Redirects to Culture

Redirects to Human

Redirects to Advantage, Disadvantage, and Expertise

In vast, foreboding forests and jungles filled with monsters and magic, the villages of wood elves are a rare and wondrous sight. These unique settlements are known for their harmony with nature—typical dwellings are tree houses with the mightiest branches forming living walkways, walls, and alcoves. The grandest of these wood elf villages have many houses in a single tree and elegant walkways connecting each home. 

Remote groups isolated by vast oceans, high mountains, or thick vegetation live at the mercy of nature. They learn to be part of the wilderness’ unending cycles, living in small communities which have little or no contact with the so-called “civilized” peoples of the world. Most frequently, wildlings can be found in secluded villages; sometimes, a wildling lives alone, their only company the beasts with which they share the wilderness. With their intimate understanding of and relationship with nature wildlings make excellent adventurers.

Some war hordes obliterate the target of their wrath within the day and life simply returns to normal—but others can last a lifetime. When the offender is an entire nation or a powerful figure like a sovereign or tyrant, the march can seem to go on forever. Warhordling life is driven by one simple goal: the destruction of their foe. 

When war hordes last for years, decades, or even centuries, generations of people are raised only knowing war. The elders may recount memories of happier days, but the songs and ballads that recount their history slowly become war chants.

Far away from the protection of armies and uncomfortably close to the borders beyond which anything might roam, day-to-day life as a villager is routine—but a future is far from guaranteed. Village life can be simple and mundane, filled with the humdrum but insistent needs of farm animals and crops, though there can be far worse than wolves stalking the woods and at any moment, a villager’s life can be punctuated by upheaval. 

Many people live in fear of a tyrannical ruler and of the militant minions that punish dissent and disobedience. Performative loyalty becomes necessary for survival, until even those who oppose the ruler will sometimes betray their neighbors lest they be dragged away to torture and enslavement. Those who resist the tyrant learn to feign the role of faithful soldier, and the cruel irony is that they often profit from the violent conquests of the regime they loathe.