IFAQ: What Is Elven Trance?

When time permits, I like to answer questions from my Patrons… questions like this:

In Eberron, what do elves experience during their trance?

In my campaign, I like to highlight the fact that elves aren’t just humans with pointed ears. This isn’t about making elves exceptional; it’s about emphasizing that they are an alien species that differ from humanity in deep and fundamental ways. I want to explore what it means to have Fey Ancestry, and how that explains some of their other traits, including their long lifespan. With that in mind, let’s review the mechanical definition of Trance. All elves have the following trait:

Trance. You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep. You can finish a Long Rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you retain consciousness.

The Player’s Handbook further notes that elves “don’t sleep but instead enter a trance when they need to rest. In that state, they remain aware of their surroundings while immersing themselves in memories and meditations.”

There’s two things that stand out to me. First of all, an elf remains fully conscious and aware of their surroundings while they trance. They can’t take other activities during their trance, but they are aware of everything going on around them. Second, this provides them with all of the benefits of a long rest… including healing. This brings up something that’s important to me, which is that different species can apply different cosmetic filters to shared mechanics. Warforged heal fully by taking a long rest. But they don’t sleep while resting, and I’ve always described their process of healing as the warforged engaging in minor repairs. A human sleeps and allows their body’s natural healing processes to occur… while a warforged spends that same time hammering out dents in their armor plating and mending severed root tendrils. Both emerge from the long rest fully healed; but the cosmetic details of HOW they healed can be different. Keeping this in mind, I’ve also already said that I’d allow elves to change gender during a long rest.

So consider this. The fey of Thelanis are stories made manifest. Elves are flesh and blood, mortal creatures of Eberron. But they have Fey Ancestry; the essence of Thelanis is within them. In my campaign, what an elf does in trance is to reflect on their own story and how it has changed since yesterday. On a practical level they meditate on their memories and emotions and reflect on the events of the day. On a magical, instinctive level they are comparing their body to their subconscious self-image and changing it to match that image. The article above suggests that this is how an elf changes gender; their physical gender is a manifestation of their current sense of self. This same idea could manifest in other ways. Eye, hair, and skin color could all change based on an elf’s emotional state and a significant change to their story. A particular elf could have golden eyes and silver hair most of the time… but when they are deeply angry their hair could become fiery red; and when they suffer an intense loss and are mourning, their eyes and hair could become colorless. This concept extends to physical healing. An elf gets the full benefits of a long rest through four hours of meditation, because their body resets to its ideal state. With this in mind, I’d suggest that elves only get lasting scars as a reflection of trauma as opposed to physical injury. When an elf heals from a wound, it heals perfectly—unless the injury has deeper meaning in the mind of the elf. So an elf can bounce back from a serious wound in a battle that meant nothing to them with no sign of the injury… but a scratch in a duel with a hated rival could leave a dramatic scar that no magic can remove, at least until the elf gets over the incident.

A side effect of this is that it explains the long lifespan of an elf. As I’ve said before, I see elves maturing physically and mentally at about the same pace as humans. It’s that when an elf reaches what they instinctively consider to be their ideal state, they stop aging—or more accurately, they reset to that ideal age when they trance. This also allows for interesting variety in apparent age regardless of actual age. One elf could be only a century old but have deep lines and gray hair, while another could be six hundred years old but could have an appearance a human would see as that of a teenager; it’s about how the elf views themself. A key point here is that by default this is subconcious and instinctive. This is what differentiates an elf from a changeling. I suggested that a particular elf might have flaming red hair when they are deeply angry. But that change only happens when they trance and won’t change until they trance again… and further, they didn’t consciously choose the color and couldn’t have made it purple instead. Their emotional state has a physical manifestation. Furthermore, the whole point is that this varies from elf to elf—as in the young elf that appears to be old because they feel old versus the old elf who is young at heart and therefore young in form. If an elf has a stable sense of self, they won’t change dramatically from day to day; when they do, it’s likely to be small things like eye color. Tairnadal elves likely develop some physical traits that make them resemble their patron ancestor, but they wouldn’t just become a duplicate of the ancestor, because they are still unique individuals and their appearance reflects that. Likewise, an elf doesn’t consciously choose to heal and they don’t get to DECIDE if a wound leaves a scar; it’s a reflection of their subconscious and emotional state. Having said all of that, an elf adventurer could use class abilities to reflect this innately magical nature. I could see an elf Archfey warlock who presents their patron as their story of themselfa sort of twist on Blood of Vol beliefs; their Mask of Many Faces reflects their absolute control of their sense of self. And to be absolutely clear about this, this isn’t intended to give elf characters any sort of mechanical advantage; it is a purely cosmetic concept. In suggesting that this is how elves heal, it is still limited to the benefits of a long rest. If an elf loses a limb, they don’t get to grow it back by taking a long rest; like it or not, their story has changed. Likewise, they can’t shake off diseases; they simply get the benefits of a long rest in a different way than a human does. The whole idea is to emphasize that they’re not human—that they are creatures of a fundamentally magical world, still tied to fey. If an elf starts to feel old for some reason, they will start to look old. Their appearance is based on their story and how they see themselves.

Which brings us all the way back to the original question… What do elves experience during their trance? Again, an elf remains conscious and aware of their surroundings during their trance. It’s not a dream. In my vision it’s about reflecting and remembering—reflecting on the events of the day, remembering key moments of the past, and comparing the two. An elf fighter remembers both their martial training and their greatest moments in battle and compares them to recent conflicts. An elf wizard remembers learning to cast fireball and reflects on the sensation of channeling evocation magic. Religious elves reflect on lessons, proverbs, and moments that established and defined their faith; Tairnadal reflect on the deeds of their patron ancestors. But trancing elves also remember moments from childhood, conversation with loved ones, their greatest accomplishments and tragedies… they tell their story to themselves.

Again, I’ll emphasize that most healthy adult elves have a pretty strong sense of self and this is reflected by a fairly stable appearance from day to day; shifts in appearance are often reliableIE “When Raevan is feeling sad, her hair is jet black.” But it could be that elves can suffer from a dramatic form of bed head—that an elf who’s troubled might have difficulty trancing and that this would manifest in a disheveled appearance!

That’s all from now! My next article will be on Shae Deseir and the Line of Vol. I’m also going to be running two sessions of a 4E Eberron adventure for my patrons this weekend, and any Threshold patron can apply to play in a session—if that sounds like fun, check out my Patreon!