Welcome to my race, the Tel'Quessir
In this halls you will find something over my race, the elves or Tel'Quessir. Please be quiet while you study my listings, because these halls shall be used with honor. Take seat on one of the tables and read what you want.
One note from me: there are a few exceptions. So called "crossbreeds". And the behavior changes from elf to elf as well. Click on the Links below to get to the points you want to.
The Teu-Tel'Quessir or Silver elves
The Sy-Tel'Quessir or Green elves
The Alu-Tel'Quessir or Sea elves
The Mori'Quessir or Drow elves
Gold elves believe themselves to be the chosen defenders of elven culture and tradition, selected specifically for the task by Corellon Larethian himself. They take this role very seriously, throwing themselves into their chosen tasks with verve and enthusiasm. Gold elf artisans are methodical, careful individuals who will labor for years on relatively simple items such as brooches or rings. Armorers craft each weapon or piece of armor with painstacking precision. Warriors train endlessly with single-minded devotion. Clerics study the words of the gods and pray constantly for guidance.
The Gold elves are easily the most arrogant of subraces, because of an inbred belief that they are the chosen elven defenders. There is also an undercurrent of belief (rarely spoken aloud) that they are the only "real" elves, and that the other subraces have somehow turned away from true elven society. This prejudice is often well hidden, but it is there nonetheless.
As the long-lived elves follow many different paths during their lifespan, the average Gold elf will be a multi-talend individual, having given the full measure of devotion to each one of his or her chosen paths. This willful devotion takes time, and Gold elves will not have as many different skills or professions as their Silver elf cousins.
This perhaps is the most significant difference between humans and Gold elves. More than any of the other Tel'Quessir subraces, the Gold elves' longevity has changed their outlook and their very means of thinking. Patience and thoughtfulness dominate every aspect of the Gold elves' outlook. Actions are rarely taken without considerable thought, discussion, and consideration, and they never hurry. The only exception to this is combat, when quick action is required. The rest of the time, the Ar-Tel'Quessir are slow and methodical, patient and endlessy thoughtful, in stark contrast to relatively quick-acting, short-lived humans.
While they share the Gold elves' passion for the defense of their homeland, their race and their queen, the Silver elves' personal philosophies are most impulsive and display a decided "live-for-the-moment" outlook. They dislike remaining in one place for very long, and enjoy travel. This alone may account for their adventours nature, but there is a deeper and more important aspect to it as well, for the Silver elves strongly believe that an individual must choose his or her own path through life.
The Silver elves desire to see and do everything possible during their span on this plane. Silver elves' love of travel, their tendency toward multible talents, and skills, and the fact that many chose not to follow the Retreat, but to remain in Faerun as adventurers, are all reflections of the Teu-Tel'Quessir's inquisitive and unbounded nature.
A Silver elf craves experience; experience entails going many places, doing many things, and meeting many people. Silver elves have fewer qualms about associating with N'Tel'Quessir than the Gold or Green elves, and usually possess the skills to relate to many different peoples and cultures.
Green elves throughout Faerun show similar attitudes. The Sy-Tel'Quessir have endured many outrages at the hands of humans and other non-elves. Their forests have been felled or burned, their homes and campsites sacked, their people killed or enslaved. Coupled with a natural isolationist tendency, this terrible history makes the Green elves intensely suspicious of outsiders, especially humans.
Several bands of Green elves remained on Faerun, preferring to defend their traditional forest homelands rather than retreat to Evermeet. Even those Sy-Tel'Quessir who followd the Retreat remain distant and seperate from their Gold and Silver relatives, joining them only at festivals, or for the mutual defense of the realm.
In addition to being insular and reclusive, the Green elves are the most warlike and violent of the subraces. They enjoy raiding each other and engaging in large-scale mock battles. Their tactics for dealing with intruders vary from tribe to tribe. Some will simply hide and allow trespassers to go by unknowing, while others will attack and capture the interlopers. Though they dislike outsiders, Green elves rarely kill captives, preferring instead to magically alter their memories and carry them far away, to release with stern warnings never to return.
Green elves excel in battle. They are masters of hit-and-run tactics, ambush, and sniping, and have destroyed more than one enemy force that attempted to enter their forest domains. In close combat, Green elves are equally dangerous, using complex acrobatic maneuvers and displays of their weapon skill to overawe opponents, and slaying both quickly and efficiently.
Many primitive elements persist in Green elf society. Their priests function as human druids. This is rare among elves. They also commune constantly with a pantheon of naturespirits, each representing an archtypal member of an animal species or natural phenomenon. Their warriors often go into fits of battle-madness, and some of their more eccentric druidic priests are said to be capable of changing into animal form at will.Although they are grim and hostile around outsiders, within the tribe Green elves are pleasant and outgoing in a manner reminiscent of the Gold elves. Their feasts are events of great joy, with singing, dancing, and all manner of merry-making. Hunts are tribal affairs in which all elves, including the very young and old, have a part. They take great care to assist those who need it during the hunt, sp all will feel a part of their successes. Releigous ceremonies involve exuberatant songs and hearty prayers to the gods. On important festival days such as Springtime and Fallrite, Green elves invite neighboring Silver and Gold elves and sylvan creatures to participate. Such celebrations can last for days and involve great revelry and uninhibited behavior.
Green elf society varies considerably, with many different customs practiced. In general, Green elf bands are tribal groupings, traveling through the forests and making camp in a traditional nomadic fashion. Some tribes are sedentary, living in permanent villages, with wood or thatch huts surrounding a common area in the center. Sexes are often segregated in Green elf villages, with seperate men's and women's lodges for special ceremonies and invocations. Some tribes are exclusively matriarchal, others are patriarchal, and still others call for shared responsibility for rulership between the sexes.
As individuals, the Sea elves seem distant and only barely comprehensible. They are now creatures of the ocean, uneffected by the concerns of land dwellers such as humans. A Sea elf speaks in a deep voice, in a language distantly related to and quite distinct from that of land elves. Sensitive to minutest changes in the water and the environment around them, the Sea elves feel a closer harmony with their world than even the nature-loving Green elves. When one speaks with Sea elves, it is clear that they are truly creatures of another world.
The Alu-Tel'Quessir have their own language, somewhat akin in form of the squeals and clicks of their dolphin allies, and speak surface tongues only with difficulty.
The Alu-Tel'Quessir have become very different from their land-based cousins. Although they are nearly as long-lived as other Tel'Quessir, the sea dwellers are nowhere near as perfectionistic as the Gold elves, nor as adventurous as the Silver elves. Instead, Sea elves' racial consciousness translates to a deep desire to defend their communities, located as they are in a wilderness of water, surrounded by enemies and hostile environment. A Sea elf sees himself or herself as a samll part of a greater whole, like a single fish in a vast school.
Private property is kept to a minimum in Sea elf communities. An individual can call whatever can be carried on his or her own person "mine", while everything else in Sea elf cities and villages belongs to the community as a whole. Although individuals are usually allowed the privacy of their own homes, they will freely share their hospitality if called upon to do so.
The Sea elves' ruler is largely exempt from the above restrictions, living in a vast palace of shell and stone, guarded by elite Sea elf warriors. While Elashor and the other Sea elf monarchs of history are generous and kind to their people, they still enjoy a higher status reserved for them alone.
Sea elves are peace-loving farmers and fishers, and are even more insular than the Green elves of the land. This isolationism is magnified by the location of their communities, and many live not even knowing that the surface world exists. To these lonely communities, Evermeet is a distant and legendary a place as Arvandor, the fabled paradies of the elves.
The major city of Evermeet's Sea elves is called Iumathiashae, or "Mother of Oceans". It is home to several thousand of the Alu'Tel'Quessir, and is built using magical techniques quite similar to those of the land elves. A dozen or smaller settlements dot the waters around Evermeet, with populations ranging from a few dozen to a thousand.
To this end, each Sea elf serves as a warrior. They have few if any magical abilities, but can wield weapons of considerable power that are often enchanted for them by their land elf cousins.
(Drow elves or Dark elves)
Drow vary in shape, featuers, and hair color as greatly as humans do. The only exception to this rule is their uniformly jet-black skin (the few exceptions tend to be bone-white albinos).
The majority of drow have snow-white hair from birth, yellowing (if female) or graying (if male) and thinning with great age. Rare drow have naturally silver or copper-hued hair, although there are those who deliberately dye their hair silver.
Most drow have red eyes. Others have green, brown, or black. Various shades of gray, even amber and rose-hued eyes are not unknown. All drow eyes tend to grow redder when they are hungry or upset. Yellow eyes usually denote illness, disease, poisoning, or the presence of certain detrimental magics.
Blue and purpel eyes (and all the tints thereof) are the most unusual eye colors, and usually denote human or surface-elven blood somewhere in the drow's ancestry.
Drow teeth may be black, white, or purple, and their gums, tongues, and throats pink, red, or purple.
Drow females tend to be bigger and stronger than males. Both sexes tend to be lithe, slim, and graceful in build, features, and movements, much as other elves appear to human eyes.
