New Design article: Elves

[Rechan]

Linky.

Hardened by the unruly savagery of nature and seasoned by the hard lessons that orcs, humans, and other creatures of the world are only too happy to teach, elves have gone a different route than their cousins, the eladrin. Elves rely on hard-won intuition and senses tuned to an arrow’s point instead of reason, intellect, or debate as eladrin are more wont to do. However, like eladrins, they possess a pure hate for their shared distant drow relatives.

The hell, Eladrins and Elves are related?

Also, looks like they're ditching the whole Elves=Magical Race that 3e had (Favored class: Wizard). Looks more like they're rangers and druids first, anything else second.

 

[Njall]

Well, IIRC in 2e the Eladrin were described as a sort of "celestial elf race".
So it's not really a surprise to me

 

[an_idol_mind]

I hope a lot of this flavor text survives into the Player's Handbook. The implied setting of 4e is starting to sound very interesting to me.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I have to admit, those are pretty close to WoW elves (minus the ears). They make more sense than 3e elves, though still with the bows, which is a weapon of the steppes, not the forest.

 

[Askaval30]

Are we to assume the Eladrin are no longer the paragon champions of the Chaotic Good ethos, proud planar knights and all that? I do recall some Planescape material hinted that there existed ties between the two, but more akin to the ties between Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus... a far cry from this "cousin" business.

I'd be really really sad if 4e were to demote Eladrin to simply being an offshoot of mortal elf

 

[Stormborn]

Hmmm...certainly more consistant with the way they are often depicted - very fey like in nature it seems. Given further support by the description of Correlleon as a "fey god." The article does bring a couple of questions to mind:

1. Are the gods mentioned going to be in 4e, or are they place holders for something later?
2. Does this mean eladrin are confirmed for the PHB? (I agree that they are usually dipicted as 'celestial elves.')

 

[RigaMortus2]

Elves, sometimes also called wood elves, wild elves, or sylvan elves, usually gather in tribes or bands composed of three or more families. These tribes are less concerned with relationships or lineages than with proven forestcraft and hunting prowess, and usually choose the wisest and most perceptive member of a tribe to lead. In very large tribes, this “elf chieftain” is instead described as an “elf king” or “elf queen.” However, in most tribes, even the lowliest member doesn’t feel beyond his station in speaking his mind to any other elf, regardless of station, up to and including the tribe’s leader

So it sounds like "elves" in 4E are wood elves by default. As opposed to 3E, where the default elf was based off of "high elves".

 

[Shade]

It sounds to me like "elf" = wood/wild/moon elf, while "eladrin" = high/sun elf.

Eladrins will be the arcanists/"favored class: wizard" elves of old, while "elves" will be the rangers and druids.

If this is true...once again, why not use a new name rather than repurposing a classic name?

 

[fuindordm]

Really excellent flavor text--you get a strong feeling for the character of this race from a few well-chosen words. Ten times better than the usual "elves love nature and magic" crud.

To crib from Order of the Stick:

I think I just had an elvigasm.

 

[RigaMortus2]

I wonder if they are going to get rid of "sub races"? So we won't necessarily see 15 differet types of elves. At least, they won't be categorized as "sub races". In other words, sure there will be Drow, but they will be their own species of elf. They aren't a sub-race of elf.

Some possible examples:

Elf = Wood Elf
Eladrin = High Elf?
Drow = Dark Elf
??? = Gray Elf
Avariel = Winged Elf?

Dwarf = Mountain Dwarf
Druegar = Gray/Dark Dwarf?

Just some thoughts...