The Aelfar have no compunction about Shaping their world, making it conform to their ideas of beauty. They also have no compunction about Shaping themselves, if there is a Healer with enough power in the Court. They are naturally an angular race, with high cheekbones and pointed chins. Their general lifestyle does not allow for much extra flesh, so their angular facial structure is obvious and eerily inhuman, and graisha are common, admired and frequently copied for their beautiful and unusual features. Graisha who turn more feral than Aelf, however, are outcast and are favourite prey of a hunt, for with animal instinct and Sylvan intelligence combined they are a dangerous and challenging prey for the hunter who cares nothing for others when they have outlived their usefulness.

The Aelfar are very fond of decoration. Tattoos, usually in blue, are common, and their artwork is generally complex and stylised knotwork. Silver and gold are used by jewellers, enamelled, intricately patterned or set with stones, and most precious metal objects worn by Aelfar will have been gifts from the rulers of a Court, given as rewards for bravery or for deeds performed. Another favourite decoration consists of the skulls of ex-enemies, painted in bright colours and set over doorways, windows and chimney-breast so that evil influences will be warded away. A young man is supposed to have collected at least two skulls before he can build a house and invite a woman in to live with him; his first always sits at the centre of the doorway's lintel, no matter how many others he takes.

It has been rumoured that they are as a race allergic to iron, for none has ever been seen with any. They prefer bronze for everything that must be metal, and their legendary silvered armour and weapons are bronze with a Shaped sheen of tin overlaid. Whether they have never discovered the secrets of ironmaking, whether they have no iron ore in their homelands, or whether bronze is a metal favoured by the Gods where iron is not, they do not tend to carry anything made of either iron or steel.

The Aelfar favour swords, axes, maces, knives and spears of bronze and silvered bronze. They wear armour, mostly of the tooled leather, coat-of-plates, chain and scale varieties, although some few of the richer kings have pauldrons, elbow-guards, gauntlets, bracers, greaves and knee-guards to match their scale mail. The Aelfar are fond of helms, having several different styles from the beast-headed (particularly favoured by graisha) to the winged, the great-helm to the ornately-worked crown-helm worn by the King and Queen of the Court. An Aelf's chosen helm is often said to be an expression of his personality, and it is most often the case.

In a reverse of Sylvan naming-patterns, an Aelf named Bronwen Talespinner would use Bronwen normally, Talespinner being her private-name. As with Sylvans, use-names may change but private-names do not.