I'm considering stating out the Wood Elves. In my campaign they will replace much of the halfling and elven population in more wooded areas. Human cities and nearby farms will still hold halfings, and the elven cities, armies, etc will still be populated by high elves.
Wood elves would be shorter, gain woodland appropriate bonuses for survival, stealth, and Know: Nature. They have low light vision.+ 2 dexterity and either a +2 wisdom or +2 constitution, - 2 (4?) Intelligence, - 2 (4?) charisma when dealing with non-elves or halflings. The - 4 stats may be Flaw driven granting additional bonuses for being "Arcane Adverse" for example, and thus granting some benefit such as a bonus vs arcane spells (perhaps of a specific school).
Favored classes drawn from barbarian, ranger and druid. Arcane casters among the Wood Elves would be all but unheard of (hence the Int penalty). Wood Elves would only stand between 3 - 4 ft tall. The Wood Elves in this setting are heavily inspired by the elves from the ElfQuest series (without their telepathic abilities), the wild elves (grugach) of Greyhawk, and the Kagonesti, ‘Wilder Elves’ of the Dragonlance setting.
Wood Elves revere the high elves, looking upon them as a royal figures, and the royal family as nearly angelic. WE would commonly serve as the border patrols within the forests that surround Elven cities. WE that use animal mounts such as wolves, raptors, etc would be relatively common.
NOTE: as an RP note, the Wood Elves may have a special ability to detect those of royal elven blood, such as seeing them with a golden aura about them similar to a detect magic effect. This could explain their reverence for the royal family, and might pose something of a social embarrassment if dealing with a royal bastard. This could also play into why they are not welcome at the larger parties thrown by the socialites of the elven elite.
High Elves by comparison:
The High Elves see the WE as their barbaric cousins which bonded too closely with the material plane, loosing their connection to the Fey First World. In this regards the High Elves absorb much of the description of the Gnomes without the extremely chaotic nature so frequently associated with more typical gnomes in standard campaigns. High Elves could take campaign appropriate racial traits of Gnomes (requiring DM approval). Gnomes as a race are not present in the campaign.
Anyway, there is the basic concepts I'm working with for the Wood Elves (and to a lesser extend the High Elves). Yes I could simply grab the stats associated with the elves of the aforementioned other campaign settings and they would likely work just fine, however I was curious as to what our community of elf lovers would come up with.
Thoughts?
I definitely like the idea of giving the Wood Elves greensight as it combines well with Low Light Vision and a bonus to survival, K:Nature, and Perception checks.
As for stat bonuses, I feel the suggestions for + 2 dex, + 2 wis, and a - 2 str fit well with the direction i'm going with this. Why - 2 str? Because they are smaller than most elves, only standing 3 - 4ft tall and thus are simply weaker.
Agreed, which is why I'm shying away from a Con penalty. They are also smaller and very agile. I'm even tempted to allow for a racial trait to make them "small" perhaps from a particular tribe or something.