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hymer
2016-03-16, 04:48 AM
I picture Forgotten Realms sun elf social interaction as tending to be formal, direct and sensible, easily seeming a little distant and cold. I'm not altogether sure what 'formal' means to a sun elf, though. Any help in this area would be much appreciated.

Specifically: One of my players, a half-elf abandoned at birth, is about to be met by her maternal uncle, a sun elf, who has journeyed a long way to find her. He is seen as something of a black sheep in the family, having abandoned his initial training and turned to something he liked better. He loves his sister, and knows something strange has happened to her while she was away (which led to the PC, and which the mother has kept secret, as it is rather shameful). He recently received a clue that he had a half-elf niece, and after trying to raise the subject with his sister in confidence, he has decided to find said niece and dispel the mystery.

How does a sun elf greet the niece he never knew he had? He is destined to love the niece unconditionally (and she being a respectful and respected paladin of Tyr is likely to be worth loving), and will recognize her on sight, as she resembles her mother a lot. He may catch her on the road, or find her at her temple or barracks, time will tell.

Lorsa
2016-03-16, 05:04 AM
A tricky question, one I don't really know myself.

Formal I imagine means "following a script" or some such. Basically, their greetings are formalized, so you always know how to conduct yourself in any situation. You could read "Manual to Sun Elf Greetings" and then have no problem with how to conduct yourself.

Perhaps go with something like: "Greetings blood-of-my-blood and may Corellon's blessings be upon you. My name is [X], and I have traveled across the land in search of you, so that I may be acquainted with the daughter of my sister. I hope our time together shall be full of joy, and that you will come to love me as I do you."

Does that fill your criteria of formal, direct and sensible?

Lacco
2016-03-16, 05:07 AM
I picture Forgotten Realms sun elf social interaction as tending to be formal, direct and sensible. I'm not altogether sure what 'formal' means, though. Any help in this area would be much appreciated.

Specifically: One of my players, a half-elf abandoned at birth, is about to be met by her maternal uncle, a sun elf, who has journeyed a long way to find her. He is seen as something of a black sheep in the family, having abandoned his initial training and turned to something he liked better. He loves his sister, and knows something strange has happened to her while she was away (which led to the PC, and which the mother has kept secret, as it is rather shameful). He recently received a clue that he had a half-elf niece, and after trying to raise the subject with his sister in confidence, he has decided to find said niece and dispel the mystery.

How does a sun elf greet the niece he never knew he had? He is destined to love the niece unconditionally (and she being a respectful and respected paladin of Tyr is likely to be worth loving), and will recognize her on sight, as she resembles her mother a lot. He may catch her on the road, or find her at her temple or barracks, time will tell.

No idea about the greeting, but I assume that he would address her indirectly - since she is a half-elf, I would go for the "daughter of my sister" instead of "niece".

hymer
2016-03-16, 09:20 AM
Does that fill your criteria of formal, direct and sensible?

It does. I guess I wasn't too clear though. I'm not sure what a sun elf would consider appropriately formal. Thanks for the suggestion, though.


No idea about the greeting, but I assume that he would address her indirectly - since she is a half-elf, I would go for the "daughter of my sister" instead of "niece".

Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate? Why would he do this?

Lacco
2016-03-16, 09:43 AM
Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate? Why would he do this?

I was working with two specific pieces of information you provided. "as it is rather shameful" and "received a clue that he had a half-elf niece".

While he knows he has a half-elven niece, he knows nothing of her. On one hand, what happened was so shameful for his sister that she abandoned the resulting child, on the other, he wants to be as polite as possible in case she takes more to her mother's side.

So, my view is, that if the nature of sun elves communication is so formal, the title you use to address the person also tells you about their status - both in the society, and in your life. I will borrow an example from Sapkowski here - an elven title for a generally accepted woman (=a friend of all elves) was "sor'ca", meaning "little sister". This showed that she was generally liked up to the point she was considered to be "one of them", but still showed that the needs to be protected even from her (hence the "little" sister).

Considering the backstory, I would assume the half-elf would be entitled with... rather unpleasant names. So the elf, trying to be friendly will use the "least offensive" possibility, while maintaining distance - he will not call her a direct family in case she is more human than elf (=more her father than mother), he will try to friendly approach her from "his" side (=mentioning his sister) and also trying to sidestep that shameful occurrence (=removing the father from the equation, not reminding her of him).

Of course, this is only my view :smallsmile:.

LibraryOgre
2016-03-16, 12:26 PM
It could also depend on how formal you want things to get. You might go with the sun elves having a degree of call-and-response in their greetings... someone says something, then there is an accepted response, and an accepted counter-response, all of which might vary according to social class and relationship. The half-elf might not know these, leading to a degree of social awkwardness.

So, it might be something like

Accepted:
"Ah, my sister's light!"
"Greetings to the son of my mother's parents."
"Truly, the light of our lineage shines in your eyes."

If the half-elf doesn't reciprocate with the second line, there's a bit of dissonance.. similar to when the wait staff says "Enjoy your meal!" and you reflexively say "You too!", even though it makes no sense in context.

Darth Ultron
2016-03-16, 09:28 PM
I picture Forgotten Realms sun elf social interaction as tending to be formal, direct and sensible, easily seeming a little distant and cold. I'm not altogether sure what 'formal' means to a sun elf, though. Any help in this area would be much appreciated.



This fits with sun elves.

Try things like always using full names for people, places and things and always adding titles in front of a person, place or thing. Add in the oddly descriptive sayings, while they talk in cool, monotones.

So he'd say ''Good sunlight, Niece Constance Goodheart of Tyr, it makes my heart sing with joy upon seeing you," as he stands 10 feet away, as ridged as a tree with his arms crossed.

I like my sun elves arrogant and borderline ''social evil'', so I'd have him call her ''half human'' and only treat her like a child/pet.

hymer
2016-03-17, 10:36 AM
Thanks for the further responses, everyone! :smallsmile: