Base Requirements

• Races: Elf
• Classes: Any
• Ability Requirements: None
• Alignments: Any
• Starting Cash: By class
• Bonus Languages: Espruar, Auld Cormanthan
• Recommended Languages: Cormanthan

Proficiencies

• Weapon Slots: By class
• Non-weapon Slots: By class
• Available Categories: By class
• Bonus Proficiencies: Animal Lore, Hiding, Tracking
• Required Proficiencies: none
• Recommended Proficiencies: Spellcraft, Survival

Overview: With the retreat of the elves to the west, the once-richly inhabited lands of the Elven Wood were almost depopulated. The Elven Court has been all but abandoned, Myth Drannor is in ruins, and the peaceful glades of Semberhome are still and empty. Only the Tangled Trees have any noteworthy number of the fair folk. These are younger elves, temperamental and not very fond of human beings. Still, a proud tradition remains to protect their once-proud legacies.

Description: Elves of the Tangled Trees tend to reject all things human. They wear elven chain mail, often fashioned to resemble silver leaves, and cloaks of forest green. Their heads are sometimes adorned with precious metal circlets bearing their respective house insignias.

Role-Playing: They have remained in Faerûn both to protect their retreating kinsmen and to defend any enduring settlements. These elves define themselves as guardians. They will be found outside their woods only if they are relieved of their responsibilities for a while in order for them to learn more about the current Realms.

These elves tend to be young, strong, rash, and somewhat isolated from the rest of the Realms. This results in a relatively ignorant, arrogant elf warrior who is secretive and distrustful of all outsiders. Their people have suffered much at the hands of men and they are quick to take offense at the actions of such folk.

Elves of the Tangled Trees are especially intolerant of dwarves within the Elven Court. They fear that a dwarf’s natural tendency to build and rework stone would be sorely tested by the ruins of Myth Drannor. If so, excavations may uncover some things best left buried in the rubble, and they remained behind to guard against their escape.

Half-elves are seen as aberrations, a taint or embarrassment to a pure elven bloodline that is best kept hidden. Despite the fact that several elven communities welcome half-elves, these proud isolationists stubbornly refuse to respect or even acknowledge them.

Special Abilities:

• When they are in a wilderness environment, these elves can make excellent use of natural cover to conceal themselves. In such a setting, they receive a +5 bonus to Hiding proficiency checks.
• Due to long memories of the fall of the Elven Court by the so-called “Army of Darkness”, elves of the Elven Woods get a bonus when fighting creatures like those they blame for bringing Myth Drannor low. This bonus reflects their sheer hatred of all other races, amplified by their years of isolation and constant reinforcement by their elders. Players should pick two of the following races and add a +1 bonus to attack rolls against them: drow, dwarves, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, humans, orcs, ogres, tanar’ri, trolls, or yugoloths.
• Each of these characters begins with a suit of exquisitely-made elven chain mail. All elves of the elven woods are able to wear this armor, regardless of any restrictions on armor wearing from their class(es).
• The rugged nature of their lives over the past few years has made adventurers of the elven woods more hardy than their fellows in other regions. Because of this, all characters of the elven woods use the next large Hit Die (i.e. Wizards use a d6, Fighters use a d12, etc.).

Special Disadvantages:

• Elves of the Elven Woods see themselves as the elite of an elitist race. Their arrogance and isolationists’ ignorance of social conventions beyond those of the Elven Woods very often alienates those around them. The result is a -2 to all reaction rolls when talking with NPCs.
• Because of their distrust of mankind, elves of the Elven Woods can be difficult for human men and women to get along with. They have short tempers and always assume that humans are out to get them. NPC reactions with humans are always one step lower, and can never result in a “Friendly” reaction.
• As sworn guardians of the remnants of the Elven Court, these elves may be called back to the Elven Woods if a great crisis looms. These elves have an almost mystical instinct that “things are not well back home.” Rather than risk failing their guardianship, no Elven Woods elf will ever venture more than 200 miles beyond the limit of Cormanthor’s treeline. If the elf ventures beyond this limit, his shame and yearning for home causes him to earn no experience points until he returns to the Elven Woods.

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