(long post)
Ok, let me try it from this angle.
People, when the game designers created those high level spells, they created the possibility of completely altered worlds, completely altered civilizations, and completely altered reality.
In their creativity (and I would argue the game designers throughout the 30 years of D&D's history have been very creative) they have implemented rules (in this case, spells) that offered a retroactive chance to redefine whole races, whole nations, redefine the entirety of how things are done.
That is why I highlighted Lifeproof. This 7th level spell is an excellent example of how a specific rule (a spell) could completely alter a civilization and how everything is done within it's boundaries. Because that rule (that spell) so alters reality that the civilization alters in turn.
Lifeproof is not the only, or the best, example of this. There are many, many spells of high level, mid level, and even low level (such as the Regenerate spell from Polyhedron #28) that alter the fundamental reality of the game.
Based on these game mechanics, these rules, you can produce realistic, believable cultures and civilizations that otherwise would be absurd (you have to suspend belief, as usual ... if Netheril can loft whole cities into the air, then so be it. If the elves can all Lifeproof themselves, then so be it!)
In this way, you *can* produce an elven culture where elves are laxidasical, frolicking, frivolous, merry, spend their time dancing and singing, and otherwise wasting time ... and still produce their famous elven chain and elven swords, still be the baddest warriors and wizards around, and be the scourge of the land if they so choose.
You *can* have your cake and eat it too. Magic makes it possible. Magic makes anything possible. So long as the rules (or some set of rules) are observed, it's even half palatable (well, ok, it's sometimes palatable, and it depends on how far you can stretch suspension of disbelief.)
If elves are Agnakoks, NONE of those natural horrors I mentioned apply to them. The forest is a playground, not a dreaded wilderness.
If elves are magically inclined, they have clerics and wizards and overturn reality on a regular basis (they don't overturn it to the point of being Faerie Beings, but they overturn it to a radical degree.)
I mean, any elven cleric worth her salt is going to take that original version of Divine Metamagic, and use it to create Persistent Spells of the most ghastly sort, on a regular basis. Elves will (as any race would) use the rules to the absolute fullest, twist them to their absolute maximum advantage, so they can win (just as we do in real life, with the rules of physics and mechanics and mathematics and so on.)
-
The PROBLEM with this approach should be obvious: what the elves can do, humans can do, and illithid can do, and phaerimm can do, and so on, and they will. And some of these races are brighter than elves, some are driven more to compete, some have more profound understandings of magic, the illithid have psionics, and humans reproduce faster.
So if the elves can twist reality, so can their foes. And they will. In 3rd Edition, even orcs can become wizards and clerics, and *they* will twist reality out of all recognition to achieve their ends (even if their working of magic causes the magic to backlash and burn up half the world ... imagine orcish High Mages (shudders))
The logical answer to this problem is to make the elves more driven and brighter than their foes. And to somehow use magic to compensate for their lack of progeny. But how to do it, and keep elves as elves?
-
The game is level based, and high level characters and NPCs have the strongest power.
Where does leveling come from? Experience points. Where do they come from? Winning encounters, defeating foes, and killing things. Especially killing things.
In other words, War is the ticket to quickly gaining high level. War could make everyone high level, if everyone could survive the process.
Other ways to level are so difficult, so slow, that the warmongers have the clear advantage. For example, Wish will grant experience points, but not many, and the Wishing caster pays a heavy price. Non-combat activities will grant experience, but at about 1/10th the rate of active adventuring or warmongering.
And it requires high level, if the elves are going to use magic to alter reality. That Lifeproof spell is 7th level. It takes a 13th level wizard to cast it, in 3rd Edition (14th in 2nd Edition.)
But war ... War does not make for merriment and laughter. Perhaps among the illithid and phaerimm and drow it does, but not for elves and humans and dwarves and halflings.
War ... WAR ... destroys people. It turns young people into very old people, very quickly (to paraphrase real life war veterans.) Many famous or infamous films have been made on war, and all of them show the people involved in war are scarred by it. They do not come out laughing and merry. They come out grim and hard and glad to be alive. (Apocalypse Now, All Quiet on the Western Front, Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket, and others come to mind here.)
EVIL races might enjoy war, with their twisted minds and twisted emotions. But a GOOD race, like elves (they *are* supposed to be chaotic good in general.) Not at all.
Elves are going to react like humans to war, only more so. They are going to hate it, engage in it only because they must, fight for their buddies in combat, and come out of it scarred and prematurely old. (And indeed, this is a common portrayal of elves in combat ... consider Laurana, before she died in the Destruction of Qualinesti.)
Now, this relates directly to the above. I said that elves needed to be more driven than their foes. But these foes enjoy war (I would daresay orcs enjoy fighting and killing ...) and the elves do not. How to make the elves more driven than their warmongering, warloving, crazy-nut opponents?
Because experience points go to the warmongers, and so the orcs raise in level, and the (far more sane) war-shy elves do not.
How? How? How?
If the orcs love war more, then they gain levels faster, and they gain the magic first, and they alter reality first, and ... we have a bunch of dead elves. The game mechanics say so. In 3rd Edition, they say so ever so much more, because now orcs can be ANY class they want, or any combination of classes. No level limits, no restrictions, no nothing! It's carte blanche, and the orcs are waving their proclamations of freedom in glee!
Get to the phaerimm, that race of supergenius, supermages (in 2nd Edition, they AVERAGED 40th level, guys - see the Ruins of Myth Drannor boxed set, 2nd Edition) the elves are up against an opponent that dwarfs the orcs in terms of it's magnitude. Thus, Evereska was nearly obliterated, despite all that help it got from everyone else. (Had those phaerimm been 2nd Edition phaerimm, and thus averaging 40th level, goodbye Evereska, goodbye Evermeet, goodbye the entire continent of Faerun ... unless the Sharn intervened.)
How then? How?
For the elves, like any normal race, cannot psychologically withstand war after war after war. They *cannot* do so. Even Tolkien's elves ultimately could not do so.
Imagine having to fight in World War III. Then living through the Aftermath (the Aftermath being 100 years of continuous war, on a low level.) Then living through World War IV. And World War V. And World War VI. VII. VIII. IX. World War X. And you're still only halfway through your life.
Or simply imagine an 80 hour work week, with retirement being 2000 years away.
Tolkien's elves got tired of this (the wars with Morgoth and Sauron) and went away to paradise (Valinor.) Could D&D elves fare better?
Or would they first grow grim and hard, then as cold and hard as the drow, then as cold and hard and monstrous as the Menibonians, and finally go insane from too much personal pain, stress, and loss?
Again: how? How?
Elves have the psychology of normal, healthy people. They are not lunatic warmongers. But their foes are, can stay that way indefinitely, and there are no end to the number of foes available. And to the warmongers go the experience points, thus the levels, thus the power and magic and the ability to turn reality upside down.
Indeed, the drow should have conquered and exterminated the elves long ago. If Vhaerun or Hextor or some sane diety was leading them, they would have.
I want to create a race of believable elves, while taking in all the realities of the D&D game mechanics and the reality of the settings. Those realities are the ones I have described above, and they dictate that the elves are crushed. And so it is, in the novels and settings, that the elves ARE crushed, and reduced to a pitiful remnant, and even that only still around because of sympathetic humans or the intervention of other races.
How to turn this around, and make it believable?
I have the first answer: magic. What is the answer to the psychological problem?
-
The answer *I* chose was to make the elves insane themselves.
This particular insanity caused them to view war as play, suffering as pleasure (or, at least, the same ol same ol), killing as joyous, and grim, gloomy surroundings as reasonable.
Then I cranked up this insanity to manical levels, to a mad obsession, to a level surpassing even the Blood War level of eager aggression. To a level that made the drow look tame in comparison.
But how to keep the elves elves, in this scenario, and not Daleks?
Well, the answer was to use magic again. The elves foresaw that this was the only answer, but THEY wanted to remain themselves in spite of it.
So they used magic to place constraints on themselves. These constraints bound them as a communal people, gave them communal strength against the dangers of Dark Magic, prevented them from harming each other, and preserved the basic nature of who they were ... that is, it preserved the instincts towards Everything Elven, as we would call it. The love of the forest, of music, of art and crafts, of building and creation, of architectural wonders. The love of a mate, the love for children, respect for parents and family, respect for community. The innate love of life ... so that warmongering was turned only against fellow warmongerers, and not against civilians or peaceful races, not against those who offered no threat. The innate love of life so great, that baelnorns made sense. The innate love of life so great, that those slain were glad to be Resurrected and returned to the fight.
This compromise was achieved in a great magical ritual, and Haldendrea became Haldendreeva in honor of it.
Did the compromise work? Most would say no. No, these are not elves. These are lunatics.
But they did survive, when no other elves could. They retained enough of themselves to be recognizable as elves, in some sense of the word.
In Realms terminology, they cast a kind of Mythal, only it was over themselves, and the Mythal regulated their behavior, while allowing them to become as aggressive as their worst foes. And they acquired a mindset that protected them from the trauma, the horror, the ultimate destruction of oneself, that war causes ... indeed, the mindset protected them ever more, as they suffered and bled and died and were resurrected. The Mythal Mindset kept them elves, when otherwise they could not be anything other than monsters.
Thus they withstood the illithid, the stormriders, the sahuagin, the dark dwarves, and the fiends who came for them.
They became like the phaerimm in the sense of being a race of supergenius archmages and high clerics and accomplished warriors. They withstood Vecna. They threw Vecna's forces back. They assaulted and slaughtered Vecna's armies. Ultimately, they were able to achieve a standoff against Vecna himself. They could do this, because within the game mechanics they were warmongers, and the Mythal allowed their insanity while protecting their minds.
-
But was this the right answer?
Or was it all wrong? Is there a better way?
The game mechanics dictate that the warmongers win the day. Such is the nature of D&D, a game based on killing.
Elves are normal people psychologically. War will hurt them, as it hurts all normal people caught in it. Enough war will destroy them ... and then they are naught but monsters themselves. And elves, being good aligned, are especially vulnerable to this happening.
Yet only the warmongers can *achieve* the power necessary to throw the magic needed to turn reality upside down. That Lifeproof spell goes to the *warmongers* and not peaceful elves. To the warmongers, go the world. (As Conan would gladly point out.)
The Haldendreevan elves took one compromise, as a solution to the problem.
Is there another way?
-
- Is there another way? -
-
Edena_of_Neith
