And humans have made it easy enough to turn good elves sour to keep their own anger hot. “Should we wait for them (humans) to grew powerful enough to overrun us and all our kin, the dwarves, and what remains of the Ameya? Or should we act now why they are still weak and rid the world of the threat these locusts pose? How many more must die, how much more destruction of this world must take place before we act, destroy humanity, and truly make this world a better place? We are wasting an opportunity we may never get again and when it passes what will we say? We must act, and act now!”
Some elven homelands are grand military installations of sorts with only a small bit of the original, magical, elven home left due to human invasion. Some are very much like Rivendale from those LOTR movies (not many). Some elven forests are very militaristic on the outside and Rivendale-esque inside.
Younger elves in areas with less history of conflict with humans are more likely to be on fair terms with humans.
Both dwarves and elves in my realm have something of a Rumspringa. Those individuals with wanderlust are encouraged to take time to go see the world – half century to century for elves, decade or two (maybe three) for dwarves. Those elves that have always sat at the edge of the forest wondering what was beyond them are encouraged by their elders to become anything from inter-community messengers, traveling traders/merchants, emissaries, and/or intelligence gathers (always gathering intelligence on humans). This way the individual with wanderlust has their desire satisfied and the community does not lose one of their members (theoretically). This is all dependent on the specific community and its overall safety and security needs at any particular time.
