Editing Elf subraces (section)

==A Song of Ice and Fire==
In what starts out as a dark and gritty low-fantasy setting steadily climbing the fantasy scale, there would ''of course'' be elves. Where they're different is that G.R.R. Martin took the Tolkien format, and said fuck that. He instead went with elements from mythical traditions from the real world, where elves were fey spirits that kidnapped children in the middle of the night and did other weird shit. Generally the shit made up to explain away the mysterious crap that primitive humans couldn't explain and didn't directly attribute to gods. Also they're not quite elves in the traditional sense, and are closer to distinct species, that makes Martin a dude. They are:
* The Children of the Forest: Analogous to Wood Elves. They are all [[Druid]]s, both as a religion and the species default character class. They look like human kids, so long as you don't get close enough to get a good look at them. They fought Bronze Age humans until they were forced to make peace just to get along, even after having smashed a huge land bridge apart. (Humanity Fuck Yeah!) They've been known to adopt roughly one in a million humans to teach him [[Mystery of the Druids|their mysterious ways]]. By the time the books have taken place, they have been dying out for so long that they are thought to have been just a myth by most humans, and are down to one isolated enclave facing a slow extinction.
* The Others: ''Vaguely'' analogous to Dark Elves for being pretty and having a throbbing hatredboner for humanity, though the heavy fey flavor makes them closer to ice spirits. Others are really fey creatures (not [[Fulgrim|gay]], but fey, again like "real life" elves), mysterious and inscrutable, and entirely alien to most humans. They originate from the world's ice cap and are trying to get to the south, they haven't been seen for some thousands of years, so most folks don't know shit about them. They have crazy ice swords that shatter steel on contact, and have crazy ice armor that has stealth properties. They raise up dead members of other species to do most of their fighting for them. They might have a greater goal other than killing humanity, but maybe not. They appear to be able to be negotiated with, but maybe not. And more insights might be given to them, but maybe not (they are really fucking mysterious).
** It should be noted that the TV series renamed them to "White Walkers" since using "Others" in day-to-day speech is kinda confusing when you don't live in a place where zombies come out of the North Pole. They were also dumbed down to metazombies with necromancy and ice powers. [[Butthurt| Fucking HBO.]] They are also lead by Ice-Darth Maul. I'll give you a moment to digest how [[Derp|awesome]] that is.
*Valyrians: Not elves, but the most outright magical human ethnic group, very much like High Elves in that they're all cultured and they think they're better than you without really trying to justify it. Had an extremely decadent culture, thought they were greater than even their own gods, overused magic, practiced incest, tamed dragons, and generally thought they were the best thing ever. They're known for having purple eyes and silver hair. Founded a massive empire built on slavery and dragons that was then destroyed in a cataclysmic event known as the Doom (which may or may not have been the side effect of their over reliance on magic) , which turned their ancestral homeland into a cursed hellhole (they probably deserved it though). Despite this, they had the sense to make a bunch of colonies beforehand, which then devolved into squabbling city states that grew rich off of trade. Even after their civilization was destroyed, they still preoccupy themselves with being haughty pricks, despite being inept at land warfare, having lost all their dragons and most of their magic, and being forced to pay tribute to the setting's version of mongols so their cities don't get burned to the ground and their men, women, and children don't get brutally slaughtered or get hauled off into the same slavery that they currently benefit from.