High Elf & Wood Elf Society (2024)

The High elves are cultured and ordered compared to the Wood Elves. They have highly ordered and maintained towns & cities, as well as a highly sophisticated architecture. Each building is made primarily of finely worked stone, and detailed with wood & metal reliefs, tapestries, and specific plants regularly allowed to grow semi-wild (they are worked in a certain way to enhance their surroundings). The settlements are airy and light filled. Families usually live in specific zones in the north of each settlement, with the ruler, or rulers, live in the largest building (usually a keep, or mansion in the settlement centre), with the dirtier jobs usually placed downstream of any river or source of water. To the west there is financial buildings, such as merchants, and primitive banking systems. The south is any other business district, taking in the artisans and related fields of work. Farmland usually is attached to the south, along with any market places. A execution site is usually attached to the keep or mansion, along with any civil court hearings held in the same building. A standing army is maintained here, usually made up of professional soldiers such as spearmen, swordsmen, and archers. War machines are maintained in the off chance, and their barracks are attached here too. Most settlements will have facilities for the general population to train at military endeavours allowing the same population to act as a militia if attacked. Most of the central buildings will have a sturdy stone wall built too, so it can be protected and used as a defensive point in case of invasion. A building of some type usually is designated for the study of magic, and allied to the clerics of each settlement too, all placed within these walls.High Elf society has a nobility made up of different royal families, with one family governing each city, and lesser nobles, called Jarls, in their smaller settlements. The nobility intermarry where possible to allow fresh blood into their lineage. Sometimes, an individual will be raised up to nobility strengthening the noble classes, and only applies if the High Elf is able bodied, and exceedingly capable. Most nobility is made up of warriors, with a few clerics and wizards, and many have some experience across these three ways of life. Very rarely a merchant or artisan will rise to this and only after some great deed has been accomplished by them. There is no distinction in gender in High Elf society meaning that anyone in the military, artisans, specialty, or rank can be male or female.They are quite proud of their traditions, and look down on almost all other Elves, except for the Wood Elves. The latter is viewed as necessary to survival of the Elvish way of life. While the High Elves are settlement bound, the Wood Elves are not, and regularly act as scouts, farmers, and skirmishers for their siblings. The hierarchy of both intermarry, strengthening the bond between them, and it happens regularly at any level of society.Wood Elves live in forests & woodland, making settlements in the canopy of the largest trees. This leads them to inhabit the oldest parts of the forests. Each is skilled in blades and short bows, and all of the community of adult age will fight to defend itself, or wage war. They have some connection to the Fey but do not worship any of this group, or interbreed with them. Like the High Elves, they look down upon Fey-touched Elves as being 'Not Quite Elvish' anymore. This though doesn't stop the Wood Elves working with good Feykind when their forest homes are under attack. Each settlement is ran by the most powerful spellcasters, usually a Wizard or Druid. Like the High Elves, the Wood Elves make little distinction between the genders of who can do what in society. Their settlements are no where near larger than the High Elf towns and cities, but make up for it by being more numerous over a larger area. Out of the two, Wood Elves are the most secretive, and usually encountered less than the more cosmopolitan High Elves. It seems that the Wood Elves were the first to make contact with humanity first, for the latter are known to make use of wood, and this has worked for & against both sides, leading to conflict in some cases, and other times getting rid of evil creatures from the forest while tidying up regions of unwanted plants.The main two Midgard humans the Wood Elves encountered were the early Proto-Norse, followed by other early Germanic tribes, closely followed by the Celts. This spread the knowledge of the Wood Elves to humanity, who at times mistook them for pure Fey creatures, and not sentient species from Alfheim. Humanity introduced the Elves in general to the Fey, and when encountered elements of the Elves eventually got seeped in Fey magic, and left to join the Feywild, and eventually create the Seelie & Unseelie Courts.