Young, Elven, Female

"John Doe, you're making a mistake. And considering your youth, it may not be a mistake you can recover from."

You desperately try not to roll your eyes as your teahcer for so many seasons tries to convince you not to leave your home. True, you are young, as the elf count such things. But in the human world, a human would have lived the full span of his life in the time it took you to leave adoloscence and become a young adult.

If this were Earth, the small elven kingdoms that scatter the world would be considered the equivalent of Switzerland or Sweden. Elves, for the most part, rarely leave their wooded kingdoms, but fiercely defend their borders. Human bandits and rogues steer clear of elven kingdoms, and the other races have long learned the wisdom of "letting sleeping elves dream undisturbed."

Although the elves collectively do not leave their kingdom, individual elves have been known to wander beyond the kingdoms of their borders. Elven bards are without equal. It is boasted that an elven archer can blind a fly in one eye from three hundred paces away without otherwise harming it. Elven swordsmen are sought by rulers everywhere both for their skills as bodyguards and the status that having an elven swordsman in one's entourage conveys.

And, of course, elven mages are unmatched in both knowledge and skill.

So it is not without precedent for young elves to leave their kingdoms, satisfy their wanderlust, and come back richer in experience and knowledge.

What was without precedent was for a FEMALE elf to leave her kingdom. And yet here you were, John Doe, about to do just that.

Your teacher of so many years finally realizes that his words are reaching deaf ears. Though a female elf leaving the kingdom was without precedent, it was not forbidden.

"Very well then," your teacher says. "Go out into the world, John Doe. Go and show them that I have trained you well."

You nod and head to your rooms, to prepare for your journey.