The Emerald League is a loose organization of elven, half-elven, and eladrin scholars, thinkers, and activists. League members include philosophers, arcane researchers, historians, archaeologists and treasure seekers, itinerant teachers and scholars, et cetera. Some settlements might house multiple members of the League, while many other members live scattered about and keep in touch with each other through physical and magical correspondence.

The league was founded about a century ago by a group of noble-minded scholars, in order to seek out and share knowledge with each other, to ensure that no member of the group would become destitute, and to spread knowledge in general. In some villages, the arrival of a traveling member of the League for a season is the only opportunity for its youth to obtain any sort of higher education. And members know that they can rely on the others for a place to stay, funds to help carry out their research, or emergency support in times of trouble.