The Half-Elves
Maximum Ablilty Scores-
120
Humans and elves sometimes wed, the elf attracted to the human's energy and the human to the elf's grace. These marriages end quickly as elves count years because a human's life is so brief, but they leave an enduring legacy - half-elven children.
The life of a half-elf can be hard. If raised by elves, the half-elf grows with astounding speed, reaching maturity within two decades. The half-elf becomes an adult long before he/she has had time to learn the intricacies of elven art and culture, or even grammar. They leave behind their childhood friends, becoming physically an adult but culturally still a child by elven standards. Typically, they leave their elven home, which is no longer familiar, and find their way among humans. If, on the other hand, he/she is raised by humans, the half-elf finds itself different from their peers: more aloof, more sensitive, less ambitious, and slower to mature. Some half-elves try to fit in among humans, while others find their identities in their difference. Most find places for themselves in human lands, but some feel like outsiders all their lives.
Personality:
Most half-elves have the curiosity, inventiveness, and ambition of the human parent, along with the refined senses, love of nature, and artistic tastes of the elven parent.
Physical Description:
To humans, half-elves look like elves. To elves, they look like humans (indeed, elves call them "half-humans"). Half-elven height ranges from under 5 feet to almost 6 feet tall, and weight usually ranges from 90 to 180 pounds. Half-elven men are taller and heavier than half-elven women, but the difference is less pronounced than that found among humans. Half-elves are paler, fairer, and smoother-skinned than their human parents, but their actual skin tone, hair color, and other details vary just as human features do. Half-elves' eyes are green, just as are those of their elven parents. A half-elf reaches maturity at age 20 and can live to be over 180 years old.
Most half-elves are the children of human-elf pairings. Some, however, are the children of parents who themselves are partly human and partly elven. Some of these "second generation" half-elves have humanlike eyes, but most still have green eyes.
Relations:
Half-elves do well among both elves and humans, and they also get along well with dwarves, gnomes, and halflings. They have elven grace without elven aloofness, human energy without human boorishness They make excellent ambassadors and go-betweens (except between elves and humans, where each side suspects the half-elf of favoring the other). In human lands where elves are distant or not on friendly terms, however, half-elves are veiwed with suspicion.
Some half-elves show a marked disfavor toward half-orcs. Perhaps the similarities between themselves and half-orcs (both have human lineage) make these half-elves uncomfortable.
Language:
Half-elves speak the languages they are born to, Common and Elven. Half-elves are slightly clumsy with the intricaate Elven language, though only elves notice, and even so they do better than non-elves.
Adventurers:
Half-elves find themselves drawn to strange careers and unusual company. Taking up the life of an adventurer comes easily to many of them. Like elves, they are driven by wanderlust.
