In Game Rules

Elves are a magical people of otherworldly grace, living in places of ethereal beauty, in the midst of ancient forests or in silvery spires glittering with faerie light, where soft music drifts through the air and gentle fragrances waft on the breeze. Elves love nature and magic, art and artistry, music and poetry.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
• Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
• Alignment. Elves love freedom, variety, and self-expression, so they lean strongly towards the gentler aspects of chaos. They value and protect others' freedom as well as their own, and are good more often than not. Drow are an exception; their exile into the Underdark has made them vicious and dangerous. Drow are more often evil than not.
• Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
• Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Trance. Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep.
• Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Elven.

Drow

Descended from an earlier subrace of dark-skinned elves, the drow were banished from the surface world for following the goddess Lolth down the path to evil and corruption. Now they have built their own civilization in the depths of the Underdark, patterned after the Way of Lolth. Also called dark elves. The drow have black skin that resembles polished obsidian and stark white or pale yellow hair. They commonly have very pale eyes (so pale as to be mistaken for white) in shades of lilac, silver, pink, red, and blue. They lend to be smaller and thinner than most elves.

Drow adventurers are rare, and the race does not exist in all worlds. Check with your Dungeon Master to see if you can play a drow character.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
• Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a range of 120 feet, instead of 60.
• Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of the attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
• Drow Magic. You know the Dancing Lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Faerie Fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the Darkness spell once and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
• Drow Weapon Training. You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows.

High Elf

As a high elf, you have a keen mind and a mastery of at least the basics of magic. In many of the worlds of D&D, there are two kinds of high elves. One type (which includes the gray elves and valley elves of Greyhawk, the Silvanesti of Dragonlance, and the sun elves of the Forgotten Realms) is haughty and reclusive, believing themselves to be superior to non-elves and even other elves. The other type (including the high elves of Greyhawk. the Qualinesti of Dragonlance, and the moon elves of the Forgotten Realms) are more common and more friendly, and often encountered among humans and other races.

The sun elves of Faerun (also called gold elves or sunrise elves) have bronze skin and hair of copper, black, or golden blood. Their eyes are golden, silver, or black. Moon elves (also called silver elves or gray elves) are much paler, with alabaster skin sometimes tinged with blue. They often have hair of silver-while, black, or blue, but various shades of blond, brown, and red are not uncommon. Their eyes are blue or green and flecked with gold.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
• Cantrip. You know one cantrip of your choice from the Wizard spell list. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for it.
• Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
• Extra Language. You can read, speak, and write one additional language of your choice.

Wood Elf

As a wood elf, you have keen senses and intuition, and your fleet feet carry you quickly and stealthily through your native forests. This category includes the wild elves (grugach) of Greyhawk and the Kagonesti of Dragonlance, as well as the races called wood elves in Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. In Faerun, wood elves (also called wild elves. green elves, or forest elves) are reclusive and distrusting of non-elves.

Wood elves' skin tends to be copperish in hue, sometimes with traces of green. Their hair tends toward browns and blacks, but it is occasionally blond or copper-colored. Their eyes are green, brown, or hazel.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 1.
• Elf Weapon Training. You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.
• Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.
• Mask of the Wild. You can attempt to hide even when you are only lightly obscured by foliage, heavy rain, falling snow, mist, and other natural phenomena.

Astral Elf

Long ago, groups of elves ventured from the Feywild to the Astral Plane to be closer to their gods. Life in the Silver Void has imbued their souls with a spark of divine light. That light manifests as a starry gleam in an astral elf's eyes.

Because nothing ages on the Astral Plane, astral elves who inhabit that plane can be very old, and their longevity gives them an unusual perspective on the passage of time. Some are prone to melancholy, while others might display an absence of feeling. Many look for creative ways to occupy themselves. Whether they choose to live in quiet contemplation or strike out to explore the reaches of the multiverse, astral elves tend to see things through the lens of time as having little or no meaning to them. Astral elves who don't dwell in the Astral Plane can live to be more than 750 years old.

• Ability Score Increase. Increase one ability score by 2, and increase a different one by 1, or increase three different scores by 1.
• Creature Type. You are a Humanoid. You are also considered an elf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be an elf.
• Size. You are Medium.
• Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Astral Fire. You know one of the following cantrips of your choice: Dancing Lights, Light, or Sacred Flame. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it (choose when you select this race).
• Darkvision. You can see dim light within 60 feet of yourself as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in darkness only as shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.
• Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Starlight Step. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
• Astral Trance. You don't need to sleep, and magic can't put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you remain conscious. Whenever you finish this trance, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice and with one weapon or tool of your choice, selected from the Player's Handbook. You magically acquire these proficiencies by drawing them from shared elven memory and the experiences of entities on the Astral Plane, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate.

Sea Elf

Sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean in the earliest days of the multiverse. While other elves traveled from realm to realm, the sea elves navigated the deepest currents and explored the waters across a hundred worlds. Today, they live in small, hidden communities in the ocean shallows and on the Elemental Plane of Water.

• Ability Score Increase. Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Constitution score increases by 1.
• Age. Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
• Size. Elves range from under 5 to over 6 feet tall and have slender builds. Your size is Medium.
• Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. Accustomed to twilit forests and the night sky, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can't put you to sleep.
• Trance. Elves do not sleep. Instead they meditate deeply, remaining semi-conscious, for 4 hours a day. The Common word for this meditation is "trance." While meditating, you dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive after years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from 8 hours of sleep.
• Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Sea Elf Training. You have proficiency with the spear, trident, light crossbow, and net.
• Child of the Sea. You have a swimming speed of 30 feet, and you can breathe air and water.
• Friend of the Sea. Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Elven, and Aquan.

Eladrin

Eladrin are elves of the Feywild, a realm of perilous beauty and boundless magic. Using that magic, eladrin can step from one place to another in the blink of an eye, and each eladrin resonates with emotions captured in the Feywild in the form of seasons — affinities that affect the eladrin’s mood and appearance. An eladrin’s season can change, though some remain in one season forever. Choose your season or roll on the Eladrin Seasons table. Your Trance trait lets you change your season.

Like other elves, eladrin can live to be over 750 years old.

• Ability Score Increase. When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. You can't raise any of your scores above 20.
• Creature Type. You are a Humanoid. You are also considered an elf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be an elf.
• Size. You are Medium.
• Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.
• Fey Step. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
  • When you reach 3rd level, your Fey Step gains an additional effect based on your season; if the effect requires a saving throw, the DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier (choose when you select this race):
    • Autumn. Immediately after you use your Fey Step, up to two creatures of your choice that you can see within 10 feet of you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be charmed by you for 1 minute, or until you or your companions deal any damage to the creatures.
    • Winter. When you use your Fey Step, one creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you before you teleport must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
    • Spring. When you use your Fey Step, you can touch one willing creature within 5 feet of you. That creature then teleports instead of you, appearing in an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within 30 feet of you.
    • Summer. Immediately after you use your Fey Step, each creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you takes fire damage equal to your proficiency bonus.
• Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness.
  • Whenever you finish this trance, you can change your season, and you can gain two proficiencies that you don’t have, each one with a weapon or a tool of your choice selected from the Player’s Handbook. You mystically acquire these proficiencies by drawing them from shared elven memory, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
• Languages. Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.

Shadar-Kai

Shadar-kai are the elves of the Shadowfell, originally drawn to that dread realm by the Raven Queen. Over the centuries, some of them have continued to serve her, while others have ventured into the Material Plane to forge their own destinies.

Once shadar-kai were Fey like the rest of their elven kin; now they exist in a state between life and death, thanks to being transformed by the Shadowfell’s grim energy.

Shadar-kai have ashen skin tones, and while they’re in the Shadowfell, they also become wizened, reflecting the somber nature of that gloomy plane.

Like other elves, shadar-kai can live to be over 750 years old.

• Ability Score Increase. When determining your character’s ability scores, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1. You can't raise any of your scores above 20.
• Creature Type. You are a Humanoid. You are also considered an elf for any prerequisite or effect that requires you to be an elf.
• Size. You are Medium.
• Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
• Blessing of the Raven Queen. As a bonus action, you can magically teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
  • Starting at 3rd level, you also gain resistance to all damage when you teleport using this trait. The resistance lasts until the start of your next turn. During that time, you appear ghostly and translucent.
• Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
• Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself.
• Keen Senses. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Necrotic Resistance. You have resistance to necrotic damage.
• Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness.
  • Whenever you finish this trance, you can gain two proficiencies that you don’t have, each one with a weapon or a tool of your choice selected from the Player’s Handbook. You mystically acquire these proficiencies by drawing them from shared elven memory, and you retain them until you finish your next long rest.
• Languages. Your character can speak, read, and write Common and one other language that you and your DM agree is appropriate for the character. The Player’s Handbook offers a list of languages to choose from. The DM is free to modify that list for a campaign.

Lore