Thank you Haldrik. I wrote this section, and the "response to immortality" line is the closest to my heart. I think everything you said about it is spot on, and I hope it is helpful for you and others for RPing elves--and for RL meditations as well.
So far, discussions involve "Elf physical descriptions" and "Elf origins". Now for "Elf immortality".
... These long-lived people.
Elves do not merely “survive” in this world; they are among the world’s ancient masters. Elvish culture predates that of other cultures, except perhaps the cultures of dragons and giants. How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality.
...
Age. Elf children mature at the same rate as human children, but elvish cultures do not consider them to be fully mentally developed (nor age of majority) until they acquire a century of life experience. Elves today can live to be 700 or older, and legends speak of elves who simply never die.
I feel the Level Up playtest handles elven immortality perfectly.
The longevity of most elves is toward 700 years. But individuals are possible "who never die".
This sounds about right.
Since there is no real ceiling for life expectency, maybe maybe mention a lifespan of 600 years is "common", with immortality being "rare". Presumably there are eladrin elves who are archfey who are immortal. Perhaps their immortality allowed them enough time to achieve the high levels of archfey. Even someone like Corellon and Lolth are simply normal elves who have lived along time. They are honored because they are immortal ancestors who are still alive among their descendents. Here the family value of "honor thy parent" is quite literal. There is nothing "religious" about it per se.
Whether a lifespan is many centuries or forever, in either case there is a sense of "eternal youth". Most reach an apparent age of 20, and remain about 20 forever.
In any case, there is a sense that any elf might be one of the few who seem to live indefinitely. Most are finite. But some continue on. Perhaps the immortal feel survivors guilt? Perhaps the immortals feel a sense of responsibility as parents for the elven communities?
The part of the playtest that really struck me is:
"How elves respond to their near immortality is one of the most defining aspects of an elf’s personality."
Immortality! Every elf is potentially immortal.
This is so important. And so central to the character concept. The player needs to wrap ones head around this, to roleplay an elf.
So far, in my experience, D&D seems to handwaive a millennium lifespan, by saying, "be aloof" and "dont sweat the small", or something like that.
But think about. If you knew you might be immortal. And you have met longlife family members and perhaps was at an elven court of an immortal elf. If that might be you one day, how would you feel? What would you do?
The answer to that question, is what makes an elf a character.
I can't remember which edition and/or setting it was, but D&D had elves that were immortal. The ages listed were just how long they lived until they grew weary and then went to the plane of their god. Sort of like Tolkien elves going over the sea.
I mentioned seniority and meritocracy. But actually, the immortals have more experience and really are better at their jobs. So the immortals do merit the jobs moreso than the younger generations. The youth can never catch up, can never be as good. So it feels pointless to even try to be as good.
(I wonder if our grandchildren will feel similar when AI and robots do almost all jobs better than a natural human could? Why study to be a medical surgeon when AI and robots are superior?)
Heh, no wonder some elves have a reputation for shirking responsibilities and being immature! Why bother!
Maybe that can be a reason why elves turn to art, a celebration of life and beauty made possible by a life of leasure.
And magic and its infinite potential is a satisfying eternal pastime. Each elf explores magic in ones own unique way, at whatever level the elf is at. By magic, each elf can invent ones own job, something one loves to do, to make the universe more beautiful.
Depends on how you define immortal. Eberron's kinda got two types of "immortal" elves but both are the result of ancestor worship.
The first & easiest is the Deathless that lead the Arenal elves. There is a ritual that transforms someone into a deathless similar to the process of becoming a lich but it uses positive energy given willingly by their descendants rather than negative energy taken by force like with the lich. To a degree this requires the Irian manifest zone causing energy from the plane of eternal dawn/endless creation in order to maintain everything but the extent that it's required for them is left to the gm.
The second are the Valenar elves. Rather than keeping their ancestors around as some freakish undead they try to honor their deeds/spirit/memory by following in their footsteps & doing great deeds as they did in their name & such. This works pretty well for d&d since they were a slave race created by the giants who later rebelled & fled with lotsa fighting & it led to a race of warriors who go around with a readymade excuse to engage in murderhobo tendencies at times .
As to our kidsa few generations down... see a lot of buggy whip makers, coopers, blacksmiths, & so on? The jobs just won't exist & some kind of star trek-type UBI fueled society would need to develop or civilization will just collapse in one of several horrible fashions. You can see it now to some degree though... ask a kid about tvguide, the vending machine on the office ribbon, or just to think about why they will probably understand this famous sentence different from you "The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel."
Depends on how you define immortal. Eberron's kinda got two types of "immortal" elves but both are the result of ancestor worship.
The first & easiest is the Deathless that lead the Arenal elves. There is a ritual that transforms someone into a deathless similar to the process of becoming a lich but it uses positive energy given willingly by their descendants rather than negative energy taken by force like with the lich. To a degree this requires the Irian manifest zone causing energy from the plane of eternal dawn/endless creation in order to maintain everything but the extent that it's required for them is left to the gm.
The second are the Valenar elves. Rather than keeping their ancestors around as some freakish undead they try to honor their deeds/spirit/memory by following in their footsteps & doing great deeds as they did in their name & such. This works pretty well for d&d since they were a slave race created by the giants who later rebelled & fled with lotsa fighting & it led to a race of warriors who go around with a readymade excuse to engage in murderhobo tendencies at times .
As to our kidsa few generations down... see a lot of buggy whip makers, coopers, blacksmiths, & so on? The jobs just won't exist & some kind of star trek-type UBI fueled society would need to develop or civilization will just collapse in one of several horrible fashions. You can see it now to some degree though... ask a kid about tvguide, the vending machine on the office ribbon, or just to think about why they will probably understand this famous sentence different from you "The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel."
There is a vague sense that the elves of the Feywild/Dream are immortals.
But the elves who entered the Material Plane, somehow exchanged their immortality for a mortal life, as result of materializing into physical beings of flesh and blood.
In Eberron, two elven cultures long nostalgically for their immortal origins.
One group actually is immortal, using necromancy to keep ancestors undead.
The other group is mortal.
Maybe for the mortal group, they are immortal in the sense of reincarnation, where their immortal Fey spirit continues to reincarnate within the Material Plane, generation after generation. While trancing, the elves also relive earlier incarnations. In this way, the Fey spirit literally is continuing on their personal ideal of their earlier incarnation.
In any case, the idea that Fey spirits have a lifespan of say 600 years (common) and even a 1000 years (uncommon), but that some continue on immortally (rare), sounds good to me.
Regarding elves, the central concept is, they are personifications of magic, relating to fate and verbal oracles. Then comes their charm and beauty. Then Celtic ones are woodsy and earthy, while Norse ones are sunny and skyey.
Probably every elf should have Detect Magic at-will, as an elf heritage trait. Or at least the option to choose Detect Magic for the trait. This innate sensitivity to magic helps actualize the sense that elves are inherently magical.
I can't remember which edition and/or setting it was, but D&D had elves that were immortal. The ages listed were just how long they lived until they grew weary and then went to the plane of their god. Sort of like Tolkien elves going over the sea.
Characters with the elf heritage share a variety of traits in common with one another.
Age. Elf children mature at the same rate as human children, but elvish cultures do not consider them to be fully mentally developed (nor age of majority) until they acquire a century of life experience. Elves today can live to be 700 or older, and legends speak of elves who simply never die.
Size. Elves have a slender and graceful build. Some stand as tall as average humans, although most are a head or so shorter. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision.Having your ancestral origins in the twilight realms, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Fey Ancestry. You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
Trance. Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining conscious. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that became reflexive through years of practice.
When you take a long rest, you spend 4 hours in your trance state (instead of sleeping for 6 hours). During the trance you suffer no penalty to Passive Perception. A long rest remains 8 hours for you as normal, and the remainder of the time must be filled only with light activity.
Regarding Age, we discussed elven immortality.
The text here says, elvish cultures dont consider 20 year olds to be "fully mentally developed", "nor age of majority".
However, a 20 year old is fully developed, mentally. The challenge is, the 20 year old probably hasnt decided what to do with their life. This appears to be an especially severe challenge in the context of immortality. If you have to decide what to do with your life, forever, that takes some time for introspection.
So, they are of the age of majority, and are responsible for their own actions. Just uncertain about their future.
Essentially, the elf turns 20, and is equivalent to a 20 year old human. They have a high school equivalent education and even some higher school training, relating to their background and choice of class.
From age 20 to age 100, the elf is going thru 80 years of college life. The college life can include accruing advanced learning, or years of travel and exploration.
Are fully mentally developed, and age of majority being responsible for their own actions. But the cultures view these 80 years as a time of self-discovery.
Year 100 is graduation from college life. A time when the elf declares what the rest of eternity will look like.
In the reallife ethnic folklore that I find more meaningful, elves are the same size as humans, and sometimes assumed to be human.
By the time of Shakespeare, England evolved the concept of "shrinkable" fairies, because they are spirits, relating to angels that can dance on the head of a pin. The more powerful the spirit, the finer they are and the smaller they can shrink. Angels can be smaller than the eye can see. Shakespeare mentions that the fairy can be as small as the gem of a signet ring, and hide under a thimble. Nevertheless, Shakespeare describes the fairy as human children, about ages four to eighteen. Likewise, the fairies are the same size as humans, as normal for these human ages. By the Victorian Era, English fairy are simply tiny, normally. In short (heh), small elves are ethnocentric.
Outside of England, other ethnic groups maintain normal human sizes for elves. For example, in Scottish folklore, the definition of an "elf" is "a man sized fairy". Ethnic traditions across Scandinavia have elves be human size.
Note, the D&D eladrin elves can be taller than humans (and Pathfinder elves are normally taller).
For D&D, I prefer to see the elves as the same size as humans, on average. Each elven family or culture might tend toward a particular size, smaller or larger, but individuals might exist of any size in any elven community.
