II. OVERALL BIOLOGY
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HEIGHT AND ORGANS◊ They tol. Super tol. Range from 5'11" at their absolute smallest, to 7'5" at their largest. Variations within this range tends to be decided by House, which are the elf 'ethnicities'.
◊ Because of this, their internal organs are extremely different from a human beings. Being capable of reaching up to 7'5", they have a second heart to maintain adequate blood flow so they don't end up fainting like a giraffe when upended.
◊ To go along with this is increased lung size and capacity, to better oxygenate their limbs. The combination of extra blood flow and better lung capacity means the elves are capable of very swift movements, and are able to keep up these movements for a prolonged amount of time.
◊ You will not win against them at cross-country. But that also means they don't usually have a need for mounts, and so have never met a horse before coming to the Southlands of Le'raana. Horses weird them the hell out.
◊ Because their reproductive organs are internal, and also due to their secondary heart and large lungs, the Starstriders have had to sacrifice space in terms of organs. Which means their livers are remarkably tiny for their size, and absolute garbage at processing things in any effective capacity. It takes very, very little alcohol for an elf to get absolutely sauced.
TEETH◊ All the starstriders possess sharpened canines/medium-sized fangs, with sharpened premolars and molars as well. The only genuinely "human" teeth they possess are their incisors.
◊ The Starstriders tend towards a carnivorous diet, but with a strong preference for poultry and fish. They ave a terrible time chewing processed grains like bread, lots of kitty-cat nyahnyahnyahing. Their teeth are just genuinely not made for chewing the way herbivores do.
TWO VOICES
Diagram of an elf's mouth, modeled by House Horizon.
◊ Coloration of the mouth follows "House rules", which will be detailed below. Featured are the set of openings on either side of the palate that generate their secondary vocals, which are reminiscent of glass harps, though very faint and involuntarily made. This "second voice" cannot be controlled and is always present, but the volume by which it is made increases during periods of high emotional states. If an elf is screaming in anger, for instance, even a human can hear the secondary voice.
◊ This sound is in line with the elf's "soul", the deepest part of them that is entirely them at their absolute core. It's through listening to this sound (present in other Sapient individuals, elf or not) that the elf will find their mate for life.
◊ Due to their unique biology, Starstrider elves all have feminine voices, ranging from an alto to soprano depending on the elf. This has nothing to do with their gender, but simply a matter of how the elf themselves develop.
PSYCHIC OR MAGIC?◊ Psionics and magic tend to be rarer for certain Houses than others. See House portion for deets yo.
◊ While any psionic is possible, and the same with magic, there is a cultural tendency with Starstriders to attribute magic to words, and use vocal or written spells to facilitate an intent. Starstrider mages are called "wordsmiths" by their people, as they often use literal words to cast their spells. A wordsmith who tells you your cart is going to catch fire can, just by virtue of saying it, make your cart catch fire.
COLORATION◊ House coloration becomes more apparent after an infant is a few months old, slowly solidifying over time; baby elves are born nigh translucent, except for Horizons, who are born with their adult coloration from the start. Baby elves are identified for their Houses by their blood, which are a metallic hue that matches their future coloration.
◊ In rare cases, pigmentation disorders may occur. Albino adult elves never gain their full House coloration, and remain partially see-through in their limbs. Melanistic elves maintain a darker shade of their House hue, but their eyes remain the same as with non-melanistic members of the same House.
LIFESPAN◊ Elf babies age at a rate of 6 "human years" to every 1 "elf year", until they reach adulthood, wherein it becomes 12 "human years" to 1 "elf year". As the elf ages even further, this gap between human/elf years increases, with the elves aging slower and slower over time.
◊ Age of adulthood: 120 years, which is the general equivalent of a human being in their early twenties.
◊ Functionally immortal; can be killed, get sick, etc, but will never die of old age in the classic sense.
◊ However, their emotions do run several shades deeper than most other species, and as such they are susceptible to health concerns if particularly strong emotions are present for too long. They can absolutely die of heartbreak. Excessive stress, depression, anxiety, and even things like anger can result in organ damage and things like muscular deterioration.
SEXUAL MONOMORPHISM AND REPRODUCTION◊ All elves have the same set of reproductive organs; any elf can theoretically give birth, or impregnate another individual, depending on who their mate is. This is not determined by gender, as a woman elf can wind up siring all her children, while her male mate can end up being the one to give birth all the time.
◊ Elves possess only one "sex", and gender identity is entirely decided upon who the elf
is. It's audible in their personal 'song', and other elves can hear and pick up on that instinctively, and address their companion accordingly. In other words, just by virtue of meeting Elf B face-to-face, Elf A automatically knows that Elf B identifies as female, and may address her by the proper pronouns without having to ask.
◊ What humans might consider secondary sex characteristics that determine gender (like growing facial hair) is just across the board common for elves and up to personal taste. The current fashion is that beards are kept short and simple, but there's no concept of beards being exclusively male. That's just a weird human thing that an elf may or may not adopt as they interact with the Le'raanian peoples.
GENETICS AND MIXED-RACE ELVES◊ Elven genetics are severely strong - Starstrider genes are dominant and it takes several generations of dilution to obtain strong non-elven characteristics (ie skin color, eye color, singular reproductive organs, blah blah blah).
As you can see here, it takes several generations of non-elf parentage in order to get non-elf characteristics. For a House Phaeton elf to have strawberry-blonde hair, or rounder ears, for instance, he would have to be a good ten+ generations removed from his elf + elf ancestral pairing.
◊ Full-blooded elves do not possess mammary glands, and instead nurse solely through bloodletting, where the infant punctures the skin of the parent with a specialized baby tooth and drinks from the wound. A special """venom""" negates pain and instead prompts a hormone to make this process a bonding experience for both parent and infant. Nipples don't exist in elf populations and it's a bit of culture shock for elves to learn about them.
◊ Mixed-race elves (those whose genetic population contains material from other species) can possess mammary glands if they're at least fifteen generations removed from their last elf+elf ancestors. These tend to be small and nonfunctional, though, and there is no instinct to breast feed.
◊ It does not matter how far removed from "full blooded" elf status an individual is. If they end up mating with another Starstrider elf of any percentage, the genetic sequence does a "reset" and it's as if they never had non-elf DNA introduced at all. Elf A could be ten generations removed and have dark brown hair, and Elf B could be fifteen generations removed and have breast tissue and green eyes, but their child would be 100% elf with no non-elf characteristics.
◊ The only detriment to the population of the species is that elves don't usually attempt to mate with anyone but their Resonance, and finding that Resonance and recognizing it can take centuries. They are fated to have only one singular "soulmate" in their entire lifetime.
