[FR] Sun Elves as evil or neutral instead of good?

[Dark Jezter]

Okay, now that I'm home and able to reference my copy of Races of Faerun, I can't find anywhere it lists the average alignment for the specific subraces. Moon elves and wild elves definately sound chaotic good, and despite what the Monster Manual says, wood elves actually sound Neutral Good or Chaotic Good instead of True Neutral. The free-spirited Avariel also sound chaotic good, while the reclusive and skittish aquatic elves sound lawful good.

But as has been mentioned by myself and numerous other posters in this thread, it definately sounds like the sun elves are LN at best, LE at worst. I can imagine that finding a cleric in a sun elf city might be a tad on the difficult side, considering that every single deity in the Seldarine has an alignment of either CG or CN. This would explain why most sun elf adventurers (as uncommon as they are) are almost exclusively fighter/wizards.

 

[Black Omega]

Even assuming Sun Elves are predominantly LN, which seems reasonable, that will leave plenty of them to be N, which will still give them clerics. Perhaps not as many, but I doubt the Sun Elves are cleric-less cimpletely.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Even assuming Sun Elves are predominantly LN, which seems reasonable, that will leave plenty of them to be N, which will still give them clerics. Perhaps not as many, but I doubt the Sun Elves are cleric-less cimpletely.

Under 3E rules, a cleric can only be True Neutral if their deity is True Neutral as well. That's the sole exception to the "one-step" rule regarding clerics and alignments.

 

[Black Omega]

Under 3E rules, a cleric can only be True Neutral if their deity is True Neutral as well. That's the sole exception to the "one-step" rule regarding clerics and alignments.

Eh? *flips through the book quickly* Hmm...yep, too true. Learn something new every day.

 

[Alzrius]

Don't forget that that rule only applies to clerics. Other divine spellcasters are off the hook there.

Of course, thats assuming sun elves are mostly N, which they aren't.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Alzrius, I'm trying to understand your point here. What I've read so far is there CG because the book says so.


It almost seems that your saying no matter what Sun Elves do on the whole, no matter how they act, there still CG just because the book says so.

Sun Elves murder kids and put their heads on pikes outside their domain to warn the unclean races not to come near. Well that's CG, cause um killing kids is a good act.(not saying sun elves do this) It just seems your argument is the book says so, and that's it. While everyone else seems to be looking at actions and attitudes and coming up with what they see to be a more apropriate alignemnt than the one stated for elves in general.

Me, I question elves in general being good. Chaotic sure, but good, only because of the cool factor described by Kamikaze Midget.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Also, note that some of the Seladrine may be mis-aligned because of the Kewl Factor, too....

And here's an idea...LN critters can still be Druids. So they can have semi-clerics.

I also think that elves IMC as a whole tend to be good. They don't like evil, and want to get rid of it, and most would find violence and manipulation for selfish ends as abbhorrent as sleeping with a dwarf (perhaps more so, because elves IMC tend to be promiscuous anyway). The natural state of things is to love other creatures, and help them where you can....yes, even the ugly ones who aren't as cool as you.

 

[Gez]

Midget: If we believe Dwarves Deep, once upon a time, dwarf-elf crossbreeds were common.

As for the Seldarine & Eldreth Velouté, I don't think it's really a problem of alignment, rather a political decision of the elven gods. Alignment for the organization list CN and CE as possible alignments -- and the Seldarine includes CN deities that would thus theoretically accept CN or CE followers, and the occasional CN Eldreth could get cleric spells from a CG deity.

Similarly, they could have CN, NE or LN druids -- if they don't, it's probably because the elven nature gods (Erevan, Rillifane, IIRC) wouldn't accept one of their druids to work for them.

Oh, and about the kewlness factor -- it's really the reason for them to protect and love the other races. If they're so sure they're übercool, they need people to whom they could compare.

 

[Cernunnos]

For starters, if anybody here would bother to actually read most of their FR books, they'd know there are VERY few Fey'ri out and running about. Most of the Starym were killed by the elves for what they'd done, and those that weren't killed were in stasis for a long time, only coming out relatively recently. I was rather suprised why they even made it to RoF, other than the coolness factor.
Also, the Eldreth Veluthra are quite another small group, although they appear to have at least a small amount of quiet support from some Sun Elves. I'd think that most elves would find them a little too heavy handed (yes, even the Sun Elves), and find their methods slightly too out there. Saying the Eldreth Veluthra and the Starym/Fey'ri are indicitive of the Sun Elf mentality is like saying everyone of the Middle-East persuassion is a terrorist. Even then, you get the kind of moral self-justifications that you get in the Israel/Palestinian conflict: to the Sun elves, they were there first, these things that stole their lands and destroyed their forest homes breed like flies and live as long, and the only thing that seperates them from orcs is that they smell less.
Other important thing to remember: being better than everyone else is part of their mindset. They consider themselves a Chosen people (pretty much like everyone else to some extent, just more so). They are even patronizing to other elves. In their eyes, they have a kind of "White Man's Burden" to show everyone else "true" culture.
To me, alignment w/ good and evil is alot like the definitions for legal insanity. True Evil (note the capital E) is well aware of right and wrongs, and violates a widely held belief for their own purpose. Now, while I wouldn't put the Sun Elves into this catagory, I would call some of them (Starym and Eldreth Veluthra) mis-guided. To their way of thinking, they are the ones going out and going good in an evil world. They justify the ends by the means. I think that comment about their racism was more an "this is one of their worst hang-ups," than an indication of evil.

 

[SylverFlame]

I haven't read all the posts here, as I'm lazy .

Anyway, I see the Sun Elves as either Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral (mostly good though). This cleans up much of the ethics for me as the lawful shows the elven enphasis and doesn't make more highly capable evil elves.