Homebrew Subrace : Winter Elves. Feedback welcome~

[Usmcguillory]

Winter Elves(Subrace)

The Winter Elves are a nomadic race of elves who live bound in service to the Raven Queen, the goddess of Winter and Death.
Legend has it that the first Winter Elf was a powerful elven wizard who entered the Raven Queen's domain in Shadowfell. In exchange for immortality, the elf swore allegience from himself and all of his bloodline to the Raven Queen. The descendants of this elf can be found in the northern realms of the world, surviving in the arctic domains ruled by their goddess.
Winter Elves are almost always born as twins. The twins are raised and trained together in the ways of survival and combat. When the elves reach the age of maturity, they are made to fight each other to the death; the victor receives a vision of the Raven Queen, who tells the elf the exact time of their own demise. This knowledge drives some elves mad, and they are cast out of the community.
A handful of Winter Elves have been born alone. These Elves are regarded with reverence and awe, believed to have already killed their twin while still in the womb.
Those elves that successfully undergo the ritual are from then on hailed as adults, and work as agents of their priestesses, guided by the will of The Raven Queen. Rumors of this ritual have permeated to most populous regions of the realm, and many view the practice as evil or barbaric. They do not understand that Winter Elves view death as a blessing, never to be given lightly.
All Winter Elves are aware of exactly when, though not how, they will die, and to them it is the most intimate knowledge, shared only with the closest of loved ones.

Are you a devout Winter Elf, carrying out the will of your goddess? Or are you a deserter, unable to deal the final blow against your kin or hearing the call of another deity.
Perhaps you were born alone, and serve as an elite guard to important figures travelling south..

The Raven Queen's Blessing.
The inherit magic in the blood of the elves has been blessed by the Raven Queen, blessing the Winter Elves with the natural ability to influence death.

At level one Winter Elves are able to use the "Spare the Dead" Cantrip once per short/long rest,


Ability Score Increase.
As a Winter Elf, you are deeply and inherently religious. Though a few Winter Elves have been known to stray from the path of the Raven Queen, all Winter Elves find themselves aligned to some deity.
Your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Winter Elves etch out their lives in some of the most arduous terrain in the realm, and are much less frail than their southern cousins.
Your Constitution increases by 1.

Embrace of the Grave.
Due to the strong connection to their own demise, winter elves have disadvantage on death saving throws.
Without the consent of the Raven Queen, Winter Elves cannot be raised from the dead or resurrected.

Elf Weapon Training.
You have proficiency with the longsword, shortsword, shortbow, and longbow.

Skill Proficiency.
You have proficiency in Survival or Religion.


Notes :
Age : Winter Elves have the same life spans as their southern counterparts. Only the first of these elves was granted immortality.
Appearance : Winter Elves generally have light grey to white skin, with hair that ranges from deep black to lustrous silver. Their eyes are no one color, and normally change color with every blink - covering the full spectrum.
Vision : Unlike other elves, the Winter Elves live primarily in the snow covered regions of the north, and thus have no darkvision.
Credit to alackthereof for "Embrace of the Grave"
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That's it! Lemme know what you think! Ideas and criticism are welcome.

[BRKNdevil]

So...
I have a few suggestions, Reduce the additional stat modifiers to just Wisdom +1, because currently you are adding a total of 5 points to your stats.

Just give them the cantrip,

and choose one of the proficiencies

[alackthereof]

I highly agree with BRKNdevil on the ability scores. Unless you wish to break from the 5e convention and have those increases replace the base race increase, I recommend opting with just a Wisdom boost of +1.
As far as your additional abilities, I find them to be intriguing choices. Given that you do have a number of powerful abilities, I would like to suggest the following that might allow you to keep your ability score increases as written:
Embrace of the Grave: Due to the strong connection to their own demise, winter elves have disadvantage on death saving throws.

[Usmcguillory]

Just looked back over the published classes and subclasses, you gents are quite right - Changing Wis to +1, trying to keep everything balanced so I can sell this to my DM when we begin our new campaign.

Embrace of the Grave: Due to the strong connection to their own demise, winter elves have disadvantage on death saving throws.

And that's genius~ I love it. Adding it

[alackthereof]

And that's genius~ I love it. Adding it

I'm glad you like it! I was inspired by the 3.0 Shadar-kai's Shadow Curse. That was a race that I always thought was fascinating.

[Usmcguillory]

I'm glad you like it! I was inspired by the 3.0 Shadar-kai's Shadow Curse. That was a race that I always thought was fascinating.

Yeah! I'm going to have to check them out, never enough inspiration
Edit : Just glanced over their profile in the Fiend Folfio - they seem pretty close to what I was going for when I made this race - stand by for changes

[CrossLead24]

Winter Elves(Subrace)

The Raven Queen's Blessing.
The inherit magic in the blood of the elves has been blessed by the Raven Queen, blessing the Winter Elves with the natural ability to influence death.

At level one Winter Elves are able to use the "Spare the Dead" Cantrip once per short/long rest,

Cool idea, but a small issue; Cantrips are, by definition, cast at-will. Otherwise, pretty interesting!

[Ziegander]

Okay... so in exchange for +1 to Constitution they are drastically more prone to failing death saves? I don't think that's at all close to worth it. Compare to a High Elf. They get any cantrip they want from the Wizard spell list, usable at-will, and they get an additional language rather than a skill proficiency. Compare to a Wood Elf. They get easier stealth and +5ft to movement speed instead of a cantrip. Compare to a Drow. They get superior darkvision rather than a skill proficiency and they get actual spells, better ones even, as they gain levels. High Elves and Wood Elves do not have any drawback whatsoever, while Drow do have a drawback, they make up for it by having actual spells, a few of them, rather than a single, crappy cantrip usable only a few times per day.

Honestly, you could give them proficiency with Survival and Religion, give them full use of the Spare the Dying cantrip, and allow them to cast False Life once per long rest at 3rd level, and Gentle Repose once per long rest at 5th level.

[eleazzaar]

I agree it is perfectly reasonable to give them use of the cantrip at will.

I have a hard time evaluating how bad the "embrace the grave' feature is. It's one of those things that might be extremely significant-- or not so much, depending on the style of the campaign.

I think they are probably roughly equivalent to the high elves (the weakest PHB elf subrace).