List of Elves

[Dispozition]

Hey guys, I've been asked by a friend of mine to come up with a list of fantasy elves from everything, EVER. Since my knowledge is somewhat limited, I thought I'd ask you guys to help.

If you could either direct me to a list of all elves from various things or just reel of names that you know it would be awesome.

[MeklorIlavator]

Well, the Our Elves Are Better (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurElvesAreBetter) page will have some.

[Assassin89]

From D&D 3.5

Players Handbook
High

Monster Manual I
Aquatic, Drow, Grey, Wood, Wild

Forgotten Realms
Moon, Sun, Winged

Sandstorm
Painted

Frostburn
Snow

Dragonlance
Kagonesti, Qualinesti, Silvanesti, Sea (Dargonesti and Dimernesti)

[mr.fizzypop]

WoW:
Night, Blood

Elder Scrolls:
Altmer, Dunmer, Bosmer, Dwemer.

[Lappy9000]

From 3.5 Supplements:

Dragon 313: Ghost Elf

Dragon 330: Umbragen Elf

Eberron: Aerenal, Drow (Xen'drik), Khorvaire, Valenar

Player's Guide to Faerun: Drow (lesser)

Unearthed Arcana: Arctic Elf, Desert Elf, Fire Elf, Jungle Elf

You're not including homebrew (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Category:Elf_Subtype), are you? :smalleek:

[Valentyne]

To add to the list:

Forgotten Realms also somewhere mentioned Star Elves....

Then there were the elves of Dark Sun..Athanian (sp?) elves who were renowned for their running abilities....

[Thajocoth]

Don't forget about Half-Elves...

And from 4E, Eladrin (which are basically just High Elves...)

[Thane of Fife]

Warhammer has the Asur, Druchii, and Asrai (High, Dark, and Wood Elves).

The Deed of Paksenarrion has the Kuaknom/iynisin (dark elves) and the regular elves, the sinyi.

[Dispozition]

I found this list (http://www.enworld.org/forum/898905-post15.html) that has pretty much every DnD elf on it. If you see any missing can you please tell :P

Reminder: I'm not just looking for DnD, I'm looking for everything. Books, games, movies, tv shows. Even if they overlap, I need them :P

[Valentyne]

Elves from Middle Earth

Noldor
Vanyar
Lindar or "singers", later called Teleri

ooo heres a good diagram

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Sundering_of_the_Elves.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sundering_of_the_Elves.png

[chiasaur11]

Well, there's 8bit theater elves and dark elves.

Primary trait: Bastardary.

[kjones]

Keebler.
texttexttext

[Aron Times]

4E

1. Wood Elves (Elves)
2. High Elves (Eladrin)
3. Dark Elves (Drow)

[Thajocoth]

Santa's Elves.

[Dispozition]

Ok, I've put my list up on live journal. It still needs to grow, but at least you can see what I have and what I don't have.

Can be found here (http://dispozition.livejournal.com/898.html)

[Eldariel]

From 3.5 Supplements:

Dragon 313: Ghost Elf

Dragon 330: Umbragen Elf

Eberron: Aerenal, Drow (Xen'drik), Khorvaire, Valenar

Player's Guide to Faerun: Drow (lesser)

Unearthed Arcana: Arctic Elf, Desert Elf, Fire Elf, Jungle Elf

You're not including homebrew (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Category:Elf_Subtype), are you? :smalleek:

You skipped one, Unapproachable East: Star Elf

[chiasaur11]

The 8 bit elvish groups are called Khee'bler for the standard elves, and San'tah (or some other varient) for the dark elves.

Just being slightly more helpful.

[Draz74]

The ElfQuest comic books have five tribes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_(Elfquest)) of elves: Wolfriders, Sun Folk, Go-Backs, Gliders, and Wavedancers.

Erfworld has Shady Elves, Woodsy Elves, Eager Elves, Luckless Elves, Schlemiel Elves, Lofty Elves, Altruist Elves, and Superfluous Elves.

[BlueWizard]

Dark Sun also had some weird elves.

[Teron]

The Umbragen and most of Tolkien's varieties bring up the thorny question of cultures versus sub-species (for lack of a better word, "race" and "subrace" being too vague). If you want to do this properly, Dispozition, I think you'll have to decide where you want to draw the line. From Tolkien's books, for instance, do you just list "elves of Arda", distinguish between light elves and dark elves (sorry for the lack of proper terms, it's been a while since I read the Silmarillion), or subdivide even further? I think they're all similar enough, biologically, that they wouldn't even count as distinct sub-species, so you have to decide the importance of such arcane factors as "having seen the light of Valinor". Likewise, the Umbragen are a drow culture in Eberron with a unique brand of magic, but the extent to which that magic affects their nature, physically, mentally and spiritually, varies between individuals. I'd say the differences between them and other Eberron drow (which include several other cultures, incidentally) are smaller than those between any Eberron drow and the "standard" Lolth-worshiping drow, so should "Eberron drow" be its own entry, or divided into Umbragen, Qaltiar, Sulatar, or just Umbragen and Eberron surface drow? Then there's Eberron's regular elves -- you can probably decide whether to distinguish between the Aereni and the Tairnadal based on your handling of the Qaltiar and Sulatar, but the elves of Khorvaire are culturally seperate from both and often have more in common with the humans and dwarves of their racially mixed nations than with each other... and what do you do with the dragonmarked elves?

Can you tell I'm obsessive-compulsive? This is the stuff of my nightmares. In hindsight, there was probably no point to spilling my neurosis into this thread, but maybe you'll think this issue is worth addressing even if I am exaggerating its gravity.

[Kurald Galain]

The ElfQuest comic books have five tribes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elves_(Elfquest)) of elves: Wolfriders, Sun Folk, Go-Backs, Gliders, and Wavedancers.

IIRC, that's four tribes, as the wavedancers got written out of continuity due to Creative Differences (tm) between Wendy and whoever wrote that wavedancer arc.

There's also the Tiste (Tiste Andii, Tiste Liosan, and Tiste Edur) from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which are dark, light, and shadow elves, respectively.

There's house elves from Harry Potter, which are extremely different from other fantasy elves and if anything resemble Santa Elves with uberpowerful magic.

Raymond Feist's Krondor series also has elves; high elves (that live in the woods), wild elves and IIRC dark ones somewhere.

And then there's the elves from 8-bit Theatre... :smalltongue:

[The Neoclassic]

Warhammer has Wood Elves, High Elves, and Dark Elves, if no one's mentioned it yet.

[Jayabalard]

Midkemia (Riftwar saga by Feist) has Eledhel, Eldar, Glamredhel and Moredhel.

Tad Williams' series Memory Song and Thorn has the Sithi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sithi). The World is called Osten Ard if I recall correctly.

There are Elves (that depend on elf elms), and also Jenny Elf (a different sort of elf from the world of two moons) in Piers Anthony's Xanth trilogy.

There are elves in the Guardian's of the Flame series (by Joel Rosenberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Rosenberg#Guardians_of_the_Flame)), but I don't recall them having a name for their race other than elf. The Elven Nation is called "Therranj"

[Talya]

biologically

Biologically, Speciation occurs when two divergent groups of a (formerly single) species when reunited no longer produce viable or fertile offspring. Therefore, horses and donkeys are different species; mules cannot reproduce.

Note though that in most fantasy, they are called "races," not "species." This is an important distinction.

We tread on dangerous ground when applying this to humans, but in general, the differences between the various "races" in fantasy need be no more than the differences between men of asian descent and men of african descent, in order to constitute a race. Even within Africa itself, there are races of humans that would have vastly different "statistics" if modelled in an RPG (Pygmy men average 4'6" tall, while certain Rwandan and Sudanese tribes average over 6" tall.) For obvious reasons, real world racial modelling is fraught with political pitfalls, so we'll stop there. And RPGs tend to not even go that far, with good reason. But instead, we have dozens of non-human races. That humans and elves in general are considered "races" is interesting. They are different enough to be separate species, and usually do not even have common ancestry...however they can breed and produce viable offspring. All is possible when the supernatural is involved. But since we define them using the term "race," every separate group of elves, dwarves, gnomes, what-have-you certainly deserves its own subrace. Given that Star Elves and Aquatic Elves have such differing abilities, that gives them greater diversity than different notable races of humans might have, who are all listed under a single "race." In Tolkien, the Galadrim were different enough from the Sindar or Silvan or Noldor to warrant being listed separately, biology be damned.

[Trouvere]

Erfworld has Shady Elves, Woodsy Elves, Eager Elves, Luckless Elves, Schlemiel Elves, Lofty Elves, Altruist Elves, and Superfluous Elves.And Tardy Elves, who've yet to turn up.

[Leon]

IK has the Iosan (Normal) and the Nyss (Winter) Elves

[Jayabalard]

Everquest has the Koada'Dal (High Elves), Fier'Dal (Wood Elves), and Tier'Dal (Dark Elves).

Jack Chalker's Dancing Gods series has a plethora of creatures of Faerae... The only one that I can recall being named as an elf of some kind are the Imir, which are referred to as a kind of a warrior elf. Poquah (an adept of Ruddygore's) is an Imir.

There are house elves in Harry Potter.

There are the "Little Men" from Gordon Dickson's Dragon and the George Series (Specifically they're in "Dragon on the Border") that are fairly elf-like, though I don't think they ever explicitly referred to as such. This is in Northumbria, which is the area right on the border between England and Scottland.

Terry Brooks' Shannarah series has land elves and sky elves (http://shannara.wikia.com/wiki/Elves). The world is generally referred to as "The Four Lands" but as I recall it's a post apocalyptic earth.



I've seem someone refer to the Shianti (http://lonewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Shianti) of Magnamund as elves, but I personally don't agree.

[Dispozition]

List has been updated (http://dispozition.livejournal.com/898.html)

If you give me a book, can you name the realm in the book and the name of the author as well? Just helps sort a lot of them out, and it gives me more books to read :P

[Jayabalard]

- Midkemia (Riftwar)
o Eledhel (elves)
o Eldar (High elves?)
o Glamredhel (Wild Elves)
o Moredhel (Dark Elves)

- Krondor (Fiest)
o High Elves
o Wild Elves
o Dark Elves

These are duplicates. The Riftwar saga is by Raymond Fiest, the world is called Midkemia, and Krodor is a particular city in that world.

[Dispozition]

- Midkemia (Riftwar)
o Eledhel (elves)
o Eldar (High elves?)
o Glamredhel (Wild Elves)
o Moredhel (Dark Elves)

- Krondor (Fiest)
o High Elves
o Wild Elves
o Dark Elves

These are duplicates. The Riftwar saga is by Raymond Fiest, the world is called Midkemia, and Krodor is a particular city in that world.

*headdesk*
Been a while since I've read those ones...I was thinking of Eddings >.<
Thanks for picking that one up.

[monty]

I don't think there's enough room on the Internet to list them all.

[Dispozition]

And that's why I'm trying :D

[Chronos]

More from Tolkien: In the often-overlooked Father Christmas Letters, the elves who work for Father Christmas are divided into Red Elves, White Elves, and Green Elves.

From Terry Pratchett's Discworld, there are the Lords and Ladies, cruel, malicious elves from another dimension who can cross over onto the Disc under certain conditions.

[Elrin]

I don't think you've got the Christmas or Santa's elves from The Polar Express - based on the book by - Chris Van Allsburg. Critics trashed the film, so I didn't see it for years but I loved it.

Elrin

[Tsotha-lanti]

Elves from Middle Earth

Noldor
Vanyar
Lindar or "singers", later called Teleri

ooo heres a good diagram

Aside from being ridiculously huge, that diagram is also really bad, since it "goes two ways" - Avari, Moriquendi, Calaquendi, etc. are umbrella terms. It also doesn't explain much of anything.

Basically, the actual elven peoples are:
- Vanyar
- Noldor
- Teleri
- Sindar
- Nandor (includes the Green Elves)
- Silvan
- Avari

Several of these are, yes, descended from each other (Sindar and Nandor are both descended from Teleri, and Silvan elves are descended of Sindar and Nandor, but neither Sindar or Nandor ever went to Valinor, like the Teleri did), but they're still separate peoples.

[Zhalath]

The Eldar from Warhammer 40000 are essentially Space Elves, if you want to count them.

[herrhauptmann]

Record of Lodoss War:

High Elf (Deedlit)
Dark Elf (Pirotess)
'Green' Elf. (Leaf) In the second series, who backed up the knight Spark
More half elves too

Obsidian Trilogy (Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory)
Has just 1 type of elf, referred to as Elves or the Shining People.