Elves

[Lemurion]

Re: Elves

 

Then isn't it great playing a point based system where if he wants "special Elven skills" he has to pay for them, put them on the character sheet, and have them defined and set out (at least for the person running the game) beforehand?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Special palindromedary skills

 

It is, it is indeed.

 

Of course I do more Champs than FH, but still it's a great thing.

[Cantriped]

Re: Elves

 

I love this Thread!!!![End Excessive Exlamation Point Use Here]

Anyway I always tended to like elves, especially Elven mages, an somewhere in my head I've designed a whole Mage-clan of Elven characters (I'm not kidding, and I played all of them). But strangely, even though I don't like em, what PnP playtime I got was mostly playing Dwarves, (Dwarven Clerics in particular) There was just something about the image of a dark cavern of dwarven miners, all working, while a priest with a set of drums kept tempo that was inatly attractive. By the way, I've also never liked clerics (or any divine spell caster)... Go figure eh?

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Elves

 

Because all dwarves are like that' date=' in much the same way that all elves are aloof and effeminate.[/quote']

 

 

Would you feel more comfortable with a gregarious, ale-swilling, womanizing, hairy-faced elf?

 

Wendy Pini's Wolfriders always filled the bill for me!

[Cantriped]

Re: Elves

 

Hmm, I played an old and alchoholic Elf "martial artist type" He used a dual wielded a Wakisashi and a meat cleaver... yeah...

[Alibear]

Re: Elves

 

Another thought that I had been toying with was to make elves an off-shoot of humanity that was more simian in appearance. A knda half man half monkey.

 

Feet with could used like hands, longer hands like a chimps to allow greater mobility in trees, hairy faces and only rudemantary lanuage skills etc. No metal tools, they would create nests in treetops, attack in gangs, eat humans etc.

[Markdoc]

Re: Elves

 

IMX dwarves aren't played by munchkins so much as by beer-and-pretzels gamers for whom 'roleplaying' a drunken' date=' grumpy, obnoxious, manly warrior is not much of a stretch. Because all dwarves are like that, in much the same way that all elves are aloof and effeminate.[/quote']

 

It was actually dwarves that tipped me off to the fact that I didn't need non-human races in my game at all. I had one player (actually a good player) who played a grumpy, greedy dwarf - very characterful, if a bit stereotypic.

 

Then we played to gether in a "realistic" dark ages game set in England. He played the *exact* same character and I realised that his dwarf was simply a Viking who been washed on too high a temperature setting. In fact, as I looked around, all the dwarves I saw being played by different people were like that - essentially heavy-gravity vikings.

 

Since I had already decided that it was stupid to have 42 (or whatever) different races of similar orcish/goblinish creatures and had compiled them into one race, with differing characteristics, that was the beginning of the end for non-human races as player characters.

 

cheers, Mark

[Sir Ofeelya]

Re: Elves

 

It was actually dwarves that tipped me off to the fact that I didn't need non-human races in my game at all. I had one player (actually a good player) who played a grumpy' date=' greedy dwarf - very characterful, if a bit stereotypic.cheers, Mark[/quote']

 

 

For some reason Thorin Oakenshaft and Nobby Woodcock spring to mind.

[Curufea]

Re: Elves

 

Well dwarves are primarily from norse mythology. It's ironic that they remind people of vikings.

[Lucius]

Re: Elves

 

It was actually dwarves that tipped me off to the fact that I didn't need non-human races in my game at all. I had one player (actually a good player) who played a grumpy, greedy dwarf - very characterful, if a bit stereotypic.

 

Then we played to gether in a "realistic" dark ages game set in England. He played the *exact* same character and I realised that his dwarf was simply a Viking who been washed on too high a temperature setting. In fact, as I looked around, all the dwarves I saw being played by different people were like that - essentially heavy-gravity vikings.

 

Since I had already decided that it was stupid to have 42 (or whatever) different races of similar orcish/goblinish creatures and had compiled them into one race, with differing characteristics, that was the beginning of the end for non-human races as player characters.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Can I quote you on this?

 

I mean, I know I just did, but may I crosspost it to another thread?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary adds that Lucius wants to use it in the "What are ___ Like" thread

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Elves

 

...I realised that his dwarf was simply a Viking who been washed on too high a temperature setting. In fact' date=' as I looked around, all the dwarves I saw being played by different people were like that - essentially heavy-gravity vikings.[/quote']

Vikings? I always thought they were Scottish. They're always saying, "Ach!" and calling people, "laddy."

 

You make a very good point about non-human races. The thing that bugs me most of all about elves is the extreme proliferation of sub-races - each with their own stats and crap - that has happened in that other game system that I no longer play.

 

As much as I like Tolkein, I'll admit that his elves can be tiresome. But I wouldn't use Tolkein as a model for an RPG, unless you have players that don't mind the wildly varying power levels between PCs. And seriously - what are the odds of that?

 

Player A: "I'll be an immortal elf who knows everything about everything and has kick-ass combat skills and magical abilities, etc."

Player B: "I'll be a hobbit who knows how to garden."

 

Rather than hold a grudge against someone else's depiction of a fictitious race and get rid of elves entirely, I simply remove the parts that annoy me. Yes, I have elves in my campaign. They're basically like basic D&D elves. Most importantly, they are NOT IMMORTAL! Immortality removes almost all of a PC's adventuring motivation. They live about 8x longer than humans (3 points of Longevity*). They aren't an "elder race" - no one knows for sure which of the races was here first and many of them make a claim to such a distinction. An objective anthropologist in my world would say that it's probably the orcs or the giants that came first. Elves are not "arrogant" but they do keep to themsleves (as do almost all races). They don't have any greater access to magic than any other race (magic is quite pervasive in my world), though the particular styles of magic used may differ. There are NO "HIGH" ELVES! It has always struck me as sort-of racist to say that one group of elves is "higher" than another. There are only two "sub-races" (if you can even call them that): grey elves and wood elves. The only differences between them are cultural, and in appearance. There is no "crunchy" difference. Both have a strong attachment to trees and forests. Grey elves build on the ground, using trees as pillars, walls, etc. Wood elves build up in the branches. They are shorter than humans (~5'), with the typical pointy-ears and slight builds. It is not at all unusual to see wood elves among the grey and vice versa. There are NO HALF ELVES! There are no half-breeds at all. I do not subscribe to the Star Trek school of biology that says that any two things that walk upright can have sex and make a baby.

 

* In my campaign all PCs, of any race, can purchase 1 additional point of Longevity if they want, and if it fits with the concept. These are Heroic characters after all. If Methusaleh can live to be 969, one of the PC human heroes can be 200.

[Markdoc]

Re: Elves

 

Can I quote you on this?

 

I mean, I know I just did, but may I crosspost it to another thread?

 

But of course!

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Elves

 

Well dwarves are primarily from norse mythology. It's ironic that they remind people of vikings.

 

Yeah, but if you look at the older myths, they are sneaky, cowardly, magic-using beings more akin to elves than anything else. The "modern" dwarf with his chainmail, axe and pipe doesn't seem to go any further back than Tolkein: who *did* use a "Northern Hero" archetype. I think thats where the Dwarf = Viking thing comes from. Tolkein, for that matter, seems to be where "modern" elves come from as well.

 

Through the last two-three years, I've been on an "early modern fantasy" kick reading English and Scandinavian fantasy authors from the 19th and early 20th century (I'm already well familiar with the Norse/Icelandic original texts and the romantic era German derivations - I've even held the 11th century original of Grettir's saga in my sweaty little paws, although I couldn't actually read it ) and I'm amazed at how much Tolkien, D&D and Games Workshop have first constructed and then solidified the concept of "fantasy races". Prior to that, a single author (Lord Dunsany, to take an example) might write several books containing elves, all completely different and none of them Tolkienish (in one, for example, elves are marsh spirits with no physical form, in another, there's no race - as far as I can work out there are 6 elves in all of creation).

 

cheers, Mark

[Curufea]

Re: Elves

 

There is no difference really for the Norse between Dwarves and Elves. Svartalfar, their name for Dwarves literally means "black elf" or even "dark elf".

[Susano]

Re: Elves

 

Rather than hold a grudge against someone else's depiction of a fictitious race and get rid of elves entirely' date=' I simply remove the parts that annoy me. Yes, I have elves in my campaign. They're basically like basic D&D elves. Most importantly, they are NOT IMMORTAL! Immortality removes almost all of a PC's adventuring motivation. They live about 8x longer than humans (3 points of Longevity*). They aren't an "elder race" - no one knows for sure which of the races was here first and many of them make a claim to such a distinction. An objective anthropologist in my world would say that it's probably the orcs or the giants that came first. Elves are not "arrogant" but they do keep to themsleves (as do almost all races). They don't have any greater access to magic than any other race (magic is quite pervasive in my world), though the particular styles of magic used may differ. There are NO "HIGH" ELVES! It has always struck me as sort-of racist to say that one group of elves is "higher" than another. There are only two "sub-races" (if you can even call them that): grey elves and wood elves. The only differences between them are cultural, and in appearance. There is no "crunchy" difference. Both have a strong attachment to trees and forests. Grey elves build on the ground, using trees as pillars, walls, etc. Wood elves build up in the branches. They are shorter than humans (~5'), with the typical pointy-ears and slight builds. It is not at all unusual to see wood elves among the grey and vice versa. There are NO HALF ELVES! There are no half-breeds at all. I do not subscribe to the Star Trek school of biology that says that any two things that walk upright can have sex and make a baby.[/quote']

 

At one point, while thinking over how I might do various races in a possible fantasy setting, I know I had two ideas about elves -- 1) They aren't immortal (they just have really long lifespans), and 2) Everyone could inter-breed. This latter bit tended to support the idea that all races were descended from one "master" or "core" race, created by the gods at the beginning of time. The current crop of humans, elves, goblins, and so on, were all descendants of these First People, with the influences of environment, the gods, magic, time, and what not, causing differences.

[Markdoc]

Re: Elves

 

There are NO HALF ELVES! There are no half-breeds at all. I do not subscribe to the Star Trek school of biology that says that any two things that walk upright can have sex and make a baby..

 

Amusingly, in my game the færy folk can literally breed with anything, if the whim takes them. So færy/human crossbreeds are possible, but so are færy/animal crossbreeds - that's where you get talking animals, beastmen, uncannily intelligent and belligerent ordinary beasts of various sorts, etc. It also explains the astounding variety of færies - you can get elf/dwarf crossbreeds, elf/goblin crossbreeds, dwarf/pixie crossbreeds, etc, etc.

 

cheers, Mark

[Spence]

Re: Elves

 

There are NO HALF ELVES!

 

No no no. Absolutely wrong!

 

There are no half-dwarves or such. You are right about that.

 

But there are Half-Elves.

 

Take an elf, any elf. Put it in a room with any othe sentient species. give the non-elf a sharp object. Sword, axe...butterknife...

 

And walla! Half-elf, or quarter-elf, one sixteenth-elf....etc.....

 

[Cantriped]

Re: Elves

 

Amusingly, in my game the færy folk can literally breed with anything, if the whim takes them. So færy/human crossbreeds are possible, but so are færy/animal crossbreeds - that's where you get talking animals, beastmen, uncannily intelligent and belligerent ordinary beasts of various sorts, etc. It also explains the astounding variety of færies - you can get elf/dwarf crossbreeds, elf/goblin crossbreeds, dwarf/pixie crossbreeds, etc, etc.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Technially the Fae (my Elven equivalent) species could do the same thing (at least within the humaniod genus), but thier influence is far more benign in most unions.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Elves

 

In my campaign setting, the term "half-elf" is occasionally used as a misnomer for gnomes, since they also have pointy ears, a close connection to nature, an affinity for magic (in rumor more than actuality), but are about half the size - not because they are cross-bred.

[Curufea]

Re: Elves

 

I don't have half-elves in mine. I just can't crush the scientific part of me enough to allow different genera to breed.

[Kenn]

Re: Elves

 

Early in my role-palying days I joined the group playing a character the DM (yes we were playing D&D) had built to be either a GMPC or NPC (I'm not sure which) but offered to me when I said "I want to play, but I have no ideas for a character."

 

The idea for the character was a Hobbit/Halfling who'd not been raised among his own kind but in the mostly human empire, living as a gladiator. He didn't know what he was.

 

When he met the party they were "You're a halfling!" I/Marcus said "Uh- Okay. What are all of you?"

 

When he learned that there were Elves and Half-elves and Half-Orcs (and he had learned what an Orc was by then) he had the realisation "We have elves and half-elves and orcs and half-orcs. You said I'm a half-ling. What's a 'Ling.'"

 

And I always wondered why there were no half-dwarves or half-halflings or orc/elf cross-breeds or any number of possibilities that become possible when you open the interbreeding races door.

 

And I always found it odd the disproportionate number of half-elven adventurers there were given how, suppossedly, rare the cross-breeds were.

[Lucius]

Re: Elves

 

I don't have half-elves in mine. I just can't crush the scientific part of me enough to allow different genera to breed.

 

That's assuming a difference of genus.

 

Given the enormous variety even among Homo Sapiens (consider the differences between a Pygmy, a Watusi, an Aborigine, an Eskimo, and let's throw in a few people with albinism, dwarfism, giantism, etc.- and some anthropoligists consider Neanderthals to be a supspecies of Homo Sapiens) and I could see explaining Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Humans, Goblins (by whatever name,) and Ogres as all being variants of one species.

 

Oh, and to do them justice - at least in some of the Star Trek novels, it's explained that only highly advanced technological intervention permits different species to have progeny. In a fantasy context, if you DON'T want to assume that all Humanoids are branches of the same family tree, but want occasional hybridization, you could have Divine Intervention or powerful sorcery fill that role.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary starts telling "what do you get if you cross...." jokes.

[Old Man]

Re: Elves

 

I don't have half-elves in mine. I just can't crush the scientific part of me enough to allow different genera to breed.

 

Bunnies and cats can.

 

 

 

 

whoa.

 

 

 

 

Catgirls with bunny ears.

[Old Man]

Re: Elves

 

You said I'm a half-ling. What's a 'Ling.'"

 

 

Wow...Bai Ling is your mom...cool.

[Susano]

Re: Elves

 

Bunnies and cats can.

 

Pardon? That's a joke, right?

 

 

 

 

Catgirls with bunny ears.

 

Oh, like the Veria?

[Old Man]

Re: Elves

 

Pardon? That's a joke, right?

 

 

Actually yeah it is a joke.

 

http://messybeast.com/cabbit.htm