Flavors of Elf | EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews
1. By "Systemless" I mean it was tied to Pathfinder, but I'm freeing it up so that it could easily be adapted to other systems - like 4e or upcoming 5e. Since I've made that decision, it's been rather liberating. Before, I felt like I had to try and shoehorn everything Pathfinder (or at least account for everything that's "core," whether it was in or out). Now things are adapted on a case-by-case basis if it crops up. This will be web-published with suggestions on how certain systems can be used with this setting (I'm going to have to be really careful with anything not OGL, though).
2. Alfari and Telfari hate each other due to a cultural rift (aka they're racist jerks, but towards each other - different flavors of elf or even other races they are much more tolerant of). Skin color is the same, although telfari are more likely to be outside and therefore tan a little green. Culture and Geography do play a huge role in the variances: Drow are from the Dark Side of the planet (tidally locked!), Alfari and Telfari are originally from a region of the world called the Feylands on Western Zantier (the continant that spans the light/dark) in kind of a china/celtic blend. Eventually the Feylands will have their own volume of detail. Kelfari and Vanifari (shifters & halflings) are from another continent altogether to the south (Solar South, Lunar North) called Ghanthis. Wild magic had changed them into their current form thousands of years ago. Everybody else is more or less from Eastern Zantier (the focus of my first installment), which is just starting to enter into a Dark Age after the collapse of a dwarf empire that spanned half the continent.
3. This block of text is designed to serve as a brief introduction to each race of elf, near elf, or elf-kin. Initially, I am planning on having this web published (and, if it becomes popular, book published), with links towards more detail. Since on Phaetos culture is more defined by region than by species, I would rather put the information into the individual regions than all in one block. This is the third or fourth writing I've made of the elves, so it's been edited down quite a bit.
4. Religion will cover some hefty aspects in it's own chapter. First, there are the Draconic histories which cover previous eras/world cycles, which covers the creation of the world, that which would become the first gods, the induction of those who now regulate the gods, the unknown fourth era (dragons refuse to speak of it), and the current era is the fifth. Then there's the Elfin Monomyth, which is important as it's the oldest after dragons (and more or less consistant). The dragon thing early on points to the importance of dragons to scholarship/religion.
5. High Elfin is the language of Magic & Science (really the same thing in a fantasy world) worldwide. Comparable to how Latin used to be the primary language of science and learning in Europe. This is another reason why the Elfin Monomyth is important (but covered later).
6. I speak Bad English and Martian...although I've written enough collegiate level papers that when I sit down to write something serious in a word processer, I can usually pull off something halfway decent. I'm aiming for copywriting (as in, writing copy) with this segment, which I know I need more practice on. Collegiate writing got me in the habit of writing egregiously verbous paragraphs with copious amounts of fluff and Big Words (still can't spell worth a crap outside of a spellcheck, though 
).
7. The albino empathic Xhofari (Ghost Elves) have been cut for right now. Creepy buggers, but they need some more work and could easily contribute towards elf-bloat.
8. Gnomes are distantly related, being half-halfling and half-goblin. Still a work-in-progress, but they do exist because quite literally a wizard did do it (bred by wizards to be wizard's assistants). Probably will be separate as there is very, very little of elf left by that point.
9. Orcs are not related, although they were created by (and subsiquintly collapsed) an ancient evil drow empire that has been gone so long nobody remembers when exactly it existed. Also, don't call them orcs. That's racist and will get you punched. Call them Jotun 
10. More or less, I'm trying to keep elf-bloat in line by tying elves to what became other non-human but humanoid races. Also trying to deal with the elephant in the room known as Tolkien while keeping elves feeling elfy.
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