Wildwood Elves

Wildwood ELves
Living Standards
Wildwood Elves are for all intents and purposes Wood Elves, with one important difference. Wildwood Elves do not live surrounded by friendly or neutral nations. Located on the edge of hostile and highly aggressive species or nations, the Wildwood Elves have never been very far from war. This has had a profound effect on their everyday lives, even while at peace. Their villages are set up for defense, not beauty. Treetop walkways are used nearly exclusively for sniper fire, while on the ground, brambles, thorns, and other hostile plant life are intentionally cultivated as natural fences that only the Elves can navigate. What appears to be a wall of impenetrable thorns might in fact disguise a gate that leads to the ground level of their village. The cellars of Wildwood homes too, are outfitted for war. Emphasis is put on nutritious food that can keep for months or years on end without turning, allowing the Wildwood Elves to wage all out guerilla war with no resupply whatsoever for decades on end.

Immigration/Treatment of Outsiders
There is currently no known verifiable instance of an outsider ever gaining access to a Wildwood Elf village and returning, although contradictory rumors abound.

Foreign Diplomacy
Wildwood Elves maintain almost no diplomatic relations with the wider world whatsoever. In their opinion, the less the world knows about them, the better. Any action they take outside their borders is typically done covertly, usually with small teams or talented individuals. In times of great global conflict that even they cannot ignore, they will align with their High and Wood Elf kin by default, typically by showing up unannounced the day of the battle, fighting, and then leaving just as quickly. Any attempts to encourage them into permanent treaties or alliances have thus far failed.

Military Doctrine
Like their Wood Elf cousins, Wildwood Elves have chosen to adopt a combination of long range rifles and submachine guns, while eschewing the use of mechanized vehicles in favor of magical mounts. But while the Wood Elves “defend their homes”, the Wildwood Elves wage war. Wildwood doctrine centers around a rejection of interdependence . Each warrior must themselves be a formidable weapon, capable of waging war entirely without support if necessary. To this end, Wildwood Elves also require their warriors to be proficient (by Elven standards) in traditional archery, fletching, and bow making, for while they acknowledge the advantage of firearms and adopted them readily, the issue remains that a rifleman will eventually run out of ammunition, an archer with a forest full of potential arrows will not.

Culture
The Wildwood Elves have no interest in the decadent culture of urban or rural France, instead finding an unlikely kinship with a people almost as antisocial and isolationist as they are: Finland. The stories of the Winter War resonated deeply with a people continuously on the defense, and the Finns for their part found the Wildwood Elves to be the very best sort of neighbors: the quiet sort. And so these two peoples get along with what can best be described as mutual respect and empathy done from a comfortable distance.