The wraith elves do not share the long life span of regular elves, and live to only 200 to 250 years. There are legends of Dorai living to the age of 300 or longer, but none of these reports has been verified.
Additionally, many wraith elves bear some sort of racial deformity. At a lesser degree, these deformities take the form of more or fewer fingers and/or toes, two different eye colors, or bright red hair. More extreme defects include overly short or long limbs, malformed limbs (such as an atrophied arm), and even blindness and deafness. The wraith elves take these defects in stride and seldom notice them when among their own people. The other races are oftentimes shocked or offended by the more physical deformities, which adds to their suspicion of the wraith elf people.
Relations: Of the intelligent races, the wraith elves are the ones most recently encountered by humans. Trade and commerce between humans and the wraith elves has been common for only the past 150 to 200 years. It is generally believed that the wraith elves descend from savage tribes in the Great Waste in the far north of the World Continent, and although they have begun to adjust to human society, they are still viewed with mild suspicion.
Having no recorded historical grudges, the wraith elves find no major quarrels with any of the other intelligent races. As a people who are generally mistrusted, however, they are always on their guard and many feel that they do not quite fit in. The majority of wraith elves have managed to quickly adapt to modern life and have adopted some human and elven customs. Of all the main races on Samoth, however, the wraith elves keep more to themselves and are not as likely to just blend in with the humans. On the surface, the wraith elves defer to humans as the race that is the most prolific and most motivated toward expansion and advancement. Inwardly, however, the majority of wraith elves tend to regard humans as a bit like children who are trying to grow up too quickly.
Many a young wraith elf has left his family to live in human cities, only to find that the distrusting nature of humans leaves them with no jobs and no future. Sometimes these disenchanted wraith elves use their appearance to their advantage and begin lives of petty crime in order to support themselves. Humans (and to a lesser degree elves) point to these criminal wraith elves as examples to condemn the entire race. These disenfranchised wraith elves tend to get along quite well with dwarves and sometimes with orcs in the western parts of the Buchlayne where the AEtonists hold sway.
Normal elves tend to ignore the wraith elves. While fascinated by what could be a link to the elves' true past, the elves are also put off by the wraith elves' more wild tendencies. One thing that both the wraith elves and the regular elves do have in common in their deficiency in producing new young. This commonality helps both races to share a bond that other races simply cannot share. This low birthrate is often blamed on the Dorai's penchant for bearing young with racial deformities.
Dorai Lands: The homeland of the Dorai is in a deserted wasteland far to the north. The reasons for their residence in this area, or if it was once a more fertile plain, are unknown. The domains of the wraith elves are few and far between now, and the vast majority of the Dorai now live among the other races.
Dorai Customs: Dorai have very small families (in fact, they are the least populous of all of the humanoid races on Samoth), but they are very family oriented and extraordinarily loving and protective of their children, both theirs own as well as all children of the Dorai community. The wraith elves have a custom of adopting close friends into their own famlies, referring to them as Ca Rier, a wraith elf word with no literal translation. Being a Ca Rier puts one on the level of being a sibling. They are loved, protected, and accepted, right or wrong, as any other family member. So strong is the bond of Ca Rier that families tracking their genealogy list the Ca Rier among them.
While not particularly savage or warlike race any more (at least, not compared to any other race), wraith elves are adept at quick, secret attacks. Being barely visible at night, they promote the value of stealth, a lesson they learned from tribal hunting days. Many wraith elves follow an ancient custom dating back to their days as tribal hunter-gatherers by carrying
