Editing Setting:Dungeons & Monstergirls (section)

=====Elves=====
Slender, graceful, sylvan demihumans, elves are a magical breed most easily distinguished from humans by their distinctive ears, which are elongated and thin, almost like fleshy knife-blades. There are several distinctive varieties of elf, each with her own unique powers and tendencies, but humans in general tend to lump them together under the "annoying, but potentially dangerous" category.

'''Eladrin:'''
::Rarest of all the elven breeds, eladrin claim to be the first of them as well; if the stories they spin are true, then all other elven races are mutated offshoots of their own once-noble people.
::Eladrin do not even well on (Abode), but instead in a parallel plane, the [[Feywild]], where they inhabit the crumbling ruins of once-mighty cities and beautiful noble estates, the signs of a formerly great empire that has crumbled with age, decay and war. Often only a handful of eladrin clans - perhaps no more than a hundred or so elves in total - will inhabit a city once made to house thousands of elves, and even the manor houses and forts they cling to tend to be preserved more by ancient, decaying magic than by the vitality of the elves living within.
::The doom of the eladrin came with the great Faewars, when their shining empire was besieged by the dark forces of the Formorians and other malevolent fey. Although the eladrin ultimately toppled their enemies, the war was bloody and the victory Pyrrhic, for it shattered their empire and left them pushed to the margins. Their territories are now little better than flickering candles of light in an endless dark forest, with wild fey, monsters and rampant nature swallowing what was once beautiful and pristine. Their numbers too few to influence the fate of the Feywild anymore, 
::Eladrin are distinctive amongst their kin; taller even than the high elves, their eyes are clearly inhuman, solid orbs of faintly luminescent bright color that stand out all the more against their pale skin and hair. Eladrin look more dead than alive at a casual glance, their predilection for clothing colored in black and near-black dark blues, greens, reds and purples only emphasizing their striking looks.
::As one might suspect from their looks, eladrin tend to be a morbid and dismal species. Those not claimed by ennui or grief tend to be sullen and withdrawn, going through life with a bitterly cynical outlook. They are a dying race, and this colors their attitudes; though few are willing to just lay down and die - those who would do so having already done so by now - they have little fear of death, and often equally little care for life. Dry, cutting witticism and sarcastic quips come to their tongues easily, and most display a macabre taste in decoration and apparel; having resigned themselves to extinction, they consider it fitting to surround themselves with reminders of their inevitable fate.
::Some may ask why, then, these eladrin continue to cling to life. Many would honestly admit their rationale as pure spite; they don't want to give death the satisfaction of claiming them so easily. Many others instead find a meaning in adventure. Their rationale may differ - some do it to carve a legacy that will be remembered, others seek a worthy death, others still take a dark pleasure in the spilling of blood and the cries of the dying - but ultimately, it gives them something to cling to, distracting them from their inevitability.
::It is unknown how eladrin reproduce asexually. Indeed, it is commonly believed that they cannot procreate anymore; whether their sacred birthing sites were destroyed in the Faewars, or their sterility is a dying curse from the Formorians, who can say? What is known is that only through mating with humans can these elves still procreate, meaning humanity's arrival is the first sign of hope that eladrin have seen in a long, ''long'' time.


'''High Elf:'''
::High elves are the most common and prolific of the elfin substrains, with an empire that is one of the major forces on (Abode). Unlike their eladrin progenitors, their power is concentrated on the material plane, and whilst they have footholds in the [[Feywild]], they are tenuous and exert little influence.
::Though the high elves claim glorious origins as the chosen heirs to the eladrin, the truth is hardly that glamorous. As the high elves profess, they are descended from eladrin nobles - wizarding clans whose skill at spellcraft was instrumental in the great Faewars. Although they were loyalists who stayed true to their allies throughout the war - something that can hardly be said of their wood elf cousins - the modern high elves were not the glorious revivalists at the end of that terrible butchery. Rather, they are the descendants of refugees; those clan-members who were considered too valuable to risk losing, or incapable of contributing to the fight, such as the last scions of once-noble houses, pregnant women, children, the sick and the lame, were herded through the feygates and stranded in the material world, left to survive whilst their comrades fought, bled and died to the last to slay the Formorians.
::Now, generations later, high elves cling to their "grand history" as a cloak against what has befallen them. Although they have carved out an empire of their own to admire and respect, they know they are a shadow of their origins. Though still notably taller than a human, another reason for their name, high elves are smaller and frailer than their kin. Though talented mages, such that all high elves are born knowing how to shape magic into the form of a cantrip, they can no longer step between worlds at will. And though their lifespan is immense, over a thousand years, they still age and die, whereas their eladrin mothers are eternal until slain.
::As one might tell, high elves struggle with a potent cocktail of an inferiority complex and arrogance. They tend to strut and preen, flaunting their achievements and their skills, but always secretly wrestling with the guilt as to whether or not they are really good enough. Perhaps because of this, high elves are surprisingly welcoming to other races. Though part of this is because of a common vulnerability to ego-stoking, that does not change that high elves are still quick to respect and admire one's skills and deeds; race means almost nothing to do. After all, their own racial history is, no matter what they say, something they consider shameful.
::Though they are typically fair skinned, high elves are nowhere near as pale as eladrin. Their eyes and hair, in particular, tend to be vividly colorful, from more human like blondes and blues to exotic colors like reds and pinks. Their inhuman nature shines through, though; blue hair and golden eyes is as normal to high elves as the reverse is. High elves have a fondness for bright colors, typically wearing beautiful garb designed to be as colorful as possible, though without clashing.
::High elves breed by establishing manawells, places where geomantic rituals cause magical energy to colaesce into a semi-solid, liquid-like form. A high elf who wishes to bear a child bathes naked in the manawell, drinking deeply and allowing its energy to seep into her womb, where it quickens into new life. It is possible that this is derived from ancient eladrin methods, and that it is subtle differences in the ambient magic of (Abode) compared to the Feywild that results in their racial differences.

'''Wood Elf:'''
::The shame of the elfin races. Even the drow are accorded more respect than the wild elves are. During the great Faewars, a significant number of eladrin fled the Feywild entirely, abandoning their kin and allies to hold the line and retreating to the primal wilderness of (Abode), hiding in regions that reminded them of the home they had forsaken. To this day, their treachery has neither been forgiven nor forgotten. Eladrin will have nothing to do with them, and it's not unheard of for particularly bitter eladrin to become "elfslayers", hunting their degenerate kin in retribution for ancient grudges. High elves are not so vehement, but make their disdain for their "cousins" clear, treating them as an embarrassment to the family and making it clear that the relationship is distant. Drow have been known to hunt the wood elves for sport.
::The reasons why do not matter to wood elves. They only see it as more reason why they cannot trust outsiders. Shame, guilt and the desperate struggle to survive has eaten away at their race, leaving them a feral shadow of what they were; few wood elves remember more than corrupted tales of the Feywild, and fewer still openly admit how they came to dwell in the forests. They just know that those who are not "of the people" are dangerous, and more than likely enemies, and that they should hide from them if possible, kill them if not.
::Wood elves are a degenerate strain of elf. Shorter than the average human, and wiry in build, they have earthy-hued hair and eye colors, with skin coloration determined by their home environment; though the iconic forest-dwelling wood elves would be pale skinned, in adaptation to the limited light, a tribe that instead ekes out its existence in a parched rocky landscape would be dark-skinned. They have no inherent magical powers, and the shortest lifespan of their kind, averaging about 600 years, although most don't live that long, due to the difficulties of surviving in the wilderness. But they are quick and hearty, and skilled hunters, and so they thrive.
::Wood elves are best characterized by their xenophobia and their loyalty. They hate and fear anything that is not "of the tribe" and are devoted heart and soul to anyone who is. They do not seek conflict, seeing it as wasteful, but if there is no option, they are merciless killers. Many wood elf tribes have earned terrible reputations as cannibals and headhunters, for their division of the world means that they see little difference between demihumans and the beasts they normally hunt; a kill is a kill, and so they happily make use of meat, skin, sinew and bone from any source.
::That said, it's not impossible to win the friendship of a wood elf, or even a whole tribe thereof. Furthermore, there are always restless spirits and outcasts, even amongst the wood elves. So it is that tribes are willing to live in peace with neighbors who respect their dominion, and lone souls may dare to brave the greater world beyond their home, willing to see what they can see.
::Wood elf clans and tribes always center their home around a particular location; typically beginning life as a great menhir or a huge tree, wood elves use mystical rituals involving a blend of arcane and druidic magics to imbue these "clan-hearts" with the ability to serve as the source for new generations of wood elves. A clan-heart is fiercely guarded, but highly distinctive, appearing organically reshaped into a semblance of a voluptuous, fertile feminine form. Wood elves prime these breeding sights with donations of food and gear, sacrifices that prove the tribe is doing well enough that it can support new mouths to feed. Only when the critical mass of these sacrificial offerings builds up does the clan-heart give new life into the world.

'''Drow/Dark Elf:'''
::When the ancestors of the high elves learned that the Faewars were over - and more importantly, what they had cost - despair and nihilism took over. Many of the survivors, even some of the first generations of high elves, abandoned their principles, seeking to quell the emptiness inside  with hedonism and debauchery. This was understandable to the other survivors, if a little disheartening, and tactly accepted... until the first appearances of the hell-clubs. More and more of these degenerate elves, driven to greater extremes in their search for stimulation and distraction, were bargaining with the forces of the netherworlds, summoning, cavorting with and even worshiping fiends.
::This was more than their kinfolk could stomach, and so these drow - dark ones, in the elvish tongue - were violently driven from their homes. Refusing to abandon their dark pacts or their pursuit of hedonism, the drow turned to the worship of the mighty Demon Princesses, swearing more foul oaths in order to survive as they plunged into the [[Underdark]]. They, they thrived, degenerating into the infamous race they are today.
::The drow culture is one of rampant perversion, licentiousness without restrain, and hedonism upheld as a virtue. Inseperably intertwined with the fiends they have chosen to take succor from, drow are held at arms' length by any race with common sense. Whilst it is true that they are not so foolish as to openly attempt to subjugate, enslave or defile all other races, with a shamelessly mercantile approach to diplomacy, it's equally true that they will not hesitate to spirit away those they think will not be missed, or otherwise take advantage of any situation that can be bent the way they wish.
::With their fiery eye colors, white hair and ebon-black, dark blue or deep purple skin, drow are instantly recognizable from any elf. Older drow often pick up a rather attractive layer of curviness, the legacy of centuries of hedonistic indulgence. Amongst the youngest or the most disciplined, this manifests as particularly full, luscious breasts and buttocks - something that makes high elves very jealous. The most wanton can develop an almost orcish physique; not dripping with folds of flesh, but with a pillowy softness that makes them surprisingly pleasant to cuddle... as risky as that might be.
::Dark elves have a wide variety of rituals for spawning, when they have a need. Many of these actually make use of hosts to carry their progeny to term, another reason why they are such avid slavers.