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"What are the elves like?"


Chris Goodwin

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I think that elves, dwarfs and orcs are very common in fantasy because they're cool xD, so everybody like them. But, in fact, every Setting has their own justifications to have elves:

In D&D, Elves are escencially "Nerfed Fairies", and this is because they aren't from one planet, but from another "Plane", because, you see, in D&D Lore, there exist the concept of "Planes", and are like dimensions that exists separately, but there is some type of link that allow things from one dimension to travel into another one. There are 3 planes that conforms the "Lower planes" (There are more planes, like the elemental planes, and de upper planes, but this is not important right now xD):

  • The Shadowfell: Is de plane of death and shadow, where all dark creatures and dark powers become.
  • Feywild: Is the plane of life and wild, where all fairies (such Elves) and magical creatures came from.
  • Reallity: The main plane where all mortals exists.

Elves became from the Feywild, but in Feywild they are no "Elves", they are "Eladrins". In other words, Elves are Eladrins that lost their powers because they lost their connection with feywild. But they're still Fairies, so they still can have a fraction of their original power.

Another example is the Warcraft saga, where Elves are descendants of Troll tribes that decided to live near of a magic source called "Well of Eternity". This Well is a source of pure magic power, the strongest source of magic in Azzeroth (The planet where warcraft story takes place), and this magic power caused changes in this troll tribe, making them more sensitive to magic and natural spirits of the planet. In this case, there are 2 main elves races:

  • The Kal'Dorei: Elves that have great affinity with the nature forces, and the Wild Gods. They're mainly Druids and Elune Priests (Elune is the God of Moon in the elf Mithology).
  • The Shal'Dorei: Elves that have great affinity with the Arcane power. They're not god followers, but very scientifics, arcanists, and wizards.

 

So, each story represents Elves as different entities and have different origins, but all elves have some common things:
 

  • They have longevity, and can live thousand years.
  • They can sleep less hours than other races, or don't need to sleep at all.
  • They can have a high arcane, or nature affinity.
  • They're very agiles, and talented in sword and dance style of combat.
  • They are a very arrogant race, and they usually see another races as inferiors, because they're commonly very proud of their lineage.
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17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You remind me,of half a thread I stumbked,into in the way back,machine a few nights ago.

 

One person had ripped the core system,out of an old school game and was,working on doing a swords-and-sorcery thing with it ("sworcery?  Hmmm... Has potential...)  Anyway, think Conan meets Thundar for tone and setting.

 

He and some,other forumites hash out a few issuws he has, and he starts a nrw thread for playtesting so that the folks who helped him could,play if they wish.

 

For the record, I hunted all through the way back,for bits od this, because I had fotten interested in his project.  :lol:

 

Everyone was sort of familiar with it at this point, and he had established in a prior thread that there were three races in this world:  humans from the norther lands, reptilians from the equatorial regions, and avians from some geological hotbed of activity and jagged mountains.

 

About thirtt people express interest, and out of fairness he takes the first five to pipe up.

 

They do character gen and poat the characters.

 

One human.

Three elves.

One half-elf.

 

 

 

 

I was in at the start of a game like that.  We had met at the Uni and were rolling our PCs.  The GM had stated 1) only established races from the book (Palladium) were allowed and 2) NO Evil alignments.  Yep you guessed it.  One wanted to play this psi-race and the another wanted to play aberrant (his rational was he could be trusted as he had a sense of honour, but could torture people if he felt it was needed).  When the GM put his foot down, they both walked out in a huff, and that was the end of it!

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17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You remind me,of half a thread I stumbked,into in the way back,machine a few nights ago.

 

One person had ripped the core system,out of an old school game and was,working on doing a swords-and-sorcery thing with it ("sworcery?  Hmmm... Has potential...)  Anyway, think Conan meets Thundar for tone and setting.

 

He and some,other forumites hash out a few issuws he has, and he starts a nrw thread for playtesting so that the folks who helped him could,play if they wish.

 

For the record, I hunted all through the way back,for bits od this, because I had fotten interested in his project.  :lol:

 

Everyone was sort of familiar with it at this point, and he had established in a prior thread that there were three races in this world:  humans from the norther lands, reptilians from the equatorial regions, and avians from some geological hotbed of activity and jagged mountains.

 

About thirtt people express interest, and out of fairness he takes the first five to pipe up.

 

They do character gen and poat the characters.

 

One human.

Three elves.

One half-elf.

 

 

 

I'm going to take this opportunity to once again pimp perhaps my favorite fan-created Hero (Fifth Edition) website, Keith Curtis's magnificent The Savage Earth, a magical post-apocalyptic world reminiscent of Thundarr, only more serious in tone, and vastly broader and more detailed. Nothing from Tolkien to be found here. Numerous all-original races and creatures, unique well-developed magic system, copious maps, extensive cultural details, fascinating campaign logs, and replete with gorgeous color artwork. Completely free to browse at leisure and use for your own games.

 

This is high on my list of Hero projects I'd pay to publish after I win the lottery. :bounce:

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Well, I do sorta give my elves "subraces" in that there are different ethnic groups with distinct appearances, they tend to live in different regions, and one template tends to predominate -- but the "subrace" templates represent early interest and training. So, the pale Taishomanae live in the coastal mountain ranges of this particular part of the world, and they are big on studying magic so most of them become "high elves." (They like the term. Other folk often prefer to call them "mountain elves," but the whole "high elf" term comes from Taishomanae living at high altitudes.) The copper-skinned, dark-haired Rhovistae live in small forest kingdoms such as Fracasta, Lyrnais, Tegyria and Zyrrhene; they are trained early in woodcraft, and so other folk often call them "wood elves." But a young Rhovist who's interested in magic might become a "high elf," and a Taishoman who practices woodcraft can become a "wood elf." (And since the famous Rhovistae elf mage Treon, last surviving hero of Panopticon's War, became ruler of Tegyria, magic has become prestigious and quite a few young Tegyrians are becoming high elves.)

 

The desert-dwelling Usmantae also tend to become high elves, for they are nearly as arcane and even more reclusive than the Taishomanae; but while the Mountain Elves are haughty, the Desert Elves are full of cryptic maxims and significant silences. The jungle-dwelling Chulangkorae tend to be wood elves, for fairly obvious reasons.

 

The Drow, of course, are mythical and so not an issue. But if there were actually Dark Elves whom I claimed were mythical in order that their appearance come as something close to a surprise, any young elf raised in the equally mythical Underdark could become a Dark Elf, and a young Drow raised anywhere else could become a high elf or wood elf.

 

All very tidy, and then WotC published official Sea Elves. <Grit teeth, ponder.> Okay, the Shelansae and Assushtae are overwhelmingly likely to "breed true" as sea elves because they flipping live underwater and so young elves don't have much choice but to bend their magic in that direction. But if they didn't...

 

Oh, and in the multi-species Plenary Empire where the campaign is set, some elves now live in cities among other folk and have less cultural reason to follow any of the established paths. This results in a new template, Street Elves, who resemble Wood Elves but are attuned to the urban environment the way Wood Elves are attuned to forests.

 

There seem to be several dialects of "Elvish," but this is not strictly true. Elvish is a complex language with several grammatical modes optimized for various purposes and classified by environment: Mountain Mode is precise, analytical, and well suited for both law and wizardry. Forest Mode is exuberant, expressive, and well suited for emotion and vivid description of the natural world. (Yes, I'm inspired by Jack Vance's The Languages of Pao.)  And so on for Desert Mode, Prairie Mode, Swamp Mode, Shore/Ocean Mode, and Cavern Mode.The full subtleties can take decades to master, and other folk rarely manage to do so. Well, one must make allowances.

 

Dean Shomshak

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1 hour ago, Mr. R said:

  When the GM put his foot down, they both walked out in a huff, and that was the end of it!

 

 

It's wierd how much pushback I get here when I mentioning standing ground on campaign rules.  The general theory seems to be "but players are hard to find-"  and I don't deny that.

 

But are players so hard to find that I should play something that _I_ don't like, just so that I can play something?

 

Or, put another way, it is interesting how many folks say "good for them!" when they hear some players disagreed enough to leave the game and also chide the GM for doing the exact same thing.

 

No blame-tossing or name-calling, but the fact is that I tend to think "good for all of them!" no matter which leaves.  No one should willingly enter and endure something he already doesn't like; this is a _recreational activity_, not a job!  :😆    Spare everyone involved the hard feelings and say "thank you foe the chance, but I am going to ket this one pass.  Call me for the next one, though; I would like the chance to try again."

 

Nobody should put up with unhappy recreation.  This is why I ignore all attempts to get me to include elves in my fantasy: I don't like it; I am not going to do it.  You can't get mad about it because you aren't going to play in it anyway; there are no elves!

 

See?  Win /win!

 

As To the arm and pkayers in your example?  Good!  Good for all of them!  Though I am,anoyed that the plyers knew (if they knew) they were violating guidelines and wasted everyone's time anyway.

 

 

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1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

 

 

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

All very tidy, and then WotC published official Sea Elves. <Grit teeth, ponder.> Okay, the Shelansae and Assushtae are overwhelmingly likely to "breed true" as sea elves because they flipping live underwater and so young elves don't have much choice but to bend their magic in that direction. But if they didn't...

Actually I see Island Elves kinda claming the "sea elf" moniker, cause they would be a fishing society which bends their lives and magic into fishing and sea plants. Again "high elf" and "wood elf" subcategories for what is basically a fishing community. 

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

 

 

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It's weird how much pushback I get here when I mentioning standing ground on campaign rules.  The general theory seems to be "but players are hard to find-"  and I don't deny that.

 

I think that it is very important that the GM gets to craft the kind of game they will enjoy running, in a  way that makes sense to them.  Its good for everyone to remember that this is a game, and the GM is playing, too.

 

That said, you have to be sure that your house rules and world setting isn't toxic or off-putting to players.  You have to be flexible enough to realize your players want to enjoy the game, too, and be willing to bend a little where they are concerned.

 

I'll give a couple examples, from the same GM:

 

He ruled that a guy who had a glider cape was constantly half DCV when in flight, and rather than the PC's concept of flying imposed this on them because that was how they thought it should work. 

 

He also ruled that a character with shrinking would, in his game, lose movement and attack power because they're smaller, you see.  Basically crippling Shrinking without lowering the cost.  Again, because that's how he figured it ought to work.

 

These are examples of house rules which made perfect sense to the GM but were noxious and annoying to players, for no good reason.

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8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I'm annoyed by the habit most of these Tolkien-esque games and books have of referring to Elves, Dwarves etc. as just that, no matter where they come from. They might deign to specify a place name, e.g. "Dwarves of the Iron Hills." But nobody refers to the "Men of America" or "Humans of England."

 

Actually, "Men of England", "Men of France" etc are used in our world, although in the form of Englishmen, Frenchmen and so on.

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Tangent:

 

I always thought it odd that, given all the mergong and splitting and re-doing of powers in the last two editions that growth and ahrinking were not merged into "size change."

 

I am not in favor of it (though I do think a matching PER /CV system would be interesting- not necessarily _good_, but valid enough to play test a few times.

 

Tangential observation complete.  :lol:

 

I dont know what to tell you about the glider cape thing; it should have come,up in character generation:  if you go with that, then X will apply.  If it didn't come up until mid-game and there was a disagreement, the sensible thing would be either waive it or meet in the middle for that one session, and offer an opportunity to rework the character after the session.

 

As to the shrinking-  well, same thing.  Did it xome up during character generation (or before)?  Id not, that's on the GM, and the same solution applies: either waive,it oe come to an agreement _for this session_, and offer an opportunity to rework the character after the session.

 

if this did come up before hand, and the players chose to ignore it, the game should stop and a discussion be had.  Players _do_ routinely,decide that a GM may allow an exception or two, simply because.. Well, we sometimes do, id the exception is reasonable enough, justifiable enough, and it doesnt appear to adversly affect what the GM has in mind (on a second tangent:  N-Ray vision, people.  Think long and haed about the potential not just the ability, but the ramifications od the sfx.  Though I should probably put that in the GM goof-ups thread,  ;) ).   

 

Just To point to an example already posted (of late I can only access this site by phone, and the tiny screen and drug-addled autocorrect make excessive typing miserable), if the GM says 'these are the only three sapient raves, and they are all playable, and 4/5 of your players take it upon themselves to just add a new race--  that is not really on the GM.  If the premise of the game is "I just built these three races ans this world using an experimental system, and I would like to five as much of it as possible a good shake down so I can see what needs work,"  it is beyond- I think the word offered was "toxic;" it is beyond disrespectful.  It is completely ignoring the agreement you made, and openly,insulting to the guy who told,you everything up front.

 

Would I, after reviewing the submitted characters, say "okay, I think there was a misunderstanding.  Let's go over the geound rules, and you guys tell me if you still want to help shake out this game"?

 

I can't say with certainty, as I have never been in that position (at least, not that springs to mind).  I would like to say that I probably would, once, but I can absolutely say at that point, I certainly wouldn't want to: I would rather have players who agreed to the premise, and honored their word.

 

Of course, that last part goes without saying: id they don't respect their own word, they probably arent going to respect you or each other when things don't go the way they intended.

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2 hours ago, assault said:

 

Actually, "Men of England", "Men of France" etc are used in our world, although in the form of Englishmen, Frenchmen and so on.

 

Which convention does leave out more than half the population of England and France, doesn't it? ;)

 

From all that I've heard and read, the use of "Englishman" fell out of fashion some time ago. Most citizens of the UK today will refer to themselves individually as "British," or sometimes "English," "Scottish," or "Welsh" (for people from Northern Ireland it gets more complicated). The French in their own language use "Francais" or "Francaise," for a man or woman respectively.

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I always thought it odd that, given all the merging and splitting and re-doing of powers in the last two editions that growth and shrinking were not merged into "size change."

 

That, along with the density decrease system in the APG could create some more interesting and consistent builds if done right.

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11 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

It's wierd how much pushback I get here when I mentioning standing ground on campaign rules.  The general theory seems to be "but players are hard to find-"  and I don't deny that.

 

But are players so hard to find that I should play something that _I_ don't like, just so that I can play something?

 

Or, put another way, it is interesting how many folks say "good for them!" when they hear some players disagreed enough to leave the game and also chide the GM for doing the exact same thing.

 

This has been the blessing I have found for online play.  Face to face isn’t really an option for me due to my remote location, but there are huge groups of players from all over the world looking for a game. You can be a lot more selective. Find the players that are compatible. 

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18 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

It's wierd how much pushback I get here when I mentioning standing ground on campaign rules.  The general theory seems to be "but players are hard to find-"  and I don't deny that.

 

But are players so hard to find that I should play something that _I_ don't like, just so that I can play something?

 

Or, put another way, it is interesting how many folks say "good for them!" when they hear some players disagreed enough to leave the game and also chide the GM for doing the exact same thing.

 

No blame-tossing or name-calling, but the fact is that I tend to think "good for all of them!" no matter which leaves.  No one should willingly enter and endure something he already doesn't like; this is a _recreational activity_, not a job!  :😆    Spare everyone involved the hard feelings and say "thank you foe the chance, but I am going to ket this one pass.  Call me for the next one, though; I would like the chance to try again."

 

Nobody should put up with unhappy recreation.  This is why I ignore all attempts to get me to include elves in my fantasy: I don't like it; I am not going to do it.  You can't get mad about it because you aren't going to play in it anyway; there are no elves!

 

See?  Win /win!

 

As To the arm and pkayers in your example?  Good!  Good for all of them!  Though I am,anoyed that the plyers knew (if they knew) they were violating guidelines and wasted everyone's time anyway.

 

 

I agree that you shouldn’t be forced to play in a game you don’t want to play or run. However, I’ve seen this used as an excuse is used to justify forcing either GM or players to play a game they don’t want either. You compromise is not a bad thing either.

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1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I agree that you shouldn’t be forced to play in a game you don’t want to play or run.

 

 

Yep.

 

It's everywhere throughout the hobby, to varying degrees.  It only bothers me when I see it here, though, considering how most folks here take great pleasure in analyzing things, approachinf things from multiple angles, and participating in group-sourced solutions, etc:  lots of logic-driven and these-driven solutions or suggestions from some genuinely-interested and remarkably accepting individuals who are only too happy to work together dor solutions.

 

Right up until "I am building a fantasy with no elves" or "the MA rules are unnecessary."

 

There are a couple of other sacred cows, but those two are difficult to mention here because the reactions swing from "why do think that way?" to "The Ides of March."

 

This thread spun from another thread in which multiple people explained their distaste for elves, and there have been threads before in which other people explained theur distaste for elves, yet in the first two or three posts in this thread, the distaste for elves is- get this- "inexplicable."

 

Without any attempt to turn this into a religious discussion, I would like to offer a real-world example:

 

I live in the very heart of the Bible Belt.  If you are bored, go to google maps and take l look for Toombs County, Georgia.  They are _everywhere! _  not only do w e habe more xhurches than gas stations, we have churches that are located in the buildings of failed gas stations!

 

Yet I can walk out into any group of people around here and make blatantly offensive and derogatory comments about Christ himself and generate less ire than I can by coming here and saying "I don't like elves, and the MA rules are unnecessary."

 

I get it; it is a sacred cow.  But it is not _my_ sacred cow; my religion doesn't involve cows (other than shoving a pair od them,into a really big boat some time back) and I have no interest in converting.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

However, I’ve seen this used as an excuse is used to justify forcing either GM or players to play a game they don’t want either.

 

Yes!  This is _exactly_ what I said!  There is no difference between this and the painfully-typed (I think I may have left my readers at work, and I can only get to this board via phone lately; my dying computer now thinks the log-in page has been moved to place it can't find) lenghty ramble I made:

 

No one should be forced to play a game in which they are not happy.  I even offered the things I have typically sone to come to a workable, enjoyable experience when there are differences of opinion.

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 

You compromise is not a bad thing either.

 

Yeah I pointed that out, too, along with practical means of acieving it.

 

What you see for the most part when compromise is suggested without any mention of assuring equitable gains for both sides is vieled "just give what I want and roll with it,"  the idea that if you don't make efforts at compromise and the agree to the suggestions of compromise, then it isbyoue fault and you are the bad person, period, bevause we said "compromise?" and you didn't accept all our demands or give up the one sacred cow that was important to you while agreeing that we got to keep all of our cows and most of their calves."

 

Or, going with another real-world example:

 

An F-550 is 40 grand.

I have about 2 grand in a separate account awaiting the purchase of this truck to replace the venerable old Leviathan.  (Yes; I am already aware that both of the engine choices for this truck _suck_, but I need the tray-on weight capacity, an Ford has the least expensive truck in this weight class).

 

We could compromise, I suppose: the coupd sell me the truck for twenty grand!  That's each of meeting halfway, and a fair compromise.  

 

The problems being I don't have twenty grand, and I am pretty sure they have fincial reasons beyond sales commissions that they can't sell the truck for twenty grand.

 

But when you are the bad guy for not compromising,-  ie, "well, you need to compromise, period." and no ackowledgemrnt is made that a compromise assumes everyone must find an acceptable degree of satisfaction, that is because they don't mean compromise.  They mean "if you don't just let them have the truck for two grand, then it is one hundred percent your fault that they aren't driving the truck."

 

I believe- and said as much- in trying to compromise, and I believe in making the meause the moment the disagreement is discovered, instaed of waiting for everyone to become more and more invested in the game before deciding to make changes.  I not only said as much, I gave the means by which I typically do this.

 

But at some point, we have to acknowledge that when some people say "compromise,' they mean "just give them Poland and it will all be fine."

 

 

 

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Nobody should ever need to justify liking or not liking something. That individuals have personal preferences is universal and involuntary. There are plenty of things I dislike that other people like, and vice versa. Sometimes I don't even understand why I have a particular preference. And I don't need to. As long as nobody's imposing their subjectivity on anyone else, it's not important.

 

The problem I see is that many people can't separate the concepts of "I don't like it" from "It's bad." Either someone wants to assert that their preference is objectively, absolutely right, or someone believes someone else's stated preference is a denigration of their own. That only matters if a person's opinion is tied to their ego and sense of self-worth.

 

I try to live by the motto of, "If we aren't hurting anyone, let's just agree to disagree." Don't always succeed, but I do make the effort.

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5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

I get it; it is a sacred cow.  But it is not _my_ sacred cow; my religion doesn't involve cows (other than shoving a pair od them,into a really big boat some time back) and I have no interest in converting.

 

 

 

I believe if you look that you'll find they included fourteen cows rather than only two. :D 

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I'm late to the party on this one. I made the mistake of thinking about it from multiple perspectives. NEVER wise on the internet. Leads to premature compromise and perhaps even empathy for those who don't think like you do.

 

Also forced me to admit some hypocrisy about myself in games. Like "Elves? SURE.... Dwarves? I LOVE those guys. Wait, what? You.. want to play a tiefling? Mmmph... ah...can I interest you in a nice half orc? " In Sci Fi as well as Fantasy; Every GM has their limits on non humans, it's just a matter how far it goes. Yes, I'm stating the obvious. I like my space opera with walking carpets and pointed eared know it alls, I like my fantasy with humans and a smattering of non humans with their own (often vast) civilizations.

 

I do think Dwarves and Elves have their place, mostly because their long lives, centuries instead of little less than a century, gives them an excuse for truly different cultures few human cultures could ever be said to quite fit. It's not the game mechanics of  Life Support: Slowed Aging, so much as things like "The humans have agreed the forest of Alderwyte belongs to we elves .What we don't tell them is that we plant seeds by night... in the last five centuries we've expanded our domain by a fifth, and without firing a shot for they think it's just nature" or other cultural moves that would seem really wild to shorter lived folk.

 

But my initial reaction to Tieflings was distaste. Why? Probably because they steal a niche I saw as reserved for half orcs mostly. That's not a logical reaction so much as a gut one. The 'humans only, please' crowd is a lot more consistent than I am. So, now I feel a bit sheepish :o

 

 

I think for some of us, part of it might be comfort food. The idea of non human playable races isn't a SACRED cow for me, but it is kind of like enjoying a nice hamburger. You can tell me how that Fish meal with humans only is better for your stories and I hope you and your players like your fancy lemon juiced trout, but I'm still chowing down on this quarter pound of Moo Meat. 

 

:D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I find it ironic and somewhat sad that so many people who rail against the Elf conventions popularized by D&D blame Tolkien for them, when if you look across his body of work his Elves were actually quite varied in culture and attitudes, and sometimes in appearance. The biggest difference was between the Caliquendi who had seen the Valar and the light of the Two Trees, and the Moriquendi who never left Middle-Earth. The former were the "higher," more powerful and gifted Elves, but they were divided among the Noldor who were masters of crafts, the Vanyar who excelled at all the arts, and the Teleri who loved the open seas and piloted great "swan boats." While the Sindar were more knowledgeable and sophisticated than other Moriquendi due to the long rule of their queen Melian the godlike Maia.

 

In the First Age the Noldor in Middle-Earth dwelt in the city of Gondolin in a hidden valley, or the vast caves of Nargothrond in imitation of the Dwarves. The tree-dwellings of Lothlorien during the Third Age were in imitation of those of Doriath the land of the Sindar, but that was hardly typical of Elves in general. And the "half-Elves" were the product of extremely rare, extraordinary and fated unions which had enormous repercussions for the world.

 

Gary Gygax extracted a few of the more obvious features from some examples of Elves from LOTR, and built an entire culture and genetic heritage around them for D&D PC purposes. Not at all what Prof. Tolkien had in mind.

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31 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

I find it ironic and somewhat sad that so many people who rail against the Elf conventions popularized by D&D blame Tolkien for them, when if you look across his body of work his Elves were actually quite varied in culture and attitudes, and sometimes in appearance. The biggest difference was between the Caliquendi who had seen the Valar and the light of the Two Trees, and the Moriquendi who never left Middle-Earth. The former were the "higher," more powerful and gifted Elves, but they were divided among the Noldor who were masters of

 

 

That is understandable: point at Gygax; he made them familiar to people who had not read Tolkien.  Tolkien made lots of elves. Fine; fair enough.

 

Now be completely honest with yourself:  when someone says "Tolien' Elves," which do you instinctively think of?

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Well, In Gygax's defense.... D&D (Or at least AD&D) did eventually come up with other sub races of elves even back when Greyhawk was king of the settings:  Grugach, Valley Elves, those pesky drow just to name a few.

 

Ironically, there are now SO many sub races of elves in this or that setting that I've actually heard some joke about it. Arctic setting? We got Snow or Frost elves. Jungle Elves? We got them too. Winged elves? Yup. Desert Elves? YES. Dessert Elves? Probably working with the keeblers

 

 

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3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

That is understandable: point at Gygax; he made them familiar to people who had not read Tolkien.  Tolkien made lots of elves. Fine; fair enough.

 

Now be completely honest with yourself:  when someone says "Tolien' Elves," which do you instinctively think of?

 

Me personally? What I wrote above. I know for a great many people it's "D&D Elves" as in the noted cliches, which is understandable.

 

Now, if someone says "Tolkien-esque Elves" I instantly know what they mean.

 

I would contend that Gygax did not set out to make people who had not read Tolkien familiar with his Elves. He used Tolkien-esque Elves precisely because so many people had read Tolkien. Along with Dwarves, Orcs, Goblins (alternate name for Orcs), Halflings, "Treants" (Ents), Rangers, "mithral" (mithril), "worgs" (wargs, giant riding wolves), Balrogs (the "Type VI" demons like Balor), and so on.

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6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Now be completely honest with yourself:  when someone says "Tolien' Elves," which do you instinctively think of?

 

When I think of his elves, I think of the Siege of Angband where the power of the elves alone was enough to contain Morgoth, who was basically a god. And the siege actually worked until he created dragons.

 

When someone else mentions his elves, I assume they're talking about immortal tree-huggers who are as obsessed with lineage and the belief that "worthiness comes through having the right bloodlines" as the most snobby British aristocrat of fiction.

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Gygax used Tolkien's elves to some degree, but he made sure there were a lot of marked differences. A D&D elf is much shorter than a Tolkien elf, has a few similar but actually different abilities, and will never (at least in the original game) be as powerful as an elf from Middle-earth. In short, D&D elves are not Tolkien elves. You can make the same point about dwarves and halflings in D&D.

 

Elves coming from the Feywild comes from a later edition of D&D that I play, but I don't mind; it has roots in folklore. Tolkien drew from mythology some things for his stories and rejected others. I doubt he ever thought his works would be used in games; he died a year before D&D was published. Neither do most authors, although some have given game companies permission to use their works.

 

In D&D I ignore any stat differences in subraces. I consider them more like tribes or clans. In Middle-earth the Noldor were more powerful than the Moriquendi because living in Valinor actually did benefit them physically and mentally. But if you play in a different world, that's a moot point. I don't mind Elves of Mirkwood or Dwarves of the Iron Hills. As assault said, we still refer to ourselves by nationality (Australians, Israelis, etc.) or even by ethnicity (Native American, Asian, etc.). We don't usually say Men or Women of so-and-so country because we're the same species. Places like Middle-earth, Toril, etc. have different races/species, so that additional qualifier becomes important, especially if countries have more than one race living there.

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