Where Do Elves Get Their Metal?

[John Q. Mayhem]

I've seen it suggested somewhere that, as Olgar said, they get it from the Dwarves, primarily in exchange for fruits and vegetables, necessary for life but incabable of growing underground. Interesting theory, really.

 

[Ferret]

I assume that they collect little bits of mitheral faster then they have childeren. Over 400 odd year you'd could collect quite a bit of mithral.

 

[Gez]

I've seen it suggested somewhere that, as Olgar said, they get it from the Dwarves, primarily in exchange for fruits and vegetables, necessary for life but incabable of growing underground. Interesting theory, really.

That's what I always assumed as well.


Besides, in the next world I'll make, all dwarves will be males and all elves will be female: they'll be the same specie, with a complex, gender-segregated culture, meeting only once per season to trade and mate. Thus explaining all the bitching, and why do elves never have beards while dwarves always do. Tee-hee.

 

[Nifft]

IMC, there are all manner of magical types of wood, including Silverwood. There are also magical types of stone, like Cold Obsidian. Mithral is a type of "metal" that's grown only on the Elemental Plane of Wood, just as Adamantine originates on the Elemental Plane of Earth. (Both are usually "mined" in their liquid or semi-liquid state on the Elemental Plane of Ash, but that's even more campaign-specific.)

So, where do Elves get Mithral? They grow it, using magic.

-- N

 

[the Jester]

From the grey elves of the mountains, of course.

 

[Psion]

From Metal Elves, in Green Ronin's Bow & Blade, natch!

(The heavy metal joke was already taken. )

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Since the elves live longer, they probably go through less metal than you would think - a well cared for sword or suit of chainmail would last centuries.

Also, weapons are not a terribly large part of most civilizations metal utilization. Industry would use much more iron, I would expect, meaning that humans would still use much more iron than the elves.

In Middle Earth, the dwarves mined the mithril, and traded with the Elves, who made it into suits of armor and jewelry, etc. That makes a lot of sense from my point of view as well.

 

[sluggo the sleazebag]

To answer the first-poster's question "Where do elves get their metal?"

From the trees, of course.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Another important question would be this: Where do elves get lumber from?

At first, the answer might seem obvious, since elves live in the forests and are surrounded by trees, but in nearly every fantasy setting I've seen, the elves are against any kind of deforestation. Despite this, they seem to rely heavily on wooden bows, arrows, and dwellings (unless the elves make their homes out of stone or metal, which I doubt). Not to mention that the elves craft trinkets out of wood, and they also need lumber for things like cooking and fueling the forges where they make the metal weapons and armor mentioned earlier in this thread. It's possible that elves only cut down dead trees, but I doubt that there is enough dead lumber in the forest to meet the elven demand for lumber.

Elves really are a strange race; they refuse to mine metals or cut down trees, but they fight with metal weapons and wooden bows, and make crafts and jewelry of out of both.

 

[Gellion]

Or they could just be hypocrites.

(Referring to the above post)