How do elves build there cities?

[Hand of Evil]

Over time.

Elvies build within the limitations of nature, they do not destroy the landscape but conform to it. I like hanging baskets from gaint trees, wasp-like structures on mountain sides, and gaint turtle shells on the plains.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

They build their city on

Rock
and
Rooooooooll



AR

 

[Vlos]

Well as stated, different elven races have different types of structures.

I consider Woodelves/WildElves to be the ones that live in the trees. These are often "grown" from or sculpted the tree rather than using cut woods. These would be created by druid types using control or warp wood spells and probably take very very long to create.

Grey Elves(1st)/Gold Elves/Moon Elves live in more "human" structures. Stone or crystal towers. Usually very ornate. I assume Drow would have similar underground structures. These would probably be quicker than the tree cities to create.

In 2nd edition in the Complete Elves book they had a 6th level spell which was an improved "Stone Wall" spell, which created/grew stone into a building. It would take multiple castings to build most buildings, but is a basis for such structures.

 

[WayneLigon]

I usually think of their cities as either Ewok-like treehouses or shaped stone; both will usually follow the 'grain' of the material they're using. Also, ElfQuest influenced me a great deal in this. Their elves have the ability to shape matter; the ones who live in the woods usually shape trees and plants into shapes they can use, while the ones who live in Blue Mountain shape stone. Winnowill could even shape flesh.... The Chaosium RPG had all sorts of interesting game ideas for them.

In the Greatwood game I'm still working on, you have two main types of elves: the 'Wood' and the 'Grey' (not the names they use for themselves). The Wood elves (IE, the normal elves from the book) are mostly 'savages'; they live in wooden longhouses covered with bark and hides, or they simply sleep up in trees, stretched out on limbs or leaned against the trunk. The Grey live in vast, now mostly-empty, halls in the far mountains; they use elementals to move and shape stone, or simply talk to the spirit inside the stone and convince it to assume the desired shapes, which resemble a chambered Nautilus more than anything else: all spirals and repeating 'chaos'-like shapes.

 

[Avarice]

The old 2e FR supplement Elves of Evermeet had a spell called construction, with which the elves literally grew their buildings out of stone or living wood. I'd be happy to post my 3.0 adaptation, if there's any interest.

 

[Tonguez]

Elfs build their cities on the blood and sweat of the enslaved hordes...
(yeah elfs aren't nice people)

actually the Eloi village from the 2002 (Guy Pearce) version of the Time Machine - ie gigantic hanging baskets - is how I'm currently modelling Elf villages

I have a Druid ruled nation in a Homebrew World which uses Druid magic to grow (and woodshape) their cities which pretty much looks like gardens, forests and farmland all surrounded in Briar hedges so that the boundary between the city and the country is very much blurred.

 

[dead]

The old 2e FR supplement Elves of Evermeet had a spell called construction, with which the elves literally grew their buildings out of stone or living wood. I'd be happy to post my 3.0 adaptation, if there's any interest.

Yes, I'd love to see your 3.0 adaption.

Yeah, I guess this is something I was worrying about, too. If you let elves use all this Epic magic to "shape" their cities, then this assumes that there is a high proportion of mages in their culture. True, there should be, but I think the 3E rules (for game balance) assume that there are just as many mages in elven society as there are in a human society. Indeed, is there just as many elven commoners as human commoners? I certainly can't see elves toiling away the way humans do. (An elf break a sweat over a hard day's physical labor? Never!)

 

[Avarice]

Yes, I'd love to see your 3.0 adaption.

Yeah, I guess this is something I was worrying about, too. If you let elves use all this Epic magic to "shape" their cities, then this assumes that there is a high proportion of mages in their culture. True, there should be, but I think the 3E rules (for game balance) assume that there are just as many mages in elven society as there are in a human society. Indeed, is there just as many elven commoners as human commoners? I certainly can't see elves toiling away the way humans do. (An elf break a sweat over a hard day's physical labor? Never!)

I certainly agree that most elves would invest more time and training in their offspring than the average human would be able to (making the elven commoner not so common after all), though I suspect that would be a topic for another thread.

Speaking of which, I posted my Construction spell over in House Rules. It is, perhaps, a bit low in level, but I wanted a fair number of wizards in my setting to be able to cast it, as opposed to one or two specialist 'builders' who wander the world doing it all.

 

[dead]

Speaking of which, I posted my Construction spell over in House Rules.

Thanks.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Different Elves

I've modified my elves significantly to make them fit better into the sylvan environment they are from. They don't have cities yet and their towns are all quite small. They actually build their homes by pleaching trees together so that they grow into a single mass. This means bending saplings toward a central tree, and weaving the branches of those sapplings together. Initially they use skins on the inside to make it waterproof, but as the trees grow they eventually merge together. It's a long process but the elves have been doing it for centuries, and use much more communal housing. Also the trees are a fast-growing oak like tree I've created for the world to make the process a little faster.

The result is that eventually you have what appears to be a tree with a dome shaped structure at the bottom that looks a lot like a large root gall. This dome is still alive and produces branches that grow up toward the light, so it's all naturally camouflaged. As very few humans have even seen the elven villages nobody even knows to suspect the domes aren't just a natural part of the tree.

The domes don't get any light but they are mainly used for shelter, the elves spend most of their time outside. Currently they do not do a lot to beautify their towns - camouflage is more important. However the elves deeper into the woods do make use of the alar trees to weave the branches together to form patterns that appeal to them.

Ultimately my elves are a lot wilder and IMO more 'natural' than the traditional elves. They don't use large amounts of metal, they use druidic magic instead of arcane, they live a lot closer to the old 'noble savage' concept.

A group of elves are trying to construct a dome like this on a massive scale, but the process is taking a while. When it's finished it may form the basis of the first elven city. What that does to the elven way of life I'll have to wait and see.