Dark Elves

Elves

The elves have the same physical strength and endurance as humans do, though they have twice the dexterity and reflexes as humans. They can see in low light conditions and have extremely sharp senses of hearing and sight, at least twice as good as a human's. The elves live ten times as long as humans, not showing the signs of old age until 500 years, they also are highly resistant to natural diseases. On the downside, elves grow more slowly than humans, and are thus not physically mature until the age of 20 and elven females may only have one child every 5 years though the gestation period is only a year.

Elves are limited to technology of the high middle ages. They never where plate armor because it is too great a hinderance to their dexterity. They have high quality bows, of course, as well as any other item available to someone in the year 1400 aside from gunpowder based weapons which they have no knowledge of. Elves are more intelligent than humans by about 20% though they tend to forget things that they learn over the long years of their lives.

All elves have at least minor magical powers and elven sorcerers are among the most powerful magic users in existence. All elves have access to elven steeds, special horses which are 20% faster than equivalent human horses.

There are three primary types of elves dark elves, wood elves, and high elves. Below are some of the things that make each race unique.

Dark Elves

Dark elves can see in absolute darkness as well as daylight. They have the ability to cloak themselves in shadows, becoming a black ink mass that is almost impossible to see at night - though this power cannot be used in combat. Dark elves can channel dark shadowy energy into their melee weapons, causing the weapons to do cold damage to those touched - making even a scratch agonizingly painful. Furthermore, any mortal (except player kings) who makes eye contact with a dark elf for more than 5 seconds within 5 feet will be filled with dread and run in terror for 10 seconds before regaining composure.

Dark elves have a special material they call shadowsteel, which is a dark colored metal magically made by dark elf alchemists. It is both 20% stronger and 20% lighter than any high quality steel of the middle ages. The downside to this metal is that without special magical treatment, it slowly starts to dissolve - meaning that it is seldom traded to other races

Dark elf alchemists have created horrible magical creatures to serve dark elves so that the dark elves less frequently have to do labor or even fight for themselves. One of these creatures are the homunculi. Homunculi are creatures roughly 6 feet tall will heavy muscles. They have 50% more strength and toughness than humans, but only about 75% of the intellect. They have dark gray skin, sharp ragged claws, and large fang filled maws. They can see well in absolute darkness but have poor vision in the daylight. They are savage in combat and totally loyal to dark elves. Homunculi are grown in vats, they do not reproduce naturally and have no gender. It takes an alchemist two weeks of constant work to grow one homunculus - which emerges from the vat fully formed and with the ability to fight and understand orders. With 3 months of work, an alchemist can instead create a gargoyle - a creature much like a homunculus but with the ability to fly 40 mph with its great wings. Homunculi and gargoyles only live for 10 years for crumbling to dust.

Dark elven alchemists, in addition to being able to create homunculi and gargoyles, have a number of other special powers. They take special potions which give them peak (for an elf) physical abilities and combat skill. In battle they all wear high quality darksteel armor. Their weapons are always coated with a lethal poison so that even the slightest scratch can kill any living creature. In addition, each carries a single haling potion that can be used to instantly heal all wounds.

Dark elven sorcerers have a number of powers, most of which are based on cold and darkness. A sorcerer can concentrate to create an aura of darkness around themselves with a mile radius. This aura makes it darker than usual, allowing creatures whose vision is hurt by daylight able to see normally, it isn't dark enough to hinder the vision of normal creatures but will protect vampires from sunlight. They can shoot out beams of cold darkness from their fingertips, killing any mortal creature struck and freezing undead solid for 10 minutes - this power has a range of 200 feet. They can focus their attention on another magic user within 500 feet, while doing this they can counter any spell cast by that magic user before it can take effect. Countering spells this way takes concentration, but they can still walk at half speed while doing so. They can magically fly or hover at the speed of 100 mph. They are surrounded by a field of entropy that gives them the protection of steel plate armor. They can also teleport anywhere within visual range by concentrating for 30 seconds. Once per day, a DE sorcerer can let out a piercing howl that causes all mortals within 100 feet to run in terror

As king of the dark elves, you can choose one of the following power sets.

You can be sorcerer-king. This gives you all of the powers of a DE sorcerer and some additional powers as well. They can also teleport anywhere within visual range by concentrating for 10 seconds. By concentrating and taking no offensive action, you can block all enemy magic from affecting you and 50% of spells directed at you return to damage the caster instead. You are surrounded by an aura of dread and terror, reducing the bravery of all who look upon you by 20%. You can blast out a freezing wind that saps the heat from enemies, this has a 100 range and is 20 feet wide. You ray of dark energy has a range of 500 feet instead of 200.

You could also be a master alchemist. You have all of the standard alchemist abilities. A master alchemist can create gargoyles in 1 month instead of 3, They have twice the peak physical abilities of dark elves. Their blood is so infused with magic that every magical attack directed against them has a 50% chance of not affecting them and even when it does, the effect is only half as strong as normal. Master alchemists carry 3 healing potions with them at all times. If a master alchemist is killed, his soul returns to a specially created clone body in his laboratory - the alchemist can only have one clone at a time and it takes 6 months to grow a new one. Once per day the MA can drink a potion to change himself into a huge beast, basically a giant gargoyle that can fly 50 mph and has double the strength and toughness - this transformation lasts for 10 minutes. Lastly, the alchemist can hurl flasks of caustic fluids at the enemy - each explodes with a 10 foot radius and inflicts horrible if not lethal wounds on all creatures touched.

All elves begin play with 25,000 elves.

Dark elves start with 5,000 homunculi, 250 alchemists, 250 gargoyles, and 250 dark elf sorcerers. The population of alchemists and sorcerers can never rise above 1% of the population of normal dark elves.