Puberty for Elves?

[pawned79]

Tomorrow we are starting a Forgotten Realms game. I am going to be playing a prepubescent male elven acrobat/contortionist from a circus troop. He is approximately sixty six years old, which I believe is a reasonable age for a prepubescent elf. I was wondering if there was information out there on the natural instincts of young elves. There may be something natural about the race that would dramatically affect the RP aspect. I have made him chaotic good. I am going to RP him as a carefree, hyper, annoying, childish boy, who seeming is in a constant state of play. Do you believe this would be reasonable for a young moon elf? Please point me in the direction of any useful information, and/or give me your opinion on the situation. Thank you for all your help.

Patrick

 

[Angcuru]

Tomorrow we are starting a Forgotten Realms game. I am going to be playing a prepubescent male elven acrobat/contortionist from a circus troop. He is approximately sixty six years old, which I believe is a reasonable age for a prepubescent elf. I was wondering if there was information out there on the natural instincts of young elves. There may be something natural about the race that would dramatically affect the RP aspect. I have made him chaotic good. I am going to RP him as a carefree, hyper, annoying, childish boy, who seeming is in a constant state of play. Do you believe this would be reasonable for a young moon elf? Please point me in the direction of any useful information, and/or give me your opinion on the situation. Thank you for all your help.

Patrick

Reasonable attitude/personality, yes. So is the kid an orphan or something? Otherwise he'd be kinda in that state of "My parents are overprotective since they're elves.", and therefore still living amongst elves. Y'know how bears are with their kids? Elves make them look like kittens. At least, that's how they are in my FR campaign.

I.E. Make up a backstory wherein his parents croaked and he wound up out of the elven community, or make sure he stays in the elven community...till something tragic happens and he ends up away from home and parents.

Best way to go: It's a travelling elven circus and his parents are magicians or something.

 

[pawned79]

There is a half sea elf in his troop that named him Nym. His stage name is "The Snake." They found him at a Shieldmeet (leap day) celebration as an infant. They don't know how old he is or why he was left. They raised him. The troop is mostly non-elves, and thus he's actually been around after some of the people who were at Shieldmeet that year have passed away. They celebrate his birthday on Shieldmeet, so when someone asks him how old he is, he says he has had sixteen birthday parties, and everyone comes. He is a product of the life of free-spirited circus gypsy foke.

My interest is in natural biological elven emotions, that I don't know if there is any info on. I want to be able to RP his puberty as accurately as Forgotten Realms requires it. Anything else I can make pretty realisticly, I hope.

Patrick

 

[Arravis]

Now that I think about this, I have a 2nd edition books that has this information... I'll see if I can dig it up for you tomorrow. Good luck!

 

[fusangite]

Well, I'm not familiar with the Realms setting so I don't know how clearly defined the elvish life cycle is. However, if it's not, you and your DM can come up with quite a wide variety of possible options for playing this.

First of all, elves may not be a species that goes through puberty in your world. There is absolutely no reason that elves would need to go through this -- many species don't. Elves could have primary and secondary sexual characteristics at birth and might just grow up in a very even, gradual way. Or, alternatively, elves might never develop these characteristics at all.

Puberty is, of course, a biological/physiological process. I have the feeling, because you're asking about "behaviour" that you probably are not talking about puberty at all but rather, about adolescence. If that's the case, I again suggest that you look at whether you even want to have this. The adolescent is really a 20th century Western invention; in most cultures, you're either a child or an adult. Often, cultures make you an adult before you even go through puberty (look at cultures dependent on child labour like Industrial Revolution Europe); it sounds like your current character is in just such a situation. Given that your character is already working to support himself financially, my guess is that he will never be an adolescent in the modern sense of the word.