Tell me about elves in your world.

[der_kluge]

As a corollary to my halfling thread, I want to know about elves in your world.

Do you have subraces of elves? What kind of society do they have? What is their culture like? What form of government do they have? What relationship do they have with the other races?


In my (still forming) campaign, I'm going to have elves live in the forest, and I'll probably go with sort of an Everquest-like influence, and may introduce wood elves as well as high elves. Still debating with myself on the high elves. I prefer the concept of wood elves more. So, in that respect, I'm thinking of making them *more* fey, and may even make them an ECL +1 race with more magical abilities and nature affinity.

I'm still trying to determine what kind of government, or social structure they have, so I'm interested in how others have implemented them.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

The Elves I would make if I ever made a homebrew world would live deep in a forest that never gets any light, but there would be all kinds of fantastic flora and fauna. In terms of relations with other races, they would be relatively reclusive, but would not mind if another race came to visit their forests.

 

[Crothian]

Technically there are 4 different races of evels but none of them claim any relation to the others and are treated as sperate races. None of them actually even refer to themselves as elves except the sea elves. THey have a specific name for themselves but it really not used bny the land luvers.

First there are the Avalar. They are grey elves that are Immortal. They have the greatest magic and greatetest technology. They are all highly educated and very self confidant. They are very private allowing very few people to come to their lands which are magically hidden and nearly impossibe lto get to without a guide. They are more then happy to advise the other races and put thier nose in the other people's business. They are very controlling and behind the scenes like though their ultimate goals are for the good of all. They just don't make a habit of sharing their plans. They are the only true Democracy in my world. Their rule has the title of Philosopher King/Queen even though it is an elected position.

The Thellians are close to the traditional high elves except that they are sailors. They live on a large island kindom and make the best ships and have the best sailors. They have few numbers combaired to most of the other races (but still more then the Avalar). They have a royal family and an elected council. They are explorers but don't colonize.

Then there are the Sylvans who are like wood elves sort of. They are Xenophobic to the extreme. They live in small tribes that all share the same totem animal. There are dozens of different tribes and many war with each other, they are not a united people.

Last are the Sea Elves. THey live underwater and are cuirently at war. THe war has been going on for centuries and they are loosing. But they have a hard time finding allies as it is very difficult to aid in a war that takes place under the seas.

While not really an elven race, there is a race of half elves. There was a great flood many melenia ago that forced a kingdom of elves (the Thellians before they went to the water) and a human kingdom to jion forces for survival. Basically this created a true kingdom of half elves. They are currently conquored by a water goddess' people.

 

[Terwox]

My campaign is entirely about elves, and only has one PC.

The elves sort of already did the Tolkien-esque thing of diminishing and going to the West... the elves left the rest of the mortal world behind, and locked themselves in a valley.

The valley is the most beautiful valley in the world, of course, and their cities are generally technologically behind in favor of simple living.

The only subrace is dark elves. Dark elves occur by being too strongly aligned with the elven deity of evil and magic. (All elves venerate only deities, but they all venerate each deity.) Casting magic lets the Dark One touch you, and casting a lot of magic lets the Dark One warp you. So, dark elves are almost like Sith in a sense, I suppose, except there's really no light side of the force -- there's just using magic, and resisting the temptation to use it too strongly.

It bears mentioning that the only pc is a gestalt bard-sorceror, so magic use is of course going to be necessary.

The game is really based on Exodus, although warped quite a bit. The lock that the elves shut the world out with begins to crumble, and a prophecied elf (the only elf with red hair in all the land) will come to lead the people away, to their place in the heavens.

After 2500 years, the rest of the world will react in various ways. I'm not really tremendously sure what the rest of the world will be like, at this point -- we're just starting to play in the valley.

"Elf" means wood elf and moon elf to me, although I just used the basic stats for the normal elf. That's elf-y enough, for me.

But, yes. The elves already went and sequestered themselves, and now they need to go sequester themselves elsewhere. That's their place in my world. (The rest of the world, is, of course, undefined, as it's a bottom-up designed quick little elf campaign.)

 

[painandgreed]

The elves in my world were created to lead other fey races against those of evil outsiders. They are haughty and proud, not quite realizing, or not caring, that not only are they no longer in charge, but the races they once ruled over are being displaced by humans and humanoids. Tehy are creatures of law and so is their society. Where a human paladin might tolerate a chaotic good person because "at least he's not evil" an elven paladin would tolerate a lawful evil person because 'at least he's not of chaos".

Their society, although not too strict, is very ordered and filled with ritual and expected behaviors. ignoring these or even a large accidental breach of such rules could result in being shunned by the community for a time or even being exiled. Hereditary nobles rule not so much by power but because of pressure from the rest of society to do so. Elves who find themselves unable to follow their orders are forced to do the only thing left, which is to declare themselves exiled and voluntarily leave for the unseelie court. Such elves rarely actually ever join the chaotic unseelie cort and instead simply wander in their self imposed exile unless conditions change that allow them to return.

Things are different for the other races. Elves believe that the world has an order to it and in that order, elves are at the top. All other races are inferior and meant to obey. This goes back into pre-history when wars were fought with the giants and even dwarves to establish rulership over said races. The condition that other races suffer in their society is near that of slavery with violence so rarley seen between elves, used freely on "those who need to be taught discipline". This is pretty much only for those born into their kingdoms as travellers and such are protected by law and custom, unless of course, said person should violate other laws and customs, some of which can't even be kept track of by elvish lawyers who study such things all their long lives.

Although creatures of law, they are untrusted by human society (or dwarvish). mnay years ago in a great war that would determine if elves, human or humanoids would rule the next age, humans elves and dwarves had banded together to defear the army of humanoids including the new race, orcs. Lackign numbers, the elves taught humans magic and the dwarves taught them how to forge iron and together they defeated the humanoids. The elves, seeing that if they did not take these gifts to humans back, would soon be overpowered and overrun by that race, decided to strike and kill all those who they had taught. (Their agreements and promises they had made with the humans technically allowed such actions according to elven law). the dwarves, whose relations had already been strained with the elves for centuries, balked at such a plan and refused to join into it. Because of this, the elven plan failed, the humans escaped and prospered plus they were unable to totally eliminate the humanoids. This legend is known by almost all human children and is a reminder not to trust the elves.

 

[Chimera]

As current usage:

Twelve Hundred years ago, the Great Forest covered most of the continent. The Elves ruled, though in cooperation with the various other forest races (Ents, Centaurs, etc).

Then the Calaseans, powerful natural magic users, came. They burned back the Great Forest to make room for their slave plantations. Humans being the primary agrarian slaves, Orcs being used to push back the forest.

Over this time, the Great Forest has been reduced to about 25% of it's former size and the Elves reduced to roughly 15% of their former numbers. It was only with massive divine intervention by ALL of the forest deities that they were spared from complete destruction.

So right now, they're on the ropes, trying to hang on, trying to resist the Calasean advance. They see Humans as tainted slave creatures to be killed on sight, nothing more. Just like Orcs, Dragons (allies of the Calaseans) and most other fell beasts, almost all of whom serve the Calaseans.

In the far future (@4500 years) when my first 5 campaigns on this homebrew world began (I'm doing heavy retro right now), the Calaseans are long dead and the Elves have had over 3000 years to rebuild. But they're still mostly reclusive and xenophonic. Elves have moved in small groups to places all over the world as a measure to preserve their race, but for the most part, outsiders are NOT allowed into those places. They certainly are not allowed into the Great Forest!

Elven PCs are those who have left their forest homes to explore the greater world at large.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Elves IMC created the other humanoid races--humans, ogres, halflings, as well as more specialized races, using magic.

They were on top, until the faster breeding humanoid slaves took their magic and destroyed most of them. Pride cometh before a fall.

Fast forward a few thousand years.

Now, elves (or whatever used to be an elf) are either...

Part of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts on the Plane of Faerie.
Shadow-Bound on the Plane of Shadow.
Drow, enslaved underground by an Illithid/Beholder empire.
One of various types of undead, wished so by the last stupid Bugbear, Thurken the Reviled.
Baelnorns, guarding elven vaults of knowledge and crypts.

Thus, Elves received their due as an extremely slow-breeding, long-lived race without any innate defensive advantages to speak of.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I want to know about elves in your world.

They're all dead.



Now, I did bring in some ringers. Elves from another solar system in great spelljamming ships that returned. They believe that they rightfully own the lands that they left 20,000 years ago. (They still have copies of the treaty.)

Their government is a monarchy. The relations with other races upon their return is rather strained. Otherwise, I didn't develop them a lot.

I have a message board game going where I took out elves and basically put in Sidhe. The land of Afallon opposes the city of Terminus Est (or has in the past). They are however divided between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, so what appears to be a unified front to those outside isn't at all. The Seelie Court is plagued with infighting, political struggle and grand plots to subtly undermine others while maintaining a polite face, while the Unseelie Court is a rough and tumble bunch defending their land from invaders who crept in while Afallon wasn't looking.

 

[Stormborn]

All of my elves live in vast city ships eternally at sea. They do not set foot on land, ever. Human cities that may have taken elves captive, forcing them to come ashore, tend not to be there for long once the elven fleet comes by. The elves have coordial relations with the main human nation, occasionally allowing humans to serve on their smaller trade and scout ships. This results in half-elves, who in turn serve as the primary go betweens and ambassadors (thus explaining the racial bonuses.)

 

[der_kluge]

Seem to be a couple of themese here - lots of reclusiveness among elves, and a couple of people have seafaring and ocean-themes going with regards to elves, which I find quite curious.

I only saw a few mention of drow, so I'm curious if it's taken for granted that there are races that live far beneath the surface, including drow, and what history your drow have, and whether it correlates to the FR history with regards to the schism between races of elves?