Dark elves dwell deep underground in elaborate cities shaped from the rock of cyclopean caverns. They seldom make themselves known to surface folk, preferring to remain legends while advancing their goals through proxies and agents. Dark elves are often highly focused on their own societies, which are elaborately structured and take a lot of skill in successfully navigating.
Physical Description: Dark elves are similar in stature to humans, but share the slender build and features of elves, including the distinctive long, pointed ears. Their eyes lack pupils and are usually solid white or red. Dark elves skin ranges from coal black to a dusky purple. Their hair is typically white or silver, though some variation is not unknown.
Dark elves reach adulthood at 110, with middle age at 175 and old age around 260. The most venerable of this ancestry live into their three hundreds.
Dark elves are sexual dimorphic, with the average height of males around six feet and females a few inches taller. Their body mass is similar, making most females weigh slightly heavier than males.
Society: Dark elf society is traditionally class-oriented and matriarchal. Male dark elves usually fulfill martial roles, defending the species from external threats, while female dark elves assume positions of leadership and authority. Reinforcing these gender roles, one in 20 dark elves are born with exceptional abilities and thus considered to be nobility, and the majority of these special dark elves are female. Noble houses define dark elf politics, with each house governed by a noble matriarch and composed of lesser families, business enterprises, and military companies. Each house is also associated with an outsider patron. Dark elves are strongly driven by individual self-interest and advancement, which shapes their culture with seething intrigue and politics, as common dark elves jockey for favor of the nobility, and the nobility rise in power through a combination of skillful political maneuvering, assassination, and treachery.
Relations: Dark elves, given their complex societal structures, consider many other ancestries less developed because they do not go into the same level of intricate society. That said, they do see other, highly structured cultures also as kindred spirits of a sort and are willing to trade with those. While they claim no kinship with shadowlings, the dark elves harbor a curiosity toward the shadow ancestry, as both are adaptations of ancestries exposed to extreme and dangerous conditions. Finally, the dark elves’ hatred of elves sets these beings apart from all other ancestries, and the dark elves desire nothing more than to ruin everything about their surface cousins. The origins of this hatred are unknown – possibly even to the two ancestries themselves – but it is well known to be a reciprocal animosity.
Alignment and Religion: Dark elves place a premium on survival, and are unapologetic about any choices they might make to ensure their continued living. This is unsurprising given they make their homes in some of the most dangerous places underground. They have no use for compassion, and are unforgiving of their enemies, both ancient and contemporary. Dark elves retain the elven traits of strong emotion and passion. Outsiders are their chosen patrons, particularly those that share their inclination toward power and subtly.
Adventurers: Dark elves are driven to expand their territory, and many seek to settle ancient grudges upon elven nations in ruinous and dreary sites of contested power on the surface. Male dark elves favor martial or stealth classes that put them close to their enemies and their homes, as either soldiers or spies. Female dark elves typically assume roles that lend themselves to leadership. Both genders have an innate talent for the mystical arts. Gender fluid dark elves often find themselves free from the societal expectation of gender roles and choose their calling from among their own talents.
Names: Arcavato, Belmarniss, Cylellinth, Drovic, Firyin, Ilvaria, Johysis, Kaelmourn, Loscivia, Mirrendier, Pharnox, Syrendross, Tyvorhan, Ulumbralya, Volundeil, Zov