Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
I feel D&D "species" is the most helpful way to escape the dejure and defacto incidents of racism that occasionally recycle within D&D. These arent the Human species, nor Human ethnicities.
D&D General So how do Half-Elfs feel different to Elfs?
- Thread starter Tonguez
- Start date
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I mean, changing the term from “race” to something else for that reason is a good idea. Changing it to “species” specifically is a bad choice IMO because it invites dumb arguments about which peoples should or shouldn’t be able to have children together.
If it’s not clear from context, “peoples” would have been my preferred alternative.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
For me "a people" means a Human ethnicity, and perpetuates the difficulty.
I like the term "species", its emphasis on a "human species", homo sapiens. At the same time, there is a medievalesque usage in the sense of "a kind" of creature. Thus, the species involve more than biological distinctions, and can include magical and planar distinctions, where some species dont even have Material Plane flesh nor blood nor DNA.
Not doesn't age. Ages slower.
Humans have adult bodies in their late teen or early 20s. Add in training of your class, you are 20-25 at level 1 the youngest in 90% of cases. So you have 25-35 years to adventurer before you are too old unless you magically lengthen your age.
Elves mature physically at around 20 but are socially and magically not an adult until age 100. Then you spend the next 200-500 years as an adult depending on edition. But you might be indoctrinated by then and it takes you 10 times as learn to learn now.
Half elf, you age up to 20 to an adult mind body and soul. Then you have another 70 to 200 years depending on setting as a fully fledged, youthful, not-old adult. Tons of time to fill in a background of a 20 year veteran of the Mushroom Wars but looking like a hot 20 year old.
kigmatzomat
Legend
Seriously? 5e half elves live 180 years and elves live to 750.
So let's take a set of half-siblings: human (Mike), half-elf(Hank) and elf (Evan) born in the year 1300AD. All the human parents are 25yro (born 1275AD) the elven parents are a roughly human equivalent (heq25) of 150yro (born 1150AD).
- 1320AD Mike (human) and Hank (half-elf) are adults with jobs. Evan (elf) is roughly fully grown but is effectively a "tween" who will live with relatives for another 80 years. Human parents (45yro) are getting to middle age, elven parents are effectively unchanged at heq27/170yro.
- 1330 Hank (heq25) may be watching Evan (heq13ish) and Mike's young kids. Mike (30) looks older than the heq28 elven aunts/uncles.
- 1350 Hank's human parent, as well as Mike's parents, are all geriatric (75+ yro). The elven parents (heq30) look younger than Hank (heq35) and Mike is 50. Evan (heq15ish) is still 50 years from his adult name, is likely caring for his human aunt/uncle along with an assortment of Hank and Mike's kids and possibly grandkids.
- 1380 The human parents are dead, Mike is elderly, Hank is middle age (heq50) but looks younger than some of Mike's kids, Evan is heq18 and his parents are heq33.
- 1375 Evan(heq25) is expecting his first child. Hank (heq97) is holding on to see his elven niece/nephew. One of Mike's great-great-great-great-grandchildren might be present to witness the birth of their 8th cousin. Evan's parents (heq45) look about the same age as Hank's half-elven great-great-grandkids.
- 1900 Evan's parents, who were born in the age of Charlemagne, lived to see steam trains.
- 2026 Evan (heq98) is equivalent to where Hank was in 1375. He was born in the age of cannons, lived through the ages of steam, combustion, flight, nuclear power, and computers.
In summary
- Human Mike will spend his whole life watching a single generation of elves almost reach adulthood. He will see his half-elven relative seem a bit younger through middle age, but Mike will rapidly gray and die even as the half-elf is middle aged.
- half-elf Hank is barely likely to see the birth of elven relatives' offspring. He will see four generations of human relatives grow old and die.
- Elf Evan knows his half-elven relatives will see no more than 2 generations of elves when he could elven great- or great-great-grandchildren. Evan will see several dozen human generations. His lifespan will exceed most human empires. Even if he never leaves the village he was born, the human language he spoke at birth will likely be unintelligible to humans in the same village when he dies.
Laurefindel
Legend
TL;DR: Half-Elves are popular because they can be special without being alien.
Now that I have a bit more time, here’s the long version:
1) For a long time, half-elves ans half-orcs were the only options of clearly mixed heritage. You could always roleplay a human of mixed heritage, but these were built-in archetypes already in the game. An archetype of mixed heritage; that spoke to a lot of people.
2) Half-Elves had one big advantage over half-orcs; they were pretty. Elves were (and are still) fantasized as comely, wise, intelligent, and graceful; traits that are often desired in a fantasy version of ourselves. So for players who are drawn to the escapism and romanticism of RPG, being pretty, smart, and graceful is very attractive. Obviously, elves are also a choice but they are (although less so nowadays) considered. haughty, fragile, effeminate, elitists, stuck-up, or even amoral. Playing a half-elf allowed for all the good bits of elves without the baggage (real or perceived) that goes with them.
3) The something-more-than-human, bit-of-an-outsider is a very popular trope. So popular that we have several species of that now, mainly aasimars, tieflings and to a certain extent, Goliath. I think WorC though Half-Elf/Orc redundant, but they remain relevant IMO. More so than orcs or elves IMO.
Now that I have a bit more time, here’s the long version:
1) For a long time, half-elves ans half-orcs were the only options of clearly mixed heritage. You could always roleplay a human of mixed heritage, but these were built-in archetypes already in the game. An archetype of mixed heritage; that spoke to a lot of people.
2) Half-Elves had one big advantage over half-orcs; they were pretty. Elves were (and are still) fantasized as comely, wise, intelligent, and graceful; traits that are often desired in a fantasy version of ourselves. So for players who are drawn to the escapism and romanticism of RPG, being pretty, smart, and graceful is very attractive. Obviously, elves are also a choice but they are (although less so nowadays) considered. haughty, fragile, effeminate, elitists, stuck-up, or even amoral. Playing a half-elf allowed for all the good bits of elves without the baggage (real or perceived) that goes with them.
3) The something-more-than-human, bit-of-an-outsider is a very popular trope. So popular that we have several species of that now, mainly aasimars, tieflings and to a certain extent, Goliath. I think WorC though Half-Elf/Orc redundant, but they remain relevant IMO. More so than orcs or elves IMO.
jmartkdr2
Hero
Or, put another way:
A 30 year old human today would probably not remember the 20th century at all. Their earliest historical memory might be the 2008 Crash or the Arab Spring.
An equally mature half-elf would have been born in 1970 or so, and would remember the Cold War, the Fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11, as well as Black Monday.
An equally mature elf would 150-200 years old; ie born before World War One at least, and probably remembering the buildup to it if their parents talked about it at dinner.
The just have a massively different view of history.
Thats slightly not how it works on the elf side.
The elven parents would be 100 years or more because in D&D, elves are considered minors socially until age 100 despite being physically adult since age 20-25.
So Mike NEVER sees Evan because Evan's mother has him in the Elflands until age 100. Maybe Mike's and Hank's shared human parent might convince Hank's elven parents to let him visit the Elflands but unlikely. Maybe if Mike is one his deathbed or gets married, Evan comes to see his half brother.
When Evan becomes and adult, he might come to the human lands to watch over Mike's family after Mike dies. This is a good PC hook.
Your great grandpa's half sibling is an elf and come comes to teach you magically.
Hank is a radical though. Half elves dont trance. So to elves Hank is an adult at age 20. So Hank can learn elven weaponry and magic for 50 years while stacking up interest on investment and be looking like a 35 year old human.
Headcannon: Almost Every half elf who lives to age 70 are somewhat wealthy.
So Mike's adventurer great grandchildren are bankrolled by one great granduncle and trained by the other.
Yes
That was compounded by how there was a big benefit for most elf PCs to start at the last age category (at least in 2e & 3.x)
2e
* –1 Str/Con; +1 Int/Wis
** –2 Str/Dex, –1 Con; +1 Wis
*** –1 Str/Dex/Con; +1 Int/Wis
3.x
1 At middle age, –1 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
2 At old age, –2 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
3 At venerable age, –3 to Str, Dex, and Con; +1 to Int, Wis, and Cha.
PC elves would rarely start as a mere 100 year old adult. They skipped right past the 2e 175 y/o middle age, kept going when they passed the 233/263 y/o "old" & ended up somewhere in 350-xxxx y/o "venerable" where they would have good odds of remembering things like listening to mom & dad tell stories about how they decided to settle down when the vikings were invading england (865ad) or when the roman empire quit being such a pain by collapsing(476AD) if not potentially remembering it themselves. At least in 2e it was also possible to have that elf be a former adventurer who lost their levels by settling down or whatever.
Frieren is a pretty good anime that nicely shows how that sort of monstrously alien lifespan completely alters how one might live life & view the world of mayfly-like races where even keeping track of things like the rise & fall of nations might seem pointless
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