Elf
Elves are descendants from homidians and fae creatures. They can be identified by their hominid form and pointed ears.
As an elf, you have the following traits.
Ancestry. Homid
Creature Type. Sapient Being
Legacy: Fae. You are resistant to psychic damage and have the Fae Luck trait.
Fae Luck. When you roll a wyld die and dislike the result, you can reroll the die, but must use the new result. You can use this a number of times equal to one third of your level (rounded up). This count resets after a long rest.
Size. Adult elves range from just over 4 feet to 7 feet tall. The vast majority of adult elves are medium.
Speed. Your base speed is 10 meters.
Twilight Vision. You do not roll with disadvantage when making vision-based rolls in dim light.
Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit as if you had 8 hours of sleep. Magical effects that would force you to sleep instead leave you dazed.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write one planar language.
Elven Lineage Branches
High Elf
The high elves (or just highborn) of Terra Mundus have maintained noble positions of power through the ages through accumulation of wealth and magical secrets. They have a natural proclivity for magic and train with the sword as a form of artistic expression.
Appearance. High Elves generally have sharp features, narrow noses, and skin in pale pink, brown, and green tones with features similar to a lithe human. High elves average just under two meters tall. While most High Elves are Medium, a select few are Tall.
Eldritch Spellcasting. You know one spell of your choice from the eldritch spell list (usually True Strike). Your spellcasting ability for the spell is Brilliance, Instinct, or Presence. In addition, you can cast a spell you know as a 1st Circle spell without expending a will point. Once you cast a spell without expending a will point, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.
When you reach character level 5, you can cast a spell as a 2nd-Circle spell without expending will points.
When you reach character level 10, you can cast a spell as a 3rd-Circle spell without expending will points.
You also qualify as an eldritch spellcaster for purposes of selecting feats.
Language. You can read, speak, and write Elvish.
High Elf Background Features
- Arcane Training. You can swap a background skill proficiency or expertise for Esoterica. If your archetype does not normally include Esoterica in its skill list, you can still select it as an archetype skill.
- Highborn Weapon Training. Instead of selecting a tool proficiency, you can gain proficiency with a single one-handed sword (usually the saber or rapier). You can use this weapon as a spellcasting focus as if it were a cane.
Option: Low Elf
Not all elves on Telluria are wealthy aristocrats. Some lost their lands and wealth generations ago or were raised without sponsorship or acknowledgement of their more fortunate kin. These “low elves” have the same natural talent with magic, but might not have access to formal training. Low elves do not gain the Highborn Weapon Training Background feature, but can learn another language in place of Elvish.
Wyld Elf
The wyld elves of the frontier worlds lead largely tribal lives. Unlike the Tellurian high elves, they have a deeper connection to their ancestral fae heritage and have a natural talent for summoning their anima.
Appearance. Wyld elves are shorter more slender than their high elf cousins with long pointed ears that go all the way to the back of their head and their features are more consistently sharp than high elves. Their skin tones range from light to middle ranges of red, brown, green, and gray. Chaneques are rarely more than 170 centimeters tall, but a select few are short enough to be considered small.
Manifest Soul: Anima. Your anima is an allied fae spirit that accompanies you wherever you go and can manifest outside of your body at will. You know and can cast Manifest Familiar and one additional primal spell. You can cast one of these spells as a 1st-Circle spell without expending a will point a number of times per day equal to one-third of your level (rounded up).
Jungle Elves who awaken a second soul can manifest no more than two souls at a time and cannot manifest the same soul twice.
Language. You can innately speak, read, and write Sylvan as a result of your awakened anima.
Wyld Elf Background Features
- Jungle Training. You can swap a background skill proficiency or expertise for Nature or Survival. If your archetype does not normally include these skills in its skill list, you can still select them as archetype skills.
- Wyld Elf Weapon Training. When you select a tool proficiency, you can choose to be proficient with both shortbows and longbows instead. If you select this option, you do not suffer from using weapons with the primitive trait.
Option: Assimilated Elves
Chaneques who have grown up away from their people and assimilated into another civilization cannot benefit from the Jungle Training and Wyld Elf Weapon Training background features, but retain their manifested anima, through whom they naturally learn sylvan.
While there have been no cases of bugbears or similar goblinoids born to chaneques who have traveled the roads of chaos and assimilated into other cultures, rare wyld elves whose parents traveled the chaos roads who are born with one green eye and have a natural talent for goblin instead of sylvan. None of these elves would be less than a century old today.
Bugbear
Bugbears are descendants of high elves who have been exposed to the roiling chaos. They were first born to high elves affected by the shattering of the faewylds, but many more have been born to elves who traversed the chaos portals to explore frontier worlds.
Appearance. Bugbears most notable differences from their elven ancestors are their bat-like noses and ears, though they are often somewhat bulkier than high elves. Their ears point to the back of their heads in a fashion surprisingly reminiscent of the ears of jungle elves. Their skin and hair are usually dark shades of black, blue, or purple, allowing them to disappear into the night. Some bugbears have lighter hair in shades of gray, white, purple, or blue.
Bugbear height varies from 1.5 to 2 meters tall though a select few are Small or Tall creatures.
Night Eyes. You can cause your pupils to completely overtake your eyes allowing you to see in complete darkness as if it were bright light, but unable to see at all in bright light. This transition takes 30 minutes, during which vision-based skill challenges and attack rolls are made with disadvantage in darkness and bright light.
Mad Talent. When you take a long rest, you can alter your personal history, exploring instead what your life could have been. You gain proficiency with one skill, or tool, or planar language (Terran, Ignan, Aquan, or Auran). You lose this proficiency when you use this ability again. This understanding is fleeting and cannot be developed further into expertise.
Language. You speak and write Goblin and one other language.
Playtest Note! At present, the Nightmare ability is presented as an option for Bugbears. This ability is likely to be made an option through a Feat.
Nightmare. You gaze into a creature’s eyes and present memories of what could have been. They might experience memories of consequences never faced, be shown a better life denied, or experience some other reality that never was. Regardless, you get a faint impression of the false memory.
Make an Intimidation attack against the creature’s resolve. On a failure, they maintain their composure and the memory fades from you both. On a success, the creature is frightened of you for a number of turns equal to your level. On a critical success, the creature is stunned until you break eye contact or the creature is attacked. The creature can use an action to attempt to regain their composure by risking a will point and making a Resolve saving throw. The difficulty of the save is the result of your initial attack. On a critical failure, you gain a temporary will point.
After you successfully use this ability, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.
Bugbear Background Features
Naturally Stealthy. You can swap a background skill proficiency or expertise for Stealth or Intimidation. If your archetype does not normally include that skill in its skill list, you can still select it as an archetype skill.