Eladrin vs. Elves

[Kobold Avenger]

In my experience, the eladrin were the least-used celestials by far. Even guardinals showed up more often!

In my experience Guardinals were the least used.

Simply because they were too obvious and the Eladrin weren't. 2e had this whole thing in their fluff called the "veil" were that since most Eladrin could use Alter Self at will, they had to use it to disguise themselves on the material plane, due to some contract. Thus they were always the hidden celestials, while the others appeared in hosts.

In fact I noticed that the more recent 3.5e published adventures use Eladrin in them, such as Expedition to Castle Greyhawk and the Savage Tide AP in Dungeon.

 

[Blind Azathoth]

Seeing as the mythological Erinyes never was a whore-demon to start with, I see no problem in changing this thing and to make it more accurate.

Well, if we're doing this in one case, why not do it in all? From now on, all elves will be called alfar and be fertility demigods. And the dwarves are now called dvergar; they are all magical craftsmen who were created from maggots that grew in the body of a giant. Gnomes? Tiny earth elementals. Kobolds? Household sprites. Oh, and dragons can't breathe anything but fire now...

 

[jasin]

2e had this whole thing in their fluff called the "veil" were that since most Eladrin could use Alter Self at will, they had to use it to disguise themselves on the material plane, due to some contract. Thus they were always the hidden celestials, while the others appeared in hosts.

More details? Why did the eladrins have to stay disguised? What happened if they didn't?

In fact I noticed that the more recent 3.5e published adventures use Eladrin in them, such as Expedition to Castle Greyhawk and the Savage Tide AP in Dungeon.

Is it

Spoiler

Celeste

again in Expedition to Castle Greyhawk?

She's in Shackled City, Age of Worms and Savage Tide, and she only shows her true form at the end of Savage Tide.

I find the benevolent trickster-meddler schtick quite compelling, so I though that was pretty cool.

 

[DandD]

Well, if we're doing this in one case, why not do it in all? From now on, all elves will be called alfar and be fertility demigods. And the dwarves are now called dvergar; they are all magical craftsmen who were created from maggots that grew in the body of a giant. Gnomes? Tiny earth elementals. Kobolds? Household sprites. Oh, and dragons can't breathe anything but fire now...

I have no problem with this in some cases more accurate depiction of the various races... Do you?

 

[Blind Azathoth]

I really wouldn't mind versions of D&D monsters that hewed more closely to their mythological roots, but I think most people would mind if D&D tradition were to be discarded for more "accurate" monsters, and even I'd be sad to see the D&D kobold go.

In any case, since you agree that monsters ought to be more like their folkloric and mythological interpretations, and since if they ever do reintroduce the erinyes in 4e, I'm sure it will continue to differ greatly from the Greek erinyes, I suppose my point--that it's silly to apply this "making monsters more like real mythology" rule in favor of long-established D&D lore only in one case but not in others--is moot.

 

[The_Gneech]

Don't worry, they'll just change 'em all back again in 5E, claiming to get back to their roots.

-The Gneech

 

[GreatLemur]

Over-specialization....I think it kind of cartoonizes things, and wrecks my suspension of disbelief.

Why not just have one race who can fill either role? The whole idea is the same as saying that there are two types of humans.....Americans and British. If I want to be in the military, I have to be American. If I want to be a comedian, I have to be British.

I really think it's far too early to say that the whole elf/eladrin thing really means what you're thinking it means, but I definitely agree with your point, here. The absurdity of whole intelligent species expressing very narrow bands of personality and lifestyle stereotype is extremely absurd and annoying. And, let's be honest, not exactly something that D&D hasn't been guilty of for a long time. (Although, of course, the classic offender is Star Trek. A whole race in those shows will have the collective personality depth of a single shallow pulp character.)

 

[Banshee16]

If WotC had removed Eladrins from the 4E MM, and didn't announce the move, I doubt anyone would have noticed for months.

Maybe those who weren't longtime Planescape gamers wouldn't have. I ran Planescape for 9 years, so probably made more use of them than many.

Banshee

 

[DandD]

I really wouldn't mind versions of D&D monsters that hewed more closely to their mythological roots, but I think most people would mind if D&D tradition were to be discarded for more "accurate" monsters, and even I'd be sad to see the D&D kobold go.

In any case, since you agree that monsters ought to be more like their folkloric and mythological interpretations, and since if they ever do reintroduce the erinyes in 4e, I'm sure it will continue to differ greatly from the Greek erinyes, I suppose my point--that it's silly to apply this "making monsters more like real mythology" rule in favor of long-established D&D lore only in one case but not in others--is moot.

It depends on how greatly they differ from the real mythological source.
The Erinyes being nothing more than a simple whore-demon with a LE-alignment and birdwings as it has been depicted in D&D all the time is a really big deviance from the source.
At least (some) Elves do sometimes spend their time in forest and care for it, and Dwarves do live under the mountain and forge new mighty weapons. The deviancy from the original mythological source is smaller in some cases.
Of course, D&D never was that good with staying true to the mythological source, as proven by the idiocy of having thousands of elven subraces to fit every and any base- and prestige classes. That's why it's enjoyable to see that sometimes, they do make some things right regarding the roles of the monsters, as how they should be, according to the mythological source.

 

[Banshee16]

More details? Why did the eladrins have to stay disguised? What happened if they didn't?


Is it

Spoiler

Celeste

again in Expedition to Castle Greyhawk?

She's in Shackled City, Age of Worms and Savage Tide, and she only shows her true form at the end of Savage Tide.

I find the benevolent trickster-meddler schtick quite compelling, so I though that was pretty cool.

The Eladrin were a chaotic good celestial race, and did not believe in organized interference in mortal affairs. It would be too tempting to get involved in every cause on the Prime, if mortals knew who and what an Eladrin was, so in 2nd Ed. the Eladrin were a celestial race that tended to work from the shadows. They were more like manipulators and catalysts of events, rather than applying brute celestial force.

As such, they used the Veil to hide themselves from mortals. *All* Eladrins had Alter Self as a default ability, and were *required* by the Eladrin courts to use it when visiting the Prime. An Eladrin that was caught violating the Veil would be punished by Queen Morwel, their leader, and banished from the Prime for 1,001 years.

That whole veil, and the idea of banishment was the plotline behind a character I once played...a half-eladrin (was an aasimar in 2nd Ed.) whose father was a human in Taladas, and mother was a ghaele eladrin, who fell in love, became pregnant, and then, faced with an invasion of the land in which they lived, dropped her Veil to save her husband's life, and was subsequently banished, once she'd saved the village. The character spent much of her career trying to find a working portal back to Taladas to find her father, when, timeline-wise, it was the 5th Age, before the War of Souls, and planar access points to Krynn had either disappeared, or become *very* unreliable.

Unfortunately 3E changed things. In the attempt to make monsters more focused on their roles as encounters, the Alter Self ability was removed from most Eladrin, IIRC, which kind of meant that the whole idea of the Veil didn't work anymore, and that changed the nature of the Eladrin race. It was an issue I had with monster creation in 3E, because I felt that everything was too dungeon/combat focused, and by the comments in Mike Mearls workshops on monster design, I'm concerned that the problem (as I see it) will be even more exaggerated in 4E.

Banshee