PLAYTEST CONTENT

Hello! This is Playtest Content! As such, it might change in time, this is not a final release.
There’ll be channels to give feedback on this article and future articles soon!

DISCLAIMER: This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of
America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is
prohibited without the express written permission of its author.
This product is a work of fiction.
Courtly and Aether Elves
 Overview:
The Courtly Elves and Aether Elves are two new racial options for elves in 5e that have
been designed as alternatives for the more common options for elves.

The Courtly Elves are designed to move away from the traditional idea of an elf, and are
meant to be a stark contrast to the prototypical elf. Like the Drow, they are one of the few racial
options to have a negative feature. They lose some of the useful features that normal elves
have, like their trance feature, the many immunities that the Fey Ancestry feature gives elves,
and the Elven language. To balance that, they have some very strong and versatile combat and
utility features. In line with the lore and design philosophy for the racial option, these features
involve no magic, which is often heavily associated with elves, but rather reinforce the Courtly
Elves’ flavor of nobility and make them much more suited as dexterity-based combatants.
The Aether Elves, on the other hand, take the inherent magic related to elves and
completely embrace it, making them particularly magical and ethereal… or “aetherial”. They are
given abilities related to one of the signature Elven spells, “Misty Step”, but transform it in
several ways to make it unique. They also have a modification to the signature trance feature of
elves that makes it even more versatile and reinforces the incorporeal, magical flavor of Aether
Elves. They are uniquely suited to be powerful and hard-to-hit spellcasters.
Courtly Elf
History:
Courtly Elves are the result of elves severing their connection to the plane of Faerie
completely. The changes brought by this severance are physical, magical, and cultural.
Physically, courtly elves are more hirsute than other elves, able to grow facial hair, which
they take great care of. They are also taller than other elves, and their bodies have more
diverse builds than other elven subraces. Their lifespan is shorter than that of the typical elf,
generally around half of the seven centuries that other elves can live.
The severance also affected the Courtly Elves’ magical abilities, losing their natural
resistance to charms and other magical effects, as well as their ability to go into a trance instead
of sleeping.
But the greatest differences between Courtly Elves and their fey cousins are cultural.
The Courtly Elves have a proud culture. Most Courtly Elves see the schism between themselves
and other elves as a point of pride, and flaunt what makes them different from the rest of the
Elven people. They are aware that many elves consider them not to be elves at all, and they are
not afraid to return that scorn back, disavowing Elven traditions and making a point not to follow
them. This rejection of traditional Elven culture has made Courtly Elves uniquely open to other
cultures, often mingling, trading, and living among other races. It’s not uncommon for Courtly
Elves to live and thrive in expansive cities far away from nature.
They are, however, not entirely free from the xenophobia that characterises many of the
Elven cultures. Courtly Elves see themselves as akin to the human concept of nobility simply by
being Courtly Elves. They take great pride in tracking their bloodline to the schism with the Fae
Plane, and it’s rare not to see ornate tapestries depicting family trees that span dozens of feet in
height in every Courtly Elf household. This makes many Courtly Elf families particularly reluctant
to allow their offspring to marry those who are not Courtly Elves themselves, and children are
instructed and lectured from a very young age about the importance of maintaining the family’s
honor and traditions. It’s very common for half-elves born from the union of a Courtly Elf and a
member of another race to never meet their Elven family, and for their Elf parent to be disowned
and banned from their family home, never to set foot in it again.

Courtly Elf Features:

Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 1.

Fey Severance: Unlike other elves, you do not have the Fey Ancestry feature or the Trance
feature, and you don’t know the Elven language.

Courtly Weapon Training: You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and fans (see the
Pointy Hat Bard video for more information on fan weapons).

Court Education: You can read, speak, and write one additional standard language of your
choice other than Elven. You also have proficiency in Persuasion. If you gain proficiency in
Persuasion through some other means, you have expertise in Persuasion.
Courtly Charisma: When forced to make an Intelligence or Wisdom saving throw, you can
choose to make a Charisma saving throw instead. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again
until you finish a short or long rest.

Noble Duel: When you make a melee attack against a creature while wielding a finesse
weapon with which you are proficient, you can choose to reroll all ones in both your attack and
damage rolls as long as there are no friendly creatures within 5 feet of you. You must take the
second roll. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus.
Aether Elf
History:
Aether Elves are elves whose physical and metaphysical selves were affected when
they left their plane of origin.
They are extraplanar in the purest sense of the word, as they do not belong in one plane
of existence. When they left their home plane, they lost the tether that bound their body and soul
to a specific place, becoming “unraveled”. Their form is so tenuously connected to the physical
world that it has a hard time anchoring itself to the present moment. They are a striking sight, as
they always seem to be enveloped in vapor, with pieces of their bodies dissipating into smoke
only to reform into solid matter a moment later.
Their highly alien appearances makes it hard for them to go unnoticed, and some
confuse them with ghosts, spirits, or other incorporeal undead. But their appearance is not the
only thing that makes them so vastly different from others. Aether Elves can sustain themselves
by consuming the ambient aether that surrounds all living things, and most choose to do so
instead of eating normal meals. Their lifespan is said to extend even further than those of other
elves, with some Aether Elves living up to a millennium. However, there have been many
recorded sudden deaths among Aether Elves, with stories of these elves going into their nightly
trance only to dissipate into aetherial smoke for no apparent reason. It’s theorized among
scholars that their form is so unstable that it can become completely unraveled and vaporize
into pure aether. Some academics believe this is caused by spending extended periods of time
in areas where the aether is weak or corrupted, but no definitive answer has been found.
The great differences between the lived experiences of most living beings and Aether
Elves makes it hard for them to adapt to living among other people. Aether elves tend to live
lives of solitude and meditation. An important cultural idea among Aether Elves is the acquisition
of “the Sight”, the supposed ability to see the aether that surrounds everything in all planes, with
some Aether Elves dedicating their entire lives to the pursuit of this famed ability. Others,
however, become interplanar adventurers, longing to see and taste the aethers of wildly different
planes of existence. There are legends among Aether Elves about a hidden plane that is their
own homeland, simply referred to as the “Aether Plane”. They believe that all Aether Elves are
incomplete, which is why they are unraveled, and they will only become whole if they manage to
go back to this famed plane. Many of these interplanar adventurers keep this dream close to
their hearts, and look for their supposed home while on their journeys through the planes.

Aether Elf Features:

Ability Score Increase: Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Aetheric Sustenance: You can choose to fuel your body by consuming ambient aether instead
of food. When resting in your trance state, you can choose to meditate for 8 hours instead of 4.
After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit a human would from eating a healthy amount
of food for one day.
Aetheric Step: You know the spell Misty Step, and can cast it as a reaction to an attack once
per long rest. Additionally, if you are able to spend a spell slot to cast the Misty Step spell with
the Spellcasting or Pact Magic class features, you may choose to cast it as a reaction to an
attack instead of a bonus action regardless of whether you've already used this trait.

Aetheric Form: As an action, you turn your form into aetheric smoke, becoming slightly
translucent and vaporous. For 1 minute, your AC increases by 1 and you have advantage on
Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws. If you make an attack or cast a spell that
affects an enemy creature, the effect ends and you return to your original form instantly. You can
end this effect with a bonus action. Once you use this trait, you can't do so again until you finish
a long rest.