Help with seeing more layers

[SylverFlame]

Hey,

I am currently working on a CW that has been many years in the making, mostly due to my great and awe inspiring ability to procrastinate.

So here is the thing. I was always bothered by the whole question of "how can you play an elf?" The reason being I've heard so many arguments of their lives being so foreign due to age and such that they come off looking childish. This thread is not really about this though, as I have that question figured out.

In my CW, there was a little problem among the elves about two hundred years before the initial playing time line starts. You see, the elves had closed their borders because a series of wars had seriously decimated the majority of their colonies (even after a thousand years, a full kingdom is still a colony to an elf). This caused a closing of borders and most elves went unseen for a long while.

Anyways, shortly after this, many elves began dying. They weren't going to the afterlife like in a meditative sort of way, they were just keeling over dead. In the end, the distribution of ages among elves was massively upset. Whereas the age distribution in percents was fairly equal, it became bloated near the bottom, as seen here: 0-50 years old, 10%; 51-200 years old, 80%; 201-300 years old, 10%; 301-X unknown, but the number of individuals can be counted on one hand for sure.

Now then, the elves were seriously upset by this and decided no one but elves are to know what happened. As such, no body other than elves are allowed into elven lands, and other little things like saying all elves look young. What this means for the elves I have mapped out in a few details: 1) every elf is considered sacred and is not to die, unless it is to save elves; 2) the elves are essentially rebuilding their society as they have lost much of their knowledge concerning things like magic, as the magical talents of all races were waning, and the younger generations were all but bereft of magical ability; 3) not many elves leave the homelands, and seeing any elves is a miraculous thing, many areas have even relegated them to the level of myth.

These are all the ramifications I can see for the world outside the elven courts, though I have a few more things that effect the elven homelands directly. What I need is help fleshing out the above list. Can anyone think of anything else that would arise from the average age of all elves being in the 51 to 200 range? Again, looking for effects on the non-elven world, but what the hey, if you can give me some on the elven world I'd appreciate it as well.

 

[Beholder Bob]

Elf pudding

Hrmm.
Women are needed to 're-grow' the race, not men. Women may lose the right to chose their profession (no job that risks life) - becoming a totalitarian society.
Males (the 'excess') could be sent to the lands of man to breed 1/2 elves - not true elves, not as long lived, but quick replacements.
The elders who upheld the rules of society are gone - the current crop of elves are folks that are vibrant, full of life, energetic, etc. They may bristle at a hemmed in life.
Society, without the elders, may undergo schism, new society mores and experimentation as they attempt to redefine themselves
Social strife - those who prefer the old ways vs. those who redefine themselves

Outside: others may go in search of elves, these mystic/mythic creatures said to exist in x forest.
Elves could be blamed on events without apparent cause or viewed by simple minds....
My crops failed! Those damn elves sneak out to gather dew and seeds, ruining my rutabaga and cabbage!
Put a horseshoe over the doorway so elves can not sneak into it and steal your children, replace them w/changelings, etc.
Elves are magic and live forever - they have the secret.
Elves are magic and live forever - and so will you if you drink their blood.
Elves cause cancer. (well this one is true )

Oh, and hi SylverFlame!

 

[SylverFlame]

Hey Bob.

I like the male/female distinction. I never really thought of it, because I always saw elves as "beyond gender". However, it does make sense. Maybe making the society more "chivalric" would fulfill this. I'll look into some real world examples, the Philosophy of Spheres should give me a few insights. Ugh, I gotta read about this stuff in english. Enh well, I'll think of it as research for the important stuff in life... gaming!

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Hrmm.
Women are needed to 're-grow' the race, not men. Women may lose the right to chose their profession (no job that risks life) - becoming a totalitarian society.

Not that all elvish women would go queitly into this new society... you could easily end up with a subculture of "amazonian" elves (probably mostly wood elves and wild elves) who refuse to give up the warrior training of their mothers and grandmothers.

Speaking of which, how would this effect the relations between the different subraces of elves? It would seem likely that the wilder varieties would not be considered the "best" males to produce the next generation of elves, and young wood/wild elf girls would be "fostered" with high elf families to wed their sons.

Frankly, the more my mind follows this train of thought, the more we're looking at Nazi Elves. Once you get into the "our race must survive" combined with the not so hidden elf idea of "we are inherently better than the other races" we have a bad, bad scene...

Wow, I've just majorly expanded my preexisting nazi elf campaign just by this idea of what could be the start of it... Thanks!

kahuna burger

 

[SylverFlame]

Hey, the elves in my world do have a very "fascist" group among the population, which preoccupies itself with purity of the race more than the elves being better (as everyone already knows that, so why beat a dead dwarf, as the elves say...). This group is opposed by a more liberal group who believe the best method is to increase the number of half-elves, which they believe increases the amount of elf blood (higher fertility rate), and within a few years they can start breeding the human blood out by reducing the percentage of human blood by increasing the amount of pure elves who have children with half elves. This group draws on a lot of husbandry ideas, and tend to sound like they are refering to cattle when talking of half elves (so they aren't entirely accepting).

As to wild and wood elves, the subraces were never large and the die off, though they weren't hit as hard, really hurt their number. Largely they don't represent a significant enough portion of the population to really affect any change on the system. As such, they saw this all as a good reason to withdraw even further. Many "city" elves don't even know if the subraces still exist.