Youre favorite style of Elf

[Vraille Darkfang]

Oh, and my favorite elves are cheesecake elves, and I agree that Faith Hill looks like one.

I also think Salma Hayek would make a perfect drow.

According to my wife, Orlando Bloom makes a hottie elf too.

 

[Desdichado]

But seriously, who could turn down a fine, elven furry?

I could. Blech.

And I apologize for dissin' your post to make a stupid joke...

 

[Ashrum the Black]

I love the anime elf, or the warcraft elf the best myself.

A very close second for me though is the valenar elves from eberron. It moves away from the typical frolicking forrest elf and moves them into a much harder and dangerous direction. As for look i like the pseudo middle eastern garb they were. My DM was dumbfounded when my valenar walked away from the armor emellished with leaf shaped adornments.

-Ashrum

 

[sniffles]

I have to admit I'm biased toward elves (80% of my PCs are elves) and I really prefer Tolkien-esque elves. Sort of ethereal, closer to the divine than humans, with a much longer view of life, and a sort of melancholy because they know they'll outlive their mortal friends.

I really dislike them when they're presented as just pretty humans with pointy ears, nothing else much different about them than their long lives (in other words, the way they're presented in most D&D). I also hate it when they're presented as snooty. A friend of mine who regularly GMs for our group only does the snooty elves - I think he just does it because he knows it annoys me.

The elves in Eberron, especially the Aerenal elves, seem kind of interesting as an alternative to Tolkien-style elves. I've also thought really barbarian elves would be fun, or elves who've taken over the traditional gnome place as the gadgeteers.

I think the psychological alienness of elves doesn't get emphasized enough. What would it be like to outlive all your non-elf friends? That has to have a powerful effect on the personality. I'm trying to keep that in mind for a new campaign my group is starting - the other PCs are in their teens or early 20s (and one of them is a Kelloren from Races of Destiny, so she's only 11 years old!), while my elf is 10 times the age of any of the other characters.

 

[Torm]

According to my wife, Orlando Bloom makes a hottie elf too.

Heck, almost everyone in my gaming group thought Legolas was prettier than most women you pass by on a daily basis.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton's Halfblood chronicles has a culture that combines the decadence of imperial Rome, the oppressive sexism of the Taliban, and the dehumanizing institution of slavery in the antebellum South.

I love Mercedes Lackey. The Elvenbane is one of my favorite books.

Visually, I also like the "idealized human" sort of elves, and hate the huge eared anime elves. In artwork, I like elves to be either slightly taller or slightly shorter than humans, with thin, delicate features and ear tips that are longer than the LOTR movie elves, but shouldn't rise past the top of the head. They should be slender, lithe, and lightly built.

In literature, I like all kinds of elves. The haughty, aristocratic elves, the feral, forest dwelling elves, mysterious magically critters. I'm not terribly keen on the elves as faerie folk angle. I do like those stories, but I think of them as different than the elves that I usually think of as elves.

The elves in my world are physically as above, and culturally range from fierce, nomadic desert elves, the more refined woods elves, and reclusive sea elves. I haven't knocked out all the cultural bits yet.

One kind of elf I don't think anyone's mentioned yet are the elves from the Elfquest books by Wendy and Richard Pini. They aren't my favorite kind of elf, but they're fun, and I really like the books. If you look at the full-page picture of the druid in the Complete Divine, she is very reminiscent of an Elfquest elf, in line, shape, and coloring style.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

Oh, and to the question of preparing elf, remember that the older and more worked a meat is, the tougher it gets. So an old elf wizard is likely to be pretty chewy. The solution to this is to either cook it fast and slice it thin (ala flank steak. Elf fajitas!) or long and slow. There's this braise you can make with assassin vine wine and chicken stock that's just to die for.

 

[Desdichado]

SO, nobody goes in for this type of elf?

 

[DonAdam]

Dentist elves!

 

[Torm]

Dentist elves!

Yeah! And lawyer ones, too! ...cough, Ella Enchanted, cough....