D&D 5E How might elven societies be different from the norm?

[EvanNave55]

I agree that trading over centuries sharing what they have and taking care of their possessions would be enough for elves to have some metal they use for things an alternative is a from of bio-metal.

In pathfinder there is a kind of material called livingsteel. These trees suck up minerals over time and because of this are extremely tough (you have to use special saws to cut them or wait tell they fall on their own) but it can be used to amke a special material called living steel. This is even harder than steel (can damage other weapons when they hit the living steel) and in pathfinder can slowly heal itself over time.

A solution to the elves mining metal could be to use this material. They nurture and specially grow these living steel trees and when they finally fall the elves use them to make their weapons. As it is from pathfinder anything made from this would probably have to be considered magic in 5e so you could just keep the metal made from special tree thing and ignore any or all of the other properties (tougher than steel, slowly heals itself) to keep it a mundane metal.

 

[Khisanth the Ancient]

Living steel sounds cool, but I don't think elves really need any special source for metal. Trading for it occasionally is enough if they just don't use all that much metal. I'd imagine metal is reserved for special things, highly crafted and often magical items that take a lot of work.

I think part of the 'illusion' of elves also is that they do their agriculture and such in ways that are not immediately recognizable to people used to monoculture-crop-field agriculture. There's a lot of work put into an elven forest, but it's not necessarily obvious that there is unless you're familiar with it.

 

[cmad1977]

Perspective. Elven communities would act with the perspective of a people who live for millennia.


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[Bohandas]

What would elven farming or livestock look like? I have a hard time imagining wood elves clearing large tracts of land for farming wheat or other typical staples. And would elves have typical farms with chickens, pigs, etc? I have a hard time picturing that too. But they're not going to be able to support a large town or city just from hunting. In most fantasy movies I can think of, they seem to completely gloss over where elves get their food from.

The entire forest is cultivated. Useful trees, useful shurbs, useful grasses, useful herbs, and useful animals, all chosen to be complimentary to each other, brought together form a sort of self-sustaining all-purpose farm.

EDIT:
Oh, it looks like Khisanth already said something similar

EDIT:
Also, and admittedly this is from a 3.5e perspective (and not one borne out by the demographics in the DMG, which give every race the same proportion of classes) but I imagine NPC classed elves to be disproportionally adepts, since they have longer time to train for that kind of thing, and that gives you create water and Purify Food and Drink. With Purify food and drink you could just gather up pretty much any random berries, roots, and mushrooms you find, cast the spell, and be good to eat them.