In my grand quest to make something that can fill the role of elf without being an elf I realised that outside of being overly romanticised and if left in any environment spawning a new type with a retroactive history of ten thousand years.
I do not really grasp outside of being magic call and mystical in a vague sense what they bring to a setting and why a player might play them outside of magic being overly romanticised and being able to outlive most nations.
anyone got ideas as I am lost?
In my view, the elves are either British faerie knights or Norse alfar. Both are personifications of magic itself.
Both are superhumanly beautiful. Anthropologically, beauty turns out to be the most defining feature, crossculturally, which is how sidhe, aelf, and fae all merged together.
Both faerie and alfar use magic as weapons of war. Even the knights are more like fullcasters, using spells for armor and substituting spellcasting ability for sword attacks.
As fates, faerie and alfar relate to life events like, birth, falling in love, having kids, and time of death, as well as luck and good fortune generally.
As beings of magic, magic itself relates to how the fates decide and alter reality.
Their cultures are human cultures, at least the prestigious aspects of human cultures, again relating to good fortune. The elf is humanlike rather than alien.
Fate, magic, beauty, and mythically human. I think that is it.
Other stuff can differ significantly.