D&D General So how do Half-Elfs feel different to Elfs?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Half-elves are far more emo due to internal emotional conflicts about their half-human heritage.

 

[kigmatzomat]

well that was the most horribly depressing elf-related text i've ever read.

I'm depressed your reaction was anything other than "well, duh". This ought to be baked into every RPG that have some people live 3-10x longer than other people. Elves are the original sparkly vampires: eternally pretty (in human terms) with a sense of time that could be totally alien.

There are dozens of ways to handle it, it doesn't always require elves retreat from the mayflies, but that is one scenario. They could be super hippie about it (embrace the joy, feel the loss, find the new joy) or maybe goth (elves make the best funeral directors because they've seen so many deaths...) or social butterflies who know everyone but have the most superficial of bonds or...or... or...

But most games kind of gloss over it. Humans with pointy ears...... Such a waste of good material.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I find the premise of half-elves (and the relationship between an elf and a human) to be ridiculous on its face. I don't remember who talked about it somewhere that I read... but basically the Human lifespan to an Elf is like a Human's lifespan to their pet dog or cat. You go into this relationship knowing that you are only going to have only a small amount of time (probably like a decade or so) before you lose that creature, and that you are most likely going to "replace" said creature who knows how many times over your life once each of them is gone. So there is a certain detachment you have to have in that relationship, knowing its going to be so short (not to mention the fact that you are quite likely to have three, five, who knows how many more similar attachments like this over the course of your lifetime.)

As a result, I find it exceedingly unlikely just how many Elves across all these game worlds knowingly get into romantic relationships with these Human people who are ostensibly aged like pets... knowing full well the relationships will last only 1/8th of their lives... then having children with those Humans that they know for a fact will only live like maybe a quarter of their lives if they were lucky. All on a numeric scale that is just ridiculious.

I could accept the rarest of occasions where this might happen... where some rare singular Elf just can't help but fall in deep with their Human pet to actually have a romantic relationship with them... but based the sheer number of half-elves that live everywhere in every game setting... Elves apparently are the most sociopathic a-holes ever. Bedding whatever number of Humans they want, knowing they are going to watch them grow old and die... and having multitudes of children with them that they are also going to watch live, grow old, and die numerous times over throughout their 800 year lifespan. And apparently be completely okay with that based on how often these relationships happen across every single game world. Cause it ain't like half-elves are a rare species like Aasimar usually are.

The problem is... we humans just cannot conceive of what living an 800 year life actually would be like. So all this stuff we write about is us treating all these things from the perspective of what we know of Humanity. We don't write Elves like what an 800 year old creature would be or experience... we write them like they were Humans. Elves act like Humans act, even though they would do the same act over 8 entire Humans lifespans for their singular one. Cause we don't understand what any sort of actual reality for that kind of creature could be. The same way the history of the Forgotten Realms can be written as being "over 10,000 years old" and yet we still write it stuck in this perpetual faux-medieval landscape that has not evolved over hundreds of decades. No technical advancement... no magical advancement... just the same thing millenia after millenia after millenia. Because we can't conceive of how else it would be.

And that's exactly why I don't put any stock in the actual necessity of half-elves, nor treat other species within the game as anything more than Humans with Silly Hats. Because that's all we know as humans and we have no way of actually conceiving what it means to truly be "alien" on that sort of scale.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I find the premise of half-elves (and the relationship between an elf and a human) to be ridiculous on its face. I don't remember who talked about it somewhere that I read... but basically the Human lifespan to an Elf is like a Human's lifespan to their pet dog or cat. You go into this relationship knowing that you are only going to have only a small amount of time (probably like a decade or so) before you lose that creature, and that you are most likely going to "replace" said creature who knows how many times over your life once each of them is gone. So there is a certain detachment you have to have in that relationship, knowing its going to be so short (not to mention the fact that you are quite likely to have three, five, who knows how many more similar attachments like this over the course of your lifetime.)

As a result, I find it exceedingly unlikely just how many Elves across all these game worlds knowingly get into romantic relationships with these Human people who are ostensibly aged like pets... knowing full well the relationships will last only 1/8th of their lives... then having children with those Humans that they know for a fact will only live like maybe a quarter of their lives if they were lucky. All on a numeric scale that is just ridiculious.

I could accept the rarest of occasions where this might happen... where some rare singular Elf just can't help but fall in deep with their Human pet to actually have a romantic relationship with them... but based the sheer number of half-elves that live everywhere in every game setting... Elves apparently are the most sociopathic a-holes ever. Bedding whatever number of Humans they want, knowing they are going to watch them grow old and die... and having multitudes of children with them that they are also going to watch live, grow old, and die numerous times over throughout their 800 year lifespan. And apparently be completely okay with that based on how often these relationships happen across every single game world. Cause it ain't like half-elves are a rare species like Aasimar usually are.

The problem is... we humans just cannot conceive of what living an 800 year life actually would be like. So all this stuff we write about is us treating all these things from the perspective of what we know of Humanity. We don't write Elves like what an 800 year old creature would be or experience... we write them like they were Humans. Elves act like Humans act, even though they would do the same act over 8 entire Humans lifespans for their singular one. Cause we don't understand what any sort of actual reality for that kind of creature could be. The same way the history of the Forgotten Realms can be written as being "over 10,000 years old" and yet we still write it stuck in this perpetual faux-medieval landscape that has not evolved over hundreds of decades. No technical advancement... no magical advancement... just the same thing millenia after millenia after millenia. Because we can't conceive of how else it would be.

And that's exactly why I don't put any stock in the actual necessity of half-elves, nor treat other species within the game as anything more than Humans with Silly Hats. Because that's all we know as humans and we have no way of actually conceiving what it means to truly be "alien" on that sort of scale.

emotions aren't logical, people don't 'choose' who they fall in love with, elf or human or otherwise

also, it's not like we humans as a whole just abandoned taking cats and dogs and mice as pets because we know in ten years or so they're going to end up dying, we do it anyway and cherish the time we have with them.

 

[Sorinth]

Having the long-term memory of a toddler for 80 years is certainly a take, though not really one I’ve seen in anything before.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that of of toddler, but plenty of people don't really remember much at all from their childhood not even counting the toddler years. Adults who have a chronic lack of sleep also have plenty of memory problems.

 

[MGibster]

As a result, I find it exceedingly unlikely just how many Elves across all these game worlds knowingly get into romantic relationships with these Human people who are ostensibly aged like pets...

I never had a problem with the concept of half-elves, I just found it rather silly they were so abundant. Especially when some settings had half-elf communities.

 

[Remathilis]

I never had a problem with the concept of half-elves, I just found it rather silly they were so abundant. Especially when some settings had half-elf communities.

It makes sense if half-elves breeding with humans would produce other half-elves, but Gary's breakdown means most half-elf communities would either inbreed or dilute to humans "with a hint of elf blood" within a generation or two.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

For me, it's fairly simple.

To be an elf (in this case, a "high elf" if you prefer that distinction) is to be the heir to an ancient legacy; to be carrying on traditions so old, human civilization didn't even have language when they were started; to be the gorgeous relic of another time, still as proud and graceful as ever, even though the greatest days are long, long gone now.

To be a half-elf is to be something in and of and unto yourself, yet with no anchor to hold you to something specific that came before; to have an innately mercurial worldview, not because you are volatile, but because you are a living demonstration of things melding together to create something greater than the sum of its parts; to be a bridge between alienation and unification, stumbling and hesitant and often taking steps back before you can take steps forward.

Or, if you prefer, elves are Roman, and then Rhomaioi (aka Byzantine), carrying on a thousand-year legacy of culture and power; half-elves are Anglo-Saxon verging into English, a melting-pot, a blend of a dozen cultures thousands of miles apart over the course of a thousand years.

I'm mixed race, part Greek, and American by nationality.

My ancestors have almost ten times more history than the nation in which I live, and yet America claims to be built on the ideology of my ancestors. Hell, many argue that the civilization that America is part of began in Greece.

America is very short lived compared to the old world, and even the ancient Greeks considered the pyramids of the Egyptians to be even more ancient than themselves.

If someone cannot conceptualize the push and pull of elven and human culture creating an emotional tide within a half elf, maybe this can help.

 

[JohnSnow]

I have always felt Half-Elves work best when you think of them as D&D's "Dunedain." They are descended from Elves, live longer than other Humans, and have certain "Elven" traits.

In Tolkien's legendarium, Half-elves who have an Elven parent are given a choice, and that choice was granted to all of their descendants - to live as mortals, or to live as elf-kind. Elrond chooses Elf-kind, so in D&D terms, "Elrond the Half-Elven" would be...an Elf. His brother Elros chooses mortality, so he'd be a Half-Elf. And Arargorn, who's descended through many generations of interbreeding Half-Elves remains a Half-Elf.

But what about Arwen? Well, her mom is an Elf, but because her father is (technically) one of the Half-Elven, it seems Arwen (and one would assume her brothers) get to make the same choice, and can choose mortality at any time. Arwen lives as an Elf for nearly 2800 years and then...changes her mind. She then lives another approximately 120 years.

If you follow Tolkien's system, any children of Half-Elves would be Half-Elves or Humans, unless their other parent was an Elf, in which case they would get the same choice.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Also not for nothing but my favorite half elf character I ever played had an elven father who was absolutely codependent on his human wife, and the child knew not only would he have to take care of his father when his mother died, but also have to arrange for Dad to be taken care of when they died. And I don't know if there's anything saying that elves can't get cancer or Alzheimer's

In this respect it's almost like being the parent of a severely disabled child you know you'll outlive; maybe that's not the same story as delving into a cave, fighting a dragon and stealing it's gold, but there's meat on that bone if you know how to cook it.