Something occurs to me about Elves...

[thereaper]

Elves are usually depicted as the oldest of the humanoids, yet their technology isn't especially advanced compared to the other races. They physically mature at the same rate as humans and live far longer, yet they never had a population explosion that would have precluded the other races' gaining a foothold. And the logical thing that would prevent such growth, resource scarcity, isn't an issue for them because they use magic to help grow food without needing massive quantities of land. This also cannot be explained by culture, as strict population control would require a highly structured society that their chaotic nature prohibits.

So, it would appear that elven society doesn't make sense.

Except for one little detail.

Humans are described as the race of achievers, and the most ambitious. But since humans are just, well, humans, that implies that the other races are less ambitious than humans. Elves haven't exploited their advantages to expand because they simply aren't motivated to do so. But a lack of desire to expand their population in such a dangerous world would imply a lower libido than humans. Thus, we have an explanation for the lack of global elven dominance; elves have a much lower sex drive than humans.

But, we also have an explanation for something else. In any given population, there will be some individuals who have more or less sexual desire than average. In a world with far smaller populations than ours and no equivalent of Tinder, what is an elf with an unusually high libido to do?

Why, search for partners among other races, of course! Conveniently enough, there happens to be another race out there which closely resembles elves, and has a much higher libido than the average elf.

And that's where Half-elves come from. XD

[bluthunda]

Libido could be one thing but it's doesn't explicitly state how many children elves can have or want maybe the typical elf woman only want one child maybe 2 in the case of twins so they can focus on raising them how they see to be the correct way.
Also maybe once they hit a certain age thier child rearing days are over if they mature like humans then come 65+ typically, there are exceptions I know. Most people don't have more children after that point.
So who knows what possible reasons there are for the lack of elvish population. But your explanation does coincide with the much higher number of half elves out there (optimization also a factor mechanics wise)

[Anonymouswizard]

I once played in a game that explained lower elven populations by stating humans were better for a population boom, in that a human woman is theoretically able to have kids constantly for a period of about 40 years, but over the course of their couple of centuries life an elven woman will go into heat every few years, and is otherwise unable to have children. The elven monarchs tended to disappear for months every few years in an attempt to have an heir.

Those elves were also more lawful than normal and while they had enough resources to feed themselves, they tended to live in places with a lack of resources to develop technology. They were the best magicians in the world by far, because that required fewer resources to develop, but it was the humans and dwarves who made all the massive technological leaps that weren't architectural. Humans then developed technology along a more 'capitalist' line, while dwarves did so along a more 'socialist' line (which meant that humans invented a lot of the weapons of the setting, but dwarves invented the trains and planes). Although it was mainly the problems they tried to solve differing, they ended up inventing several technologies at similar times but applied them differently.

[Findulidas]

Dont think about the details too hard. It will break any magical setting and many sci-fi settings as well for that matter.

[nickl_2000]

It's a fairly common trope in fantasy that longer lived species, like Elves have much more trouble having children. So, while they may live for centuries it is not common for more than a few Elven children to be born in a village in a year. This also make the elves more protective of their children.

[KorvinStarmast]

Why, search for partners among other races, of course! Conveniently enough, there happens to be another race out there which closely resembles elves, and has a much higher libido than the average elf.

And that's where Half-elves come from. XD It also means that Feanor was one horny Noldorian elf. :smallbiggrin:
(Nice post, very much enjoyed it).
PS? What is Tinder? :smallconfused:

[PeteNutButter]

Before the libido thing, I thought you were getting at elves are just lazy... or dumb.

I mean it doesn't account for how a human can do more in a fraction of the time or why elves aren't to an elf the wisest people that ever lived. A human gets bonuses to their int wis and cha for living for like 60+ years. Does every elf have a learning disability? What makes it so hard for them to learn?

Even relatively lazy humans when given an excess amount of lifespan will pick up more and more skills and knowledge. Think of Groundhog Day, or any half-decent vampire fiction.

[Sir cryosin]

It simple biology longer lived species. Will have few offspring at a time. Longer time between mating seasons and longer pregnancy.

The reason for there technology is because they are perfectionist. Because of there long life spans they see things way more differently then we humans. When they create something it's a masterpiece to us.

Think of it this way. If we take a human, dwarf, and a elf and showed them what black powered is and ask them to create a weapon.
Humans with his short life will create something functional. Like fire arrows a stick of power tied to a arrow.

A Dwarf might come up with a cannon or early early matchlock. The reason why this big of a leap is because of time. The Dwarf has more time to test and improve in his life time.

A Elf would create something like a flint lock rifled barrel firearms. Because of longer life spans.

Also in every fantasy setting the highly advance ancient ruins of civilization. Are mostly elf civilizations. And they learn there lesson that growing to fast leads to destruction. That why humans kingdom come and go quickly. Also magic why need electricity to power lights. When you can just cast a light cantrips, or you have a higher level mage cast continuous Flame on something for you. Why need a car if you can teleport. They are a race of magic.

[The Shadowdove]

Here is what I always figured.

Elves tend to not have children as often or quickly, given that they are more patient and spend more time individually perfecting their specialties/hobbies/various obligations to their people or kin.

They aren't considered adults until they're what a human would consider middle ages or elderly by their lifetimes.

Elves are traditionalists and generally content with what they already have. Their focus is on improving their relationship with nature and maintaining their culture. They're damn near reclusive and not as quick to accept the methods of others, as they are proud of their heritage and what they can accomplish on their own.

They also value a harmonious existence alongside nature and don't take any more from the weave than they need. Due to this They are Minimalist and also appreciate simplicity. They enjoy minor magic and small chores that make them feel closer to the daily lives that they live.

It is often stated that they are generally almost unearthly patient, despite those who are afflicted by wanderlust or things like revenge or curiosity. They may take two hundred years to perfect a style of pottery, woodworking, or archery; as their relationship between themselves and their craft is depicted as very intimate and deep, as well as synonymous. An elder who is actually considered a master among his peers might still consider himself a novice.

In a forgotten realms book one of the high mages who had accomplished as much as any of the super powerful mages was not allowed to learn high magic from their tower until he had gained a few hundred more years of age, as his mere two hundred years or so was not considered mature enough by elven standards and tradition to appreciate what he wanted to learn. (The books about the daemonfey and using ancient gates to hop about faerun/the other planes of existence).

[Naanomi]

I like the Errant Story explanation of half-elves: no matter how perfect the relationship, elven lovers grow apart after a few hundred years... but as a people who seek new experiences, elves often romanticize the idea of a 'lifelong relationship', of losing a lover while the passion is still hot, leaving one with a 'lost love' to idealize and pine over for eternity. So they occasionally 'try out' human lovers, hence half-elves

[Easy_Lee]

It's more reasonable than it seems. Longer life means lower fertility, like another said above. And imagine how much of a commitment it would be for an elf to have a child compared to a human. That elf isn't going to be a true adult, by elf standards, for many years.

Consider also how many years real-life Japan stayed at very nearly the same level of technological achievement, due to a lack of competition. Add to this the fact that gnomish tinkered devices stop working after a day, while magic items and dungeon traps are still functional after centuries. The gods of the D&D universes prevent technological advancement. The elves, likely knowing this, and facing very little competition from the natural world as long as they stay in their villages, would have no reason to change anything. Their society works, their technology works, so there's no need to improve.

Watching the constant rise and fall of human societies and the resulting strife, the unending failure of gnomish inventions, and considering that the gods rule the world and will shape it how they please, an elf in D&D may be right to think: screw it.

Those who choose to fight anyway become adventurers. And that's why there are so many half-elves.

[smcmike]

Let's assume that Elves have about the same number of kids over their lifespan as humans. It doesn't really matter if this is because of low libido, different biology of conception, or some sort of magical or cultural factor - the end result is the same. Personally, I'd go with some sort of ritual/magical explanation, having to do with the alignment of the celestial bodies and other mystical crap.

The point, though, is that if they have the same general number of kids as a human, the overall growth rate for their population will be quite low. There just aren't going to be very many Elves.

Also, lack of inventiveness does not equal laziness or even lack of ambition. Elves are haughty, according to the PHB, and they have reason to be. They already have things figured out. They don't need to go about building cities or inventing new ways to kill people, since their glades and palaces are much nicer than human cities anyway, and they know all sorts of interesting and ancient ways to kill people.

[2D8HP]

Before the libido thing, I thought you were getting at elves are just lazy... or dumb....


A side effect of lembas bread, or maybe the Elves took up the pipeweed habit from the Halflings, hence all the abandoned ruins?

Totally not judging
(sure "trance" instead of sleep, pull the other one why don't you)

Anyway, Elves are renowned for their low birthrate, and also not wanting to raise their own offspring.

Changelings (http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/m/page/Changeling)

[JackPhoenix]

For the reproduction, it's likely simple a difference in biology. There's only so many eggs female body can produce over lifetime, and there's no reason that number would be vastly different between humans and elves. After that, there are both possibilities that either the eggs mature slowly over the elf's lifetime, meaning that elves are only fertile once a year instead of once a month as with humans, or that the rate is same as with humans, meaning that the elven period of fertility is much shorter compared to their lifespan. Or, to go into more exotic biology, perhaps elven females can handle only few pregnancies in their lifetimes... 2-3, which is the absolute minimum needed for somewhat stable population (note that the elves are mostly described as in decline, which would fit.) With that explaination, half-elves born from female elves (and their mothers) would be outcasts in elven society, because each half-elf means one less elf in a long-term. Half-elves born from male elven parent wouldn't face that bias... who cares about humans?, as long as the male also do his part in continuing the elven race.

Then, there's the psychology. Elves propably percieve time differently from humans. You know how, as you get older, the time seems to run faster (because the same period represents increasingly smaller part of your overall lifetime)? Imagine it with creatures living for centuries. A human may notice (with surprise and disgust) that "Ugh, it's monday again"... for elf, it may be "Ugh, it's winter again". Also, as people get older, they generally grow more settled into their ways... again, if it's the same with elves, older elves would be less willing to accept new things, and less capable of learning. Note that while elves physically mature at about the same rate as humans, they aren't culturaly considered adult until they turn hundred or so... it may mean that the adult elves are much more conservative than humans. Elven adventurers would likely be the young elves, and it would be acceptable by the elven society that the youth are just wild... really, from elven perspective, it would be like prolonged puberty, even if to a human, they would seem entirely like "normal adults".

Let's look at elven alignment. It's usualy chaotic good. While the good part isn't that important (well, it is important to keep the nation of chaotic individuals together), the chaotic part is often misunderstood. Being chaotic doesn't mean you're unpredictable or random... it may mean you're individualist and non-comformist who doesn't care much about the opinion of the rest of the society. That's not exclusive with the "being set in their way" parts... you may do the same thing the same way for centuries, and still be chaotic, because you don't fit with the expectations from the rest of your society. This may explain the lack of empire-building ambitions on the elven part: while CG society would band together for a defense against a threat, it would have hard time to create a long-lasting nation, or expand well. While there may be individual elves with a mindset "Hey, we should conquer the world and unite everything under a single ruler!", most of the other elves would respond with "Nah, I don't feel like following you on that campagin, I've got better things to do". Elven rulers propably rule because other elves respect them as individuals, not because the law says they are rulers and they should be obeyed, or else. CG societies would react more strongly against attempts to impose tyrannical or autocratic rules.

Being set in their ways together with being individualists means that the technological advance is much slower. While an individual elf may come with some invention... say, firearm, because that's what was mentioned earlier in the thread... and present it to other elves, most of them would react with "Why bother, I have my longbow, and that's good enough for me", while some may adopt them, based on individual preferences. It doesn't help that the early firearms were inferior to good bows, and their main advantage was that it could be mass produced to arm armies of peasants that could be trained in weeks instead of years. Elves have the years to learn how to use the bow and lacks numbers, and I think firearms offer another disadvantage to elves: elven senses are more sensitive, and guns are noisy and smelly, and you can't see anything through the smoke they produce. It works similarily with magic: an elven wizard may invent a new spell, but he's more likely to keep it for himself, or be met with "Fireball is good enough" from his peers, limiting the spread rate unless the new spell is much better than what already exists. Elves are also more perfectionist... it is possible that the elven blacksmith is taking a century to make a sword not because he's that slow, but because he starts over and over, because those 99 swords he made before the final result he was satisfied with had some flaw... and it's not like he can't take his time.

[2D8HP]

...Then, there's the psychology. Elves propably percieve time differently from humans. You know how, as you get older, the time seems to run faster (because the same period represents increasingly smaller part of your overall lifetime)? Imagine it with creatures living for centuries. A human may notice (with surprise and disgust) that "Ugh, it's monday again"... for elf, it may be "Ugh, it's winter again". Also, as people get older, they generally grow more settled into their ways... again, if it's the same with elves, older elves would be less willing to accept new things, and less capable of learning. .


I've definitely noticed that I have a harder time, at 49 learning new things then I uses to, and memories from the 1990's are often clearer than those from last year.

I can easily imagine the majority of Elves "living in the past", still mostly aware of what happened centuries ago rather than today.

I can imagine a more extreme "generation gap" than among humans, with young Elves chafing and fleeing to human lands, not unlike young American adults leaving the suburbs of their parents to be hipsters in the City.

I'm thinking of young Elves feeling stifled by their Elders unwillingness to accept the new, first exalting in the novelty they find with humanity, but as their human friends die off they become melancholy and return to the relatively unchanging Elven society.

[Armored Walrus]

I'm thinking of young Elves feeling stifled by their Elders unwillingness to accept the new, first exalting in the novelty they find with humanity, but as their human friends die off they become melancholy and return to the relatively unchanging Elven society.

So young elves in adventuring parties are all on rumspringa?


OT, it does make sense for a race that lives long and reproduces slowly to not be very adaptive. Probably why folks like Tolkien depict elves as being in decline. They were optimized for a world that has moved on, and are now slowly becoming obsolete. Considering how much D&D lore owes to LOTR, this to me explains the lore of elves in D&D and why they haven't simply dominated the world. Basically they are elderly folks who are set in their ways, and think the world still works the way it did when they were young.

[2D8HP]

So young elves in adventuring parties are all on rumspringa?....


Elves as the Amish?

It fits!

[Temperjoke]

When you're going to live 800 years, the things that humans are concerned about, like their legacy and achieving something, are far less important to you. After all, you've got plenty of time (assuming a normal life) to do things. Ambition in a human is on a far greater scale than an elf, because humans have far less time to accomplish their ambitions. Honestly, elves are probably just as ambitious in the total as humans, it just seems like it's less because it's spread out over a greater time.

[Naanomi]

And don't forget they are a deeply *chaotic* race... prone to chasing whims, even at the cost of long term gain. Sure, I've spent 40 years on this magnificent painting but now I think I want to pursue music instead, or woo this girl, or maybe study wizardry for a while? There isn't a great pressure to get things done there...

[Theodoxus]

snip

This is pretty much exactly how I figure elves would be...

However, saying that, I think it would be interesting to consider elves as the progenitor race (a bit like World of Warcraft).

Sometime in the long long past, elves had an evolutionary spinoff that went underground, getting shorter and stockier, slowly evolving into dwarves. Those dwarves had spinoffs that became gnomes and halflings (some weird pygmy gene mutation, probably).

More recent, other races developed through either magical manipulation or just genetic drift or even otherworldly mischief... but as the world changed, the original elves didn't evolve further, and much like modern humans, terraformed the planet to suit their needs rather than evolving to match the changing planet.

This lack of progression has stymied their population, hence causing it to slowly diminish in population and power - and probably why in a lot of literature (particularly Games Workshop), the elves try so hard to maintain their culture why simultaneously looking for new places (planets, crystal spheres, etc) to live.

[strangebloke]

Lots of ways to explain the low birthrate, including:

crummy fertility. (So they get it on regularly, but nothing happens. Human/elf pairings are rare, but a kid is much more likely to result.)

low libido. (Don't get it on unless they want kids. Has the disadvantage of... why wouldn't they want kids? Sure an elf isn't an 'adult' for a long time, but they're at least physically mature pretty quickly and can help with farming and the like.)

heat cycles (as suggested by someone above. I like this one a lot.)

As to 'elves have crummy stats for people who live for 600 years...

In my settings, every race has a 1/100,000 chance of gaining their first adventurer level every year of their adulthood. So 1/1000 humans have at least 1 class level, but for elves its more like 1/200, and their adventurers tend to be way higher level. Factors like a war or a magic college can skew these numbers one way or another pretty heavily. I also give bonuses to the 'adventurer ratio' to culture like goliaths who have a stated predilection to be ambitious, and penalties to halflings, who have a stated predilection to be unambitious. Technology as such doesn't really exist in dnd, so access to magic (through high-level PCs) is about as close to 'advancement' as you're likely to get.

[Zorku]

The old contrivance was that elves had already spread everywhere and ruled the world, but are now in decline. You know that species that make lots of babies can still go extinct, yeah? In Tolkien the elves are just kind of war weary and have turned their attention inward, but lots of other fantasy settings have stuff like the magical cataclysm that rocked the world, and maybe the fey magics that the elves are so tuned into are just not as prevalent or as pure after an event like that. There are lots of things like this that can have lasting consequences, such that elves dwindle over time despite their dominance of yore.

Your fantasy can just have them be on the same upward trend as humans too, but the legends mode of Dwarf Fortress shows why it gets messy to have the same population equation for all of recorded history.
*Iirc those elves are all immortal in terms of natural longevity, but I think the principle holds true for 500-700 year long lives.


It simple biology longer lived species. Will have few offspring at a time. Longer time between mating seasons and longer pregnancy.

The reason for there technology is because they are perfectionist. Because of there long life spans they see things way more differently then we humans. When they create something it's a masterpiece to us.

Think of it this way. If we take a human, dwarf, and a elf and showed them what black powered is and ask them to create a weapon.
Humans with his short life will create something functional. Like fire arrows a stick of power tied to a arrow.

A Dwarf might come up with a cannon or early early matchlock. The reason why this big of a leap is because of time. The Dwarf has more time to test and improve in his life time.

A Elf would create something like a flint lock rifled barrel firearms. Because of longer life spans.

Also in every fantasy setting the highly advance ancient ruins of civilization. Are mostly elf civilizations. And they learn there lesson that growing to fast leads to destruction. That why humans kingdom come and go quickly. Also magic why need electricity to power lights. When you can just cast a light cantrips, or you have a higher level mage cast continuous Flame on something for you. Why need a car if you can teleport. They are a race of magic.

This is more how you invent stuff. Note, this example is complicated, but only to greater illustrate the point.

So, people noticed that there was this heavy air that collected on top of the various alcoholic beverages they would brew, and that rats that spent their time in this air would die. Rats = unclean, so they decided that this stuff was antiseptic. This heavy air was carbon dioxide, and before long folks figured out that they could infuse water with the stuff. Every spa and idiotic effort to be healthy started to tote this stuff as being great for your health, what with it being anti septic and all. In order to keep up with demand, one fellow figured out that he could produce carbonated water much faster if he turned it into a diffuse cloud of droplets. You can see this little piece of history in the name of an important component in every non-electric automobile: the carburetor. By the time anyone thought to make use of this in a vehicle we had had steam engines for quite some time (which are a pain because you've got to have this relatively big system for heating the water and then once you start to make steam there's only so much you can do to control how fast you make that steam,) and we were starting to work out how you could run a combustion engine instead, but it had this similar drawback of only running at one speed. Well, turns out if you blend air and liquid gasoline via carburetor, you can create this mixture that's going to burn up with variable energy involved, and you can keep pistons spinning over a very broad range of speeds.

But think about that. We took a contraption for making soda water, and hooked it up to a machine for creating lots of little high pressure explosions. Who the hell was ever going to know about both of these things and realize that there was a really amazing reason to combine them like that? Well, most never would. If you work on steam engines, and you know a lot about how steam engines work, then you're only going to try to do steam engine things to this new combustion engine. You can see that basically any time you take a close look at any modern specialist. A surgeon wants to fix every bodily problem you have with surgery, a more typical doctor wants to give you pills, and a dozen other types of people in the hospital who specialize in some particular way of treating problems feel like their specialty has the answer for you. It takes a lay person so suggest that you change something in your house for a fraction of the cost of any of the options those trained professionals were offering, because nobody with a specialty would ever think that their expertise wasn't going to be the most useful tool for this job.

So should it be with Elves. Elves don't invent a flint lock because their alchemist has been doing alchemy for centuries and he knows how to mix the sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal in exactly the right ritual that will make it burn really well, but the elves mostly just use these things as smoke bombs so that they can easily hide in open areas w/o help from the weather. The high elves maybe make some fire lances.

Your dwarves have some very different interests in gunpowder, so they get pretty good at making grenades and maybe they use these for certain kinds of mining, but they do really hate tunnel collapse, so it's hard to say if they really make that a big thing before somebody invents TNT.

Gnomes are gonna be all about fireworks, since they're decent tinkerers; unlike dwarves, they actually look up at the sky sometimes; and unlike elves they're not already making grand color displays with pure magic. (Seriously, a big part of why China missed out on an era of science was not inventing glass... because they already had very high quality ceramics for all of their non-wood type containers.)

It's humans who see that you can shoot stuff into the air with gunpowder, that you can shake the earth with the stuff, and happen to have already built a bunch of thick walls that their enemies are holed up within. Sure, they can hire Dwarves to go collapse some section of wall, but that work is slow and noisy and a lot of the time the war's over before you get in- but once they come up with a cannon they've got all the wall piercing goodness of a trebuchet but you don't need as skilled of a person to aim the thing and it's all small enough that you can have a dozen of the things (or after they catch on and get refined, more like a hundred or a thousand.)

If you just need somebody to make more pure iron, more perfect cannons, or more explosive gunpowder, then set some long lived expert on the task. If you want somebody to realize that you could shoot a firework sideways but instead of a firework it should be a little metal boulder... well that's what humans are good at figuring out. If any of this really made sense to anybody the other races could do it too, but the elves and dwarves that are any good are all tied up in 200 year long apprenticeships and then they've got expertise to get in the way of making weird connections like this. Humans have a way bigger portion of their lives where they haven't yet learned to only solve their problems in one way.


For the reproduction, it's likely simple a difference in biology. There's only so many eggs female body can produce over lifetime, and there's no reason that number would be vastly different between humans and elves. Even if I accept that premise, there's no reason for them to be very similar either.

[Unoriginal]

And don't forget they are a deeply *chaotic* race... prone to chasing whims, even at the cost of long term gain. Sure, I've spent 40 years on this magnificent painting but now I think I want to pursue music instead, or woo this girl, or maybe study wizardry for a while? There isn't a great pressure to get things done there...

People always forget that DnD elves are chaotic.

[2D8HP]

People always forget that DnD elves are chaotic.


I think they're chaotic because the Elves were on the side of Chaos in the 1961 novel

Three Hearts and Three Lions (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hearts_and_Three_Lions)

(based on a 1953 short story), which was hugely influential on early D&D.

[Tetrasodium]

It is because faerun & it's close siblings rely on huge gigantic doses of hand-wavium (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) fueled medieval stasis (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis).


If you look at a setting like Eberron, it's because elves were slaves to the giants for thousands of years & because of their faith will occasionally be on the recieving end of the dragons half-heartedly* going to war against them
* The dragons as a whole went to war against the giant empire. St the time, the giants were far more advanced & had effectively been playing in the epic level handbook's magic pool for around 80,000 years during which time they did minor things like create the elves from the eldarin/fey, build & operate the first creation forges that would later be used by house cannith to make warforged, shift an entire plain out of alignment & destroy a moon, create the drow slaves from their elf slaves, etc. The dragons destroyed their civilization, cursed them as a species, & cursed the entire continent thegiants inhabited. elves still exist because it's half hearted wars.

Khorvaire (the continent most people think of when they say eberron) is so much more advanced than sarlona(elf continent) for a few reasons

Every few thousand years a new batch of dragons come along to stomp all over them like godzilla
The elves have been very warlike from the beginning
Compared to humans, half elfs, gnomes, & half orcs, the elves drew poorly from the deck of dragonmarks when it came to things like the mark of scribing (gnome/house sivis telegraphmaybe telephone network), humans (marks of Passage, semtinel, & making), or half elf (mark of storm for watering crops woth conjuration -and- controlling the bound elementals in airships/lightning rail), dwarves got the mark of warding, humans & half orcs got the mark of finding. elves got the mark of shadow (illusion/entertainment)
Khorvair was mostly one unified nation for almost a thousand years until it broke up into roughly a century of brutal WW1/WW2 style civil war complete with magic to make it worse. That combined with all the dragonmarks manifesting there resulted in some fairly massive technological leaps forward in areas like transportation (can't win a battle if the troops are still on the way!), communication (can't get information from your spies fast enough to act on it if you need to wait for a hand delivered message), the structure of armies (raising armies from the peasantry can only go so far look at these new warforged soldiers we made for the low low price of we're freaking rich)
in short, lots of races are better than humans, but most of them are lacking the dragonmarks that allow humans & demihumans working with them to advance beyond a certain point. This goes so far that even the warlike goblins in darguun & the fricking monster nation of Droaam led by a night hag know the value of being recognized as a nation & staying recognized so much that they would rather face problems at home and/or get the crap end of a stick.

[Bohandas]

Compared to humans, half elfs, gnomes, & half orcs, the elves drew poorly from the deck of dragonmarks when it came to things like the mark of scribing (gnome/house sivis telegraphmaybe telephone network), humans (marks of Passage, semtinel, & making), or half elf (mark of storm for watering crops woth conjuration -and- controlling the bound elementals in airships/lightning rail), dwarves got the mark of warding, humans & half orcs got the mark of finding. elves got the mark of shadow (illusion/entertainment)

They also got the mark of death

[Ravinsild]

This is a very Freudian explanation.

On a more Jungian approach - it may not be related to sex, but rather preoccupation with other matters. 100's of years to become a master of a particular skill, so much devotion to a craft or skillset, that having children is a distraction nuisance, less to do with lack of libido but more to do with more of like what's happening in Japan. More work, works hours, trying to make a living and master a craft means less time for relationships and mating.

[Naanomi]

I think they're chaotic because the Elves were on the side of Chaos in the 1961 novel
Perhaps, but they've been the more-chaotic-than-humans-but-still-mostly-good race for nearly all of DnD's history (contrasted to the Lawful but still mostly Good dwarves)

[Unoriginal]

All elves learn to fight with half a dozen weapons, independently of their job. I'm not sure how long it'd take to master those weapons with enough skill to have the proficiency bonus, but it's going to take a lot of time in the life of young elves.

[greenstone]

Elvish society is stagnant. They don't innovate. If they did, they'd rule the world (imagine an Einstein or Ford having five hundred years to work on their theories). Same with dwarves and gnomes and other races.

Why is this?

In a game I ran, the answer was because their creator gods were still around. Corellon Larethion and the rest of the Seldarine contually acted to maintain the purity of their creation. Elves can't evolve because every time a change happens, their creator's will undoes that change. The same went for the dwarves (Moradin), gnomes (Garl Glittergold), halflings (Yondalla), etc.

What about humans? Their creator god is no longer around. There is no divine will keeping the race to a pre-defined template, which explains the wide variance. There are no genasi elves or tiefling dwarves or aasimar ogres, because the gods of those races don't allow changes like that.

Additionally, Humans unconsciously miss their deity, and this manifests as ambition and drive and conquest. Other races feel no need to conquer or expand or prove themselves, because they are continually enveloped in the love of their creators.

So, what about half-elves and half-orcs? Why are there no half-dwarves or gnome-orcs? Well, I did have an answer for that but it was a bit complicated (and also a bit icky, in the case of orc crossbreeds).

[GlenSmash!]

Pondering on the effects of a long elven life has always been something that has intrigued me. Before the evolution or creation of other species what might their societies and cities looked like? If you knew you friends and family would still be here in hundreds of years would you bother to live closely together like human cities? Or would the be so spread out as to be unrecognizable by other races? I mean, what's a one year journey to an elf, a weekend trip?

I always liked the idea that humankind sprung up in what elves would have considered their version of Central Park. They'd probably see early human villages as nothing more than rat's nests, and human cites as landfills.

[Tetrasodium]

They also got the mark of death

true, but Erandis vol was a half dragon, not too many of those running around after that last apocalypse trigger to be abomination & the line was kind of extinguished :D but Vol's mark of death isn't very conducive to building & advancing a healthy society given it's role in the whole prophecy & all

[JackPhoenix]

Someone mentioned Eberron? Well... *takes off glasses so he can put them back on*


If you look at a setting like Eberron, it's because elves were slaves to the giants for thousands of years & because of their faith will occasionally be on the recieving end of the dragons half-heartedly* going to war against them

Some theories for why elves still exist are that the dragons use them as a training ground for their army (yes, Eberron dragons have organised army of thousands. Provoking them is a bad, bad idea) or that the "war" is a way to prepare the elves for... something.

Also, Undying Court is powerful enough to offer reasonable degree of protection against the dragons. The dragons could possibly still win if they really wanted to, but it would be very costly victory.


Khorvaire (the continent most people think of when they say eberron) is so much more advanced than sarlona(elf continent) for a few reasons

Elven continent is Aerenal, Sarlona is the original home of humans, currently under the control of possessing alien overlords benevolent spirits from the plane of dreams.



Aereni are isolationist and very traditionalist when it comes to mundane stuff, but magic-wise, they are pretty advanced compared to Khorvaire, and had access to some stuff that's new there for millenia. To quote dragonshard article:


The elves of Aerenal were using continual flame while humans were struggling with fire. Each generation has added new enchantments and artifacts to the great cities of the island, and Pylas Talaer has magical wonders that outshine even Sharn. Many cities contain buried orbs enchanted with a powerful form of prestidigitation; people passing through an Aereni city may hear ghostly music, and they will find that their clothing, hair, and skin remains perfectly clean. Rumors claim that the nobles maintain a network of teleportation gates that connect the great cities, but if these tales are true, the gates are reserved for the important business of the nobility.

And of course, there's the greatest elven achievement, the Undying Court itself. With it, elves basically managed to create artificial "deity" (or rather, source of divine power, given the was gods work in Eberron), something akin to the Silver Flame, which was created only through the sacrifice of the whole Couatl race.

Aereni also commonly use resurrection magic, something unheard off on Khorvaire. It is important to note that these wonders are *not* based on dragonmarks, but the result of high-level spellcasters, whether living or Undying. Still, their society changed little over the last 40 000 years since their escape from Xen'drik, partialy because their fixation on the past and the ancestor worship.

As for the elves themselves... well. Average soldier of the Five Nations is (or was, in 3.5) level 1-2 warrior. Average Valenar elf is level 4 ranger, with many being much more powerful. They rightfuly deserve their terrifying reputation as the deadliest warriors on Khorvaire.

[qube]

So ...


Developed countries have a lower birth rate than underdeveloped countries (see Income and fertility). A parent's number of children strongly correlates with the number of children that each person in the next generation will eventually have. Factors generally associated with increased fertility include religiosity, intention to have children, and maternal support. Factors generally associated with decreased fertility include wealth, education, female labor participation, urban residence, intelligence, increased female age and (to a lesser degree) increased male age. Many of these factors however are not universal, and differ by region and social class.

-- wikipedia

for elves

With the gods being verifiably real, "religiosity" basically comes down to "dogmatic" - something chaotic races will not be good at.
intention to have children could be low
elves are usually not depicted as poor
elves have lots of time for higher education
female labor participation usually isn't specified, but applicable (heck, drow clerics are all female)
urban residence is dependant on how one defines 'urban' (considering elves close connection to nature)
intelligence is practically on par with humans (as it is not the game term intenlligence, high elves have int-boost, wood elves have wis-boost, and drow ... well they get killed by other drow :) )
increased age is VERY much applicable

[Byke]

I always took it as the elves were more aware of their environment and balance with nature. They consciously keep the population numbers in check with their environment.

[LordCdrMilitant]

It simple biology longer lived species. Will have few offspring at a time. Longer time between mating seasons and longer pregnancy.

The reason for there technology is because they are perfectionist. Because of there long life spans they see things way more differently then we humans. When they create something it's a masterpiece to us.

Think of it this way. If we take a human, dwarf, and a elf and showed them what black powered is and ask them to create a weapon.
Humans with his short life will create something functional. Like fire arrows a stick of power tied to a arrow.

A Dwarf might come up with a cannon or early early matchlock. The reason why this big of a leap is because of time. The Dwarf has more time to test and improve in his life time.

A Elf would create something like a flint lock rifled barrel firearms. Because of longer life spans.

Also in every fantasy setting the highly advance ancient ruins of civilization. Are mostly elf civilizations. And they learn there lesson that growing to fast leads to destruction. That why humans kingdom come and go quickly. Also magic why need electricity to power lights. When you can just cast a light cantrips, or you have a higher level mage cast continuous Flame on something for you. Why need a car if you can teleport. They are a race of magic.

I generally go with:

A elf sees a human tinkering with blackpowder and brass, laughs, and explains why his enchanted longbow is infinitely superior to anything the lesser races could develop, and was magically crafted a millennia ago with careful magics and in a way that involved singing to and respecting the trees.

The dwarf walks up, and sees it, goes into a fell mood, claims a workshop for a month, and at the end emerges with a *masterwork revoler rifle* that's made of polished brass and gold, menaces with spikes of menace, and has an engraving of Urist McUristurist being trampled by elephants on it, then promptly wanders off to get drunk and wait until a fell mood strikes to make another wondrous artifact.

The human then looks at the dwarven gun, gets twenty of his friends, builds a factory on the riverbank, and sets about deforesting and strip-mining the countryside to fuel the production of tens of thousands of cheap, crappy muskets to sell in bulk to the militaries and adventurers of the world. When the elves complain about the destruction of the environment and the lack of respect the inferior races afford their superiors, the humans respond with a demonstration of how, while the elves may be culturally, genetically, or whatever superior people, humans with guns are cost-efficient.

[Easy_Lee]

I generally go with:

A elf sees a human tinkering with blackpowder and brass, laughs, and explains why his enchanted longbow is infinitely superior to anything the lesser races could develop, and was magically crafted a millennia ago with careful magics and in a way that involved singing to and respecting the trees.

The dwarf walks up, and sees it, goes into a fell mood, claims a workshop for a month, and at the end emerges with a *masterwork revoler rifle* that's made of polished brass and gold, menaces with spikes of menace, and has an engraving of Urist McUristurist being trampled by elephants on it, then promptly wanders off to get drunk and wait until a fell mood strikes to make another wondrous artifact.

The human then looks at the dwarven gun, gets twenty of his friends, builds a factory on the riverbank, and sets about deforesting and strip-mining the countryside to fuel the production of tens of thousands of cheap, crappy muskets to sell in bulk to the militaries and adventurers of the world. When the elves complain about the destruction of the environment and the lack of respect the inferior races afford their superiors, the humans respond with a demonstration of how, while the elves may be culturally, genetically, or whatever superior people, humans with guns are cost-efficient.

Doesn't work in the FR universe. See gnomes with their tinkering. In spite of all of their genius, they can't get complex devices to work for more than a day without breaking. The gods won the allow it. That's why the world has been stuck in medieval stasis for millenia.