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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 2628169" data-attributes="member: 2020">Let's see how Haldendreevish, the internal conflict of the 'love of life' versus the insane 'corrupted love of life', and other legacies from Haldendreeva, helps create the High Elf of Today.  These are some of the more obvious, overt examples:  We see elves living in the forests, frivolous and flighty, merry and jovial, singing and dancing and cavorting.  Well now ...  The elves are still Agnakoks.  The adaptation of the elves after the Apocalypse was permanent.  They are immune to almost all the natural hazards, making the dark forests as safe for them as a comfortable home is for humans.  Humans cavort and dance and sing in their (usually safe) homes and taverns.  Elves do this in the dreadful, dangerous forests, immune to the dangers.  We see elves being lazy, spending their time in pursuits unrelated to basic survival, and not particularly interested in working at basic survival, and not getting anyone else to work for them ... when they are not dancing, singing, and otherwise making merry.  Well now ...  The elves are Agnakoks.  Leaves are their food.  Bugs are their food.  There aren't a lot of elves, but there sure are a lot of leaves and bugs.  Food is literally hanging from the trees, and in the winter it lays in endless swaths on the ground.  And elves can drink any water, fresh, foul, poisoned, or parasite filled, without harm, so water is plentiful.  If humans had such plentiful food, they'd probably be lazy and/or work at non-survival related subjects too!  We see elves tending to stick to forests period, as their homeland.  It's that elven 'love of life' thing.  The more life, the merrier.  Because they are Agnakoks, life is not a hazard to them.  Snakes won't poison them, animals cuddle up to them, bites do not infect them, parasites do not infest them, insects and arachnids are buddy buddy with them, and natural diseases and poisons do not afflict them.  If humans had such adaptation, they could live in tropical jungles and be at home ... instead of being quickly put in the grave.  We see elves being rather lofty, noble, and caring people.  Their leadership cares and works for the people, the others take care of each other, and altruism runs rampant.  Well now ...  Elves are just naturally altruistic, noble people.  That's that.  I'd almost said:  Enough said!    However, the legacy of the Great Spell has enhanced things:  the elves are still magically unable to contemplate harming or killing each other, much less actually trying to do it (the Great Spell has frayed with time, so some rare elves have overcome this restriction.)  The Great Spell required elves to look after each other, and most of them still do.  That's why they are high elves, because their behavior is lofty and ... well ... high.  High.  Noble.  Just.  Good.  Reasonable.  Nice.  We see elves who are thousands of years old, who have fought in countless wars, who are Young at Heart, youthful in behavior, merry and lighthearted.  Well now ...  This is a direct result of the insanity, the corruption of the 'love of life'.    When they were fully corrupted, the elves saw war and suffering as the epitome of joy.  Most of the time, they do not think like that now, but when war comes calling, the insanity tends to return, and the usually reasonable elves turn into berserk maniacs once more.  Since they are enjoying themselves so much, the elves become pathologically immune to it's horrors.  And afterwards, they remember the experience fondly (even if, once the insanity subsides and their maturity returns, they consider their previous behavior tom-foolery)  If they suffered the loss of property, or - far worse - the loss of loved ones, friends, and associates, it hurts (yes, it hurts!) but the hurt is mitigated by the fond memories of the conflict, an unnatural acceptance of suffering (caused by the legacy of the insanity) and the knowledge that the dead can be resurrected to life (whether such resurrections are performed depends on which wins, the 'normal' side or the 'insane' side.)  Elven Nations of Today that are attacked enough, become dangerously like Haldendreeva was, as the insanity intensifies and threatens to become fully dominant.  There are Haldendreeva Would Bes out there.  However, most Would Be Haldendreevas are not lucky enough to obtain powerful magic in time to save themselves from their enemies, as Haldendreeva itself was.  The less war that is inflicted upon the elves - the more peaceful their existence is - the more maturely and realistically they view war.  This more realistic, more sane view intensifies over time.  Thus, elven civilizations with a long history of peace might be prepared for a war, but they won't be looking forward to it.  After a few years of war, however, those same civilizations will be degraded with the legacy of insanity from Haldendreeva and enjoying the wars throughly.  We see elven bladesingers, who can cast magical spells and wield (primarily) swords simultaneously.  No other races can produce a bladesinger.  Well now ...  What would you expect, when the insanity reemerges during wartime, and the elves start to enjoy the bloodbath, that they would not have very specialized forms of committing war?  Once you start loving something, you might start working very hard at it.  And the more war, the more the elves like war, because of the legacy of insanity.  So they studied very hard, and learned how to wield weapons and cast spells simultaneously!  (drow, eat your hearts out.)  We see all the elven females diligently studying the arts of combat and war, and more diligently practicing them.  Somehow, this does not decimate the elven nation, when it's female population is decimated in wartime.  Well now ...  The insanity was never limited to the men.  The women of Haldendreeva got it just as bad, and it passed down to all the elven women of today.  More importantly, the insanity waxes furiously if the childbearers are killed, and the elves go back to the old notion that war is so fun that resurrection is a must.  The dead are missing out on the good times!  Get them back, and hurry!  We see elves still eating their foes ... sometimes.  Well now ...  This is a case of the legacy of insanity winning out, pure and simple.  By a primordial process not evil (but certainly not good) the elves derive nourishment from doing this.  A lesser variant of this is the gnawing of wood and the bones of defeated foes.  We see elves still torturing their foes ... sometimes.  Well now ...  This is a case of the legacy of insanity winning out very badly over the normal elven instincts.  The darkness in the elven heart, passed down through the ages from Haldendreeva, has won out temporarily.  This most often happens after long suffering and hardship without letup, submerging the elven 'love of life' once more, allowing the 'corrupted love of life' to briefly triumph.  Elves are a primarily peaceful people, but they are also masters and mistresses of war, and constantly defeat enemies many times their strength.  Well now ...  It's that insanity again.  Most of the time, the 'love of life' prevails, but when the 'corrupted love of life' wins out, Pandora's Box is open.  Noble elves turn into bloodthirsty maniacs overnight.  Caring, cautious, mature people, turn into psychopathic killers unafraid of pain, torture, hardship, loss, or death.  And since most elves have fought previously, gone insane, then recovered, they have a repetoire of magical items and levels carried over from then to help them survive the onslaught of the next war ... until they turn insane and start building more items, gaining more levels, and getting even better at war.  Because even most of the sanest elves still remember their last war fondly, the legacy of Haldendreeva and it's insanity infecting even the best of elves, they are not as frightened or unprepared or unwilling to fight as their foes think they are ... foes misled by the perception of peaceful elves under the dominance of their normal 'love for life' instincts.  In elves, we see an inherently 'good' people who are experts at committing dark, even evil, deeds:  Well now ...  That should be obvious.  Normal elves in whom the 'love of life' instinct and other normal instincts are dominant are good, gentle, peaceful people.  But if they are involved in war, the insanity rises in them and creates evil tendencies or turns them outright evil.  After the war is over, they revert to being a good people.    We see elves hard at work, obsessed, with one project.  Mastering Elven High Magic requires 1,500 years spent to the exclusion of all other things, but some elves do it.  Well now ...  Obsession is a normal trait in many elves, whether they are Haldendreevish or not.  But the legacy of insanity from Haldendreevan exacerbates the obsessive tendencies.  The Elves of Haldendreeva were all obsessed maniacs, and their descendants do not escape from the darkness passed down from that time.  This has some very good and noble effects.  Some elves have actually refused to leave the world, loving it too much, becoming baelnorn or nymphs instead.  The relentless study of one subject for millennia has led to remarkable discoveries, such as bladesinging and High Magic.  It has created monuments of incredible stature, songs of such beauty as to literally kill the listener, elven poetry that is the wonder (and dread) of the world, and miraculous achievements in engineering, architecture, the arts, and the crafts.</blockquote>

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