So, the thing is: the racial description shows elves as these beings that do not simply "adapt" to their surroundings. Through centuries of settlement and living within their chosen environment, they grow to be attuned to their environment. Going as far as physically changing - such as changing hair, eye colour and general physique.
How I interpret this:
Elves that have lived in a magical tower for a few centuries studying the secrets of magic probably stay with their current ability score bonuses and so on. (There're actually suggested variant facial traits and so on.)
However, for elves that live as semi-hermits in a forest, having bonus intellegence wouldn't really make sense, wouldn't it? Or losing constitution? It seems like it should be something different entirely, maybe something like dwarven stats.
What I'm trying to say is, if you look at Aasimar, their entire race changes depending on which celestial influenced them. Elves, who basically switch out the Celestial part with the environment they dwell in, should have the same thing, no?
I'd argue that forest elves get Wisdom instead of intellect for instance. Maybe, as an addition, a +4 bonus against death effects on top of that instead of their concentration check bonuses.
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So basically, what would you give to different types of elves to increase their contrast with other elves? What types of elves do you use in your own game? If you've any house rules in place for this, could you share them?
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This was something I was coming up with for a d20 variant that (like most pen and paper games I try working on) might ultimately go nowhere, but:
Elves (or in their language, the elowaan) were one of the first races on Istoria. They split into four distinct subraces, referred to as the Courts, following the conclusion of the War of the Solstice millennia ago. No matter what Court they belong to, all elves have ears that taper to points, and the sclera of their eyes is tinted the same color as their irises.
All elves have the following characteristics:
- Elves are Medium creatures, and their base movement speed is 30' (6 squares) per round.
- Elves have low light vision. They can see twice as far as a human normally can in low light (such as by torchlight or starlight.)
- Elves do not sleep; they instead enter an instinctive meditative trance for eight hours. Any sleep effect that affects an elf brings them into this meditative state.
- Elves choose from one of the three extant Courts. Their choice of Court cannot be changed.
Autumn Elves
Autumn elves, also called wood elves, are the elves most frequently encountered by Istorians. They tend to have either red, brown, or copper-colored hair (sometimes blonde,) and their eye color tends to be green or brown. During the War of the Solstice, the autumn elves maintained a strict neutrality amongst their elven brethren.
- Autumn elves gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls made with traditional elven weapons (longbows, longswords, rapiers, and shortbows.) This bonus increases by +1 at fourth level and every four levels thereafter.
Summer Elves
Summer elves, also called sun elves, are the elves most frequently described in tales and lore. They were the victorious faction in the War of the Solstice, but despite this victory, summer elves tend to look down on non-elves. They have a particular disdain for winter elves. Summer elves typically have blonde hair, and usually have blue or green eyes.
- Summer elves have a +2 bonus on any roll made to defeat spell resistance. This bonus increases by +1 at fourth level and every four levels thereafter.
Winter Elves
Winter elves, or snow elves, were the elven Court greatest affected by the War of the Solstice. Despite superior numbers, the winter elves were no match for the Summer Court's magic, and the snow elves were forced to return to the only lands that would have them-- the frozen reaches of the Winterlands, near Istoria's northern pole. Winter elves typically have black or blue hair, and their eyes tend towards shades of blue or purple.
- Winter elves intrinsically resist cold damage.
- Winter elves are not generally liked by the people of Istoria. All non-winter or non-autumn elves are one step less friendly than usual towards a winter elf (someone who would normally be neutral would be unfriendly, for example.)
Nobody on Istoria is quite sure just what happened to elves of the Spring Court; they seem to have disappeared just before the beginning of the War of the Solstice. At the war's conclusion, some people say the spring elves reemerged, but they were changed drastically. Their ears became rounded, and they looked upon the other elves with fear, awe, respect, and curiosity.
The gist of it is, essentially, spring elves are humans.
It is one of the things that has kind of erked me about Pathfinder from the beginning. The introduction of alternate racial traits made up for it somewhat but it still does not quite cut the cheddar in representing the differences between the elves that wander the forests or live in tree houses and those that spend all their time in ivory towers.
On one hand, I can understand two reasons why the designers might have done this: there were way too many elves in 3E-3.5 and wilderness races can be smart too. Like you pointed out though, this misses the attuned aspect of elves and one of the few things 4E got right was recognizing these two different archetypes.
So I allow players to choose between either a +2 to Wis or Int (keep +2 Dex, -2 Con) if they are making an elf character. If we are playing in Forgotten Realms it represents the difference between moon and sun elves and wood and wild elves. If we play in Golarion, Int-elves are those that returned from Sovyrian and Wis-elves are those that managed to survive Earthfall.
In our homebrew setting my buddy came up with bright elves that are essentially anti-drow. They live in the underworld (Underdark/Darklands equivalent), but further down than the drow. They are extremely isolationist, and tend towards lawful neutrality as opposed to the drows' chaotic evil. Bright elves are obsessed with light and practice crazy light-based alchemy and light magic. They've basically only figured as a sort of legend in our setting thus far, but I rather like the symbolic flair of the concept.