Grey Elves

‘Regal’ is the best word to describe the grey elves, with their high stature and portly demeanor, it is easy to believe their claims about the purity of their blood.

The Quintessential Elf

Author Alejandro Melchor
Publisher Mongoose Publishing
Publish date 2002

Secluding themselves from the world, the grey elves dedicate their energy to the pursuit of knowledge and the protection of all elvenkind. Of all the subraces, they are the ones who tap deeper into the elves’ legacy of magic, while defending their claims about being the purest and ultimate expression of what an elf should be.

Society

Of all their kind, the grey elves have the most structured society, grouping in Houses that are just one step from being considered castes. A royal house provides the hereditary heir to the throne of the grey elves, who must be ratified by the nobles’ council, which form a parliament that approves or disapproves of the king’s or queen’s decisions. Beneath the ruling castes, the merchants, artisans and warriors look down to the servant caste, whose members perform all the menial labours necessary for a land to stay healthy and productive. The treatment caste-less elves receive is not as extreme as to be considered as pariahs, but still is an uncharacteristic show of disdain.

Grey elves believe in the sanctity of knowledge, perfection and tradition. Their arts and crafts are a clear example of this pursuit, as any object made by the hands of a grey elf is a masterpiece of careful study and precise craftsmanship. They isolate themselves in order to keep their bloodlines pure, convinced that, by doing so, they build a bastion for everything elven. They consider all other subraces as lesser derivations of their own ‘pure’ blood, ungrateful heirs to the heritage they so carefully maintain.

Player Character Information

Grey elf characters have the following characteristics:

• Personality: If other races consider elves to be aloof, grey elves will show them new levels of snobbishness and self-righteousness. Grey elves act condescendingly towards the rest of the elven nation, secure in the belief of their own superiority. While they mean well and may actually have others’ best interests in mind, they go about it as if no one else could possibly come up with a better idea. A grey elf’s attitude quickly grates on the nerves of anyone who does not believe their claim of purity.
• Physical Description: Grey elves are taller and even more slender than high elves, reaching heights that allow them to look humans eye to eye. Their milky skins are framed spectacularly by locks of silver or pale golden hair, while their amber or violet eyes give them an otherworldly air. They dress with the finest fabrics and the best armour, favouring white, silver, yellow and gold clothing, with purple or deep blue cloaks to emphasise their nobility. Grey elves are among the most long-lived
  elves, able to live for almost a millennium.
• Relations: The grey elves do not relate well with other races. Seldom travelling outside their strongholds, the rest of the races have not met many, but those that have do not relish a second encounter. It is not that the grey elves are prejudiced or disdainful, but the honest belief of their own superiority filters into every gesture and tends to irk others. To a grey elf, any person that is not an elf is a barely sentient creature that should know who is the true chosen of the gods.
  • Even another elf would side with a human in a drunken bout of grey elf-bashing. From high elves to grugach, the rest of the subraces think that the grey elves are too rigid, and their quest for perfection is leading them exactly in the opposite direction, keeping them from enjoying life’s little pleasures. Grey elves just shake their heads, sure that none of their brethren would understand the burden they carry. As part of the servitor houses, a great number of elves from other subraces willingly serve the grey elves, becoming serfs and vassals in the almost feudal hierarchy their rulers govern.
• Alignment: Their approach to the quest for knowledge and perfection, next to their regimented society put grey elves clearly on the side of law, and even if they have clashes of opinion with others, they generally mean well and are good more often than not.
• Grey Elf Lands: Grey elves build their fiefdoms high in the mountains, citadels that look like they were raised from the stone itself, most likely because they were. They conceal the routes to their strongholds with powerful magic, and allow only a select few outsiders to even approach.
  • Adar Llwch Gwin riders patrol all land routes around a grey elf enclave, being their main cavalry force.
  • Grey elves found away from their mountains are probably envoys and ambassadors, or the rare elf that grew tired of the stifling society and wishes to expand his horizons.
• Religion: Grey elves are not deeply religious although, like all elves, they revere the elven Allfather and his celestial retinue. Their ceremonies are studied, precise affairs, performed as meticulously as their research and their crafts. They favour intellect over faith, however, and their wizards outnumber their clerics by a wide margin.
• Language: Grey elves speak and write in normal Elvish, with a slight accent that they claim is the original pronunciation. They have managed to condense the flowing Elvish script into a style more fit for their studies that does not lose the beauty of the language, but somehow lacks some of its spark.
• Adventurers: Adventuring grey elves are rare given their reclusive nature, but some of them may undertake a journey if they believe there is a great menace to elvenkind that only they can handle. They have trouble relating to any companion in a party, always assuming the mantle of leadership whether it is deserved or not.

Racial Traits

Grey elves have the same traits as high elves with the following differences.

• -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence.

Relics & Rituals: Excalibur

© 2004 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Distributed for Sword and Sorcery Studios by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.

By Evan Jamieson, Lizard, Aaron Rosenberg, Christina Stiles and Relics & Rituals: Excalibur team

Called elf or sidhe lords by most commoners, Gray Elves inspire humans and elves alike with their acts of bravery and honor. Like humans, the Gray Elves have their own codes of honor, though these codes are unique to each of their communities. Gray Elves believe in the strength of family and fiercely defend their homes against any enemy. The armor worn by Gray Elf knights often glitters in the sun, inspiring other knights on the battlefield. Many are also impressed by the skill Gray Elves demonstrate with sword, bow and other weapons. Magic is still very much part of Gray Elf society, but it has become more subtle and is used for purposes other than combat.

Personality:

Humans who are friends with individual Gray Elves know they have two very distinct personalities. When around family and friends Gray Elves are very generous, friendly and outgoing. Outside of their communities Gray Elves become very formal and concerned with detail. Gray Elves often take the time to learn the customs of other cultures so they don’t commit social faux pas when visiting. Some call these Gray Elf attitudes “ hiding in their armor.”

Even outside of their lands Gray Elves enjoy taking part in games. They enjoy not only testing their physical and combat skills in tournaments and competitions, but also developing mental skills with tests of memory, puzzles and games. Gray Elves can be very competitive, and it is not uncommon for boasts to evolve into impromptu matches to see if one’s abilities can match his words.

While most Gray Elves try to keep their cool when dealing with other races, they won’t hesitate to draw steel if accused of cheating during a tournament or using dishonorable tactics in combat. Gray Elves know that other races suspect them of using magic to enhance their abilities and they go to great lengths to prove that those who follow their codes do not use magic to cheat.

Gray Elf clans each hold to a slightly different version of the code their knights follow, which is confusing to outsiders and sometimes causes conflicts. Some clans allow female knights, while others only allow women to use spears and bows. Most have similar tenets regarding the treatment of unarmed and fallen opponents and many have limits on outright killing of other knights. Most codes forbid usings pells that enhance armor (such as mage armor) or damage an opponent at range (fireball, lightning bolt, etc.). Some clans do allow knights to use spells like mending, light, tongues, sending and different protection spells in situations that help noncombatants.

Clans known for using magic are watched very closely and often have to deal with accusations made by other elf clans as well as outsiders. Even gray elf knights who follow their codes to the letter must explain the use of magic to clan leaders. Unjustified use of magic can cause a knight to lose a great deal of status in the community. A severe breach of the code can even result in a knight having to go through the rite known as Drylliad o’ Glaif, or “Breaking of the Sword.” This ritual shatters the guilty knight’s sword, one shard of which she must then carry openly at all times. Depending on the clan leaders’ judgment, the knight’s family may also share her punishment, which usually means banning the knight’s children from ever becoming knights themselves.

Some of the most popular stories are about elven knights regaining their honor after having it unjustly taken from them. Bards also tell many tales about the combats of gray elf knights. Most describe how a elf knight uses graceful, almost dancelike movements to swiftly cut downseveral opponents. Small groups of gray elf knights are renowned for defeating large hordes of enemies.

Physical Description:

All the fae races that come to the mortal world go through changes as they adapt to living outside Tir Na’Og. Most of these changes are due to the lower mana level of the mortal world. Many faein the mortal world aren’t as powerful as fae races living in what mortals often call the Other World. Over time, gray elves have become physically stronger even as their magical abilities continue to diminish. The current generation of Gray Elves are larger than that of their forefathers, but they have not lost much of their agility and gracefulness.

While all sidhe still appear slim, male gray elves now grow between 5 and 6 1/2 feet tall and can weigh as much as 180 lbs. Female gray elves also grow taller than other elves but weigh less than males. Even though the gray elves aren’t as frail as their cousins, they haven’t lost the fine features and grace that make them beautiful.

The gray elves also haven’t lost their eye for beauty in their clothes, jewelry and art and have carried their simple aesthetics over into the crafting of weapons and armor. Humans and other races often use the quality of the armor a gray elves knight wears to determine the status of the elf lords they encounter. Low-level knights and squires often wear leather or studded leather armor. Knights of higher status wear scale or chainmail armor made from brass, silver and sometimes gold. Knights of very high station wear scale made from mithril. One thing that gray elves still have in common with the other fae races is an aversion to iron. Having lived in the mortal world for many generations, iron doesn’t affect Gray Elf as strongly as other fae, but wearing too much still causes harm and even death. Gray Elf wield iron weapons, and can even wear gauntlets made of iron, but wearing anything more than leather with iron studs pains them.

Sidhe smiths developed new smelting methods to deal with this problem and began using other metals, including silver and gold, to make armor. Some suspect that the dwarves taught the gray elves the arts of making armor from what many consider soft metals, but the elves have since taken the knowledge in their own directions, often making beautiful designs out of the scale and chain patterns used to create
their armor.

Living in the mortal world has also reduced the life spans of the average gray elf. In the Other World elves can live as long as a thousand years, but in the mortal world most elves lifespans hover around 500 years.

Relations:

Gray elves get along fairly well with other fae and humanity, though many other fae consider gray elves boring and don’t understand why they no longer care about the magic that helped create them. Humans trust gray elves more than other fae and even other sidhe, and for good reason: gray elf knights have defended human villages under attack when other knights weren’t around to help. Various gray elf clans send knights to take part in contests and jousts in human holdings, although they only rarely invite human or other knights to take part in gray elf competitions, and invitations are usually given only to knights the elves know.

The elf lords allow knights of other races to enter their holdings to deliver messages and invitations, but commoners may not travel in gray elf lands without the permission of a specific knight or lord. Small groups of commoners are sometimes granted writs to visit a specific knight or settlement, but these boons are rare and usually last for only a short period. People invited to gray elf lord lands find that the elves follow the common rules of hospitality and often prepare feasts for their guests. Trespassers in elf forests are escorted back to their own lands, usually with a warning of harsher treatment should they return.

Besides taking part in contests, gray elves also trade with humans, dwarves and some other races. Most gray elves prefer trading through half elf settlements, but some do work directly with other races. Gray elves get along with dwarves and a few sidhe lords even take dwarven fighters as part of their retinues. Some gray elves find the dwarves’ near-constant haggling and boasting rather irritating and so prefer trading with dwarves though humans or half elves. Of all the fae races, the gray elves favor halflings as both companions and friends. Both gray elves and the Halflings share a love for stories, songs and music that are more than rowdy drinking songs or stories of how a knight slew so many in combat. Elf lords and Halflings celebrate the simpler things in life, and it is not uncommon for a halfling to act as a retainer for a gray elf knight.

While gray elves extend the hand of friendship to most other races, some are carefully watched and seldom, if ever, trusted. hobgoblins are treated with the barest of courtesies, and the elf lords keep their swords near when half-orcs are around. Individuals who prove their honor may win some respect from elf lords, and the noblest have even been invited to take part in gray elf tournaments.

Of all the races the gray elf interact with, they have the greatest conflict with their “brothers of the forest”, the wood elves. Since the two cultures split many millennia ago each side has treated the other with nothing but disrespect and mistrust. Called “the fallen” by the elf lords, gray elves consider most wood elves to be backward thinking elves who cling to outdated traditions. The gray elves don’t understand why the wood elves haven’t tried to adapt to their new home.

The argument has gone on for generations, with each side accusing the other of abandoning their heritage. Gray elves also disapprove of the way their cousins treat other less magical races and manipulate people for their own ends. This dishonorable behavior angers many elflords, who sometimes accuse wood elves of stirring up trouble between other races. Meetings between the two sidhe races are often tense affairs, in which even the smallest slight turns friendly banter into verbal sparring matches that become deadly unless someone intervenes. For these reasons gray elves often won’t go to a meeting if they know wood elves will also attend, instead sending dwarven or halfling intermediaries to handle negotiations.

Despite their differences with the wood elves and other races, gray elves don’t hesitate to help when other communities come under attack. Gray elf knights have helped repel invasions and raids from firbolgs, fomorians and other groups. Many settlements along the borders of elven forests offer hospitality to gray elf knights when they are on campaign.

Alignment:

Like most fae races, gray elves value life and freedom, though the elf lords believe that a system needs to be maintained to ensure that freedoms are protected. Gray elves favor law more than other fae races do; this tendency toward lawfulness, however, does not express itself in a strong desire for firm class divisions as it does in some other lawful societies. It’s just as easy for a merchant’s son to prove hes worthy to become a knight as it is for a lord’s daughter. The gray elves also believe that protecting the freedom of others ensures they keep their own freedoms.

Gray Elf Lands:

Grey elves tend to live in small communities of about a hundred elves. Most communities are built around a single lord or a small group of knights. Some outsiders say that larger elven communities exist, but the elves never speak of them, saying only that they don’t know about elves living in other places. Gray elves prefer to live in forested mountains, sometimes in tree-encircled meadows with room for a small keep and a jousting field.

As a rule most elven knights refrain from getting involved in the politics of the surrounding human towns and villages. At the time of the High King’s campaign of unification, however, many of the elf lords found themselves choosing sides. Most remained neutral and concerned themselves only with protecting their own holdings. Some decided to oppose the High King and join with human kings resisting the unification; others felt that the good of all people would be served by the ideals of Camelot, and joined the High King’s crusade. This division among daoine sidhe became known as the Mawr Hollt, and resulted in many personal feuds and conflicts between elven lords. accusing each other of dishonorable acts against members of their clans.

Religion:

One of the underlying reasons for the conflict between the gray elves and wood elves is that they don’t worship the same deities. Gray Elves do not care as deeply for the gods of the natural world that the wood elves favor; instead, gray elves prefer idealized deities that reflect their own standards. Angus Og, god of love, youth and poetic inspiration and Belenus (Apollo), and god of the smiths, Goibhniu are the most popular gods among the elf lords. The gray elves also revere the trinity of Brigit (maiden) and Danu (mother), and Morigann the (crone), the pro-genitors of the fae pantheon, in their role as the triple goddess.

Languages:

Keeping with their traditions, elves usually speak Sylvan as their native language and learn two or three of the languages spoken by other races living around them. Most learn to speak the common tongue of the Realm, in order to avoid being at a disadvantage in relations with their neighbors.

Names: Gray Elf names tend to be fairly ‘elven’ in sound, rolling like liquid and relatively free of harsh consonants. Some iconoclasts have adopted names of human heroes as a gesture of respect for their new neighbors; heroes of the race often commemorate their greatest accomplishments with deed names. One custom common to other races but unpopular with the gray elves is the addition of “son or daughter of” (or a syllable meaning the same) to one’s name. The gray elves find such names inelegant and a little bit insulting, as if one expected preferential treatment for lineage to supersede honor gained through deeds.

• Male Names: Arthegal, Begwynath, Cethrassir, Dasselath, Gemarest, Llethwyn, Midir, Owain, Rhamneth, Siovron, Tiranuil, Yvain
• Female Names: Amriath, Aulwyr, Braethri, Cathria, Etain, Fhydris, Llanwy, Meradwyn, Scathach, Vhallain, Ysfalla

Adventurers:

Gray elves adventure for more than just the chance to visit other people and places. An adventure needs to have some purpose behind it and not just be aimless wandering to catch the interest of an elf lord. Not all adventures need be quests for honor or glory; some can be as simple as testing a new skill or weapon. Outside of their own holdings elf lords dislike staying in any one place for very long, so they often look for new things that need to be done. Gray elves take an interest in current events so they can help if needed. Rumors of robber knights or monsters preying on commoners are opportunities that elf lords look for. Even a small errand like escorting a young maiden to a nearby town is something elf lords often do.

• +2 Dexterity, -2 Wisdom: Gray Elves are remarkably agile, but their fae nature affects their strength of will.
• Medium: Gray Elf have no size-related bonuses or penalties.
• Gray Elf base movement is 30 feet.
• Low-Light Vision: Gray Elf can see twice as far as a human in low-light situation such as starlight, moonlight and torchlight. They can also still perceive color and detail under these conditions.
• Iron Allergy: Gray Elf take 1 point of damage each round they wear iron or steel armor, or are in contact with a similar quantity of iron or steel. Smaller amounts of iron and steel (such as manacles) do not do damage, although they make the Gray Elf very uncomfortable.
• Gray Elf receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the shortbow, longbow, composite bows, and short sword. The longsword is restricted to knights.
• +2 racial bonus on Listen, Search and Spot checks. Elf lords can also make a Search check if they pass within 5 feet of a secret door.
• Spell-like Abilities: A Gray Elf with a Charisma score of at least 10 has the following spell-like abilities: 1/day: dancing lights, daze, faerie fire (CL 1st; save DC 10 + Gray Elf’s Charisma modifier + spell level).
• Automatic Languages: Common and Sylvan.
• Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Celestial, Goblin, Infernal, Orcish.
• Favored Class: Knight. The Gray Elf are a race of nobility, and those elf lords who take up arms aspire to knighthood more than anything else.