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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 6853378" data-attributes="member: 5890">I would expect every element of elven society to be incredibly risk averse. Elves can live to enormous age, and most of the killers are simple, small things.Elves don't hunt meat because hunting and raising livestock is dangerous, and meat contains deadly parasites, not because they don't like the taste or ethical considerations.I would imagine that the typical elf does not ride a horse or use a wagon either, for the same reasons.Modern farming techniques (like plowing) all incur risk. Since D&D has an alternative (1/30 elves are druids so that you can feed everyone goodberries), elves will stick to that.Which all explains the 'living in harmony with nature'. The translation is 'otherwise nature might hurt us'.I imagine elven environments are incredibly tidy (trip hazards!), single level and without perilous drops. So no cities in the trees.No mining - it's really dangerous. Leave that to the humans and dwarves.No stone construction.No large scale wooden construction: multi level buildings? Nope. Heck, even a second story is pretty dangerous to build.I would imagine elven forges to be very small-scale affairs that avoid using molten metal. They're probably out of town as well to guarantee no fires.I wouldn't expect an elf to ever 'make do' with an inappropriate tool, or a makeshift repair. The products of elven crafting are either perfection or garbage.I imagine that the average elf gets incredibly nervous if he sees someone wandering around with weaponry. At the same time, he will feel deep gratitude towards elves who take it upon themselves to be warriors. Expect rules requiring all weapons remain sheathed at all times, serious repercussions if violated, and with official pardons given if the unsheathing was deemed to be necessary. Which it almost never is.Also I wouldn't expect elves to trade money for time, but I would expect them to trade time for money and either one for avoidance of risk. Hence elves being suppliers of master crafted arms and armor. They need to buy metal (because mining is dangerous). They have plenty of time to become master craftsmen, tons of time to spend enchanting things, and they are heavily averse to combat. The solution is to provide dwarven kings with chain shirts that took decades to produce.On that note - if mithril takes decades to refine, that would explain a lot too.I imagine that either elves consider other races unworthy of life OR consider all life absolutely sacred. Either way, killing an elf, even with extreme justification, probably carries an extreme sentence. Either way justice will be swift and it's unlikely that a trial will occur. Immediate death if elves are the superior life form, reconditioning or something similar if all life is sacred. Bear in mind that an elf can leave you in prison for 50 years and barely have changed when he comes back to visit.Elves probably live spread out to avoid disease. I would expect that elves are somewhat hypochondriac, except they pop down to the local oath of the ancients paladin (cure disease at level 1) as soon as they so much as catch a cold, and quarantine themselves until they can be seen.I wouldn't expect elves to experiment with magic. Much more likely that they trade magic with other races and build knowledge that way.I wouldn't expect elves to have libraries (fire hazard!), but distributed collections of lore instead.I imagine the elven word for an adventurer elf is 'insane'.</blockquote>

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