Level Up (A5E) Level Up Playtest 1: Elves

[Haldrik]

I hope for more authentic ethnic perspectives from East Asian themes. Likewise, I hope for more authentic ethnic perspectives from North European themes.

Publications can give descriptions and options for gameplay, that the members of the referenced ethnicities can recognize and feel comfortable with. It is part of cultural sensitivity and avoiding the misrepresentation of ethnic groups.

 

[Haldrik]

Polled my players in Discord, they all unanimously assumed Norse elves would have snow powers

Heh, snow powers would be a Norse giants thing (some of them).

I would love to play with your group where you can assume they all have read the Eddas and the Book of Invasions. Seems like I would get along with you all. But I still think you guys might be a little more erudite than you give yourself credit for.

Presumably, your players know about Drow, because they read what the gaming options for Drow are. Likewise, when talking about Samurai or Light Elves, or Storm Giants or Ice Ogres, they would know about them from the gaming options for them. It is the publication that doublechecks to ensure that the options are culturally sensitive. Your players need not be "erudite" to have a culturally informed game. They pick the options they like.

 

[Haldrik]

Elven Gifts

"
Variant: Blessing of the Firstborn
Some elves—and their descendants—have the miraculous ability to manifest the gender mutability possessed by the elvish gods. At the GM’s choice, a character can also have the gift Blessing of the Firstborn in addition to their other heritage gift.

Blessing of the Firstborn. Whenever you complete a long rest, you can change your sex. If you are pregnant when you change your sex, you can keep your pregnancy while changing your sex outwardly. This allows you to detect whether or not you have conceived, even if the pregnancy is too early to detect through other means.

"

• Sex-shifting seems an interesting trait, appropriate for fantasy settings. It has been an explicit theme in D&D since 1e with the Girdle of Gender Change, albeit as a cursed item that was involuntary. It has also been possible at high level with Shapechange, and low level with Alter Self. Here the concept of the Elf Gift is voluntary, can alternate back and forth between the various genders, and is a blessing.

• I am unsure why the GM permission is necessary. How is it different from any character that chooses male or female for the sex of the character? I wouldnt ask my GM for permission to say my elf character was male. To say, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes androgynous, sometimes nonbinary, seems not really different in principle.

• Rather than referring to "elvish gods", it seems more accurate to refer to "elven ancestors". Also, it helps to avoid baking in cosmological assumptions, such as the existence of gods, into feature descriptions for heritage or class, that might be used for different settings, or even different genres.

• I like the reference to keeping a pregnancy inward. Altho less likely to come up during gameplay, it is a vivid way to define how the blessing works.

• My main question is, does the gender transformation grant a mechanical benefit for gaming encounters? I am unclear about this. For example, are the alternate gender forms all recognizably the same person, or does the change imply an effective disguise, similar to a changeling character? In any case, I would like more clarification about what the Gift can or cannot do.

 

[maceochaid]

I think we have already had this conversation though in a previous post. I think we are getting mixed up again with you talking about contemporary Neopagan reconstruction of Norse beliefs and I'm talking about the archeological/historical record about Norse Elves. It's an interesting idea that a distinction might need to be made. Jackson Crawford is a really great resource, he is normally really good about separating out Contemporary Asatru and the Christian authors who were writing about Norse mythology.

 

[Haldrik]

@maceochaid

The Norse are more animistic. Jackson Crawford described the elves as less than the gods. But actually, they are equals. Elves and aesir are both nature spirits and personify specific features of the sky. (Regarding D&D, the aesir are more like archfey.)

Altho mentioning Alfheim, he didnt mention that Alfheim is one of the places in the list of things that exist in the sky. This seems to be significant, when he contrasts the dvergar who live underground versus the alfar who live in the sky. It makes me ask if he didnt notice, or is too dependent on Non-Scandiavian commentators.



Compare Shakespeare. Shakespeare only mentions the fairies in passing, sometimes as characters, sometimes as humans pretending to be fairies, sometimes in stray remarks. However, if one combs thru all of the works of Shakespeare to assemble all of these references to fairies, one assembles a surprisingly comprehensive presentation of the reallife beliefs about fairies in southern England during his era.

Similarly, most Non-Scandinavians focus on the eddas, with regard to elves, but there are passing references across the prolific sagas.



Some things are reasonably clear concerning the Norse concept of elves and dwarves.

• Both elves and dwarves are personifications of fates. Possibly the giant norns are fates of the world, while elves and dwarves are fates of individuals.
• Elves associate with a good fate where a person impacts many people, while dwarves associate with a bad fate where a person is inconsequential and impacts few people.
• That said, occasionally an elf is cruel and a dwarf is helpful, again relating to the big picture of fate.
• The term "elf" refers to a lucky influence for a fortunate fate, that is beneficial to a human.
• (A similar English term "angel" can be specific or improper, but is usually a positive influence of miracle and beauty.)
• The term "dark elf" or "black elf" is a nickname for an individual dwarf, who seems beneficial in some way.

• In the sense that both elves and dwarves personify fates, they might be the related after all, even tho they are quite different from each other.

• In the Voluspa, the list(s) of dwarf names were inserted later. If removed, the earlier text suggests, the dwarves created the human bodies out of wood, and the aesir brought these wooden statues to life. Thus the dwarves appear as shapers and makers. Meanwhile, since the creation refers to humans, there is no creation story for dwarves. There is an origin story for giants, aesir, humans, and corpses. But there is no origin story for vanir, elves, and possibly dwarves.



• According to Viking Era Scandinavians, the dwarf is human sized. (Jackson Crawford seems off here.) Only the German dwarf Albrecht is described as short, called Alfrikr in Old Icelandic, and this dwarf comes in a context of stories about Germany, and this saga appears centuries after the Viking Era. Archeological images of dwarves in Sweden and Norway, show dwarves the same size as humans.

• The dwarf petrifies in direct sunlight.
• The dwarf is intelligent and knowledgeable.
• The dwarf is strong, especially to hold things in place.
• The dwarf makes magical items.

• The dwarf tends to be antisocial and deathlike, presumably because they are features of stone and dont move.
• The deathlike qualities relate to shamanic trances, whence dwarves are competent in shamanic forms of magic.
• Dwarves can project outofbody and travel in the form of animals, like shamans can, but while lying still as rocks.
• A name such "Gand-alf", means something like "helpful for shaman magic", referring to the shaman staff used in outofbody journeys, and to elves who are fatefully beneficial.

• Dwarves live underground, and only come out at night.
• Stray references to "children of the mist" might suggest mist in the sense of murkiness, being used to screen out the direct sunlight during daytime.

• Dwarves live inside stones and mud. They associate with unusually shaped rocks. Possibly dwarves are the nature spirits associating with features that are inside stones, such as iron mineral deposits, crystal formations, layering of strata from different eons, and other kinds of mineral patterns. This can explain their association with crafting.



• According to Viking Era Scandinavians, the elf is also human sized. (Also most "giant" jotuns are human sized, even if some individuals grow bigger.)

• The elf associates with fate and powerful magic.
• Elves master all arts of magic, including mind magic, shaman magic, magic item creation. A leader of the elven parliament is called a "songster" (Lodi), referring to warrior magic. The concepts suggest magic being used as methods of combat.
• Elves are somewhat like "cupids", causing certain individuals to fall in love, and relating to future children and other fateful outcomes. One story has one elf causing an other elf to fall in love. This love-sick elf has fateful consequences.
• Several stories mention elf and human having children, who are known to be powerful mages because of their elven parentage.

• Elves are beautiful in a luminous way. (Contrast mountain giants who are beautiful in a dark-hair way.)
• Elves are eternally youthful. One elf appeared elderly as the result of being cursed by an other elf.
• Elves are luminous, with the light being appealing and gentle, relating to sunrays, the solar corona, and sunbeams.

• Alfheim is in the sky, and associates with aspects of sunlight. In a passing reference, the elves hover in midair, presumably relating to sunbeams.
• Elves have their own parliament to govern themselves.
• Elves occasionally fly down from the sky, by taking the form of a bird, especially a swan.
• Usually these elves live among sunbeams thru trees or gleams off of snow, before returning home to sky, but can live as if human among humans.
• It is uncertain if a passing reference to "slither" refers to snowshoes (proto-skis) glancing of snow, or shapeshifting into a snake.


• The scholar Alric Hall suggests almost all references to dis and the nickname valkyrja are female elves, while the name "alfr" is always male.
• The valkyrja who chooses when a war hero dies, relates to the aspect of a good fate of a good afterlife, when the breath moves skyward and the body decomposes earthward.

• Elves are spirits. Some stories mention them materializing and dematerializing.




So, while there remain things we would want to know, there is a reasonably useful sense of what the Scandinavian cultural heritage believed about elves and dwarves.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In Eberron, two elven cultures long nostalgically for their immortal origins.

One group actually is immortal, using necromancy to keep ancestors undead.

The other group is mortal.

Maybe for the mortal group, they are immortal in the sense of reincarnation, where their immortal Fey spirit continues to reincarnate within the Material Plane, generation after generation. While trancing, the elves also relive earlier incarnations. In this way, the Fey spirit literally is continuing on their personal ideal of their earlier incarnation.

They don't do it because they have nostalgia for their origins. They do it to preserve their ancestors. Without intervention, when an elf dies, they go to the same place almost everyone else does, where they will lose their memories and identity. Many races view this as transcendence, but to elves it it a loss of that individual. Thus they find ways to try to prevent them from transitioning to Dolurrh. One group does it with necromancy. The other by linking the spirits of their great heroes with themselves and trying to keep their memories alive by renacting their deeds.

In any case, the idea that Fey spirits have a lifespan of say 600 years (common) and even a 1000 years (uncommon), but that some continue on immortally (rare), sounds good to me.

I'm pretty sure it was a house rule, but my DM for a cyclopedia game ran that elves were immortal until they chose to reproduce.

 

[tetrasodium]

They don't do it because they have nostalgia for their origins. They do it to preserve their ancestors. Without intervention, when an elf dies, they go to the same place almost everyone else does, where they will lose their memories and identity. Many races view this as transcendence, but to elves it it a loss of that individual. Thus they find ways to try to prevent them from transitioning to Dolurrh. One group does it with necromancy. The other by linking the spirits of their great heroes with themselves and trying to keep their memories alive by renacting their deeds.

I'm pretty sure it was a house rule, but my DM for a cyclopedia game ran that elves were immortal until they chose to reproduce.

That's a good point I wasn't making. Dolurrh iis eberron's realm of the dead & It's important horiffic it is even by standards of things like FR's wall of souls. All of eberron's unusual religions (cosf, BoV & it's more primal predicessor Kalok shash, The Six, The Nine, etc)

 

[Haldrik]

They don't do it because they have nostalgia for their origins. They do it to preserve their ancestors.

On rereading, 5e Eberron elves lack an origin story. They appear to have already existed before the giants enslaved them.

In Eberron cosmology Thelanis is equivalent to the Feywild.

4e Eberron elves originate from Eladrin from the Plane of Feywild. (Eberron Players Guide, Eladrin, Elves).

"The race of elves descended from these displaced eladrin."

Specifically, one of the feyspire tower cities manifested from the Feywild in Xendrik, which the giants captured, and the eladrin of this feyspire eventually evolved into the various elves.

"The eladrin toiled in slavery for years before eventually rebelling and fleeing Xen’drik. Generations of isolation from the Feywild fundamentally changed them, though. The eladrin became what the inhabitants of Eberron now call elves. ... With few exceptions, elves [revere] their ancestors in the form of the Undying Court or the Spirits of the Past. "

Ultimately, the ancestors of Eberron elves are the potentially immortal elves of the Feywild.

That said, the 5e Eberron elves moreso celebrate how their ancestors escaped slavery.

 

[tetrasodium]

On rereading, 5e Eberron elves lack an origin story. They appear to have already existed before the giants enslaved them.

However, 4e Eberron elves originate from Eladrin from the Feywild. (Eberron Players Guide, Elves).

"The race of elves descended from these displaced eladrin."

Specifically, one of the feyspire tower cities manifested from the Feywild in Xendrik, which the giants captured, and the eladrin of this feyspire eventually evolved into the various elves.

Ultimately, the ancestors of Eberron are the potentially immortal elves of the Feywild.

The magbreeding from captured eldar was introduced in 4e yea, but they were never FR elves or advanced. This is from secrets of xendrik pg8/9

The Dragons taught the giants their magic after binding the demon overlords & ending that war. Eberron's Dragons are akin to vorlons on the power scale so it's almost like if FR had a race where The Gods gave them the secrets of deific levels they used to build an empire & tough to understate how advanced that giant empire of xendrik was before the dragons destroyed it by cursing the entire continent. The only setting with something comparable to the destroyed giant empire is the also destroyed halfling empire of Athas(darksun). The giants made the creation forges that create warforge & destroyed a moon in the process of magically altering the orbit of an entire plane. The halflings drew energy from the sun to power things, created races(lifeshaping,fleshwarping, & pristine tower), reshaped the world, etc.

At the time the giants captured/created the elves the other races were simply "lesser races" (-80,000yk) that aren't even listed with a name on the timeline till one is enslaved. The elves don't establish an empire till -39,000yk for about 10,000 years after the giant empire falls & soon after the dhakaani (Dar/Goblinoid) empire pulls together around -16,000 yk. but back in 3.5 there was only a couple sentences about any of those events each edition since hwas able to add greater detail since the setting differs from FR in that it will alwats start ar 998yk rather thn timeskips & retcons to support an evolving metaplot.

 

[Haldrik]

The magbreeding from captured eldar was introduced in 4e yea, but they were never FR elves or advanced. This is from secrets of xendrik pg8/9
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The Dragons taught the giants their magic after binding the demon overlords & ending that war. Eberron's Dragons are akin to vorlons on the power scale so it's almost like if FR had a race where The Gods gave them the secrets of deific levels they used to build an empire & tough to understate how advanced that giant empire of xendrik was before the dragons destroyed it by cursing the entire continent. The only setting with something comparable to the destroyed giant empire is the also destroyed halfling empire of Athas(darksun). The giants made the creation forges that create warforge & destroyed a moon in the process of magically altering the orbit of an entire plane. The halflings drew energy from the sun to power things, created races(lifeshaping,fleshwarping, & pristine tower), reshaped the world, etc.

At the time the giants captured/created the elves the other races were simply "lesser races" (-80,000yk) that aren't even listed with a name on the timeline till one is enslaved. The elves don't establish an empire till -39,000yk for about 10,000 years after the giant empire falls & soon after the dhakaani (Dar/Goblinoid) empire pulls together around -16,000 yk. but back in 3.5 there was only a couple sentences about any of those events each edition since hwas able to add greater detail since the setting differs from FR in that it will alwats start ar 998yk rather thn timeskips & retcons to support an evolving metaplot.

Perhaps the giants taught the Fey eladrin elves to weild giant magic, namely the elemental magic of earth fire, air water, and ether. Previously the eladrin were more about mind magic (fate, charm, illusion), and life magic (healing, animals, and plants).

In any case, these eladrin elves already have an innate "talent for arcane arts", that the giants themselves were not responsible for.

Interestingly, Eberron giant magic seems to depend on the size of the practitioner. But the elven innate mastery of magic obviated this size prerequisite.