Wood Elf Magic
Wood Elf mages feel their vocation at a very early age. Even among a people with a deep respect and reverence for the natural world, a child who is likely to become a mage feels these passions more powerfully than most. Such children will spend much of their time alone in the forest communing with the natural world, and sleeping in the branches of trees. They learn to be so still that animals ignore them and approach them without fear. Even the Dryads, who normally never let themselves be seen by mortals, are not afraid of such a child.
The parents of such children will naturally worry when they disappear for long periods into the forests. There are many dangers lurking in the shadows, and not all of them are merely wild beasts. More than a few such children are caught and killed by Orcs, Goblins or Beastmen, or by fierce and hungry griffons. But those with the most woodcraft survive, eventually finding a way into the deepest heart of the forest, where the Treemen dwell. There, if an Elf child is willing and has the necessary reverence for the natural world, he or she will be taken in by a Treeman and taught a little of the Tree Songs.
The language of the trees, that strange whispering of leaves in the wind and the creaking of branches, is beyond even the most clever and woodwise of the Elves. Only the Treemen, who are almost trees themselves, can understand that slow and rambling speech. The Tree Songs are a tool that the Treemen have used since time immemorial to speak to the trees, to make them grow in ways best fitted to the would. The peaceful Treemen sometimes disapprove of the uses to which the Wood Elves put the Tree Songs (from shaping tree houses to strangling their enemies in a tangle of vines), but they have the sense to realize that there are few Treemen left in the world. When the last of them dies, only the Wood Elves will remain to guard the forests they love from the cruel destruction of the Orcs and the spreading settlements of the humans.
Wood Elf apprentices will generally stay with their Treeman teacher for several years. They may return to their people for visits during that period, but most of their time will be spent far from home, learning to listen to the sounds of nature and attuning themselves to the flows of magic that permeate all growing things. At the end of this apprenticeship they will return to their people, having mastered the essential techniques of singing the Tree Song with much still to learn. Several more years will then be spent studying under a Wood Elf mage.
Recommended Advantages: Green Thumb, Outdoorsman, Plant Empathy.
Recommended Skills: Camouflage, Herb Lore, Naturalist, Navigation, Survival, Thaumatology and Tracking.
Allowed GURPS Colleges: Air, Animal, Earth, Food, Plant Protection & Warning, Water.
