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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6857056" data-attributes="member: 4937">No, not really.  The famous Japanese katana's for example were forged from a black iron rich sand.  You just dig shovels full of it up.  There are likewise plenty of surface mining techniques whenever you have seems of ore near the surface.  And even to the extent that you wish to have elven miners in traditional horizontal shaft mining, I'm not sure why this creates a particularly big intellectual problem.  After all, a race with the favored class of wizard has effective technology levels far higher than medieval humans, particularly in D&D where things like endless burning magical torches are a thing.  Sure. And?  I'm not really understanding the problem you have with this.This implies that any elves are trained to use swords, and I'm not sure that is established.  Humans are trained to use swords.  We have no evidence that elves have to be trained to use swords.  It could be that they are born with the basic intuition necessary to use swords and bows.Again, assuming that they do live in big ivory towers - which I for one have not asserted, and in fact asserted that compared to humans most elves lived in poverty - then yes the stone needs to be quarried (although, I guess it isn't inconceivable that they could use something like Wall of Stone and Stone Shape to do the work).  But what is your objection to elves engaging in labor?  I could keep asking the same questions about the rest of your objections.Again, I have no idea where you get the idea that elves are normally clothed in silk.  For the record, my elves are normally clothed in material spun from their own hair, but I guess that's beside the point.  Why would elves not enjoy spinning cloth?Wait?  What?  You've got a race of immortal, intelligent, magical, beings that don't need much sleep, have night vision and reputations for being extremely skilled craftsman capable of creating goods that endure without the mark of time, and you think that they need a bunch of slave labor to cover their basic necessities like food and clothing?  I would presume most elves most of the time are laboring in various crafts.  Shaker villages didn't need slave labor to create extraordinarily crafted beautiful goods of every sort, and those were populated by mere humans.  Cistercian monks invented all sorts of labor saving devices and produced a great surplus of goods for not only their own use but for sell, and did so with no more than clean wind and water power - ushering into the first industrial revolution in the west.  And now you are saying that magical elves can't do at least as well?I would presume "craftsman" are engaged in craft.  What are you going on about? Wait, what?  That's ridiculous.  That's like suggesting that since we humans have innate and unintuitive understanding of language, that we are to be damned for not sharing it with horses.  It's quite possible that a race would have skills built into their very nature - like say very long life - that simply couldn't be passed on no matter how hard you tried.   And even if this wasn't the case, you've neglected the very obvious possibility that the elves did in fact share much of their knowledge of technology and magic with younger races like humans, goblins, and dwarves, only to see those races misuse the technology to create weapons, rape the environment, and engage in continual wars with each other (and the elves), rather than caring for and feeding their own people.  Where is this weird rage against elves coming from?</blockquote>

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