Elf legends say this:

In ancient times, before humans and the Surface, elves raised Atlantis from the heart of the world. They fled the curse of drow and duergar, seeking a new light. For centuries Atlantis sailed the great oceans of the Surface, a floating continent containing wonders and miracles beyond anything the world had seen before or since.

The Atlantaean elves created all around them with magical powers, and every True Eye was open. For every miracle, however, a dozen crimes were committed. So fantastic was the world around them, the elves lost the ability to see the simple truth and the simple lie. They used up their continent. They used up their powers. They used up even themselves. When Altantis began to come apart, those living there were much reduced, a fallen people. They were unable to repair what they had done. All they could think to do was to flee.

So they built the great fleets. They stripped Atlantis bare, not of wood only but of anything that could float or could be made to float. Fleets numbering in the hundreds set out, scattering as wind and current took them. When Atlantis sank, it is said, only the birds bore witness. Before that happened, a few fragments broke away and continued to float, carrying handfuls of survivors. For the most part, though, the massive fleets became the elves’ new home, and there they lived for generations more.

That time at sea, lasting unknown centuries, is known as the Drift. The elfic people were a lost and scattered nation. Only gradually and piecemeal did they come again to land. Perhaps their great ships were finally giving way, or perhaps they made the decision to forsake the seas. However it was, elves at last enter recorded history, and we move out of the age of legend.

Elf Magic in the Middle Ages

Humans still do not fully understand how elvic magic works. Gone are the days when even educated people held that elves draw power from demons, or that they could shoot magic rays from their so-called evil eye. If the theories of recent decades, from Lavoisier to Mêmer, are anywhere near correct, then a single force underlies all magic, elf as well as human.

While this author admits and subscribes to modern theories regarding phlogiston and aether, it is yet undeniable that elvic magic differs in essence and effect from human. It is worth noting those effects and essences, as well to trace their changes across the span of centuries. Humans, it is true and evident, have evolved in their methodologies, not to mention their philosophies (philosophia magia), elves have changed in the very use and application of magic. What was normal and customary in the first century of elves in Europa, is today in the 2700s a very different practice.

When histories in the past spoke of a Heroic Age or Scholastic Age, they took into account only human magic. An elvic timeline has a different character. It is worth attempting such a timeline, not only for a clearer understanding of elvic history, but for new light that might fall upon the human past as well.
The earliest accounts of elvic magic are heroic, spectacular, and probably false. They tell of flights of elves sweeping in from the sea on crimson wings—almost certainly a fanciful recounting of the ships fleeing the destruction of Atlantis. We hear, somewhat later, of powerful elf wizards at the courts of Carolus the Great, Clovis, or Heinrich. We hear of King Horn, whose mother mated with a unicorn. Such stories are clearly fables meant to warn elves of the perils of using magic even as they portray the allure in vivid detail.

For nothing could be clearer than that the elfic folk, upon landing along the Atlantean shores, were determined never to use their natural powers. This is why all the early stories are about powerful elf wizards who came to a bad end. Indeed, whole cults of the Blind Eye are present almost from the first. Later generations followed the abominable practice of blinding the True Eye of their babies, that no one might fall into error. Many others, though, followed a voluntary practice, either by use of a headband, or by simply becoming accustomed to keeping closed the organ of opprobrium.

For who does not know that elves blamed the loss of Atlantis on a profligate use of magic? The story is told a thousand times in a hundred ways. Scholars today understand the entire Atlantis story is but a myth. Despite the occasional story of a floating island, the notion of a whole continent afloat on the Western Sea is absurd and impossible. And that it should have sunk, like a foundered ship, makes the original proposal still more fantastic.

Over the ensuing centuries, though, the vital aspect of elves manifested itself via their True Eye. Here and there, an elf appears and is persecuted into oblivion. Then we hear of survivors. Then we hear of those who thrived. By the 1800s, magical practice by elves became respectable. The practice was modest. Charms, potions, enchantments. Tricks by performers. No one knew it at the time, but the time was not yet ripe for full elvic abilities.

That time came with the Machine Age and the discovery of Steam. Only then did elves discover (or, recover) their true brilliance in engineering and then electronics, the wonder of modern times. Elf magic, as we encounter it in these modern times, is severely logical, even scientific. They consider there are nine “forces” in the world. Five of these correspond with the five senses. The other four are chaos, creation, destruction, and direction—that which operates over time and distance. As is often the case with elvic thinking, these nine are more descriptive than essential.

Everything that happens in the world is the result of complex interplay between the forces. Magic isn’t something separate, it’s an extension or modulation. So, for example, clairvoyance is merely the extension of sight through time or distance. A magic sword is simply a sword that is more purely itself.

There was a time when people, even elf scholars, spoke of the “secrets of Atlantis” as if they were some body of lore that could be recovered and put to use again. The best thinking now holds that whatever the Atlantaeans did, theirs was but one approach. A methodology appropriate to the time and place. A different methodology is needed for a different time. The validity of this thinking can be seen all around us.

Without doubt, elf magic is the most controversial of all. Elves have no school, no methods, almost no traditions. For elves, magic is a kind of spiritual journey, or perhaps possession. They believe in limited reincarnation. In the Last Life, the elf embarks upon the Path and is no longer shackled to this world.
For the most part, the Path involves things no one else can see. It is indisputable, though, that Last Life elves are capable of extraordinary feats of magic, including piloting star ships, directly traversing the aethereal planes.

Magic and the True Eye

Elvish magic is difficult to get at also because they never recorded anything. Ever. What we know that is written was written by humans or (occasionally) dwarves. It was further complicated by the elven custom of never inventing anything. If an elf made something new, it was always presented as if it were the recovery of something old.

The True Eye is so called by elves because it lets them see the world truly. Others cannot see the real world. Eventually we learned that this means they can see phlogiston, as a kind of aura. It is literally a sixth sense, though it is somewhat synaesthetic.

The True Eye works the way sight used to be understood, as an act of apprehension. Because it reaches out, it can affect. It cannot conjure. It cannot create what is not there, but through phlogiston it can sometimes seem to do so.

Its action might be affected by what the elf holds or wears (tactile), what he has eaten (taste), concentration or meditation (visualization), a song or chant (auditory), or fumes and incense (olfactory).
When the Eye closes, the magic stops, but the influence remains. Bigger changes require more time, more props, even more Eyes.

Elves have to be careful in public because of widespread prejudice and myths about the “evil eye.” Many view it as somewhere between rude and aggressive, because the only reason to open that eye is as a prelude to magic. A great many people believe the True Eye is the seat and source of elf magic. Blind him and he can’t hurt you.

Coming to the western shores of Europa, the elves henceforth lived only in small villages, scattered settlements, or as individuals wandering the world. Those who did pursue magic did so as individuals, using magic but never building or making with it.

Specialties and Traits

Elves are at their best when working phlogiston directly. Their True Eye even lets them peer into the aether. In the Middle Ages, elves were still a people looking for a home. Those living on the coast became fisher elves—adept sailors, sometimes pirates, tolerated by lords because they made superb ship pilots and they fought sea monsters.

Wagoneers, of course, were reliable transport workers. River elves, much the same. Their magical abilities were regarded by others as trivial or pernicious, or even false.

Another branch were the Wild Elves, living in swamps or forests, who avoided civilization and so were suspected by pretty much everyone. Their refusal to swear oaths kept them outside the pale of regular society. They call themselves True Eyes. They go on walkabouts, dream quests, Wanderungen. The aim is … to find an aim. To discover what matters. It’s finding how your spirit accords with the world and with other (elf) spirits. Other creatures cannot communicate on this level; it’s similar to telepathy but has aspects of a listserv or forum.

Fisher elves can find fish, breathe underwater for extended times. There’s debate as to whether this isn’t just natural ability. The whole distinction between what is natural and what is supernatural gets very muddy. They have particular powers against kraken and other monsters. Mermaids are but a human legend about fisher elves. They also have underwater camps with breathing bubbles. Very secret.
The real difficulty is that elves are techs, and tech is as yet too primitive to provide much of an outlet.

Elf magic tends to work via some medium. They might control an animal or a plant, work the earth or water. Elf magic tends to be slow, bound by the limitations of the medium itself. They work with the medium’s natural attributes, by communing and meditation—think a magical analogue to judo. They can be quite good at individual combat, but good luck trying to assemble an army of elves.