Wood Elves

Worshipers of the nature goddess and her people, the Flora, these elves are much shorter than their cousins and, like the high elves, are zealous in their beliefs. From the tribes of the Grass Elves to the colossal moving ent-cities of the Tree Elves.

Physical Attributes:
Shorter than any of the elves, they are often any height from 4 feet to 5 feet and are rather lithe, able to jump as high as two times their own height. Excellent hunters, they have uncanny abilities in tracking and stealth as well as archery. Their carnivorous nature has lead to them having sharp teeth similar to human incisors throughout their entire mouth. Their eyes are often green or brown though sometimes a yellow or blue and their scelara's are always a light to dark grey. They also have almost complete night vision.

Culture:
Wood Elves worship nature and the Flora who they believe are harbingers of the Nature goddess's will. Their Religion and society's first rule is to never harm nature unless the thing being harmed (Tree, vine, ect) allows it. For example, the giant Ent's that Forest Elves build their cities in allow it and can kick the Forest Elves out if they want. Flora also have the ability to communicate with plants and thus tell the Wood Elves if it is okay to use that plant for resources. A Wood Elf never kills a plant for resources, only taking what they need, never too much. Wood Elves also often cultivate the plant they take from so that it regrows properly, thus truly only ever borrowing from a plant. Oddly enough Wood Elves will kill and garter trees that are already dying so as to increase the health of the surrounding plant-life

Wood Elves do not hold the same protectiveness to wildlife. Animals are seen as bacteria that in the right amounts can help plants grow and in other amounts can be detrimental. Due to this, they selectively kill animals for their food and for the sake of controlling the population. Wood Elves consider Humans, High Elves and other industrialized species to be a cancer and plague on the world and it's plant-life and any who goes into their territory is likely to be shot on sight without even knowing that the Elves had seen them. Unfortunately for these species, Wood Elves are very nomadic and though they mainly stay in Eishian, they do sometimes wonder and kill, claiming territory for their own. Luckily, most of the species around the Wood Elves at this time are rather protective of nature as well and rarely are considered a threat by them.

Warfare
The Wood Elves Are very savage in their warfare, using guerrilla warfare, psychological warfare and even biological warfare to kill their enemies. Many who survive Wood Elf attacks are traumatized by the effects of the Wood Elves tactics and often rave about the Elves eating corpses. Usually Wood Elves are a good distance away from their victims and enemies, using their skill in archery to take out the enemy but when they have to get close they tend to use spears or stone knives.

History
The Wood Elves started out in the year 6800 AF as a cult in High Elven countries. As time went on this cult grew and grew, eventually causing a civil war between the Elves, eventually leading to a stalemate with the Wood Elves having a small country on the western coast. When Devron and the Western Continent were discovered in 7100 AF the High Elves attempted and succeeded to push the Wood Elves out, the population migrating to the Western Continent.

This migration caused over 75% of the Wood Elf population to die, however this was eventually seen as a holy pilgrimage to a holy land as what they found in the Western Continent was the Flora and Deer-Saytr. These two species were heavy nature worshipers as well and the two cultures have merged over the centuries. The new society eventually created the country of Eishian in 7400 AF, officially declaring it as sovereign and holy territory of the Nature Goddess. Eishian has come to have many shor-tlived wars with Devron in which Devron tries to conquer the nation. Despite Devron's highly advanced technology, the Wood Elves expert warfare has made it extremely difficult to win a war with them. As well as this, many soldiers will defect, they preferring to take punishment in Devron rather than fight the Wood Elves. As of now Devron has ceased all warfare with Eishian as they've estimated a 20-1 Kill-Death ratio in the Wood Elves favor and a 30% rate of defection in surviving soldiers.