Corpsetaker
First Post
I'm not understanding this move to make the Shadar-kai into a subrace of elves. They have always been described as "human like" so I don't get this. Why not introduce the Lythari?
D&D 5E So Shadar-Kai are now a subrace of elves: Huh?
Probably because only elves can have nice things. 
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Elves are basically like humans anyway, except that their one racial hat is to sub-race out with very little provocation. If you take a group of elves, and move them anywhere, they will turn into a sub-race of that kind within a few generations. If you take a group of elves and move them to the shadow-whatever, you're going to get shadow elves within two generations.
To contrast, the weird thing about humans is that we can hybridize with anything. If you cross anything with a human, you get a creature that's half human and half that thing. It works with elves and orcs. It even works with horses and bulls. It also works with dragons, of course, but that's a racial hat which dragons happen to share with humans (dragons can also mate with anything, and give birth to a half-dragon of that same creature type).
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Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
It was just an Unearthed Arcana. And if the response here is any indication, they got a whole lot of feedback saying, "Yeah, sure, the mechanics are cool, but why tf are they elves?"
I can't answer the question as to why they made Shadar-kai elves, other than to speculate it's strongly linked to the general popularity of elves (or 'improved humans' as seems to be the functional reality).
I don't mind, though. In fact, I ran with it as an important plot point for a homebrew setting's ancient history. The PCs were helping stabilize a human colony in a land once occupied by elves millennia ago. Bad stuff happened to those elves, with some of them retreating across the ocean (where they met humans and other demihumans) and others retreating to the Feywild. There was an accident with one of the Feywild portals that sent the refugees into the Shadowfell instead. Voila! Elven Shadar-kai!
I feel like elves had enough subraces before they absorbed Shadar-kai, but in this particular case it fed nicely into a larger narrative.
I don't mind, though. In fact, I ran with it as an important plot point for a homebrew setting's ancient history. The PCs were helping stabilize a human colony in a land once occupied by elves millennia ago. Bad stuff happened to those elves, with some of them retreating across the ocean (where they met humans and other demihumans) and others retreating to the Feywild. There was an accident with one of the Feywild portals that sent the refugees into the Shadowfell instead. Voila! Elven Shadar-kai!
I feel like elves had enough subraces before they absorbed Shadar-kai, but in this particular case it fed nicely into a larger narrative.
When Shadar-Kai were first introduced, they were fey (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fey_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)#Shadar-kai but note the misspelling as "Fae").
4e made them humans, but elves seem to me the perfect answer for making a fey PC subrace.
4e made them humans, but elves seem to me the perfect answer for making a fey PC subrace.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
Well, fae may be a misspelling in the context of D&D, but lingustically it’s closer to the old French faerie, and the Latin fata from which it’s derrived.
bedir than
Full Moon Storyteller
Mountain Dwarves are also a sub-race of Elf
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