Wood 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.

Wood Elves

Wood elves are the perfect forest dweller. They can sense the presence of nearby creatures in their forest even if they cannot see them. They can can walk and leave no tracks, they are perfectly silent, they can track anything as long as its in the forest. They can conceal themselves as to become nearly invisible as long as it in in their natural environment and they are not in combat. Wood elves never need to fear for food or water while in their natural habitat - they merely ask the earth to provide water and a spring bubbles up, they only need to ask a tree to provide food and fruit or nuts instantly grow. Woods elves can all speak to natural animals, who are not obligated to obey but will be friendly towards the elves. They are also immune to extremes of hot or cold as long as it is in their own forest. They can run at full speed through dense forest without impediment or fear of injury. They lose their abilities in the forest if the environment or weather has been altered by magic in some major way - for example, if their forest has been blighted by a necromancer then they can't find food in that area or if a sky master has made it unusually hot or cold they begin to suffer from temperature extremes.

Wood elves do not use metal to make their weapons - they use only natural materials such as leather, wood, and stone. Wood elven plant masters all upon wood spirits to make their wooden weapons especially strong and sharp - comparable to steel but with the lightness of wood. Their arrowheads are merely sharpened wood but can penetrate armor because of the special gifts of tree spirits. Likewise, wood elf long bows are of higher quality than any ever made by humanity because of this enchanted wood. The wood spirits only respect wood elves and if another race tries to use such weapons then the wood becomes normal. Few wood elves like to hinder their movements with armor, though some wear shirts made of leaves likewise blessed by the tree spirits which give them the protection of bronze scales with virtually no weight.

A few rare wood elves are animal masters. These elves can control animals of any kind as long as they are close enough to hear the animal master speak. Animal masters can each control 10,000 points of animals at a time - like could include 100 wolves at 100 lb each, a flock of birds, or 10 horses. Flying creatures are harder to control than other animals and count as twice their weight or ten pounds each, which ever is greater. Animals which are killed return to the animal master within a month if he doesn't find replacements sooner. In addition to acting in combat, these animals can act as spies or scouts as well.

Many animal masters ride upon giant eagles, though if they do so they cannot control ay other animal at the time. These eagles can fly at 60 mph and are as strong as lions, they can rip a man to shreds with their talons or beak.

Some wood elves are sky masters. Sky masters can control the weather within a 5 mile radius. They can change the temperature by up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They can cause it to storm or precipitate or for precipitation to stop. They can halt all wind or create winds of up to 50 mph to blow in any direction they desire. They can cause the wind to carry them as a form of flight, allowing them to fly at up to 25 mph. If there are clouds or they have summoned a storm, they can cause lightning to strike any target within visual range up to once per 10 minutes, though it takes about 10 seconds of concentration.

Another kind of wood elf with special powers is a plant master. Plant masters can manipulate and control plant life. They can cause every tree, vine, or bush within 100 feet to lash out at enemies of the plant master - tree limbs have twice the strength of a human while other plants are generally weaker than humans. The plant master can cause 100 acres per year of crops to grow twice abundantly as normal. Once per day, the plant master can cause a wall of thorns to instantly spring up - this wall is 100 long, 10 feet tall, and 10 feet thick. With a special month long ritual, a plant master can create a Treant from an existing tree, though this can only be used to replace lost Treants and cannot be used to exceed the 1 tree man per 500 elves limit. Plant masters can also heal Treants of all their injuries by touching them an concentrating for an hour.

For every 500 woods elves, they will have one Treant ally. Treants are large living tree-like creatures. They stand 20 feet tall or more, have the strength of 20 men, and are as resilient to injury as is a hard wood tree. They move and act very slowly, and have about 25% of the agility and reaction speed of a normal human and can run no faster than half a mile per hour.

Some wood elves are healers. Healers can heal all injuries or diseases to any natural creature with but a touch an 10 seconds of concentration. A healer can touch polluted water and make it clean and pure, they can also remove magical curses with but a touch or cure blighted land. Healers can even bring the dead back to life, but doing so exhausts their healing powers for a full year.

As king of the wood elves, you are a druid. The druid represents balance between the natural forces and the magics that wood elves are masters of. As a druid, you have all of the powers of an animal master, a plant master, a sky master, and a healer. Furthermore, you can magically feel any disturbance in the forests that you people occupy, such as invaders or damage to the environment.

You begin play with 25,000 wood elves.

Wood elves begin play with 250 animal masters, 250 plant masters, 250 sky masters, and 250 healers. You also have 50 Treants as well. The population of each special kind of wood elf cannot rise above 1% of the population of normal elves.