With respect, I disagree. And I think I’m beginning to see the roots of your quandary.I thank you for the attempt but it just sounds like you fell into the elf trap more exactly one not far from wood elves.
read the first bit again and you get an elf.
do you see how unironically hard it is to not make an elf?
Things can have similar appearances without being all that much alike. See cleaner wrasses and false cleanerfish (a kind of blenny).
Wood elves are NOT animists. Their return to a more harmonious existence with nature was a reaction to and rejection of the cultures of other, more urbanized elves. Their beliefs in the nature of the divine, etc. is no different from their cousins. Their pantheon is no different from other elves- Corellan is still their creator, etc.- they just emphasize those within it differently. Their visual aesthetics are not that different from their cousins, either.
The race I described see the world through a very different lens than other D&D species. They don’t worship gods, and may not even view them as beings worthy of worshiping. Instead, gods might be seen as just more powerful versions of the creatures that venerate them. And the functional simplicity of things that they create would appeal more to dwarves than to elves.
Wood elves are kind of like back to nature hippies. This other species has more of an ascetic and minimalistic mentality.
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