Valenar Elves

[Rhaegar14]

I was reading ECS earlier and fell in love with these guys. Are there any other sources with good stuff for them?

[Yora]

Races of Eberron will have something on them. Player's Guide to Eberron most probably should have a few pages as well. (Not to be confused with Eberron Player's Guide for 4th Edition.)

[Essence_of_War]

And I think the PGtE has the sweet Revenant Blade PrC in it too! :smallsmile:

[Wings of Peace]

And I think the PGtE has the sweet Revenant Blade PrC in it too! :smallsmile:

There's even a Revenant Blade handbook (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872270/The_Revenant_Blade_Handbook)!

[Leon]

Races of Eberron will have something on them. Player's Guide to Eberron most probably should have a few pages as well.

Major downside of that book, it has a lot of great stuff and only a few pages on any of it.

[Hazzardevil]

I'm rather dissapointed at how little there is in Eberron books on the Valenar, even more so that it doesn't give any of them alignments.

[Leon]

well alignment in Eberron is fairly flexible - one band may be good, another band may be evil and so on

[Madara]

If you like the Valenar Elves, I would take a look at Secrets of Xen'drik which talks about the elves who are still on Xen'drik, you could probably carry a fair amount of culture themes over.

[Greenish]

Valenar (who I agree are as awesome as elves can be) get some screen time in web articles:

The Elves of Valenar, part 1 (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041004a)
The Elves of Valenar, Part 2 (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20041011a)
The Horsewatchers (Valenar Druids) (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebds/20051114a)
Crossing Valenar (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...rdisp/20080118)
The Walls of Taer Valaestas (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...rdisp/20080129)
The People of Taer Valaestas (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...rdisp/20080218)
Dangers of Taer Valaestas (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...rdisp/20080402)


Keith Baker also talks about them on RPG.net's forums (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?505714-Eberron-The-Valenar-and-their-Ways/page2).

Finally, The Forge of War, being the history of Last War, gives some details on how they came to be involved, where they fought (and who, and for whom), and on their fighting styles and organization.

[Shadowknight12]

I really don't get the Valenar love. They're supposed to be extremely overt villains, what with their consistently genocidal/xenophobic behaviour. I do applaud that Eberron goes the extra mile to make them playable nonetheless, but I don't understand the fan-love.

I don't understand the fan-love for things like Twilight either, so I guess this might be one of those things Man Was Never Meant To Know.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I really don't get the Valenar love. They're supposed to be extremely overt villains, what with their consistently genocidal/xenophobic behaviour. I do applaud that Eberron goes the extra mile to make them playable nonetheless, but I don't understand the fan-love.

Do you have Word of God they were meant to be villains, or is it just because they're a Proud Warrior Race full of Bloodknights?

And I can't believe I heard that coming out of the mouth of the guy who are trying to make cannibalistic undead look, no, be, sympathetic.

[Shadowknight12]

Do you have Word of God they were meant to be villains, or is it just because they're a Proud Warrior Race full of Bloodknights?

And I can't believe I heard that coming out of the mouth of the guy who are trying to make cannibalistic undead look sympathetic.

I don't know, I'd say that the whole deal with them slaughtering thousands of unarmed, fleeing civilians (Cyrans on the Day of Mourning) for no reason at all puts them firmly in the "Villain" category. Also, their whole thing about basically stealing a bunch of land from Cyre and overtly planning to conquer the entire continent (going as far as to say that they signed that peace treaty thing only because it recognised Valenar as a country) strikes me as 'very obvious' in the whole 'villain scheme' thing. Aundair's Queen is at least subtle about it.

[Curious]

I don't know, I'd say that the whole deal with them slaughtering thousands of unarmed, fleeing civilians (Cyrans on the Day of Mourning) for no reason at all puts them firmly in the "Villain" category. Also, their whole thing about basically stealing a bunch of land from Cyre and overtly planning to conquer the entire continent (going as far as to say that they signed that peace treaty thing only because it recognised Valenar as a country) strikes me as 'very obvious' in the whole 'villain scheme' thing. Aundair's Queen is at least subtle about it.

At least it's different from the usual tree-hugging, holier-than-thou elves of every other setting ever.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I don't know, I'd say that the whole deal with them slaughtering thousands of unarmed, fleeing civilians (Cyrans on the Day of Mourning) for no reason at all puts them firmly in the "Villain" category. Also, their whole thing about basically stealing a bunch of land from Cyre and overtly planning to conquer the entire continent (going as far as to say that they signed that peace treaty thing only because it recognised Valenar as a country) strikes me as 'very obvious' in the whole 'villain scheme' thing. Aundair's Queen is at least subtle about it.

I think of them as Mongolians. They have a strong cultural heritage which includes a very strong warrior influence, so they always want fighting.

And I think of the goblinoids as Romans (except for the bugbear tribes).

[Shadowknight12]

I think of them as Mongolians, and the goblinoids as Romans (except for the bugbear tribes).

And? What's that got to do with anything? Still overtly villains. It's like people rooting for Sauron, Voldemort or any fantasy story's villain du jour.

I'm not saying it's wrong, mind you (catching this one before any misunderstandings arise). I just don't get it.

[Hiro Protagonest]

And? What's that got to do with anything? Still overtly villains. It's like people rooting for Sauron, Voldemort or any fantasy story's villain du jour.

I'm not saying it's wrong, mind you (catching this one before any misunderstandings arise). I just don't get it.

Edited my post.

And they are not the people who want to destroy the world. They want to rule the continent, but so does pretty much every other nation, except maybe Breland. How does that make them evil?

[Shadowknight12]

Edited my post.

Cultures obsessed with fighting can be portrayed in a much less villainous way. Without going into RL examples, let's just say that a fighting-centric culture can develop just fine without conquering everything around it.


And they are not the people who want to destroy the world. They want to rule the continent, but so does pretty much every other nation, except maybe Breland. How does that make them evil?

Sauron didn't want to destroy the world either. He wanted to enslave everyone and rule every square inch of Middle Earth. Just like the Valenar!

Where's the difference? That the elves are 'pretty' and portrayed as 'badass', instead of 'ugly' and 'fearsome'? Are we really that superficial nowadays?

[Greenish]

They want to rule the continentNo they don't. They just want to fight, preferably against a more powerful enemy. :smalltongue:

Like that one guy on RPG.net forums said:
It's like this: the Valenar are playing Lord of the Rings in a Casablanca world. As a people they desperately, desperately want to be Rohirrim, but they can't find a Sauron to fight. Look at what they did to Cyre: 30,000 elite elven badasses plant a flag on the shore and shout "Come on, if you're hard enough!" and the rest of the world just mutters "We're a little busy, thanks."

As for why people love them, well, it's because they're badass.

[Shadowknight12]

No they don't. They just want to fight, preferably against a more powerful enemy. :smalltongue:

Like that one guy on RPG.net forums said:

As for why people love them, well, it's because they're badass.

Oh, so it's exactly as I supposed. That's good. I don't necessarily agree with it (I lack the gene that allows me to determine what is 'badass' and what isn't, comprehend the word 'badass' or why 'badass' is supposed to be a positive trait), but I can understand that reasoning.

Carry on, thread.

[sonofzeal]

Oh, so it's exactly as I supposed. That's good. I don't necessarily agree with it (I lack the gene that allows me to determine what is 'badass' and what isn't, comprehend the word 'badass' or why 'badass' is supposed to be a positive trait), but I can understand that reasoning.

Carry on, thread.
The one other thing is that, while you can characterize them as "villains", Eberron mostly ignores the label entirely. Very few forces or organizations are categorically "evil". The Lords of Dust, maybe, but even that's mostly because the Dragons tell us so... and the Dragons are just about as bad from time to time. Orcs are instrumental for protecting the world; Goblinoids are far more noble than many of the humans; even the Lord of Blades could be portrayed sympathetically given the history of the Warforged.

The Valenar certainly do some horrible things by our standards. But in Eberron, that doesn't make them a "villian" - just another group of people that has occasionally done horrible things. They're probably less "moral" than most of the other factions by our standards, but hardly card-carrying villains in it purely For Teh Ebulz.

Eberron is all about shades of grey. Keep that in mind, and things like the Valenar make more sense.

[Shadowknight12]

The one other thing is that, while you can characterize them as "villains", Eberron mostly ignores the label entirely. Very few forces or organizations are categorically "evil". The Lords of Dust, maybe, but even that's mostly because the Dragons tell us so... and the Dragons are just about as bad from time to time. Orcs are instrumental for protecting the world; Goblinoids are far more noble than many of the humans; even the Lord of Blades could be portrayed sympathetically given the history of the Warforged.

The Valenar certainly do some horrible things by our standards. But in Eberron, that doesn't make them a "villian" - just another group of people that has occasionally done horrible things. They're probably less "moral" than most of the other factions by our standards, but hardly card-carrying villains in it purely For Teh Ebulz.

Eberron is all about shades of grey. Keep that in mind, and things like the Valenar make more sense.

No, I'm pretty certain Eberron hopped up on the "Grimdark!" bandwagon (though not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun) and rolled with it. It's not really about shades of grey, but shades of black. I fully agree that everyone can be an antagonist in Eberron, I just think they put so much effort in giving PCs a potential reason to oppose them that they forgot to balance the cultures and factions by giving them actual positive traits, so in the end, Eberron ends up being a laundry list of people to kill.

At least it's not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun, mind you. Those really beat you over the head with how despicable everyone everywhere constantly is.

[Greenish]

No, I'm pretty certain Eberron hopped up on the "Grimdark!" bandwagon (though not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun) and rolled with it. It's not really about shades of grey, but shades of black. I fully agree that everyone can be an antagonist in Eberron, I just think they put so much effort in giving PCs a potential reason to oppose them that they forgot to balance the cultures and factions by giving them actual positive traits, so in the end, Eberron ends up being a laundry list of people to kill.I don't know what "Eberron" you're talking about, but it's certainly not the one I'm familiar with.

[Shadowknight12]

I don't know what "Eberron" you're talking about, but it's certainly not the one I'm familiar with.

I'm going to catch this one before it starts its inevitable downward spiral and just end it before it starts. Let's just agree to disagree.

You guys keep talking about Valenar elves, my curiosity was sated a while ago.

[Hiro Protagonest]

No, I'm pretty certain Eberron hopped up on the "Grimdark!" bandwagon (though not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun) and rolled with it. It's not really about shades of grey, but shades of black. I fully agree that everyone can be an antagonist in Eberron, I just think they put so much effort in giving PCs a potential reason to oppose them that they forgot to balance the cultures and factions by giving them actual positive traits, so in the end, Eberron ends up being a laundry list of people to kill.

At least it's not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun, mind you. Those really beat you over the head with how despicable everyone everywhere constantly is.

Uh, no. Eberron is meant to be shades of gray, except for the Lords of Dust (and this isn't just the dragon's talking here, I've seen plenty of that in Exalted and know this is different, because of the stuff in the Player's Guide. If the dragons want to spy, they use their alternate form, but if the demons want to spy, they pump the soul out of somebody and make the body their thrall) and likely the Inspired.

Dark Sun is meant to be black and gray, not BLACKLOL!!! and it fits that. Sorcerer-Kings are black, raiders are black or gray depending on which group, rebels are gray, elves are gray, Templars are black with a couple dots of gray (those are typically called the PCs in a non-evil Templar game), Veiled Alliance is gray or possibly white.

[sonofzeal]

No, I'm pretty certain Eberron hopped up on the "Grimdark!" bandwagon (though not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun) and rolled with it. It's not really about shades of grey, but shades of black. I fully agree that everyone can be an antagonist in Eberron, I just think they put so much effort in giving PCs a potential reason to oppose them that they forgot to balance the cultures and factions by giving them actual positive traits, so in the end, Eberron ends up being a laundry list of people to kill.

At least it's not as bad as Ravenloft or Dark Sun, mind you. Those really beat you over the head with how despicable everyone everywhere constantly is.
I think that's a mischaracterization. It's just that nobody's morally pure, in the same way that nobody's completely anti-moral either. Each people-group has flaws, and reasons to oppose it. But they also have good points and reasons to defend them as well. And, by and large, most of the citizens of Eberron live decently well. There's vast reaches of pastoral countryside, thriving metropoli that aren't just hives of scum and villany, respectable law enforcement that generally does its job (minus the few obligatory bad apples), and people generally get along fairly well.

I hardly see how that's compatible with "GrimDark" in any way.

[Adrayll]

I've never seen Eberron as particularly grimdark, mostly because of, weirdly enough, the magitech level. It's the home territory of the artificer class for goodness sake. For some reason, grimdark and magitech just don't fit together for me. Magitech to the extent Eberron has it just seems too... optimistic?

[Prime32]

I think that's a mischaracterization. It's just that nobody's morally pure, in the same way that nobody's completely anti-moral either. Each people-group has flaws, and reasons to oppose it. But they also have good points and reasons to defend them as well. And, by and large, most of the citizens of Eberron live decently well. There's vast reaches of pastoral countryside, thriving metropoli that aren't just hives of scum and villany, respectable law enforcement that generally does its job (minus the few obligatory bad apples), and people generally get along fairly well.

I hardly see how that's compatible with "GrimDark" in any way.And on a smaller scale, Keith Baker has said he wanted to leave it vague whether certain NPCs were good or evil, so that the "bad guys" could vary from game to game and surprise players.

[Eldan]

The main thing that really distances Eberron from Grimdark for me is that a lot of people in the setting have a decent life. The citizens of the five nations, for the most part, have enough food, they have work, and they have widespread magic to help them in their everday lives. Their governments, for the most part, are relatively fair and uncorrupt. Even the monstrous races are, for the most part, left alone if they aren't extremely aggressive, to found their own countries that are recognized as nations.

So, short version: no dirt farmers, no evil empire, no rampaging hordes of orcs and goblins treated as vermin (well, not exclusively).

[Prime32]

The main thing that really distances Eberron from Grimdark for me is that a lot of people in the setting have a decent life. The citizens of the five nations, for the most part, have enough food, they have work, and they have widespread magic to help them in their everday lives. Their governments, for the most part, are relatively fair and uncorrupt. Even the monstrous races are, for the most part, left alone if they aren't extremely aggressive, to found their own countries that are recognized as nations.

So, short version: no dirt farmers, no evil empire, no rampaging hordes of orcs and goblins treated as vermin (well, not exclusively).Plus in the majority of stories with sentient robots they're treated as slaves/property, and their struggle for rights is used for drama. In Eberron there's still some discrimination but warforged are legally people, even when they were originally built as killing machines.

Eberron is pretty optimistic.

[Tokuhara]

The campaigns fall into a film genre each:

Greyhawk (Traditional Fantasy)
Faerun (Artistic Fantasy)
Eberron (Noir)
Ravenloft (Horror)
Dark Sun (Apocalypse movie like Mad Max or Postman)

[kpenguin]

Keith Baker has stated that there are large and true forces for Good, with a capital G, in the setting. The Church of the Silver Flame, though not without its corrupt or fanatical elements, is by and large made up of people who believe in truth, justice, protecting the weak and innocent, etc. Likewise we have people like Boranel... or the kalashtar... or your own PC's :smallwink:

As Baker's pointed out, Eberron is not a purely noir setting, wherein everything is gray and impure. It takes also from the pulp feel, where you really do have the pure white heroic heroes of heroism and the pure black villainous villains of villainy.

[hamishspence]

Indeed. Morality Kitchen Sink, rather than only one of the specific black vs white vs grey variants :smallamused: