D&D 5E Need help for wood elf society
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Leatherhead
Possibly a Idiot.
Some resources? Well OK:
There is the Complete Book of Elves.
Or Races of the Wild.
And Heroes of Feywild.
Perhaps you could draw inspiration from the Silmarillion by Tolkien, but that is a hefty read.
Since the default setting for 5e is FR, you could go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki for some specifics, or even just examples to lift from.
There is the Complete Book of Elves.
Or Races of the Wild.
And Heroes of Feywild.
Perhaps you could draw inspiration from the Silmarillion by Tolkien, but that is a hefty read.
Since the default setting for 5e is FR, you could go to the Forgotten Realms Wiki for some specifics, or even just examples to lift from.
Look up the Sylvari from GW2, or the Night Elves from WoW. Take a look at those cities. Where the high elves are more like fey lordlings with their illusion magics and enchantments, proud and haughty above the more pedestrian races, wood elves are the more down-to-earth nature-oriented elves that cultivate plants and trees.
They tend to be more tribal, as well as a more hunter-gather society than large city.
They tend to be more tribal, as well as a more hunter-gather society than large city.
steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
My sylvan [wood] elves, the Kantiiri (literally, "Those of the Wilderness" or "of Untamed Nature") tend to run a bit more "wild elf" with a healthy dose of ElfQuest-style tribal culture than traditional D&D sylvan elf. Not "the Wolfriders", themselves, per se, though a tribe somewhere probably is/does. Not quite as war/battle focused, though. Would much prefer to simply be left alone, hide and avoid conflicts than fight. But, push to shove, if you are harming their home turf/woodlands you are getting a face full of arrow, blade and cudgel.
More often/closer to a hunter/gatherer culture than the great wooded halls of Thingol/LotR "Wood elves." Villages/communities are smaller built in and among the trees and high branches. Possibly several different communal centers are within a single forest and aware/friendly with each other, but they aren't all a single tribe. Still, an attack against one will bring you the wrath of all. Wood elves in my campaign setting are significantly more "elf-centric" and bordering on xenophobia than the high elves or most other races.
Arcane magic use/study is nearly unheard of. A unique gift or perhaps a curse (depending on the tribe) and requiring the expulsion from the community for the arcane-inclined elf to find their own way for study and training. Natural/Druidic magic use is a rare, but highly valued, talent/gift. Clerics (as in organized religions worshiping an established pantheon) among the kantiiri are unheard of. Shamanic healers are the closest they get to "religion" or divine magic. Animism is taken as an obvious fact. Nature is revered. Life is respected and seen in every blade of grass, rock, steam and leaf, worm to dragon. That said, the cycle of nature and relation of predator/prey is very much a truism to the kantiiri. Those that threaten life or nature are to be fought with your whole heart.
Nearly every adolescent or adult elf is skilled and has spent some time as a "hunter" and trained as warriors. In defense of a tribe's territories, you will have every able-bodied adolescent to senior elf taking up arms. Guerrilla warfare and ambush are always the preferred mode of combat. If you can fell your enemy with the only evidence of your presence being the arrow shafts sticking out of your target, so much the better.
Hunter/warriors are invariably armed with a bow, secondary weapons overwhelmingly include a small/light blade of some kind: dagger, short sword or scimitar, though different members of a hunting group/tribe may specialize in any number of weapons, particularly spears, staves and cudgels/clubs. Finding a Kantiiri elf clad in anything more than leathers (no armor more than studded), the soft-soled slipper-like shoes or boots and the impossibly supple grey-green cloaks of their make is unusual. What metal weapons they have are either traded for, claimed from fallen enemies, and/or prized heirlooms. The kantiiri neither have nor desire knowledge of metallurgy and are capable of making perfectly deadly weapons with wood (specially treated with a hardening resin), stone/flint, bone, and what metal scraps they find/gather from others (usually axe, arrow, and spear heads).
Clothing is generally more utilitarian than beautiful. Nearly all wear breeches or simple short tunics rather than large flowing robes or gowns, so as not to inhibit movement/allow great flexibility and speed traveling among the branches or through tight thickets other races wouldn't dare. Shades of browns, greens, greys, russet oranges and reds are the norm with accents of brightly-colored feathers, richly dyed leather strips, and/or variously colored or patterned furs and pelts. Decorative metals and jewelry, again, are traded for or found by chance and passed down. Such ornamentation is generally tastefully simple.
Diet is balanced if somewhat vegetarian leaning. Nuts, berries, roots, fruits and vegetables are the bulk of the diet. Fish is common. Crawfish, crab or other mollusks if the waterways have them. Grouse, pheasant and wild turkey are all welcome additions...duck less so. These fowl and rabbit are their most common sources of meat. Deer or the occasional boar are usually only hunted/slain for special occasions, prior to battle, or celebratory feasts (such as for a wedding or birth). Some larger tribes have learned, from other races, to keep goat or cow for milk and cheese-making. Some tribes may also keep sheep for wool for cloth (or occasionally raid for, shearing them in the night).
So...that's pretty much my wood elves. What do you want yours to be like?
More often/closer to a hunter/gatherer culture than the great wooded halls of Thingol/LotR "Wood elves." Villages/communities are smaller built in and among the trees and high branches. Possibly several different communal centers are within a single forest and aware/friendly with each other, but they aren't all a single tribe. Still, an attack against one will bring you the wrath of all. Wood elves in my campaign setting are significantly more "elf-centric" and bordering on xenophobia than the high elves or most other races.
Arcane magic use/study is nearly unheard of. A unique gift or perhaps a curse (depending on the tribe) and requiring the expulsion from the community for the arcane-inclined elf to find their own way for study and training. Natural/Druidic magic use is a rare, but highly valued, talent/gift. Clerics (as in organized religions worshiping an established pantheon) among the kantiiri are unheard of. Shamanic healers are the closest they get to "religion" or divine magic. Animism is taken as an obvious fact. Nature is revered. Life is respected and seen in every blade of grass, rock, steam and leaf, worm to dragon. That said, the cycle of nature and relation of predator/prey is very much a truism to the kantiiri. Those that threaten life or nature are to be fought with your whole heart.
Nearly every adolescent or adult elf is skilled and has spent some time as a "hunter" and trained as warriors. In defense of a tribe's territories, you will have every able-bodied adolescent to senior elf taking up arms. Guerrilla warfare and ambush are always the preferred mode of combat. If you can fell your enemy with the only evidence of your presence being the arrow shafts sticking out of your target, so much the better.
Hunter/warriors are invariably armed with a bow, secondary weapons overwhelmingly include a small/light blade of some kind: dagger, short sword or scimitar, though different members of a hunting group/tribe may specialize in any number of weapons, particularly spears, staves and cudgels/clubs. Finding a Kantiiri elf clad in anything more than leathers (no armor more than studded), the soft-soled slipper-like shoes or boots and the impossibly supple grey-green cloaks of their make is unusual. What metal weapons they have are either traded for, claimed from fallen enemies, and/or prized heirlooms. The kantiiri neither have nor desire knowledge of metallurgy and are capable of making perfectly deadly weapons with wood (specially treated with a hardening resin), stone/flint, bone, and what metal scraps they find/gather from others (usually axe, arrow, and spear heads).
Clothing is generally more utilitarian than beautiful. Nearly all wear breeches or simple short tunics rather than large flowing robes or gowns, so as not to inhibit movement/allow great flexibility and speed traveling among the branches or through tight thickets other races wouldn't dare. Shades of browns, greens, greys, russet oranges and reds are the norm with accents of brightly-colored feathers, richly dyed leather strips, and/or variously colored or patterned furs and pelts. Decorative metals and jewelry, again, are traded for or found by chance and passed down. Such ornamentation is generally tastefully simple.
Diet is balanced if somewhat vegetarian leaning. Nuts, berries, roots, fruits and vegetables are the bulk of the diet. Fish is common. Crawfish, crab or other mollusks if the waterways have them. Grouse, pheasant and wild turkey are all welcome additions...duck less so. These fowl and rabbit are their most common sources of meat. Deer or the occasional boar are usually only hunted/slain for special occasions, prior to battle, or celebratory feasts (such as for a wedding or birth). Some larger tribes have learned, from other races, to keep goat or cow for milk and cheese-making. Some tribes may also keep sheep for wool for cloth (or occasionally raid for, shearing them in the night).
So...that's pretty much my wood elves. What do you want yours to be like?
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steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Intrigues in a wood elf society are the same as any other society. In my particular wood elf culture, it would be very rare/nearly unheard of. Wood elves are about the wood elves living in/with the woods and, kind of, "against" anyone from outside/threatening the woods or those in them.
But intrigue is intrigue is intrigue, the world over. Jealousy, is always the big one.
Someone is jealous of another's love or not being loved by the one they want. Jealous of not being the "first/primary/best" hunter. Jealousy over someone's closeness with the chief.
Greed (essentially just jealousy with materialism) over what someone else has that an individual wants: better weapon, better family, better position, more wealth, better liked/respected by the society, magical power, etc...
In an magic/D&D world, magical concerns/desires...for the chief's magic staff, the warrior's magic sword, the secret/hidden/magical totem/heart of the culture that they feel should be their power to command/use/abuse.
Create a society on the brink of a coup. Torn by religious factions. Torn by policy disagreements. Torn by family lines/feuds. Create a secret society/organization/assassin's guild that wants to overthrow the existing government. Create an influential warrior/hunter/military who doesn't agree with the leader's position of peaceful coexistence with the humans encroaching on the forest and wants to create war/take the battle to the human town. Raiding/banditry on merchants moving through the forest...Who's behind it? The wood elf king is very displeased.
The plots and intrigues you can generate for a wood elf society are just the same as any other culture/society.
The Grassy Gnoll
Explorer
Cheap and dirty map from the Old Days - the Elven village of Stittle Woad from Fighting Fantasy - http://www.fightingfantasy.org.uk/BookofAtlan/AS-Stittle-Woad.jpg
In terms of intrigues, why not go for a bit of Hamlet? The king is dead, the queen has married his brother with unseemly haste (which for elves could conceivably mean 50 years...). The daughter (aha! Not the son. They'll never see that coming) is very unhappy about this and is plotting with her two old adventuring chums (Rosewood the elf and Sternguild the dwarf) to dig some dirt on her stepfather. Of course, a dwarf in the elf village could cause a stir of itself.
In terms of intrigues, why not go for a bit of Hamlet? The king is dead, the queen has married his brother with unseemly haste (which for elves could conceivably mean 50 years...). The daughter (aha! Not the son. They'll never see that coming) is very unhappy about this and is plotting with her two old adventuring chums (Rosewood the elf and Sternguild the dwarf) to dig some dirt on her stepfather. Of course, a dwarf in the elf village could cause a stir of itself.
