Lore

Half-Elves are the misbegotten children of passion between humans and elves. Taking mostly after their human parent, with slightly pointed ears, half-elves themselves often live quite tragic lives. Though they can live nearly as long as their elven parents, they are a biological dead-end: all half-elves are born sterile, and cannot naturally produce children.

Among elves, half-elven children grow up quickly, and have difficulty finding peers or forming lasting, meaningful friendships. Among humans, half-elves develop more slowly than their peers, creating a perpetual younger sibling scenario that makes keeping long term friends difficult. By the standards of elves, an adult half-elf barely has the knowledge, social experience and maturity to function as a member of society, and inversely, amongst humans, half-elves simply don't grow up fast enough, and remain concerned with childish and innocent things for far longer than others.

It is perhaps because of these growing pains that half-elves often leave home once they reach adulthood. Many half-elves attempt to become adventurers, minstrels, clergy, or traveling merchants, creating new roots based on circumstance rather than familial bonds.

Because of an often unmet need for meaningful connection and the sterility that they are cursed with, half-elves usually have a reputation for short-sightedness and promiscuity - whether deserved or not. In many societies, half-elves are seen as tragic degenerates - prostitutes, rogues, or traveling minstrels living off the charity and goodwill of communities through which they pass. Because of their comeliness, sterility and relative social isolation, half-elves are often taken as slaves or concubines by the wealthy, and authorities in many human and elven lands often look the other way when this occurs.

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Quirks​

• Half-Elf characters tend to grow senile before 150 years of age, their mortal minds unable to handle the length of their lives. With proper care, their bodies can last another 50-100 years, however. 

• Every half-elf is born sterile, a fact that precludes any true merging of human and elven lines. While it is not uncommon for the mother to be elven, due to the Aer Arnad policies encouraging elven population growth elven women tend to avoid pregnancies from human lovers. As such, the majority of half-elves have a human mother and elven father, a fact oft referenced in less respectable playhouses.

• Half-Elves are a fact of life amongst Imperial nobility, but are often little more than footnotes in the memoirs of long lived high elves. Still, many a half-elf has used their station of birth to carve a name for themselves, even if it is one short lived by elven standards.

• Half-Elves age slower than humans but much faster than elves. As a general rule, multiplying a human age by one and a half will get you the equivalent age for a half-elf.

• Half-Elves younger than 30 years of age are children and may not be played on Orcrest.