Story so far for critique

[Turkish]

Good, you guys seem like a good bunch of people to use to bounce Ideas off of. I have givin my guys a full reign in my world, like, if they want to create races and such I can work them in. Here is basically the world I have created so far and want to see if you guys have any ideas, or see things that seem inconsistent.


In the beginning of this land the dwarves were basically your normal nomadic tribe, moving around and hunting for food. Finally they found a place to settle down and created a rather nice kingdom. Only problem is that the land at the time had many issues as far as getting water to the mass. So a dwarven mage decided to try to use the magics that he knew to create a race of "water sprites" of some kind. Figuring that they could use the sprites to do something for their water, basically use them as slave labor. He finally created a pair of water sprites.

The sprites were actually young elves, but because of the blueish hue to the skin they though they struck gold. So as time went on and water was no easier to find they started questioning what good it was to create this race. The elves had reproduced to a good population by this point, and started using their superior intellect to start civil strife with the dwarves. As small fights broke out the elves slowly escaped captivity, to create their own kingdom. Dwarves in this world are pretty damned powerful, they are more like a "Bruce Lee" type of build. Very hairy and such, but pretty slender and full of muscle, anyways, as two dwarves fight, it goes on for days. They normally fight hand to hand, and use small piercing weapons, normally made out of teeth to pierce joints to disable their enemy, and either break their neck or crush the head or something.

Anyways, the elves got to be quiet a powerful nation, and the dwarves were pissed, so our creationist made a race of people out of fire to fight against the elves. Now the elves are not water people at all, just created from the magic held in water, but the dwarves did not know this. So over the years the fire people grew larger and were learning magic, and the ability to fight. They were happy with the dwarves. Some dwarves were not happy with them though, thinking that creating a race of people to kill a race of people was answering a problem with a problem. The fire folks found out they were made to kill another race and left town, after a small war.

The dwarves then split almost in half, one side saying create a new race and the other have saying creationism was evil. After a few years of politics and such civil war hit its peak and the dwarves almost wiped themselves out. A dwarf named McTagart stoped the war, but could not bring the people back and the dwarves broke back into a family type of tribe. Now the dwarves are wandering the lands as small families, living off the land.

With the drastic decrease in population, the animal population got out of hand. It was so bad it started to destroy the earth. The Elves then started using the creationism that was used to make them to create a race to hunt and kill the animals. They decided to work on something that would have short life spans and need to eat often and came up with humans. Well the humans grew fast, but started farming and did not fix the problem, so chalking that one up as a mistake the elves moved most humans to another island before they got to big.

Now the elves tried another race, a small people like the dwarves, that could reproduce slowly and still need to eat often, they created gnomes. Problem here was the gnomes fell in love with religion and started crusades against those who did not believe in their gods.....

[Turkish]

At this point the elves decided what they really needed was a large dumb race, that only knew of war, thus the orcs were created. Now the elves are starting to question this creationism stuff, and other races are trying to stop it, but the higher ups feel its important to protect their immortality and breed the orcs quickly. Orcs look similar to each other in elf eyes, and alot of brother sister, mother brother, father daughter stuff was going on, and through that goblins and trolls came about. They are more or less orcs, but with deformities, larger, smaller, larger arms, larger legs, what have you, not that important. Well the orcs were a bit too evil for them, and the animal population was still getting out of hand, now that farming was introduced, so the elves created two last races.

The first was the wood elves, or wild elves; expert hunters with the ability to change skin colors with their enviroments. They dissapeared into the wild, and the animal population has at least platoued. Then the Centaur, they were created on a small island near the main elf kingdom. The Centaur have been created as a front line defence, and a messenger now that the elf population has grown so big. Basically they are the elves knights, and messengers. Instead of sending out important information, with a few guards, they can send fast moving guards with the information.

At this point the players will enter, about 500 years after the Centari are born, not knowing any history, each having their own story of how their race came about. The Elves are having a tribunal meeting about the problem of the humans on the other Island (the ones they sent off) Those humans know nothing of the "Fair Races" (everyone except for humans) and they are having their wars. The elves will be asking member of the players races, and the players to come up with ideas for irradicating the humans, because their wars are starting to hurt the earth. The Orcs are the richest of the races, and looked at as evil, because they attack those who are rich, normally small elf settlements that start up. The Orcs arent all that evil, the real bad guys are going to be the Elves. Though no race is good or bad in this story, the Elves are sending the others out to kill off all humans just to cover up mistakes they made, and, since their immortal, outlaw farming for a few hundred years until the mortal races forget about it, then hold a monopoly over all food production. They will be trying to destroy all animal population after the humans are all gone, so that farming is the only food.

Let me know what you think guys, still got lots to write, but that is the history and the start of it.

[CourtFool]

Are the Dwarves and Elves still as powerful or have they lost all this knowledge in the last 500 years?

[keithcurtis]

The idea of races creating one another is interesting, but some parts puzzle me. Why did the elves want a "large dumb race, that only [k]new of war"?
The Orcs are rich because they rob rich people? Do they still serve the elves? If so, why do the elves allow their servants to keep all that wealth? If not, what went wrong?
The animal population seems like it would have enough checks and balances without requiring humanoid hunters. Are there no natural predators?
Farming is vastly superior to hunting as a lifestyle. I can't imagine a society that would willingly do with out it. Do the elves need to eat? If so, farming gives a much more regular supply of food. Perhaps they have secret farms?

Keith "Question guy" Curtis

[Turkish]

Are the Dwarves and Elves still as powerful or have they lost all this knowledge in the last 500 years?

Actually it has been more than 500 years. The Elves still know of their history, but have pretty much written being created by dwarves out of it, stating they were the first to land, and saying they created the dwarves.

The dwarves live long lives, 1000 years or so, and some heard how it began from parents or grandparents, but its becomming legends, and things that have not been forgoten are.

The Elves are the second most powerful race, next to the orcs.

Dwarves are small families that travel the lands and hunt, still as strong as they were, but no longer organized. Strong individuals, but not more than 10 or 12 work together at any given time.

[Turkish]

The idea of races creating one another is interesting, but some parts puzzle me. Why did the elves want a "large dumb race, that only [k]new of war"?
The Orcs are rich because they rob rich people? Do they still serve the elves? If so, why do the elves allow their servants to keep all that wealth? If not, what went wrong?
The animal population seems like it would have enough checks and balances without requiring humanoid hunters. Are there no natural predators?
Farming is vastly superior to hunting as a lifestyle. I can't imagine a society that would willingly do with out it. Do the elves need to eat? If so, farming gives a much more regular supply of food. Perhaps they have secret farms?

Keith "Question guy" Curtis

The Elves actually created the orcs as a defence against the gnomes. The Elves fear death, and they need others to fight for them. The gnomes, being crusaderish began wars with the elves who did not belive in gods. Elves rarely die so they never worry about the after life. The orcs aren't dumb per se, but all their intellect is in the knowledge of warfare. Ask an orc what 2 +2 is and it will take a bit to figure it out. Ask it how to siege a large kingdom and it will lay out a perfect plan. After the orcs were created, they were treated as slaves and finally revolted against the elves. The Elves fear death so they just kicked them out and built bigger walls.

For the animal population, there are very few animals that hunt other animals. Most live off the land, and even the predators can survive off the land. Have not decided how the animals came around, probably going to treat it just as an evolution thing.

Farming is superior to hunting, but in a world over populated with walking food, so much so that its destroying the earth farming becomes a problem. The dwarves saw farming as a weakness, it ties down people to one place, and destroys the earth you farm. Farming also makes natural selection dissapear. Also, elves don't need to eat much, and they have a trade set up with the dwarves. The meats of the animals in the world are much more tasty then farming cows or something like that, so they alow the dwarves to use their anvils, in exchange for meats. The elves are ok with the dwarves for the most part now, seeing them as inferiors they can control.

Thanks for the questions. Each one gets me thinking of more ways to flesh out the world.

Talk Soon

Turk