“The elves consider themselves a nomadic race, driven to explore the world throughout their entire life in the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom and many other such things. This is only partially true. Elves do travel regularly throughout their entire lives; however, they are also in the habit of lingering in a specific location for years, if not decades. A human, for instance, will grow, live and die in their home village entirely during an elf's ‘short’ visit. Their long-lived nature is most definitely the reason for this phenomenon, their sense of agency or time being warped by their vast lifespans. Their large ears make them adept trackers, and their vision is superior to most. Elves are known for being naturally inclined to magic, often reaching mastery as they age and are often a score stronger than the average human but not the average dwarf. They often have larger mana reserves than their peers, but a slower regeneration rate as a consequence…   …By all accounts, they should be the ideal warrior, yet they face extinction, with total elven populations numbering mere thousands. This could be due to a number of factors, mainly their solitary natu,re meaning that elves very rarely meet one another, and their drive to reproduce, in comparison to other species such as Humans and Dwarves, is minimal. Elven populations did once have a sustainable number; however, many of which resided in the city of Wyveria, which during the War of Ascension proceeded to explode, which inadvertently culled a majority of the elves, causing them to lamentably enter slowly into extinction, only remaining still due to their long lives… In terms of personality, elves can vary as much as any other sentient race; however, they all tend to lack a sense of urgency, but who are we to judge the things that elves do.” - Page 24-26 from The Compendium of the Living Races, by the mage Desmond Larynx. The Compendium of the Living Races is a comprehensive contemporary textbook on the races of the world, detailing species, subspecies, societal practices, religion, anatomy, and much more. The book orders the races by rarity and then alphabetically. It is considered the definitive source on the subject matter, despite Desmond’s arguable biases. For example, the section on elves is both incredibly favourable and almost three times longer than the sections of most other races, despite Desmond himself being a human and never having met an elf (a fact which he himself admits within the chapter). The particular quotation is the introductory paragraph to the chapter on elves (The common races, Chapter 3, pages 24 to 67)