Editing Shadow Fey (section)

====Alven====
Commonly known as "Carrot Tops" or "Fire Flits", alven are the closest thing amongst the Arak to the standard [[Fairy]], appearing as ten to fourteen inch-tall butterfly-winged elves with green skin and bright orange hair. These "shadow [[pixie]]s" are the Arak's gardeners and horticulturalists; they love plants of all kinds, but especially favor flowering plants, and tend to the gardens and groves of the Shadow Rift. When they deign to visit the rest of the Demiplane of Dread, they gravitate towards gardens and fields of wildflowers, particularly night-blooming varities. They can even shapeshift into the forms of insects to better blend into their surroundings; butterflies and bees in AD&D, but also wasps, dragonflies and moths in 3rd edition

It goes without saying, but alven are ''fiercely'' protective of their gardens; picking the flowers or damaging the plants will incite their wrath, and they are surprisingly fierce fighters; by flitting about in mid-air, alven can generate magical effects through their "dance", which requires the victim to make two saves and causes them to be enthralled if they fail the first, or blinded & deafened if they fail the second, and also possess a number of [[druid]]ic spells (cast spells of the [[Cleric Domain|Plant Sphere]] as if 5th level [[Cleric]]s in AD&D, spell-like abilities of Barkskin 3/day, Disguise Self 3/day, Entangle 3/day, Hallucinatory Terrain 3/day, Plant Growth 1/day with a caster level of 5 in 3e). They're also immune to attacks with stone weaponry and to electricity, and they can see through invisibility in both editions, although it requires a Survival check for them to do so in 3e. They are, however, especially vulnerable to cold iron.

To get on one's good side, try complimenting its garden or present it with gifts of seeds or living plants.

Alven have a mystical ability to communicate with plants, which makes it impossible for them to lose their way in their preferred surroundings (basically, they can Find The Path at will when amongst living vegetation). This may be why they regard cut flowers as an obscenity; presenting an alven with a picked flower will guarantee that it attacks you.

When an alven makes a [[Changeling]], they invariably choose somebody who will be useful to them as a gardener, although sometimes that is just in the role of brute laborer doing things that the alven is too small and weak to do.

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