Eladrin

Eladrin, along with gnomes, are the hangers-on of an expired technological civilization that characterized the Indric Age. They are not nature-lovers, and worked hard to suppress the worship of the Forest Lord in the early Indric period (a.k.a. the Old Indric Age). Humans don’t know them by the term “eladrin” and instead call them interchangeably “elf” or “gnome.” They keep themselves apart from human civilization and try to hold onto their steam-powered scientific magic.

Like all elvish people, however, they were deeply religious and worshiped many elvish gods. A wide range of major beliefs came and went during their hey-day. Even ostensibly secular elves will often express superstitions, or go out of their way to avoid offending any one of the potentially-still-listening dead elvish gods (just to be safe).

Eladrin cannot take primal-based classes. Can change out any starting skill for Religion. Can take the Indric Builder theme (working on this: it’s a steampunk techno-magic discipline for building things like steam rifles, trains, golems, etc).

Elves

These are feral elves that have devolved, abandoning all the technological and cultural advancements of the Indric Age to return to the worship of the Forest Lord. They feel that this is the true nature of elves, before all the other gods started showing up and interfering with “normal life.” From the perspective of gnomes and eladrin these are stone-age animals, and there is little love between the groups.

They cannot take classes, builds, or themes that require study, like warlocks, wizards, tactical fighters, etc. They can be clerics, rangers, fighters (great weapon build), barbarians, bards, avengers, and wardens.

Like eladrin and gnomes, can swap out any starting skill for Religion.

Gnomes

Identical to PHB, except that instead of keeping a low profile to avoid fomorians, they are lurking to escape major notice by humans. They live on the edges of human civilization, and as such this is the elvish group humans have the most frequent contact with – and one reason why they use the terms gnome and elf interchageably.

Most gnomes, like eladrin, hold on to their technological past and use many clever steampunk inventions. A few have drifted over to join the elves in the forest.

Can take the Indric Builder theme, and can swap out any starting skill for Religion.

Half-elves

These don’t really exist, as such, in Merindrea. Interbreeding between elves and humans is impossible.

Halflings

These are the half-elves. Elvish features but skin, hair, and eye colors are like humans. Short in the typical halfling way. Not pudgy or meal-seeking. These work exactly like halflings in the PHB. Their origin is more along the lines of tieflings: some kind of ancient pre-Indric pact was made that magically fused a human tribe with a gnomish tribe and created halflings.

Halflings live as common equals in human society. If they act “too Indric” they might get some impolite reactions.

A case could be made for access to the Indric Builder theme. Can switch any starting skill for Diplomacy.