half grey elves

The Elven Empire has roughly as many human citizens as elven citizens. Inevitably some humans and elves have children together. Most half-gray elves are exposed to a large number of full elves and full humans. Some identify more with their elf heritage than their human heritage and some identify more with their human heritage than their elf heritage. A minority develop a niche for themselves as go-betweens. This has become more common since the current empress passed a series of reforms to give non-elf citizens more rights and more government appointments.   While there are a few elven nobles who have open prejudice for "half-humans". Most grey elves consider Half-Elves somewhere between humans and elves in status. Half-Elves often find themselves receiving subtle discrimination from both humans and elves. humans resent the alleged privileged status of the half-elves and elves look down on the half-humans. The empress is trying to encourage greater acceptance of half-elves but the old prejudices run deep.   Half-elves in the Elven Empire often become practical scholars or arts find a niche expert in a particular field. They can learn noticeably faster than full elves and have a greater attention to detail and patience than full humans. Many half-elves take to the sea, bonding with their human and elven shipmates while remaining aloof to nearly all other elves and humans. Others embrace their outsider status as kind of a counter culture.   The majority of half grey elves stick within the auspices of the Elven Empire their whole lives, but more than a few imperial half elves eventually find the subtle prejudice they face from humans and elves ultimately leave. Many choose to immigrate to the Republic of Apseldia which is not very hard because the Elven Empire has regular naval traffic to and from Apseldia.