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 themself, a 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 reliable, IE “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! But generally speaking, the changes that would occur in this way wouldn’t be so dramatic that a friend of the elf wouldn’t recognize them. The core of an elf’s self-image won’t usually change overnight; it’s little details that will change.

Elves don’t HAVE to sleep and dream… but CAN they?

This is open to interpretation. The 2024 PHB says “they don’t sleep but instead enter a trance when they need to rest”; to me, this implies that it’s not a choice, it’s a biological fact about elves. This is reinforced by the fact that magic cannot put an elf to sleep, which again implies that sleep is just not a concept that applies to them. The counter argument is that the Trance trait states “You don’t NEED to sleep” which could imply “… But you can.” In my campaign, I say that elves can’t sleep, and even when unconscious they don’t dream. This is a plot point in my novel The Gates of Night, in which a drow adventurer can’t go to Dal Quor with her companions because she doesn’t dream. As a DM there’s lots of ways to overcome this for purposes of an adventure—rituals, relics, potions—notably, in that same novel, the warforged uses an artifact to join their companions in the dream. But by default, in my campaign elves cannot dream. In my opinion this further supports the overall stagnation of Aereni society—the fact that the people of the Five Nations have made tremendous advances over the last few centuries while Aerenal hasn’t changed much over the last few thousand years. Trance is a way for elves to reflect, but it’s unlikely to produce entirely unexpected moments of inspiration as dreams can. And also, trancing elves don’t get ideas dropped in their heads by night hags or quori…

How is this different for eladrin, with their connection to the seasons?

Eladrin seasonal transformation is a key part of this idea. What we suggested in Fourth Edition was that the ancestors of the elves were eladrin refugees from the destruction of Shae Tirias Tolai, and that between the forces the giants unleashed in that attack and generations in the mundane world, the descendants of the survivors adapted to the material plane, becoming elves. The eladrin have a seasonal affinity that provides them with a magical gift—and eladrin of different seasons are typically depicted with dramatically different appearances that reflect their season. Eladrin trance instead of sleeping, and can change their season after completing a long rest. So this is the point: the ancestors of the elves could and would undergo dramatic physical transformations while trancing. What I’m suggesting here is that the elves of Eberron still maintain an aspect of this. Unlike the eladrin there’s no mechanical impact, and the physical changes are usually more subtle; but it speaks to idea of fey ancestry, that elves are still fundamentally magical beings shaped by story.

With that in mind, how is the eladrin trance different from the elf trance? The key to me is that the eladrin are more fey, less tied to the material world, and that one aspect of this is, frankly, that their stories are less complex and thus more fluid. The point of Thelanis is that its stories are often iconic… and I’ve also called out that the fey of Thelanis are often largely untouched by the passage of time, being swept away by their stories and their passions. An eladrin shifting from Summer to Winter is experiencing BIG FEELINGS and a dramatic change from wild joy to cold gloom. While trancing, an eladrin thinks less about specific moments and more about grand feelings. Essentially, I’d play eladrin as being far more mercurial and dramatic than most mortals, and that’s reflected in that shifting. By contrast, elves have become more mortal. The story of an individual elf—let’s say a Phiarlan actress who’s moonlighting as a spy for the Serpentine Table, but who’s torn between her love for a Brelish soldier devoted to his nation and her job to unearth Brelish secrets—isn’t as simple as SUMMER and WINTER. And thus the shifts in appearance are themselves far more subtle. The question is both whether it’s possible for an elf to become an eladrin with the proper experiences, or whether conversely an eladrin could become an elf—or whether (as was the case historically) it’s a slow process that requires generations and can’t be easily undone.

Would you say the same can be applied to Drow? Seeing as they are descended from eladrin too, do they trance in the same way like elves do?

So let’s take a moment to consider the drow. By the current rules they are an Elven Lineage option. Aside from the benefits of this Elven Lineage, they are mechanically identical to other elves. So yes, they have Fey Ancestry and they Trance, and I’d say that this trance serves the same general function: reflecting and reinforcing their identity, as well as restoring their health and energy. But what exactly makes a drow different from an elf? I said that hair, skin, and eye color could all change due to trance—could a wood elf become a drow in Trance, or vice versa? In my campaign, they couldn’t—because the difference between drow and elf is more than skin deep. From the beginning we said that the Sulat giants created the drow by “infusing elves with the essence of night.” But what does that actually MEAN? I’ve always seen them as forging a connection to Mabar and using that to change the fundamental fey nature of the drow—essentially, changing their story. But there’s two distinct impacts of this connection to Mabar. The first is obvious: Darkness. Mabar consumes light, and drow have superior darkvision and the ability to summon darkness. But the second aspect is because they wanted the drow to be ruthless assassins. I’ve said before that the hunger of Mabar erodes empathy in the undead. The drow don’t need blood like a vampire does, but they have an innate, subconscious instinct to extinguish light and life. Again, this is SUBCONSCIOUS and it’s absolutely something a drow adventurer can suppress. But it’s a supernaturally imposed instinct that fundamentally differentiates a drow from an Aereni elf. The both have Fey Ancestry, but their stories are inherently different. So in my campaign, drow trance, and in that trance they restore their energy and health, and their appearance can shift to match their self-image, just like other elves. But there is an innate bleakness that pervades the reflections of the drow, regardless of what they may consciously choose to meditate upon. Because of this, some drow struggle with depression; most don’t let it slow them down, but it tends to add a grim edge to the average drow. Although, again: this is something any particular drow can overcome. You can have happy, altruistic, optimistic drow; good diet and a regular exercise routine helps! The Umbragen, on the other hand, take this to the next level. Once an Umbragen forms their connection to the Umbra, it is a powerful force within their subconscious that actively erodes empathy and that whispers to them in trance. For the standard drow it’s a subtle thing; for the Umbragen the experience is more like that of a vampire, a shadow that eats away at the light in their spirit.

And on that happy note, that’s all for 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!