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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8683087" data-attributes="member: 58172">Borrowing from Norse (sun) and Celt (moon) for inspiration, the fey elves of the setting are mainly mythical creatures, which I agree, is an aspect of humanity.Ultimately, the elves are strictly nonhuman. They are actual features of nature. The Norse elves are conscious sunlight, the normal auras and beams of sunlight. It is an animistic worldview. Most sunlight likes being sunlight and doing what sunlight likes to do, such as shining and reflecting. Likewise the Celt elves are actual fertile soil. Wherever one sees an unusually lush patch of trees or plants, one can be sure the soil is both conscious and powerful − elven.Despite Norse and Celt having skyey and earthy elves respectively, both elves share much in common. Both are fates, associating birth, love, business success, luck, and relating to love, sexuality, and beauty. Likewise, as manifestations of fate, fateful words and magical spells, both are embodiments of magic itself.As mages, the Norse sunlight can manifest their consciousness in the form of a human. When sunlight does this, they are virtually human, mentally and emotionally, as well as bodily.It resembles the "werewolf syndrome". There are stories about a mage who takes on the form of a wolf, and loses ones own identity within the identity of the wolf. It takes much skill to "return to ones senses", especially if choosing to remain a wolf form. In deed, when a human mage maintains their human mentality, the eyes of the animal form tend to remain human looking, and intelligent in a human way.So, when the sunlight takes on a human form, it can lose itself in its human mentality.Note, the sunlight can manifest in many forms, humans yes, but also swan, horse, wolf, serpent, or whatever. (There is debate whether a reference to "slither" means taking a snake form or skiing on snowshoes, as both meanings seem possible.)The sunlight tends to take on human forms, especially because their nornir shape the successful fates of each human. They generally like being humans (humanesque).In the Norse stories, when the sunlight materializes into a human body, the body is human enough to reproduce children with other humans. These children tend to preserve magical beauty and power, but are otherwise normal humans.Judging by the anthropology of the Sámi shaman (noaidi) and the historical records of Scottish witches, the sexual nature of elves appears to be part of reallife shamanic trances. Often in the visions, an elf or analogous nature being visits as a teacher to help the shaman learn how to do magic. In Norway, it is typically the jǫtnar "troll" who teach human shamans magic, but likely in Alfheimr on the coastal border between Norway and Sweden, it was probably usually elves who taught shamanic magic. These visionary encounters often include a romantic and sexual relationship with the nature being, that some describe via Jungian psychology. Note, every human is a magical being, but it requires skill to learn how to wield this magic, similar to athletic skill, and some individuals seem especially talented.Generally, the Norse elf associates the fate of a human individual, including being born, falling in love, sexuality, and raising kids. Likewise, the elves tend to fall in love in human ways.For the D&D setting, the fey elves borrow from all of these mythic concepts.Because the human-appearing sunlight and soil actually are so human, these elves likewise have genderqueer and intersex individuals, just like humans do.Some scholars (such as Alaric Hall) argue the elves have more permission to be nonbinary, because the elf men include powerful shamans (feminine), and the elf women include powerful warriors (masculine). But perhaps normal Norse human cultures are like this too. Norse celebrate both muscular masculine beauty as well as graceful feminine beauty. Individuals enjoy personal freedom to explore the institutions of either gender-division.</blockquote>

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