Elves of Endless Horizons

[Xeviat]

Elves are an important part of fantasy for me. They have existed in most fantasy stories I have read, and have frequently been their protagonists. Until very recently, I had been making the elves of my world very much like the elves of D&D; they were people of a different sort, with cities and nations and all the other trappings of civility. Then I watched "The Secret of Kells", and new notions began to infiltrate my concepts of what it means to be an elf. More importantly, I began to reconsider what I wanted for the elves of my world.

Now I am on the fence between two concepts. First, I can go with the more "traditional" and established notion of Elves, where they are much like the other races. They are born, they grow old (though slower than other races), and they die. They are numerous, though perhaps not as numerous as others. They go to war, they trade, and they live in cities and nations. Second, I can go with a more classical or mythological approach, where they are very much unlike the other races. They are truly fey, immortal and potentially powerful as they age. They are few in number, possessing small families rather than nations. They are alien and inhuman.

What do you think the consequences of this change would be? 1st level Elves would be young by Elven standards, though possibly as old (or older) than human adults. High level Elves could be very experienced if they were always an adventurer, or they could be impossibly old. They would not rule the world, because of their tiny numbers. How do you think I could convey this in my world? Does this sound like an interesting direction to explore?

[Steerpike]

I've always preferred the "Fair Folk" eldritch/unknowable/folkloric elves to standard pointy-eared D&D types.  One complication is that it makes PC elves trickier to pull off, for a number of reasons (alien mind-set, power-level, reasons they'd be adventuring with humans, etc).  However, it opens up possibilities for lots of plots involving changelings, secret elven enclaves, crazy elven rules (as the Llanowar elves say in Magic: The Gathering, "One bone broken for every twig snapped underfoot") and the like.

One way to handle PC elves: maybe instead of being young elves, low-level elves are elves who've been stripped of their power by elven monarchs for some transgression or other.  Banished from their fey lands, they're forced to acclimate themselves to "mortal" life, working for their suppers, paying for things, etc, where before elven magic took care of all that pesky nonsense.

[Kindling]

Although I'd instinctively agree with Steerpike (and all his points are very good ones) there is also part of me that thinks it must be possible to do Tolkeinian/DnD elves "right."

I remember reading all the fluff from the WHFB High Elves army book (3rd or 4th ed, not sure which) over and over back in the day, so they must have done something right there despite having relatively vanilla elves.

Maybe if you do go the more DnD-standard route try playing up one or two of the typical features of elves to make them something other than pointy-eared humans. A couple of possibilities could be...
- Their traditional enmity with goblinoids and/or orcs; they are a race dedicated to a millennia-long genocidal war
- Physical frailty; maybe they don't just get hurt more easily than other races, they also heal much slower (could fit in with longer lifespans)
- An ancient race on the decline; rather than gracefully stepping aside and handing over to the "Age of Men" these elves will do anything to desperately cling to their status as pre-eminent race
- Beauty and glamer; perhaps even when they don't mean to their very presence and appearance enchants members of other races
- Closer to nature; but this time in more of a red-in-tooth-and-claw way than a tree-hugging hippie way

[Humabout]

Like the two before me, I like my elves cruel, powerful, immortal, and puckish.  That said, I think what made Tolkein elves "right" were the concepts behind them:

• The elves of Tolkein were a people with an extensive and deep history of migrations, conflicts, intermarriages, and such.  It breathed life into them as a people, and could be seen as merely a group of humans from a different ethnicity that arrived in Middle Earth before "men" did.
  
• Tolkein elves (T-elves, henceforth) are largely based on the elves of norse myth - they are not frail or weak, but stronger and faster than men.  D&D got this bit wrong when they replicated T-elves.
  
• T-elves were also largely based on celtic fairies, which have strong associations with nature and decline.  In celtic myth, elves were gods who were defeated by humans and driven underground.  There they began to fade away, as T-elves were doing since the days of the Silmarillion.
  
• T-elves do not use Magic.  Magic is symbolic of power and carries the taint of corruption that all power does.  T-elves were artists whose art was so perfect that it carried magical qualities and allowed them to do things that seemed supernatural (just as the dwarves were such master craftsmen that their products seemed intrinsicly magical).  This was a big point for Tolkein.  Elves and dwarves were supreme artists and craftsmen; Sauroman, Sauron, and Morgoroth delt in Magic.
  

Note:  This post isn't intended to derail the thread on a bender over what Tolkein intended or didn't intend.  It's just something to spark the imagination.

[Steerpike]

I quite liked how they handled the High Elves in Skyrim (as an example of "standard elves" done right) - haughty, cruel, vain, racist, insanely egotistical, effete, and Machiavellian.  I like the idea of elves with a "we are just so superior" attitude.  Definitely "Lawful Evil" elves, and a nice contrast with the usual treehugging magical hippies.

Of course, there's no reason you can't do both, with the fey, crazy wood elves living forever in isolated pockets of faerie or just in secluded woodlands.  The "standard" elves could be elves who gave up (or were stripped of) immortality and all that came with it for more human concerns: technology, power, artifice.  They've become more fathomable and less bizarre as a result, but now they only live for a few centuries.  The old/true elves would look on their "fallen" kindred with pity and contempt whereas the new elves would likely see their ancestors as degenerate primitives.

EDIT: Perhaps the "old" elves are sworn not to take a direct hand in mortal affairs, which is what precipitated some of their number to "fall" into quasi-mortality - they felt a sense of compassion for humans and the other races and wanted to help them fight goblins or whatever.  Banished for their breach of elven isolationism, they can never return to the old ways, and their ancestors consider them cursed.

Just ideas.  There are a lot of ways you can do it.  Maybe the old elves allow all elven children to venture out into the mortal world for a year and a day or something and then they have to decide whether they come back to the otherworld/fairy mound/forest or whether they want to become mortal and live in the world of humans and the other races.

[Humabout]

Another idea I've toyed with was making "elves" the offspring of matings between humans and fairies, where faries are extremely magical creatures comrpised of animate and sapient illusions.

[Xeviat]

In my current draft, Elves are Sidhe who were trapped on Terran long ago; maybe they were kicked out, maybe they were lost. Severed from the magic of Avalon, they adapted to the natural world of Terran and became Elves. The Sidhe are Oberon-esque "high elves", complete with Seelie and Unseelie courts, alien mentalities, and a juxtaposed mix of terrible cruelty and unimaginable generosity.

Here's what I have so far, but this is from before my beginning ideas of changes:

Elf
Beautiful, lithe, inhuman. Aloof, subtle, farseeing. Elves are the people of nature, at one with the forests and other untamed wildernesses. The most wild of the civilized races, they are only count elves amongst them because of their history of shared enemies. They are descended from the people of Avalon, the enigmatic Sidhe, but have since become wholly a part of Terran. Elves have a long perspective, often acting in ways mysterious to the shorter lived races.

Appearance: Elves stand from 5 to 6 feet tall, and weigh between 100 to 160 pounds. They possess large almond shaped eyes and pointed ears that sweep backwards and away from their head. Elves do not grow body or facial hair (with the exception of sideburns in males), adding to their general androgynous appearance. Males and females are, on average, the same height, and females only have the smallest bit of added curvature to their chests and hips when compared to males. Unlike humans, their skin color fades and lightens when they are exposed to more sunlight. Possessing a deeper tie to their homelands than other races, an elf's coloration is as much dependent on their lineage as the terrain they're born in. Their skin often possesses earthy and woody tones, while their hair is the color of vegetation. In their youth, their hair is the color of spring in their homeland, changing through summer, to fall, and finally to winter as they age. Their eyes are universally blue, the color of the sky, vibrant and full of life.

Personality: Elves prize their freedom above all else. They are whimsical and often flighty, seemingly careless about their activities on a day to day basis, but oddly well planned from year to year. Their moods tend to shift quickly too, relatively speaking. As children, they do not learn well by being told; they have to experience things for themselves. This is in part because of their general aloof nature, but is also caused by their vast life spans. Elves rarely consider their actions, typically doing what feels right; when they do put consideration into their decisions, they tend to only look at long term repercussions. Because they often have time to spare, many elves take up artistic expression in the form of painting, music, poetry, and wood working.

Life: Elves are strict herbivores, living primarily off of fruits and nuts. Nomadic communities gather all that they eat, but permanent settlements farm in such a way that fits with the environment. Elves do not seem to eat as much as humans, and some believe they can live off ambient magic. Elves age incredibly slow, and aren't considered adults until 50 years. Young elves learn best by experiencing, taking years to learn the things that other races take for granted. They can live for several hundred years, though a true limit of their age is unknown.
Adventurers: Elves can sometimes be the most simplistic of adventurers: they adventure to have adventures. Becoming a hero is the best way to gain notoriety amongst elves, so it is a dream many adolescents and young adults dream about. Elven adventurers tend to be young adults, as older elves become more concerned about continuing to live out their years. Elven adventurers prefer adventures that defend the weak, combat tyranny, or protect nature.

Wood Elves
Residing in the deep wild forests, wood elves are the most encountered elves, as their forests often abut other nations. Wood elves have become one with the forest, and they build their communities amongst the trees themselves. Expert archers and spearmen, elven hunters are master woodsmen. To those unskilled in woodcraft, wood elven settlements are invisible; one could pass within twenty feet and never see them.

Appearance: Wood elves are well muscled and lean. Their skin is the color of bark, ranging from pale to rich brown. When young, their hair is dark to vibrant green, fading to a rich green, to autumnal reds, oranges, and yellows, and finally to silvery white as they age. Wood elves typically wear clothes of loose silk.
Wood elven warriors wear armor of specially cured and woven leaves, ranging from light armor made of large leaves to heavy armor made of a coat of small scale-like leaves. Their weapons are most often wooden, grown straight from the tree and magically shaped. They favor bows and spears, but cruel curved wooden swords are also common. Large elven communities boast the rare metal armor or weapon, won in someone's travels or bought from a trader.

Society: Wood elves mostly live in nomadic communities of an average of 200 elves, with only a small number of children. These communities are all related by blood, though their exact lineages are unimportant to them. All adults equally contribute in food gathering and defense, while the adolescents are responsible for taking care of the children. Adult elves come together as mates for ten to twenty years at a time, producing one to two children over this time. These settlements are guided by the community's elders, though truly governing decisions are made by the adults as a whole. The few permanent settlements, which are built into the trees and consist of many platforms, huts, and bridges, are structured in much the same way, except that these communities tend to be less communal. These settlements are not all related by blood, and are truly governed by their elders (who also oversee the adolescents in their raising and care of the children).

Religion: Wood elves revere the spirits of their forest home, striving to live as one with their distant cousins. To a wood elf, religion is deeply personal. They do not view the greater spirits as gods who lead, but parents who guide. Many tribes have a patron spirit, a great being who resides in their territory. Tribes also have ancestral spirits, great heroes of history, whom they believe reside in the stars above.

Names: Wood elves possess three names, though they generally only hold one name at a time. Their first name is the name of their tribe or settlement, which is used primarily in inter elf dealings; these settlement names are generally made of two elven words (an adjective and a noun), such as Goldenwood or Starryglen. Their second name is generally considered an affectionate name in adulthood, which is given to elven children by the other children and adolescents. When an elf reaches adulthood, they choose their third name, often a name which means something to them, or the name of a great hero they wish to emulate.

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Now I am considering making them far more solitary, and quite a bit more feylike.

[Rhamnousia]

I'm going to second Steerpike's enjoyment of Skyrim's Aldmeri dominion, but I want to take it a little further by saying even the "tree-hugging magical hippie" elves were still incredibly dark by the standards of normal fantasy. The Bosmer have such a reverence for the trees they live in, they make nothing out of wood and religiously abstain from eating any sort of plantlife: as a result, they're entirely carnivorous, even to the point of being cannibalistic.

To be honest, I much prefer the sort of scheming, Machiavellian elves over the Tolkienian sort. It seems like it'd make a lot more sense for them to use their immortality, superior physical attributes, and mastery of magic to exert their dominance over the rest of the world. Even if you don't want to make them straight-up evil, it'd be interesting to see them as very interventionist, stepping in when they feel the people of another race or kingdom are being treated unjustly, or when a ruler threatens the balance of the rest of the land. Still definitely Good Alignment, just not so Goody-Goody Alignment.

[Ghostman]

To be honest, I much prefer the sort of scheming, Machiavellian elves over the Tolkienian sort. It seems like it'd make a lot more sense for them to use their immortality, superior physical attributes, and mastery of magic to exert their dominance over the rest of the world.

Isn't that actually rather close to how elves in the Middle-Earth were during the 1st Age? Their kingdoms were pretty much the only ones that mattered (besides Angband), and the royals could be quite ambitious and ruthless. Especially the house of Feanor.