In a description relating to a comeliness / elf shine trait: "The heritage of elves tends toward goodlooking. There are many ways to be beautiful. Even members of the same family can exhibit diverse characteristics that resemble appealing examples of diverse genders and ethnicities. Elven cultures often employ magic to enhance beauty, whether for selfexpression or for fashion. Beauty is magical energy. Elves utilize beauty as a method to wield magical effects. Their ethic of beauty extends to making their environments − and ultimately the cosmos − more beautiful."
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Level Up (A5E) Level Up Playtest 1: Elves
- Thread starter Haldrik
- Start date
Tales and Chronicles
Jewel of the North, formerly know as vincegetorix
See, you posit this as an absolute, but this is only real for A) a culture, not an heritage B) if you want it to be real in your setting.
Elves from Athas care nothing about the thing you say represent all elves.
Woold elves of the Nentir Vales do not use beauty to cast spells against the Drow they hunt.
Elves from Eberron arent more to charisma than any other race.
The Grugach ultra-xenophobic and isolationist elves from Greyhawk are not example of social grace.
The wild elves of FR in their gigantic jungles do not use magic to enhance beauty or as a fashion sense.
I do see your point when talking about the Norse Alfar and the fair-folk of the British isles, as they are the ones who inspired Tolkien and are use as the inspiration for what we understand as ''elves''. That's why I said one elf culture and one heritage gift could be added to represent the trope of the supernatural beauty of the elves. But as a base element of the heritage? That's big no.
Yeah, I think that is the better design approach. The path of Charisma is something that elves are famous for, and they can excel at Charisma, often beyond other heritages.
At the same time, Charisma needs to be a choice that a player can opt into, or opt out of. Likewise, Dexterity needs to be a choice that a player can opt into, or opt out of.
Relatedly, I view the Elf heritage as comprising both fullcasters and halfcasters. There is no such thing as an elf noncaster, unless they grew up in a human culture. And even these humanized elves evidence magical traits.
Where beauty is a form of magical energy, the beauty=magic trope is useful. Magical beauty and beautiful magic informs every elven culture.
• The wood culture seeks to find and invent the magical beauty of the natural wilderness.
• The high culture seeks to find and invent the magical beauty of the art of war.
• The eladrin culture seeks to find and invent the magical beauty of dream.
• The shadow culture seeks to find and invent the magical beauty of lethal stealth. (Compare the beauty and mystique of the ninja.)
The quest for magical power and goodwill, is both an ethic and an esthetic.
Thus any form of magic is of interest to elves, thus any mental ability can come into play: Charisma, but also Intelligence and Wisdom.
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adding to this, everyone in eberron can use cantrips & minor magical items for cosmetic purposes. Literally a common person could own some glamourweave clothing or a minor illusion bit of jewelry that is limited to the function of a makeup type effect.... Elves are known for being mercenaries that double crossed their employer & seized land the second their employer had a problem or being involved with necromancy to the point where their ruling class are a variant of undead lich called deathless not charisma.
@Haldrik the only thing that tends to be pretty universal across the settings wrt elves is that there is always a subset of them known for having significant skill with martial weapons like longbow & longsword even though sometimes other weapons are used instead.
The high elf of every D&D edition mentions tropes that relate to Charisma Bard. Note, the 3e gray elf lacks Dexterity, and instead gains an Intelligence bonus for a Constitution penalty. A fullcaster who lacks Dexterity. Relatedly, in Forgotten Realms, the sun elf is known for Intelligence with Charisma-related artistic skills. Mechanically, the flavor of the sun elf matches Charisma-Intelligence. Note the 4e eladrin can be mechanically Charisma-Intelligence, without Charisma and without Dexterity, following the tradition of the charismatic sun elf fullcaster. Similarly, the moon elf has Dexterity, but with flavor that is highly social, and mechanically the flavor matches Charisma-Dexterity. Meanwhile, the Drow has evolved from non-Charisma elf, into a high Charisma elf. And so on. The introduction of Warlock and Sorcerer classes, and especially a fullcaster Bard, offer new ways to utilize Charisma for powerful magic. Elven magical Charisma tropes benefit from the mechanics that these new fullcaster Charisma classes offer.
Wow... getting into pretty obscure subraces trying to justify changes to the base race there.... I'd imagine that charisma vrs the other caster abilities will wind up being dialed back a notch & get a similar treatment as dex will be getting, you can probably relax.
The Charisma-Intelligence of the 4e eladrin is core. The 3e Forgotten Realms sun elf and moon elf are popular. The bardic flavor of the elf is central since 1e.
That said. It is remarkable how disconnecting a heritage from the ability scores, actually allows a heritage to accomplish its tropes and flavor better!
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So far we discussed elven physical appearance (please taller), the meaning of "magical beauty", the ubiquity of fullcasters anf halfcasters, and the elf bardic flavor relating to Charisma, art, and charm. Now for the descripsion of elven origins.
"Feywild (also called Alfheim, the Plane of Faerie, or the Dreaming)"
First of all, I love Feywild=Dreaming. I appreciate the clarity.
In D&D 3e, 4e, and 5e, the evolving Feywild tradition stumbled into ambiguity. Is it a thisworldly realm of nature spirits? Is it an otherworldly realm of magic, made out of arcane energy? What exactly is the Feywild? Now we know.
The Feywild is a dreamscape, a realm of shared dreams. D&D occasionedly mentioned the Dreaming in passing, such as in a spell description, without a sense of where this is comsologically. Now we know.
The Feywild is the Dreaming. Great.
If so, the Feywild is generally a psionic phenomenon, even telepathic. Dreams are mental phantasms. That said, dreams are a special aspect of the mind, more holistic, more sensorial, and less abstractedly intellectual, thus more visceral and more connected to life of the physical body.
Thus the Feywild is both otherworldly as its own weird dreamscape, and thisworldly focusing what is happening in the material this world.
I enjoy how the Feywild=Dreaming correlates well with fey elf tropes of charm and illusion. Illusions are manifestations of dream stuff. Dreams are their own kind of magical artfulness. They are psionic manifestations, but are a disorienting aspect of mind stuff that is peculiar to dreams.
By means of dreams, Feywild seems the location of the thisworldly nature spirits, after all. When an animist seeks to communicate with a nature spirit, such as a mountain, they can do so in a dreamlike way. An animist might go to the mountain an sleep on it outdoors, to encounter the spirit of the mountain during dreams. Sometimes the mountain communicates via waking visions. When a human physically "enters" the Feywild, they exit the Material Plane, thus dematerialize, and become the immaterial thought stuff of dreams. Their new body is a virtual body of a dream. The dreamworld of the Feywild is organized by subjective rules, not objective ones, except persons can experience each others subjectivity in a relativistic way.
In the material world, a material mountain looms majestically. At the same time, the mind of the mountain can interact with the minds of other natural features. The mountain projects its mind out in the form virtual dream body, and can have social encounters with other dream bodies that the other natural features have projected.
There is a Deep Dreaming, where Feywild is fully dreamlike and wildly physically unstable, so as to open the door of a house and step thru to be in the middle of a vast ocean, or so on. Here, the transitions make sense because of the symbolism that is in play. A "lucid dreamer" can intentionally reshape the environment, forming personal or shared "domains" within the Feywild.
But there is also a Shallow Dreaming, where the Feywild closely overlaps the Material Plane. Here, the dreamscape moreorless coheres with the laws of physics according to the Material Plane, as the shared dreams include the Dreaming of the features of nature. In this border between Fey and Material, individuals who are telepathically sensitive or adept at Fey magic or dream magic, can perceive normally and clearly the events happening on the other side of the "veil".
Normally nature spirits project their minds into dreams and visions, as phantasms within the mind of those who they are communicating with. Sometimes, a nature spirit, perhaps in a human-like form, can appear objectively to onlookers. In this case, the manifestation is effectively an illusion, and objects can pass thru it if onlookers interact physically with this dreamstuff. The projected illusion is a kind of avatar.
However, it is also possible for the nature spirit to "conjure" its mental projection into a physical form within the Material Plane, that is virtually a normal human in every way. (Or the avatar appears as some other humanoid, or as a beast.) If the nature spirit crosses the "veil" out of the Feywild and into the Material Plane, in this way, its illusion becomes quasi-real. At this point, the nature spirit gains solidity and interacts as if a human. The conjured avatar can even have human children. If this avatar is "killed" within the Material Plane, normally its material form dissipates, and the mind of the nature spirit returns to itself, being the natural feature in this world. Any children from the human-like avatar are normal humans, but exhibit physical characteristics and magical traits, reminiscent of the specific natural feature. The human child of a mountain might be strong, tough, with sharp memory, enduring willpower, and majestic charisma. The avatar can choose to dissipate at any time, to return home. A mountain spirit might feel homesick, longing to return to live the life of a mountain.
The text mentions in passing, "Alfheim" and "Faerie". To the degree that the Dreaming Feywild is actually the thisworldly nature spirits, I am comfortable with the equation. It implies that EVERY spirit in the Feywild is the mindful dreamspirit of some specific feature that actually exists in this Material Plane. A particular tree, a particular rock, a particular wellspring, a particular sunbeam. Social interactions that take place within the Feywild are what causes natural events in the material world, such as the arrival of springtime, the overflow of a river, an earthquake, a thriving of a thicket of trees. The thing about a rock is, it is normally happy being a rock. So it normally just sits there. But sometimes it is curious and projects its mind outward to engage with a particular human or so on. Sometimes it projects to visit other nature spirits.
There is a difference between Alfheim and Faerie.
The Celtic Faerie is earthy. Its faeries live underground in mounds and caves, and flourish across landscape of the Material Plane, making plants thrive. Each mound or cave, or patch of fertile soil, is a faerie, the home of the minds of faeries. By contrast, the Norse Alfheim is skyey. Its alfar live above clouds, and flourish wherever sunrays shine. The solar halo around the sun (more visible during an eclipse) appears to be the original home of the mind of the alfar, and each sunray, each sunbeam connecting the land below, each brilliant reflection of the surface of clouds and snow are the minds of alfar. Both the Faerie "elf" and the Alfheim "elf" are perceived by humans as stunningly beautiful and persuasively charming, which appears to be why the two groups of "elves" got equated. Also both groups embody fate, fertility, success, and personify magical energy. A faerie and an alf are actually the minds of the forces of magic itself. The identity comes from being the timelines of fates, whence being oracles who communicate the future, whence using magic to change the future to predetermine success or failure, whence using magic to change anything. The faerie and the alf are the spirits of magic itself.
Regarding the alfar, these are sunrays. Not the sundisk itself, but the aura of light around the sun, and the sunlight beaming from it. These "elves" are a solar aspect. In nations nearer the equator, the sun can be hot and harsh. However in nations nearer the arctic, the sun is gentle and lifegiving. The elves associate with the gentler solar aspects. Their aura of light is described as lovely, and in folklore as an aura of soft white light, reminiscent of the subtle light of the solar halo. Despite their skyey home, the elves occasionally fly down to earth, such as shapeshifting into the magical constructs of gleaming white swans. Rarely, an elf might choose to remain to live among humans, almost always because of a sense of future successful fate to accomplish, and sometimes to help a human family in honor of some human ancestor who befriended the elf.
Celtic elves are strictly nocturnal, active at night, and merit Darkvision. Norse elves are sunlight itself, obviously diurnal, and probably lack Darkvision.
Perhaps, "Faerie" refers to the twilight forests of the Feywild. "Alfheim" refers to the daylight sky of the Feywild. In a Dream, the forest is twilight, and the sky is daytime, at the same time.
I would love it if "high elf" and the "wood elf" is Celtic-esque and earthy, and the "sun elf" and the "moon elf" is Norse-esque and skyey. (In concept, of course: physical appearances might resemble any human ethnic group.)
The Feywild Plane and the Astral Plane are both made out of psionic thought stuff. However they differ. The Feywild comprises the dreams of individual persons, and is viscerally oriented toward each individual body. By contrast, the Aster comprises the thought systems of a collective culture. Each Astral domain is a social construct, comprising empowered ideas and disempowered ideas. The Aster is an intellectual realm for philosophers and social engineers. The Fey is a romantic realm of artists and dreamers. The celestial and infernal are both Astral domains, made out of the "thought stuff" called Aster.
The Feywild is different from the Shadowfell. The Feywild is moreso the dreams that connect current events to potential future outcomes. The Shadowfell is moreso the dreams that connect current events to fading past memories.
The Feywild is different from the Ether. The Fey Plane is psionic and made out of thought stuff, specifically the aspect of dream stuff. The Ethereal Plane is elemental and made out of physical forces, such as gravity. It seems, telekinesis is the manipulation of fifth element called Ether, being force, in the same way that pyrokinesis is the manipulation of element of Fire, being plasma of sun and lightning, and suggestive in flame, and hydrokinesis is the manipulation of the element of Water, being liquid. The five Elemental states are Ether force, Air gas, Water liquid, Earth solid, and Fire plasma.
The origin of elves is highly debated, but one thing is for certain: they are not entirely of this world. Elves are sometimes called the “firstborn” of the gods, with some reckoning them to be the lowest order of angels. Others say elves were once faerie spirits who saw the mortal world and wanted to take part. Others still insist that humans and elves share a common ancestor, and that the elvish ancestor traveled to the Feywild (also called Alfheim, the Plane of Faerie, or the Dreaming) and became suffused with its magic. In some worlds, elves arrive from a distant land; in other worlds, they arrive from a distant star. In all these cases, what is undisputed is the profound legacy of these long-lived people.
"Feywild (also called Alfheim, the Plane of Faerie, or the Dreaming)"
First of all, I love Feywild=Dreaming. I appreciate the clarity.
In D&D 3e, 4e, and 5e, the evolving Feywild tradition stumbled into ambiguity. Is it a thisworldly realm of nature spirits? Is it an otherworldly realm of magic, made out of arcane energy? What exactly is the Feywild? Now we know.
The Feywild is a dreamscape, a realm of shared dreams. D&D occasionedly mentioned the Dreaming in passing, such as in a spell description, without a sense of where this is comsologically. Now we know.
The Feywild is the Dreaming. Great.
If so, the Feywild is generally a psionic phenomenon, even telepathic. Dreams are mental phantasms. That said, dreams are a special aspect of the mind, more holistic, more sensorial, and less abstractedly intellectual, thus more visceral and more connected to life of the physical body.
Thus the Feywild is both otherworldly as its own weird dreamscape, and thisworldly focusing what is happening in the material this world.
I enjoy how the Feywild=Dreaming correlates well with fey elf tropes of charm and illusion. Illusions are manifestations of dream stuff. Dreams are their own kind of magical artfulness. They are psionic manifestations, but are a disorienting aspect of mind stuff that is peculiar to dreams.
By means of dreams, Feywild seems the location of the thisworldly nature spirits, after all. When an animist seeks to communicate with a nature spirit, such as a mountain, they can do so in a dreamlike way. An animist might go to the mountain an sleep on it outdoors, to encounter the spirit of the mountain during dreams. Sometimes the mountain communicates via waking visions. When a human physically "enters" the Feywild, they exit the Material Plane, thus dematerialize, and become the immaterial thought stuff of dreams. Their new body is a virtual body of a dream. The dreamworld of the Feywild is organized by subjective rules, not objective ones, except persons can experience each others subjectivity in a relativistic way.
In the material world, a material mountain looms majestically. At the same time, the mind of the mountain can interact with the minds of other natural features. The mountain projects its mind out in the form virtual dream body, and can have social encounters with other dream bodies that the other natural features have projected.
There is a Deep Dreaming, where Feywild is fully dreamlike and wildly physically unstable, so as to open the door of a house and step thru to be in the middle of a vast ocean, or so on. Here, the transitions make sense because of the symbolism that is in play. A "lucid dreamer" can intentionally reshape the environment, forming personal or shared "domains" within the Feywild.
But there is also a Shallow Dreaming, where the Feywild closely overlaps the Material Plane. Here, the dreamscape moreorless coheres with the laws of physics according to the Material Plane, as the shared dreams include the Dreaming of the features of nature. In this border between Fey and Material, individuals who are telepathically sensitive or adept at Fey magic or dream magic, can perceive normally and clearly the events happening on the other side of the "veil".
Normally nature spirits project their minds into dreams and visions, as phantasms within the mind of those who they are communicating with. Sometimes, a nature spirit, perhaps in a human-like form, can appear objectively to onlookers. In this case, the manifestation is effectively an illusion, and objects can pass thru it if onlookers interact physically with this dreamstuff. The projected illusion is a kind of avatar.
However, it is also possible for the nature spirit to "conjure" its mental projection into a physical form within the Material Plane, that is virtually a normal human in every way. (Or the avatar appears as some other humanoid, or as a beast.) If the nature spirit crosses the "veil" out of the Feywild and into the Material Plane, in this way, its illusion becomes quasi-real. At this point, the nature spirit gains solidity and interacts as if a human. The conjured avatar can even have human children. If this avatar is "killed" within the Material Plane, normally its material form dissipates, and the mind of the nature spirit returns to itself, being the natural feature in this world. Any children from the human-like avatar are normal humans, but exhibit physical characteristics and magical traits, reminiscent of the specific natural feature. The human child of a mountain might be strong, tough, with sharp memory, enduring willpower, and majestic charisma. The avatar can choose to dissipate at any time, to return home. A mountain spirit might feel homesick, longing to return to live the life of a mountain.
The text mentions in passing, "Alfheim" and "Faerie". To the degree that the Dreaming Feywild is actually the thisworldly nature spirits, I am comfortable with the equation. It implies that EVERY spirit in the Feywild is the mindful dreamspirit of some specific feature that actually exists in this Material Plane. A particular tree, a particular rock, a particular wellspring, a particular sunbeam. Social interactions that take place within the Feywild are what causes natural events in the material world, such as the arrival of springtime, the overflow of a river, an earthquake, a thriving of a thicket of trees. The thing about a rock is, it is normally happy being a rock. So it normally just sits there. But sometimes it is curious and projects its mind outward to engage with a particular human or so on. Sometimes it projects to visit other nature spirits.
There is a difference between Alfheim and Faerie.
The Celtic Faerie is earthy. Its faeries live underground in mounds and caves, and flourish across landscape of the Material Plane, making plants thrive. Each mound or cave, or patch of fertile soil, is a faerie, the home of the minds of faeries. By contrast, the Norse Alfheim is skyey. Its alfar live above clouds, and flourish wherever sunrays shine. The solar halo around the sun (more visible during an eclipse) appears to be the original home of the mind of the alfar, and each sunray, each sunbeam connecting the land below, each brilliant reflection of the surface of clouds and snow are the minds of alfar. Both the Faerie "elf" and the Alfheim "elf" are perceived by humans as stunningly beautiful and persuasively charming, which appears to be why the two groups of "elves" got equated. Also both groups embody fate, fertility, success, and personify magical energy. A faerie and an alf are actually the minds of the forces of magic itself. The identity comes from being the timelines of fates, whence being oracles who communicate the future, whence using magic to change the future to predetermine success or failure, whence using magic to change anything. The faerie and the alf are the spirits of magic itself.
Regarding the alfar, these are sunrays. Not the sundisk itself, but the aura of light around the sun, and the sunlight beaming from it. These "elves" are a solar aspect. In nations nearer the equator, the sun can be hot and harsh. However in nations nearer the arctic, the sun is gentle and lifegiving. The elves associate with the gentler solar aspects. Their aura of light is described as lovely, and in folklore as an aura of soft white light, reminiscent of the subtle light of the solar halo. Despite their skyey home, the elves occasionally fly down to earth, such as shapeshifting into the magical constructs of gleaming white swans. Rarely, an elf might choose to remain to live among humans, almost always because of a sense of future successful fate to accomplish, and sometimes to help a human family in honor of some human ancestor who befriended the elf.
Celtic elves are strictly nocturnal, active at night, and merit Darkvision. Norse elves are sunlight itself, obviously diurnal, and probably lack Darkvision.
Perhaps, "Faerie" refers to the twilight forests of the Feywild. "Alfheim" refers to the daylight sky of the Feywild. In a Dream, the forest is twilight, and the sky is daytime, at the same time.
I would love it if "high elf" and the "wood elf" is Celtic-esque and earthy, and the "sun elf" and the "moon elf" is Norse-esque and skyey. (In concept, of course: physical appearances might resemble any human ethnic group.)
The Feywild Plane and the Astral Plane are both made out of psionic thought stuff. However they differ. The Feywild comprises the dreams of individual persons, and is viscerally oriented toward each individual body. By contrast, the Aster comprises the thought systems of a collective culture. Each Astral domain is a social construct, comprising empowered ideas and disempowered ideas. The Aster is an intellectual realm for philosophers and social engineers. The Fey is a romantic realm of artists and dreamers. The celestial and infernal are both Astral domains, made out of the "thought stuff" called Aster.
The Feywild is different from the Shadowfell. The Feywild is moreso the dreams that connect current events to potential future outcomes. The Shadowfell is moreso the dreams that connect current events to fading past memories.
The Feywild is different from the Ether. The Fey Plane is psionic and made out of thought stuff, specifically the aspect of dream stuff. The Ethereal Plane is elemental and made out of physical forces, such as gravity. It seems, telekinesis is the manipulation of fifth element called Ether, being force, in the same way that pyrokinesis is the manipulation of element of Fire, being plasma of sun and lightning, and suggestive in flame, and hydrokinesis is the manipulation of the element of Water, being liquid. The five Elemental states are Ether force, Air gas, Water liquid, Earth solid, and Fire plasma.
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The playtest presents the description of Elf origins as a collection of competing narratives. Each elf culture champions its own traditions concerning "who was first".
This plurality is highly useful for game play, because it can accommodate different kinds of settings (even modern and scifi!), and individual personal preferences.
The difficulty is: How would an elf not know what the origins are? Elves are longlived, and there well may be elves who are still around who were alive back then during these origins.
It occurs to me.
Elves correlate with the timelines of fates. It might well be, there are rare instances of time travel, perhaps for the sake of outmaneuvering a disastrous future that destroys humanity. Despite this reweaving of past fates being rare, it is highly significant. The time paradoxes are disruptive but sometimes a necessary consequence.
Thus, the elf origins involve time paradoxes, where the conflicting points of views of various elf cultures are factually correcting, each from their own relativistic point of view. So, while the elves acknowledge the conflicting traditions as legitimate, each culture champions its own relativistic temporal point of view. Of course. And these conflicting perspectives become a kind of rivalry between cultural identities, similar to rival sports teams.
This plurality is highly useful for game play, because it can accommodate different kinds of settings (even modern and scifi!), and individual personal preferences.
The difficulty is: How would an elf not know what the origins are? Elves are longlived, and there well may be elves who are still around who were alive back then during these origins.
It occurs to me.
Elves correlate with the timelines of fates. It might well be, there are rare instances of time travel, perhaps for the sake of outmaneuvering a disastrous future that destroys humanity. Despite this reweaving of past fates being rare, it is highly significant. The time paradoxes are disruptive but sometimes a necessary consequence.
Thus, the elf origins involve time paradoxes, where the conflicting points of views of various elf cultures are factually correcting, each from their own relativistic point of view. So, while the elves acknowledge the conflicting traditions as legitimate, each culture champions its own relativistic temporal point of view. Of course. And these conflicting perspectives become a kind of rivalry between cultural identities, similar to rival sports teams.
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