How would you like your Elves: regular or extra crispy?

[Kaz]

It might be interesting to design cultures and races using a grass roots / bottom up kind of approach, where a collection of details give rise to general trends and traits. Simply ask yourself questions about the type land they inhabit, what their predecessors were like, wars waged in the past and against whom, technology they possess.. just start start dumping out details into a huge list, then sift through them to extract a more general picture of that culture. It might give you a more muddy picture about the race than a top down design approach, but I think it adds interest and enhances believe-ability.

 

So back on topic, I think the Humans, Elves and Dwarfs will stay fairly traditional, and branch out into uncharted territory with the Orlan and Aumauas. I don't mind either approach as long as the details are interesting. Personally, the humanoid races being a distant relative to humans seems interesting. Perhaps elves share a common ancestry with humans, who emerged from a tribe which split off from the populace in ancient times, adapting and evolving to their unique environment. Shifts in landmass could have isolated the race, leading each to develop distinct cultures as well.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Kaz

[Alexjh]

To be honest, D&D elves have a bit of a gap between them and Tolkien's elves, the ones in most fantasy games are just average guys who lean towards, magic, nature etc. The Tolkien ones are much more angelic/mythological with only the arty-naturey thing really in common.

 

I'd actually kind of like to see a return to actual "original" elf mythology a bit, ie. the ones which live in barrows and steal children. Not necessarily just like that as that'd be a fairly impractical as a player race, but I do like the idea of a sentient race with cuckoo-style brooding, perhaps with most elves trying to keep that behind them and mix in with the other races, with a few clans doing it "old style" and still living in mounds and stealing kids, although they'd obviously be increasingly rare and not very popular because of it...

[PsychoBlonde]

So, long post made short, how would you like your elves served in P:E? Are you looking for your typical fantasy elf? A subversion of your typical fantasy elf? What kind of elf makes you happy and what kind makes you gag?

 

I think referring to ALL different versions as if they were "subversions" is doing a disservice to a lot of people's creativity here. It'd be like calling a black person a "subversion" of the white person trope. They're not a subversion. They're black.

 

An actual subversion of an elf trope would consist of not giving them pointy ears and then making a point of mentioning this.

 

In any case, I'm just not looking for yet another version of Humans With Pointy Ears. If you're going to have elves as a racial option, have something that makes them different.

[Agelastos]

I'd actually kind of like to see a return to actual "original" elf mythology a bit, ie. the ones which live in barrows and steal children. Not necessarily just like that as that'd be a fairly impractical as a player race, but I do like the idea of a sentient race with cuckoo-style brooding, perhaps with most elves trying to keep that behind them and mix in with the other races, with a few clans doing it "old style" and still living in mounds and stealing kids, although they'd obviously be increasingly rare and not very popular because of it...

 

I wouldn't consider those to be the "original" elfs. The álfar were twisted into what you described after the christianization of Scandinavia. The álfar actually had, or has, more in common with Tolkien's elves than they do with the pixie-like elfs of Medieval folklore. They are semi-divine beings closely associated with the Vanir (Norse gods of fertility and wisdom, distinct from the Aesir) and are described as more beautiful than any other people.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Agelastos

[JFSOCC]

I enjoy the nymph-like elves. Don't much care for the problems of this world, aloof, don't take part. Not because they are better, but because they're inward looking. Found drinking in the forest having a ton of fun with dancing and prancing, practicing art. High alcohol tolerance, go climb a tree for fun. Frustrating by nature by being intractable to strangers. "No, I don't want to join your cause, but good luck with it!"

Edited November 20, 2012 by JFSOCC

[AGX-17]

I know they wouldn't do this, because then they would not be playable, but... They should be the "fair folk" of ancient northern European folklore who steal your children in the night, afflict you and your livestock with disease, etc. rather than the Romanticized/Bowdlerized versions that turned into Tolkien-standard.

 

I enjoy the nymph-like elves. Don't much care for the problems of this world, aloof, don't take part. Not because they are better, but because they're inward looking. Found drinking in the forest having a ton of fun with dancing and prancing, practicing art. High alcohol tolerance, go climb a tree for fun. Frustrating by nature by being intractable to strangers. "No, I don't want to join your cause, but good luck with it!"

 

Nymphs should be nymph-like. Nymphs are Hellenic nature deities, not elves. Elves and fairies are the unknown threat skittering at the edge of the campfire's light, not delightful female nature deities who love to sing and dance and have sex with humans.

Edited November 21, 2012 by AGX-17

[Wulfic]

I always imagined elves to be more like this

 

 

Why ?

 

Well they obviously love nature, Live within a forest and are usually hunters. I like my elves Nomadish or stuff like that. In my setting I made them in fact more savage. Believing in rituals and old Gods for whom blood sacrifices must be made and stuff. Elves are common slaves in the human kingdoms and so on. So yeah. I guess everybody has its own fantasy of them. And this is mine : P.

[Alexjh]

I'd actually kind of like to see a return to actual "original" elf mythology a bit, ie. the ones which live in barrows and steal children. Not necessarily just like that as that'd be a fairly impractical as a player race, but I do like the idea of a sentient race with cuckoo-style brooding, perhaps with most elves trying to keep that behind them and mix in with the other races, with a few clans doing it "old style" and still living in mounds and stealing kids, although they'd obviously be increasingly rare and not very popular because of it...

 

I wouldn't consider those to be the "original" elfs. The álfar were twisted into what you described after the christianization of Scandinavia. The álfar actually had, or has, more in common with Tolkien's elves than they do with the pixie-like elfs of Medieval folklore. They are semi-divine beings closely associated with the Vanir (Norse gods of fertility and wisdom, distinct from the Aesir) and are described as more beautiful than any other people.

 

The problem with things in general is that in the scandinavian tradition, as I understand it is, pretty much all the words for monsterous humanoids can be used, if not interchangeably, then with a way that has considerable overlap with each other: elves (white, dark and black), dwarves, trolls, brownies, goblins, kobalds, redcaps and so on seem to be fairly vaguely defined in contrast to one another, perhaps more to be gradiations of one thing rather than various different things.

 

One interesting thing to do would be to include various of these, but mix up the expectations of them a little into non-Tolkienesque forms, for instance the elves as the rowdy chaotic and violent ones or trolls as small gentle craftsmen. Obviously you could easily come up with something better than that in a full development schedule, but i think getting elves and dwarves away from expectations of them can only make for a more nuanced world.

[CheeseGraterSuicide]

I kinda like the elves in The Witcher setting. They're a little less cliche, and they too have the second class citizen thing going like the DA elves. But as an added twist, they have militarized groups of freedom fighters (or terrorists, as some humans would say) that would attack human cities and raid caravans. It makes for some interesting politicking.

[Agelastos]

I wouldn't consider those to be the "original" elfs. The álfar were twisted into what you described after the christianization of Scandinavia. The álfar actually had, or has, more in common with Tolkien's elves than they do with the pixie-like elfs of Medieval folklore. They are semi-divine beings closely associated with the Vanir (Norse gods of fertility and wisdom, distinct from the Aesir) and are described as more beautiful than any other people.

 

The problem with things in general is that in the scandinavian tradition, as I understand it is, pretty much all the words for monsterous humanoids can be used, if not interchangeably, then with a way that has considerable overlap with each other: elves (white, dark and black), dwarves, trolls, brownies, goblins, kobalds, redcaps and so on seem to be fairly vaguely defined in contrast to one another, perhaps more to be gradiations of one thing rather than various different things.

 

One interesting thing to do would be to include various of these, but mix up the expectations of them a little into non-Tolkienesque forms, for instance the elves as the rowdy chaotic and violent ones or trolls as small gentle craftsmen. Obviously you could easily come up with something better than that in a full development schedule, but i think getting elves and dwarves away from expectations of them can only make for a more nuanced world.

 

There is some confusion, I'll give you that, but that's true of all oral traditions. However, you're confusing beings from Norse mythology with beings from Medieval Scandinavian folklore, legendary creatures from other Germanic traditions, and even from Celtic mythology and folklore. Brownies, kobolds, goblins and redcaps have nothing to do with Scandinavia.

 

Only two of the creatures you mentioned are ever really confused in modern interpretations of Norse mythology:

the dökkálfar/svartálfar (dark/black elfs) and the dvergar (dwarfs - which were actually not short at all, but as tall as normal men).

The dökkálfar are the subterranean cousins of the ljósálfar (light elfs) and are known for their skill as smiths (note that they are not more "evil" than the ljósálfar in any way - dualistic concepts such as good and evil doesn't really exist in Indo-European religions, with the [disputed] exception of zoroastrianism).

Dvergar are supposed to reside in Svartálfaheimr, which, as the name would suggest, is the abode of the dark elfs. They too are famous for their smithing, just like in modern fantasy.

It is widely believed that the two are in fact just different names for the same people.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Agelastos

[Alexjh]

I wouldn't consider those to be the "original" elfs. The álfar were twisted into what you described after the christianization of Scandinavia. The álfar actually had, or has, more in common with Tolkien's elves than they do with the pixie-like elfs of Medieval folklore. They are semi-divine beings closely associated with the Vanir (Norse gods of fertility and wisdom, distinct from the Aesir) and are described as more beautiful than any other people.

 

The problem with things in general is that in the scandinavian tradition, as I understand it is, pretty much all the words for monsterous humanoids can be used, if not interchangeably, then with a way that has considerable overlap with each other: elves (white, dark and black), dwarves, trolls, brownies, goblins, kobalds, redcaps and so on seem to be fairly vaguely defined in contrast to one another, perhaps more to be gradiations of one thing rather than various different things.

 

One interesting thing to do would be to include various of these, but mix up the expectations of them a little into non-Tolkienesque forms, for instance the elves as the rowdy chaotic and violent ones or trolls as small gentle craftsmen. Obviously you could easily come up with something better than that in a full development schedule, but i think getting elves and dwarves away from expectations of them can only make for a more nuanced world.

 

There is some confusion, I'll give you that, but that's true of all oral traditions. However, you're confusing beings from Norse mythology with beings from Medieval Scandinavian folklore, legendary creatures from other Germanic traditions, and even from Celtic mythology and folklore. Brownies, kobolds, goblins and redcaps have nothing to do with Scandinavia.

 

Only two of the creatures you mentioned are ever really confused in modern interpretations of Norse mythology:

the dökkálfar/svartálfar (dark/black elfs) and the dvergar (dwarfs - which were actually not short at all, but as tall as normal men).

The dökkálfar are the subterranean cousins of the ljósálfar (light elfs) and are known for their skill as smiths (note that they are not more "evil" than the ljósálfar in any way - dualistic concepts such as good and evil doesn't really exist in Indo-European religions, with the [disputed] exception of zoroastrianism).

Dvergar are supposed to reside in Svartálfaheimr, which, as the name would suggest, is the abode of the dark elfs. They too are famous for their smithing, just like in modern fantasy.

It is widely believed that the two are in fact just different names for the same people.

 

I didn't specifically mean in the same place as each other, but given the various cultural spread (viking and saxon invasions and whatnot) chances are that a lot of these creatures are related in origin or have at least absorbed some of the aspects of each other. I was going to make some more specific points but unfortunatly my mind has gone blank for the night...

 

But one other one that isn't necessarily related to those but is again a northern European thing is Wose/Green men - had some fun integrating those into a D&D campaign I did a few years ago as a replacement for half-orcs - definitly helped give it a more northern-european tone that just a tolkieneseque one. I may if I remember correctly, have used trow as a substitute for gnomes too, same statistics but different tone of race.

[Agelastos]

I didn't specifically mean in the same place as each other, but given the various cultural spread (viking and saxon invasions and whatnot) chances are that a lot of these creatures are related in origin or have at least absorbed some of the aspects of each other. I was going to make some more specific points but unfortunatly my mind has gone blank for the night...

 

That's definitely the case. They're also all Indo-European, and have thus developed from the same source.

 

But one other one that isn't necessarily related to those but is again a northern European thing is Wose/Green men - had some fun integrating those into a D&D campaign I did a few years ago as a replacement for half-orcs - definitly helped give it a more northern-european tone that just a tolkieneseque one. I may if I remember correctly, have used trow as a substitute for gnomes too, same statistics but different tone of race.

 

Hehe! Except that Tolkien used woses too, only he called them wood-woses.

Ah, trows and gnomes are definitely related (I hope you renamed the Drow too, to avoid confusion, especially since drow is an alternative spelling for trow). But they're both Northern European. And so are orcs, btw. So I don't know if you really made it MORE Northern-European, but at least you made it your own. And different.

Edited November 21, 2012 by Agelastos

[Death Machine Miyagi]

The P:E wiki tells me the developers have stated there is no significant cultural divide between elves and humans living in the Aedyr Empire. I hadn't noticed that before.

 

Am I wrong to interpret that as, effectively, 'elves are like humans with pointy ears that live for centuries'? Unfortunate, if true.

[Karkarov]

I would like to see neither. Instead of following a cliche I want my Elves in PE to actually have some depth and be more than just a Tolkien throwback or a blatant attempt to go in a totally different direction. I have no problem if Legolas and Elrond (figuratively speaking) show up as long as there is also a Elf who loves the City, one who drinks ale with the best of them and not because of some insane racial superiority, and Elves who are manipulative or greedy out for themselves, you get the idea.

 

Shelve the idea of a racial concept and let Elves be individuals like Humans. Of course the stunties still need to be short little buggers with beards for brains who are only good at digging holes and getting drunk though!

 

(just kidding, about the Dwarves anyway.... mostly)

[jezz555]

I would like to see neither. Instead of following a cliche I want my Elves in PE to actually have some depth and be more than just a Tolkien throwback or a blatant attempt to go in a totally different direction. I have no problem if Legolas and Elrond (figuratively speaking) show up as long as there is also a Elf who loves the City, one who drinks ale with the best of them and not because of some insane racial superiority, and Elves who are manipulative or greedy out for themselves, you get the idea.

 

Shelve the idea of a racial concept and let Elves be individuals like Humans. Of course the stunties still need to be short little buggers with beards for brains who are only good at digging holes and getting drunk though!

 

(just kidding, about the Dwarves anyway.... mostly)

 

I sort of agree with this. I think it's better if races are only loosely confined by their innate abilities, and are more individual than we usually see. A racial group might have a certain history and reputation as per racism, but it shouldn't be confining as it usually is.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

I would like to see neither. Instead of following a cliche I want my Elves in PE to actually have some depth and be more than just a Tolkien throwback or a blatant attempt to go in a totally different direction. I have no problem if Legolas and Elrond (figuratively speaking) show up as long as there is also a Elf who loves the City, one who drinks ale with the best of them and not because of some insane racial superiority, and Elves who are manipulative or greedy out for themselves, you get the idea.

 

Shelve the idea of a racial concept and let Elves be individuals like Humans. Of course the stunties still need to be short little buggers with beards for brains who are only good at digging holes and getting drunk though!

 

(just kidding, about the Dwarves anyway.... mostly)

 

I sort of agree with this. I think it's better if races are only loosely confined by their innate abilities, and are more individual than we usually see. A racial group might have a certain history and reputation as per racism, but it shouldn't be confining as it usually is.

 

I sort of agree and sort of don't. When 'race' amounts to elves and dwarves rather than skin color, the implication is that these are entirely different species. A dwarf isn't a vertically challenged human. A dwarf is a dwarf. The same goes with an elf or any of the other races. When you remove 'racial concepts' entirely, all you've got is a bunch of humans divided by how pointy their ears are or how tall they are, which is pretty boring.

 

Which isn't to say 'likes to drink ale, speak in a Scottish accent and use an axe or warhammer' should be an in-born dwarven trait, or that there shouldn't be members of a race who stray well outside the norm. It is merely to say that there should be some commonalities in thought and behavior between members of a certain race to remind us that these races are not just humans with minor physical differences.

[Rostere]

I liked how Arcanum defined the different races by relating them to the magic - tech scale. The section on races in the manual is one of the best pieces of lore written for any game setting, in my opinion. I hope PE will give all races unique relations to the "soul" concept in a similar way, something beyond "it's a Dwarven soul, it's metallic and smells of ale".

[Alexjh]

I didn't specifically mean in the same place as each other, but given the various cultural spread (viking and saxon invasions and whatnot) chances are that a lot of these creatures are related in origin or have at least absorbed some of the aspects of each other. I was going to make some more specific points but unfortunatly my mind has gone blank for the night...

 

That's definitely the case. They're also all Indo-European, and have thus developed from the same source.

 

But one other one that isn't necessarily related to those but is again a northern European thing is Wose/Green men - had some fun integrating those into a D&D campaign I did a few years ago as a replacement for half-orcs - definitly helped give it a more northern-european tone that just a tolkieneseque one. I may if I remember correctly, have used trow as a substitute for gnomes too, same statistics but different tone of race.

 

Hehe! Except that Tolkien used woses too, only he called them wood-woses.

Ah, trows and gnomes are definitely related (I hope you renamed the Drow too, to avoid confusion, especially since drow is an alternative spelling for trow). But they're both Northern European. And so are orcs, btw. So I don't know if you really made it MORE Northern-European, but at least you made it your own. And different.

 

Well though Tolkiens mythos (and its many many derrivatives) are certainly Northern European in origin, I meant more something that didn't sound like the traditional Tolkien Dwarves/Elves/Orcs/Hobbits grouping of races which dominate Fantasy to an insane degree. There are plenty of other fictional races, both extant and within the realms of possibility that don't get used, and much as I may like specific instances of Dwarves/Elves/Orcs, on average I'd rather have a set of new or underused races. With Elves and Orcs particularly, Dwarves to me still are almost always out of the same mold, so if someone did something different or interesting with them I'd be happy to play along.

 

It was my understanding that orcs and goblins were synonyms for the species in Lord of the Rings (or at least some overlap), but Tolkien created the modern use of the word; taking orc from sources like Beowulf as describing an undefined monster of some sort and specifically applying it to his goblins, and it's only later fiction which has turned Goblins and Orcs into seperate species.

 

As for the Drow thing, it didn't come up: I tend to build my entire settings from scratch including the monsters so it wasn't really an issue. Basic gist of this world was that (almost) the entire world was covered by a giant, ancient magic absorbant forest to such a point where it focused like a black hole for magic - if you happened to be (magically)travelling the multiverse in a way that intersected with this plane you'd get sucked in and stuck there, including deities. Two races were native to the world (afforementioned Trow and Wose) and the human, dwarf and elf populations, though the most present were descended from people who'd either got trapped in there, or, in some cases (including the main "villain") had been sent there on purpose as an inescapable prison. Elves were particularly rare as they were magical beings, so the few that did get there basically became amnesic and rarely procreated. Magic was possible, but was only the first few spell levels and required some sort of focus made of wood.

 

Slightly disappointing in that my party ended up being two fighters and a paladin so they didn't really come up against the more interesting magical nuances of the place, but oh well!

[jezz555]

I would like to see neither. Instead of following a cliche I want my Elves in PE to actually have some depth and be more than just a Tolkien throwback or a blatant attempt to go in a totally different direction. I have no problem if Legolas and Elrond (figuratively speaking) show up as long as there is also a Elf who loves the City, one who drinks ale with the best of them and not because of some insane racial superiority, and Elves who are manipulative or greedy out for themselves, you get the idea.

 

Shelve the idea of a racial concept and let Elves be individuals like Humans. Of course the stunties still need to be short little buggers with beards for brains who are only good at digging holes and getting drunk though!

 

(just kidding, about the Dwarves anyway.... mostly)

 

I sort of agree with this. I think it's better if races are only loosely confined by their innate abilities, and are more individual than we usually see. A racial group might have a certain history and reputation as per racism, but it shouldn't be confining as it usually is.

 

I sort of agree and sort of don't. When 'race' amounts to elves and dwarves rather than skin color, the implication is that these are entirely different species. A dwarf isn't a vertically challenged human. A dwarf is a dwarf. The same goes with an elf or any of the other races. When you remove 'racial concepts' entirely, all you've got is a bunch of humans divided by how pointy their ears are or how tall they are, which is pretty boring.

 

Which isn't to say 'likes to drink ale, speak in a Scottish accent and use an axe or warhammer' should be an in-born dwarven trait, or that there shouldn't be members of a race who stray well outside the norm. It is merely to say that there should be some commonalities in thought and behavior between members of a certain race to remind us that these races are not just humans with minor physical differences.

 

Dwarves and Elves may be different species but, they are humanoid so it's likely that their differences would be fairly slight. They might have in-born traits, but no more than we have in-born human traits. What is stupid is them all having the same culture, and all having essentially the same personality, not knockin' Tolkien but It would be nice to move beyond that a little.

Edited November 21, 2012 by jezz555

[Sacred_Path]

The P:E wiki tells me the developers have stated there is no significant cultural divide between elves and humans living in the Aedyr Empire. I hadn't noticed that before.

 

Am I wrong to interpret that as, effectively, 'elves are like humans with pointy ears that live for centuries'? Unfortunate, if true.

 

I'd read over that w/o taking note before. I actually interpreted it as saying "human and elves both consider themselves Aedyr first and foremost". That would leave some room for some differences in housing, clothing, professions and religion.

Since half-elves aren't mentioned anywhere they obviously can't interbreed, so there should be some outward signs of difference between them.

[Agelastos]

 

Since half-elves aren't mentioned anywhere they obviously can't interbreed, so there should be some outward signs of difference between them.

 

Or the offspring of a human and an elf isn't a hybrid, but a full-fledged human or elf. Like in the Lord of the Rings mythos, The Elder Scrolls, or Dragon Age.

[Sacred_Path]

Or the offspring of a human and an elf isn't a hybrid, but a full-fledged human or elf. Like in the Lord of the Rings mythos

 

uh WUT ?

 

Apart from being forced to choose between immortality and a finite life span, Tolkien was (intentionally) vague about the nature of half-elves. At any rate they could not choose to be more or less elf- or human-like. But he does designate them specifically as half-elven, while there is no mention of i.e. dwarf-hobbit offspring.

 

Apart from that, I don't think that's how it worked between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens

Edited November 21, 2012 by Sacred_Path

[Agelastos]

Or the offspring of a human and an elf isn't a hybrid, but a full-fledged human or elf. Like in the Lord of the Rings mythos

 

uh WUT ?

 

Apart from being forced to choose between immortality and a finite life span, Tolkien was (intentionally) vague about the nature of half-elves. At any rate they could not choose to be more or less elf- or human-like. But he does designate them specifically as half-elven, while there is no mention of i.e. dwarf-hobbit offspring.

 

Apart from that, I don't think that's how it worked between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens

 

They do choose whether to be human or elven. That's what the choice between immortality and mortality is all about.

If they choose immortality they're counted as one of the Eldar, if they choose mortality they're counted as Edain.

 

It doesn't matter how miscegenation works in real life. There are many examples of fantasy worlds in which elves and humans produce fully elven or fully human offspring.

In The Elder Scrolls, where pretty much all races can interbreed, the offspring is always the same race as the mother. In Dragon Age, any and all children born to a human and an elf will be human.

[mcmanusaur]

[Sacred_Path]

 

They do choose whether to be human or elven. That's what the choice between immortality and mortality is all about.

 

That's entirely about semantics.

 

As far as PE is concerned the conspicuous absence of any mention of interbreeding means to me that it's not a huge deal in this world anyway.