Is This How Elves Live?

[Urbannen]

Standard elves have to be technologically and culturally advanced enough to produce spellbooks, since wizard is their favored class. (Yes, sorcerer would be a better favored class for D&D elves.)

I'm pretty sure you have to have to be settled and civilized in order to produce books and ink in the quantity necessary for a wizard.

As for wild and wood elf variants, hunter/gatherer works well, I think.

 

[mmadsen]

Standard elves have to be technologically and culturally advanced...

The question is, Can you be technologically and culturally advanced without farming?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

The question is, Can you be technologically and culturally advanced without farming?

In the real world, the answer is probably "no," but in a fantasy world, I can imagine ways in which it could happen. If the elves are protected by natural defenses, or are remote enough, and if the area is rich enough in food resources, for example. That would allow them to spend part of the day hunting/gathering, and the rest building skills in things. The elves' long lives would then allow for deep knowledge skills to be developed.

They could also develop if they manage to say safe for a period of time while developing their civilization, and then had things they could trade for food, which would give them the free time to become technologically and culturally advanced. In this case they might almost be like indigenous peoples in the modern world, who might have been somewhat "primitive" from a human viewpoint, but who then picked up the trappings of civilization very quickly and developed it from there.

 

[Urbannen]

The question is, Can you be technologically and culturally advanced without farming?

No.

LotR didn't really show it (although the Hobbit hinted at it), but somebody in elven society is doing the grunt work of producing food and cleaning stuff. You can't really build permanent settlements without agriculture.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

No.

LotR didn't really show it (although the Hobbit hinted at it), but somebody in elven society is doing the grunt work of producing food and cleaning stuff. You can't really build permanent settlements without agriculture.

Except, apparently, for the real world people mentioned in the first post of the thread, who seem to have done just that.

If the resources are rich enough that a relatively small segment of the population can manage to gather sufficient food for everyone, then you have room for craft specialization, which is really all that agriculture bought us. And if the resources are nutrient rich, like salmon and fruit, as opposed to the crappy wheat and such that we were eating in the fertile crescent, then you need even less of it per person to eat well, allowing for fewer gatherers and more specialists.

And that's without speculating about how Elves might need to eat less than humans, leaving room for even fewer gatherers.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Elves are generally portrayed as living in the past, that wistful "things were better when the world was young" thing. Basically they're old people. And, I hate to say it, most people do their best work in their younger days. I interperate Elves as being much more stuck in a rut, less likely to innovate, etc. When presented with a new methodology they'll respond with "But I've been doing it THIS way for 300 years!"

Just one interpretation.

 

[Pbartender]

In the real world, the answer is probably "no," but in a fantasy world, I can imagine ways in which it could happen. If the elves are protected by natural defenses, or are remote enough, and if the area is rich enough in food resources, for example. That would allow them to spend part of the day hunting/gathering, and the rest building skills in things. The elves' long lives would then allow for deep knowledge skills to be developed.

Besides all that, magic would help immensely in place of technology...

"Unseen Servant, collect nuts!"

 

[mmadsen]

Since the point of the original post is not, in retrospect, clear, let me rephrase.

Elves are generally represented as civilized yet living in the woods, but real-life humans who live in the woods live like primitive hunter-gatherers. Without farming, they have to stay on the move, and they don't generate the kind of population density they need to form a true civilization.

Now we have an example of real-life human hunter-gatherers who nonetheless manage to live a non-nomadic lifestyle with some of the trappings of early civilization. Is this a reasonable model for how elves live?

 

[Desdichado]

Now we have an example of real-life human hunter-gatherers who nonetheless manage to live a non-nomadic lifestyle with some of the trappings of early civilization. Is this a reasonable model for how elves live?

I suppose. Keep in mind, the traditional interpretation of elven societies is culture in decline, though.

It may work, but obviously it doesn't work well enough.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I suppose. Keep in mind, the traditional interpretation of elven societies is culture in decline, though.

It may work, but obviously it doesn't work well enough.

Sure. It stops working when the orcs, dwarves, humans, etc, encroach on the lands surrounding your rich forests and start either cutting down the forest or planting awful, soil-depleting monoculture crops on the land adjacent.

Hence, civilization in decline.