Wood Elf

Wood elves are the forest-keepers of Learias: a people who did not build their civilization on top of the natural world but grew it from within. They make their homes in the Forest of Elion, where trees reach heights found nowhere else and the fauna moving between them has had centuries to adapt to life beneath permanent canopy. The city of Elion sits at the heart of this forest, but most wood elves consider the city secondary to the forest itself.

They are not a solitary people. Wood elf society is deeply communal, organized around seers, scouts, and the oral transmission of accumulated forest knowledge. But they have little patience for the bureaucratic structures of outside civilizations, and wood elves who leave the forest tend to carry their hierarchy with them: not in titles, but in the way they immediately assess every room they enter and position themselves relative to its exits.

Some wood elves develop a deeper connection to the living world, a shapeshifting ability that the elves themselves describe less as transformation and more as remembering. The forest is full of shapes, they say, and a well-attuned elf simply borrows the one that is needed.

Wood Elf Traits

Wood elf heroes have access to the following traits.

Signature Trait: Eye of the Forest

Your bond with the living world gives you preternatural awareness of your surroundings. You gain an edge on tests made to notice threats and on tests made to track creatures through natural terrain.

Purchased Wood Elf Traits

You have 3 ancestry points to spend on the following traits.

Dragon Bond (1 Point)

The Metallic Dragons who watch over the Forest of Elion have left their nature in your blood. You gain an edge on Intuition tests made to sense the emotions and motivations of dragons and dragon-adjacent creatures.

Elion's Grasp (2 Points)

You have the following signature ability. Signature abilities can be used at will.

Elion's Grasp

Roots and vines erupt from every surface at your will, lashing your foe.

Magic, Ranged, Strike	Main action
📏 Ranged 10	🎯 One creature

Power Roll + Might or Agility:

• ≤11: 2 + M or A damage; A < WEAK, slowed (save ends)
• 12-16: 5 + M or A damage; A < AVERAGE, slowed (save ends)
• 17+: 7 + M or A damage; A < STRONG, restrained (save ends)

Forestborn (1 Point)

The deep undergrowth of the wood is no obstacle to you. You can shift into and while within difficult terrain created by natural vegetation, roots, or other forest features.

Otherworldly Grace (2 Points)

Your elf body and mind can't be contained for long. Whenever you make a saving throw, you succeed on a roll of 5 or higher.

Revisit Memory (1 Point)

Accessing memories is as easy as living in the present for you. You gain an edge on tests made to recall lore.

Shapeshift (2 Points)

As a maneuver, you assume the form of any beast you have previously encountered, with a size no greater than your own. While transformed, you gain that creature's speed and a natural strike (3 + Might damage, Melee 1). You can't use equipment or class abilities while transformed. You can return to your true form as a maneuver.

Swift (1 Point)

You have speed 6.

On Wood Elves

"You lost?"

Sam did not look up from the map she was folding. The two scouts from Castanas had heard nothing, which was impressive given there was a six-foot elf in hunting leathers standing at the edge of their campfire.

"We're with the caravan," the first one managed. "From Castanas."

"I know who you're with," Sam said. She finished folding the map and tucked it into her coat. "That's why I'm here. Your caravan master hired a guide who doesn't know this forest. I'm rerouting you."

"He's a certified--"

"He's going to take you through Deeproot Hollow," Sam said. "Which has been claimed by a roosting basilisk since last spring. I'd rather not spend the morning writing letters to your families." She looked at both of them with the particular patience of someone who has already decided what's going to happen and is waiting for everyone else to catch up. "Unless you want to argue about it?"

The scouts exchanged a look. There was something about her that made argument feel less like an option than a theoretical exercise.

"No," the second one said.

"Good." She crouched and studied the ground beside the fire. The first scout hadn't noticed anything particular about it. Whatever she saw, it answered a question he hadn't heard her ask. She stood.

"You had a visitor tonight," she said. "Large cat, about two hours ago. Curious, not hungry. It watched your camp for a while before it left." She said it the way someone else would report weather. "The forest isn't hostile to your group. Not yet."

"Not yet?" the first scout repeated.

"You've been making a lot of noise," Sam said. She looked at the fire, which was built higher than necessary, throwing light in all directions. The scouts had the grace to look embarrassed. "I'll tell the caravan master how you'll proceed in the morning. Get some sleep. If anything comes for you tonight, you'll hear me first."

She turned and walked back into the treeline. After three steps, they could no longer see her.

"Keep up," came her voice from the dark, the next morning, when she reappeared at the camp before dawn.

And somehow they did.