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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.
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".
Fey conjurations, materialize into the physical world as constructs made out of magical energy (ether), and have tactile force and apparent solidity. If this avatar is "killed", normally the conjuration dissipates and the mind of the nature spirit returns to itself, the natural feature in this world. Occasionally, a nature spirit can conjure itself sotospeak, to manifest in this way, appearing as a human-like being to encounter humans in the Material Plane. This magical construct is virtually human in every way, and can even produce human children with natural humans. These children are normal humans, but exhibit physical appearance and magical capabilities, reminiscent of the specific natural feature. The virtually human construct 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 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.
It depends on the setting. In darksun the elves may have been created in the blue or green age by halflings maybe using some combination of the pristine tower, lifeshaping, & flesh warping or maybe not but they showed up around 14,000 years before the current date but he whole civilization ending mass genocides & lots more make records spotty. In eberron it's factually known that elves were a slave race magebred from captured eldar by the giant empire of xendriik something like 81,000 years ago because the giants kept good records & the elves remembered their roots/history.
Yeah, that is why conflicting narratives are useful for game design, and why it is important to avoid baking in a cosmological setting into the core rules.
It is nice to be able to use the same rules for different kinds of worlds.
The section about elves mentions "gods" in the context of one of the conflicting worldviews. These gods may or may not exist, depending on the narrative. It feels Eberron-like, in its subjectivity that lacks objective certainty. I value this design approach.
For me, the reallife elven traditions resonate. Both the Charisma of personal presence (and of bards, charm, song, art, persuasive advising, even politics in elven courts, even Intimidation in the sense of spookiness) and the Comeliness of transforming ones body into a work of art, are central to the elf concept. Beauty is something the elves do instinctively.
At the same time, I am a fan of options that empower the player to decide what the character will be.
Players even have a say in what kind of world they want to play in. If a game will have gods or not, the players are as important as the DM to decide something like that.
I am Jewish and dont want gods, because of reallife ethnic reasons.
At the same time, I am comfortable with animism, because that is pre-theistic, and involves no worship.
Elves themselves are nature spirits (of the sunrays).
I like the elves of Norse sources, with solar tropes. So the sky-blue eyes and sun-gold hair and cloud-white skin, are important for skyey flavor.
At the same time, it is just as easy to have sky-blue skin, cloud-white hair, and sun-gold eyes, and still keep true to the sunray tropes.
Also, any skyey color is possible, including orange and red and purple sunsets. (Whence human shades of orange skin.)
Also, I feel solar eclipse tropes suggest solid black skin and hair. Maybe eyes are are white-gold as the solar halo, or dimly luminous with a starry sky within.
There is lots of room for varying the complexions of a character, that a player can decide from, and still stay true to the sunshine themes.
So far, discussions involve "Elf physical descriptions" and "Elf origins". Now for "Elf immortality".
... These long-lived people.
Elves do not merely “survive” in this world; they are among the world’s ancient masters. Elvish culture predates that of other cultures, except perhaps the cultures of dragons and giants. How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality.
...
Age. Elf children mature at the same rate as human children, but elvish cultures do not consider them to be fully mentally developed (nor age of majority) until they acquire a century of life experience. Elves today can live to be 700 or older, and legends speak of elves who simply never die.
I feel the Level Up playtest handles elven immortality perfectly.
The longevity of most elves is toward 700 years. But individuals are possible "who never die".
This sounds about right.
Since there is no real ceiling for life expectency, maybe maybe mention a lifespan of 600 years is "common", with immortality being "rare". Presumably there are eladrin elves who are archfey who are immortal. Perhaps their immortality allowed them enough time to achieve the high levels of archfey. Even someone like Corellon and Lolth are simply normal elves who have lived along time. They are honored because they are immortal ancestors who are still alive among their descendents. Here the family value of "honor thy parent" is quite literal. There is nothing "religious" about it per se.
Whether a lifespan is many centuries or forever, in either case there is a sense of "eternal youth". Most reach an apparent age of 20, and remain about 20 forever.
In any case, there is a sense that any elf might be one of the few who seem to live indefinitely. Most are finite. But some continue on. Perhaps the immortal feel survivors guilt? Perhaps the immortals feel a sense of responsibility as parents for the elven communities?
The part of the playtest that really struck me is:
"How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality."
Immortality! Every elf is potentially immortal.
This is so important. And so central to the character concept. The player needs to wrap ones head around this, to roleplay an elf.
So far, in my experience, D&D seems to handwaive a millennium lifespan, by saying, "be aloof" and "dont sweat the small", or something like that.
But think about. If you knew you might be immortal. And you have met longlife family members and perhaps was at an elven court of an immortal elf. If that might be you one day, how would you feel? What would you do?
The answer to that question, is what makes an elf a character.
So far, discussions involve "Elf physical descriptions" and "Elf origins". Now for "Elf immortality".
... These long-lived people.
Elves do not merely “survive” in this world; they are among the world’s ancient masters. Elvish culture predates that of other cultures, except perhaps the cultures of dragons and giants. How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality.
...
Age. Elf children mature at the same rate as human children, but elvish cultures do not consider them to be fully mentally developed (nor age of majority) until they acquire a century of life experience. Elves today can live to be 700 or older, and legends speak of elves who simply never die.
I feel the Level Up playtest handles elven immortality perfectly.
The longevity of most elves is toward 700 years. But individuals are possible "who never die".
This sounds about right.
Since there is no real ceiling for life expectency, maybe maybe mention a lifespan of 600 years is "common", with immortality being "rare". Presumably there are eladrin elves who are archfey who are immortal. Perhaps their immortality allowed them enough time to achieve the high levels of archfey. Even someone like Corellon and Lolth are simply normal elves who have lived along time. They are honored because they are immortal ancestors who are still alive among their descendents. Here the family value of "honor thy parent" is quite literal. There is nothing "religious" about it per se.
Whether a lifespan is many centuries or forever, in either case there is a sense of "eternal youth". Most reach an apparent age of 20, and remain about 20 forever.
In any case, there is a sense that any elf might be one of the few who seem to live indefinitely. Most are finite. But some continue on. Perhaps the immortal feel survivors guilt? Perhaps the immortals feel a sense of responsibility as parents for the elven communities?
The part of the playtest that really struck me is:
"How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality."
Immortality! Every elf is potentially immortal.
This is so important. And so central to the character concept. The player needs to wrap ones head around this, to roleplay an elf.
So far, in my experience, D&D seems to handwaive a millennium lifespan, by saying, "be aloof" and "dont sweat the small", or something like that.
But think about. If you knew you might be immortal. And you have met longlife family members and perhaps was at an elven court of an immortal elf. If that might be you one day, how would you feel? What would you do?
The answer to that question, is what makes an elf a character.
Eberron's half elves are called khorivar & consider themselves a different species with the elves being quite happy with it that way. Imagine having a kid after one night at the bar as an early adolescent/teenager equivalent who will themselves have kids>grow old>die & wind up with a couple generations of great great grandkids who will do the same before your middle aged. What's worse is that you'll live his/her whole life knowing that they could never live long enough to even reach entry level "good enough to qualify" no matter how talented & devoted to something they are. That kinda thing would be the sort of soul crushing despair that forces you to keep your distance & just try to discourage them against wasting their time whenever you can.
Eberron's half elves are called khorivar & consider themselves a different species with the elves being quite happy with it that way. Imagine having a kid after one night at the bar as an early adolescent/teenager equivalent who will themselves have kids>grow old>die & wind up with a couple generations of great great grandkids who will do the same before your middle aged. What's worse is that you'll live his/her whole life knowing that they could never live long enough to even reach entry level "good enough to qualify" no matter how talented & devoted to something they are. That kinda thing would be the sort of soul crushing despair that forces you to keep your distance & just try to discourage them against wasting their time whenever you can.
So youre saying? One response to immortality is a burning resentment against seniority. That is an awesome character concept! I am interested if someone puts this under Ideal (meritocracy) or Flaw (spiteful against governments).
So youre saying? One response to immortality is a burning resentment against seniority. That is an awesome character concept! I am interested if someone puts this under Ideal (meritocracy) or Flaw (spiteful against governments).
Yea kinda. think of it like that one kid in school always telling everyone ho much they sucked at everything & that they were just wasting their time but imagine that kid doing it out of the goodness of their heart knowing everyone else would never be good enough because their best will always be flawed from all the shortcuts they had to take to learn it in their limited lifetime even when those shortcuts don't impact the end result... That kind of behavior is just unacceptable so they distance themselves & try to avoid acting like they might care what the short lived races are doing just cause mild offense is better than the gigantic offense
Yea kinda. think of it like that one kid in school always telling everyone ho much they sucked at everything & that they were just wasting their time but imagine that kid doing it out of the goodness of their heart knowing everyone else would never be good enough because their best will always be flawed from all the shortcuts they had to take to learn it in their limited lifetime even when those shortcuts don't impact the end result... That kind of behavior is just unacceptable so they distance themselves & try to avoid acting like they might care what the short lived races are doing just cause mild offense is better than the gigantic offense
I mentioned seniority and meritocracy. But actually, the immortals have more experience and really are better at their jobs. So the immortals do merit the jobs moreso than the younger generations. The youth can never catch up, can never be as good. So it feels pointless to even try to be as good.
(I wonder if our grandchildren will feel similar when AI and robots do almost all jobs better than a natural human could? Why study to be a medical surgeon when AI and robots are superior?)
Heh, no wonder some elves have a reputation for shirking responsibilities and being immature! Why bother!
Maybe that can be a reason why elves turn to art, a celebration of life and beauty made possible by a life of leasure.
And magic and its infinite potential is a satisfying eternal pastime. Each elf explores magic in ones own unique way, at whatever level the elf is at. By magic, each elf can invent ones own job, something one loves to do, to make the universe more beautiful.
