What would a Human-free, Elf dominated world look like

[Scalenex]

Originally I just assumed an elf world would look a lot like a human world, just with more long swords and bows, but the recent thread on Elf children has made me think I should maybe dig deeper.

I always liked the idea of societies being built on the ruins of the previous age. Real world Medieval Europe was sort of built on top of the ruins of Ancient Rome. A ton of fictional settings do something similar. I’m doing this twice, three times if it counts if the gods rebuilt the world after a divine battle.

So there was a time when the Dragons were the dominant race. Their race went into a decline, then due to the hubris of a powerful sorcerer queen resulted in their civilization being destroyed by over a million rampaging elementals. Then the gods created Elves to take over.

The Elves created nations and dominated the globe during the Second Age for thousands of years before their race went into decline, then the hubris of a powerful wizard queen resulted in their civilization being destroyed by over a million rampaging demons. Then the gods created Humans to take over.

A lot of human cities are built on the ruins of abandoned Elf cities. A lot of dungeons are the ruins of Elf cities and fortifications. Might have a few monuments and other stuff intact, so it’d be good to have an idea what the previous Elf world would be like.

What would a world look like run by Elves look like? How would it look different from a fantasy world where Humans are pretty much the only race of note? For context, I’m thinking there’d be a few loner Dragons sitting on piles of gold wistfully musing on when they were in charge, and you’d get some various sapient monsters in remote places waiting for their turn to fight Elf adventurers.
There’d be a few creatures that ended up getting pressed into service by elves. I was thinking it might be interesting to have Goblins be a former slave race to Elves during the Second Age. That would add some verisimilitude to the usual Goblins are mad at Dwarfs and Elves “just because”. Some monsters besides Goblins would be created by and/or for Elves as soldiers or servants (or slaves depending on perspective). A lot of the bigger stronger Monstrous Manual entries used to soldiers/servants/slaves of the Dragons but are now basically lone monsters
You’d also get a couple very tiny non-elven societies. The Elves were created by my entire pantheon of gods working together. Most of my gods eventually grew weary of the Elves, and tried to create their version of a “perfect” race or at least a “better” one (my Lawful Good god of metalworking made the first Dwarfs for instance). The Elves aren’t the only race, but they certainly are more numerous than every other sapient race combined. I figure the world would be about 60% Elves, 20% Goblins, 20% everyone else.
So what would Elf civilization look like? My initial assumption is that there’d be between one and two dozen nations with disputed borders, shifting alliances and wars. Is the idea that the world would fall into a shifting mass of powerful Elf nation states a reasonable assumption? Would a hundred tiny fiefdoms make more sense than a dozen powerful nations? Alternatively would an Elf culture likely be dominated by a single ueber-empire like Ancient Rome make more sense?
I also figure that in Elf-World, the differing Elf cultures/nations would be more similar to each other than the different nations in a Human dominated world would be to each other. I don’t think there are enough wizards to use a sophisticated network of permanent Teleportation Circles to make an amazing Star Trek-esque transportation network, but I figure there would be enough flying and teleporting wizards to disseminate seed crops, technological advances and cultural breakthroughs. Also, since Elves have longer generational spans than Humans, I believe cultural differentiation would be slower.
Do you agree with those assumptions or comparative cultural similarity, or do you think Elves in an Elf-world would be equally likely as Humans to make widely distinct culture? Maybe more likely to create widely distinct cultures than humans?
For the record I don’t like Drow. I think they are too extreme. I think you can have evil elves that aren’t ebon skinned, magically super-powered, sun hating weirdos ruled by kinky spider worshipping matriarchs. I like the Dark Elves of Warhammer Fantasy more. They are biologically pretty much the same as the other Elves, they are just jerks.
I’m not opposed to any of the other Elf subraces, but I have a mild preference for making all Elves use the same Players Handbook rules, they just have differences by nation, religion, and philosophy even if they are the same basic Elf mold.
I sort of used Warhammer Fantasy as a baseline. I have the idea that when rampaging demons destroyed 95% of the Elf race, there were three geographically separate groups that survived the end of their civilization with enough Elves to have a viable breeding population. For a long time each of these three groups thought they were the ONLY scions of Elf culture in this new increasingly Human-dominated world. By the time they rediscovered each other they were far more different from each other than they were in the Second Age.

The Elves that became modern Dark Elves survived the apocalypse by making a pact with an evil goddess. In exchange for forsaking the other gods, she would protect them. They would resume their ancestors practices of slaving lesser races eventually creating an oppressive caste system with Elves on top, Half-Elves below them, Humans below them, and Goblins on the bottom. Because their patron goddess is the goddess of magic, they would have Mageocracy of sorts where the king or queen is the most powerful spellcaster. I envision them as being aggressive raiding bastards and seeing how they tried to conquer and/or enslave every non-Elf within 500 miles of their border, they now have to deal with very angry and united Human and demi-human opposition.

The Elves that became modern Wood Elves survived the apocalypse by hiding in the deep wilderness and making alliances with fey and nature based creatures. They would certainly be the tree hugging many think of when the word “elf” is brought up. I envision them being isolationist in the face of the upstart humans’ expansion.

A third group, I’m not sure I want to make them High Elves or Grey Elves would carry on a very similar civilization to what they would have had before the Apocalypse. They survived because they were a tiny island nation (or isolated mountain hamlet) of no import. The Void Demons mostly ignored them preferring to savage more powerful more populous nations. After the Second Umaking they tried to reestablish the massive Elven kingdoms of yore and shepherd the emerging human masses (for their own good of course!) As the humans got more numerous, more technological advanced, and more magically adept they stopped kowtowing to the almight Elves but they don’t despise these Elves like the Dark Elves. I figure these latter Elves would embody the noble but arrogant Elf stereotype.
I’m open to a fourth group of Elves. Maybe a tiny Barbarian tribe. Maybe a small group of survivors that intermarried with Humans creating Half-Elves who intermarried with Humans leaving behind a slightly Elfy Human culture. On the other hand, any little Elven group that survived the apocalypse might eventually opt to assimilate into one of the three main Elf nations, if only for protection.

So what would an Elf world look like? What can I do to make the Elven ruin themed dungeons sufficiently elfy? Probably a lot of ancient long swords. I’m open to any thoughts on what an all Elf-world would like. The intent is create nuanced interesting background material.

[Martin Greywolf]

Originally I just assumed an elf world would look a lot like a human world, just with more long swords and bows, but the recent thread on Elf children has made me think I should maybe dig deeper.


Primary problem here is that DnD weapons make no damn sense. You need raw strength to be good with bows and dextirity to be good with swords IRL, generally speaking, and it just goes from there. I mean, real longswords are two handed weapons primarily, that can be used with a shield if you mostly stab.

If elves have bonus to dex, then they should be using, by IRL standards, crossbows and longswords.

The problem for you with inconsistencies like this is that you an't really start to make a society by taking logical assumptions, since the basics as dictated by rules have logic problems.



I always liked the idea of societies being built on the ruins of the previous age. Real world Medieval Europe was sort of built on top of the ruins of Ancient Rome.


No it wasn't. See, here's the thing, big empires are hard to destroy into oblivion - sure, ruling classes can change and they can loose a lot of power and land, but they will remain in some form or another. Ancient Rome was destroyed in 1500s when Constantinople was taken by Ottoman empire, but even the Ottomans were based in large part on Roman law. Not to mention HRE, Italy and France, kingdoms (in case oif Italy a bunch of city states) that were created by splintering off of Rome in a way (if you ignore a lot of details). Even England's king Arthur was maybe a Roman.

Also, cities and fortifications aren't build in the wilderness, they are on important crossroads or well defensible landmarks, and therefore tend to be used by anyone. Most of the modern Eurasian cities have history of settlement going into the stone age. And those fortifications you can't build anymore look very tempting to just repair (you need a lot less manpower for that), which is why places like Constantinople or Rome used their Roman walls and towers well into the middle ages.

Point is, there wasn't building on top of ancient Rome in Europe simply because while the empire splintered, people kept living in the buildings - some of them fell into disrepair, but a lot of them didn't.

So, to make the world elfy, pick an architectonic style for the elves, and make sure that major cities still have important buildings in said style - say, elves were really into number 8 and build all their towers in octogonal shape, so if your PCs wander into a big city, they can notice that the inner walls have elven octagonal towers and the citadel looks to be built in elven style, with statues of elven gods torn down and replaced with human pantheon.

The ruins in the wilderness weren't a thing IRL that much, to force them to make sense, build the along a frontier of elven empire that no longer exists or is dangerous. Or maybe it's extra dangerous now, overrun with goblins or wild magic.

[Pleh]

The ruins in the wilderness weren't a thing IRL that much, to force them to make sense, build the along a frontier of elven empire that no longer exists or is dangerous. Or maybe it's extra dangerous now, overrun with goblins or wild magic.

Yes, ruins in the wilderness just means that the ruins have been abandoned for a VERY long time. There has to be a powerful motive to abandon such a large investment as a settlement and never return later to reclaim it.

However, in fantasy, there can be a large number of reasons that the viability of a region could rapidly shift. This is part of the popularity of the post apocalyptic setting, instantly granting the story justification rapid degredation of the fortification to a ruined state and the collapse of the society that built the ruins explaining their inability to retain the structures.

But most RPGs are looking for Indiana Jones style ruins. These are often places where powerful, sacred artifacts have been lomg hidden to allow them to rest while protecting the world from their destructive capacity

Then there's LotR ruins that usually are half forgotten remnants of an age of economic affluence that ended as magic began draining from the world.

In fantasy (where elves live), there's all kinds of reasons that ruins might exist.

[gkathellar]

Obligatory link to the work of everyone's favorite demonic sorcerer. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258370-So-You-Want-To-Play-An-Elf-(3-5-Fluff))

Martin Greywolf is right about a lot of things.

I'd think about what distinguishes elves in your garden-variety D&D-inspired fantasy setting from humans, and what those differences imply. Here are a few questions, based on general tropes.
Like humans, elves seem to vary based on the geography of their ancestral homes, but these variations are far more dramatic in the latter case. Why is this? Do elves undergo a particularly rapid process of natural selection? Were different elven races created by different gods with different interests? Are elves part of a massive genealogy of gods, mortals and nature spirits, with particular branches of the family having particular associated traits? Perhaps elves are not intrinsically different, and these traits are manually instilled by magical ritual, activated based on environmental exposure during early life, or even determined in utero based on environmental factors experienced by the elven mother during pregnancy.
What is the intra- and inter-racial social significance of these massive variations? On the first count, you should consider how different elven races organize their societies, and how these organizational schema are the result of their differences or the needs of their environments. Which, if any, elven phyletic groups are unified, and which have internal schisms along more human lines? On the second count, think about how different elven races view themselves in light of their cousins? Do they regard themselves as the "true" elves to a lesser of greater degree? Alternately, do they see themselves as disparate parts of a greater whole? As cut from the same cloth in different shapes? Perhaps some elven social sets are more interested in historical and cultural signifiers than physiological ones.
Elves typically have strong associations with nature, and are depicted as living in forests - but what, exactly, does "nature" mean, and what does living in forests entail? Elves from the tropical rainforest, for instance, might plan their year around the rainy season and its periodic flooding. In dry equatorial forests, on the other hand, forest fires are equal parts existential threat and critical to the functions of the local ecosystem, so perhaps elves hailing from redwood forests are partially nomadic, leaving their ancestral homes in the dry season to avoid the flames. Elves with these differing lifestyles would probably have dramatically different views on the natural world, and of course either group would differ dramatically from elves living in traditionally temperate, humid subtropical, or arctic forests.
There are lots of other things to consider - you may notice I focused principally on geography and genetics with my list above, because I think those are especially interesting causative factors, but other tropes worth exploring are: the elven trance and sleeplessness; the impact of being tremendously long-lived and the challenges faced by elves of different ages looking for social achievement; the common notion that elves are an "elder race" with a long history; the conflict between portrayals of elves as chaotic and flexible vs. portrayals of them as hidebound and traditional; the relationship between elves and fey; and of course the schism with the drow.

also wheres the swamp elfs


The ruins in the wilderness weren't a thing IRL that much, to force them to make sense, build the along a frontier of elven empire that no longer exists or is dangerous. Or maybe it's extra dangerous now, overrun with goblins or wild magic.

Yes, ruins in the wilderness just means that the ruins have been abandoned for a VERY long time. There has to be a powerful motive to abandon such a large investment as a settlement and never return later to reclaim it.

Oh, I dunno, it depends on the local environment. Take a look at the Yucatan, where settlements can disappear into the jungle in a matter of decades. Even where the old Mayan ruins aren't overrun with trees, the jungle is vast enough that, short of satellite photography, you might never find them without a guide (and that assumes guides with knowledge of any given area exist). Many of these settlements were simply abandoned because the agricultural/trade base required to sustain them collapsed. When new kingdoms sprung up in the area, they often reclaimed the old settlements, either intentionally or just because they were trying to build in the same spot - Chichen Itza is a good example, as it was settled three times, with hundreds of years in between its disappearances.

Basically, in places where the line between "wilderness" and "settled lands" are blurry, it may happen repeatedly, and may not take very long at all. Even very experienced excavators can find themselves walking right by large structures: only very recently, new satellite photography techniques uncovered something like 50,000 new Mayan-era structures buried in the jungle, many of them in very close proximity of known sites, but which had gone unnoticed.

[Pleh]

Obligatory link to the work of everyone's favorite demonic sorcerer. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258370-So-You-Want-To-Play-An-Elf-(3-5-Fluff))

Martin Greywolf is right about a lot of things.

I'd think about what distinguishes elves in your garden-variety D&D-inspired fantasy setting from humans, and what those differences imply. Here are a few questions, based on general tropes.
Like humans, elves seem to vary based on the geography of their ancestral homes, but these variations are far more dramatic in the latter case. Why is this? Do elves undergo a particularly rapid process of natural selection? Were different elven races created by different gods with different interests? Are elves part of a massive genealogy of gods, mortals and nature spirits, with particular branches of the family having particular associated traits? Perhaps elves are not intrinsically different, and these traits are manually instilled by magical ritual, activated based on environmental exposure during early life, or even determined in utero based on environmental factors experienced by the elven mother during pregnancy.
What is the intra- and inter-racial social significance of these massive variations? On the first count, you should consider how different elven races organize their societies, and how these organizational schema are the result of their differences or the needs of their environments. Which, if any, elven phyletic groups are unified, and which have internal schisms along more human lines? On the second count, think about how different elven races view themselves in light of their cousins? Do they regard themselves as the "true" elves to a lesser of greater degree? Alternately, do they see themselves as disparate parts of a greater whole? As cut from the same cloth in different shapes? Perhaps some elven social sets are more interested in historical and cultural signifiers than physiological ones.
Elves typically have strong associations with nature, and are depicted as living in forests - but what, exactly, does "nature" mean, and what does living in forests entail? Elves from the tropical rainforest, for instance, might plan their year around the rainy season and its periodic flooding. In dry equatorial forests, on the other hand, forest fires are equal parts existential threat and critical to the functions of the local ecosystem, so perhaps elves hailing from redwood forests are partially nomadic, leaving their ancestral homes in the dry season to avoid the flames. Elves with these differing lifestyles would probably have dramatically different views on the natural world, and of course either group would differ dramatically from elves living in traditionally temperate, humid subtropical, or arctic forests.
There are lots of other things to consider - you may notice I focused principally on geography and genetics with my list above, because I think those are especially interesting causative factors, but other tropes worth exploring are: the elven trance and sleeplessness; the impact of being tremendously long-lived and the challenges faced by elves of different ages looking for social achievement; the common notion that elves are an "elder race" with a long history; the conflict between portrayals of elves as chaotic and flexible vs. portrayals of them as hidebound and traditional; the relationship between elves and fey; and of course the schism with the drow.

also wheres the swamp elfs




Oh, I dunno, it depends on the local environment. Take a look at the Yucatan, where settlements can disappear into the jungle in a matter of decades. Even where the old Mayan ruins aren't overrun with trees, the jungle is vast enough that, short of satellite photography, you might never find them without a guide (and that assumes guides with knowledge of any given area exist). Many of these settlements were simply abandoned because the agricultural/trade base required to sustain them collapsed. When new kingdoms sprung up in the area, they often reclaimed the old settlements, either intentionally or just because they were trying to build in the same spot - Chichen Itza is a good example, as it was settled three times, with hundreds of years in between its disappearances.

Basically, in places where the line between "wilderness" and "settled lands" are blurry, it may happen repeatedly, and may not take very long at all. Even very experienced excavators can find themselves walking right by large structures: only very recently, new satellite photography techniques uncovered something like 50,000 new Mayan-era structures buried in the jungle, many of them in very close proximity of known sites, but which had gone unnoticed.

That is another good point. Sometimes civilization can be fragile and the Wilderness can be robust

[PhantasyPen]

Sooo... Reading your description, isn't that the basic premise of the Dragon Age setting?

[Beleriphon]

Sooo... Reading your description, isn't that the basic premise of the Dragon Age setting?

After a fashion, although the actual end result of Dragon Age 3 we learn that one elven god imprisoned/ate the rest of them for some as yet unbeknownst reason. I'd personally assume due to Qunari, but who knows.

[PhantasyPen]

After a fashion, although the actual end result of Dragon Age 3 we learn that one elven god imprisoned/ate the rest of them for some as yet unbeknownst reason. I'd personally assume due to Qunari, but who knows.

I believe the answer the god in question gave us for why they did it was "they killed Mythal" but I would need to play Trespasser again to be sure.

[Knightofvictory]

In fantasy, Elves are traditionally all about the long game. They have long lives, and low birth rates, so every elf counts. They don't like short term solutions, they are careful not to burn through resources, and they are reluctant to pick fights they might lose. They wouldn't do anything by halfways, because they would want anything they make to be around for thousands of years and add to the species. Elf cities would be perfectly self sustaining and beautiful. Every elf would have a level or two of a magical class. Maybe high elfs have mighty towers full of magical artworks that took hundreds of years to make. Wood elves homes are made of living trees, over the centuries grown to meet their needs. All of their stuff would, to a human, be absolutely perfect. To an elf, ever evolving century after century. A place or city would be named, and keep the same name forever. No infighting or wars from within.

They would prefer to make agreements with powerful dragons or rival nations, and if they proved to be violent or untrustworthy, then battle them with overwhelming violence trying to keep their casualties to a minimum. Because their cities are made to last for millennium, usually in fantasy it takes a great catastrophe to threaten them. Or short sighted races willing to suffer high losses to fight them.

[Scalenex]

Primary problem here is that DnD weapons make no damn sense. You need raw strength to be good with bows and dextirity to be good with swords IRL, generally speaking, and it just goes from there. I mean, real longswords are two handed weapons primarily, that can be used with a shield if you mostly stab.
If elves have bonus to dex, then they should be using, by IRL standards, crossbows and longswords.
The problem for you with inconsistencies like this is that you an't really start to make a society by taking logical assumptions, since the basics as dictated by rules have logic problems.

Well a D&D books long sword is more accurately described as an arming sword. But semantics isn’t important. With human intelligence and the same strength as humans they should be able to use any weapons humans can use.



No it wasn't. See, here's the thing, big empires are hard to destroy into oblivion - sure, ruling classes can change and they can loose a lot of power and land, but they will remain in some form or another. Ancient Rome was destroyed in 1500s when Constantinople was taken by Ottoman empire, but even the Ottomans were based in large part on Roman law. Not to mention HRE, Italy and France, kingdoms (in case oif Italy a bunch of city states) that were created by splintering off of Rome in a way (if you ignore a lot of details). Even England's king Arthur was maybe a Roman.

I have giant disasters of supernatural potency so I can have big empires fall to oblivion. Almost literally in the case of the nihilist Void demons that tried to wipe out all sapient life during the event that ended the Elf civilizations.


Also, cities and fortifications aren't build in the wilderness, they are on important crossroads or well defensible landmarks, and therefore tend to be used by anyone. Most of the modern Eurasian cities have history of settlement going into the stone age. And those fortifications you can't build anymore look very tempting to just repair (you need a lot less manpower for that), which is why places like Constantinople or Rome used their Roman walls and towers well into the middle ages.
I figure a lot of intact structures would be repaired and reused.


So, to make the world elfy, pick an architectonic style for the elves, and make sure that major cities still have important buildings in said style - say, elves were really into number 8 and build all their towers in octogonal shape, so if your PCs wander into a big city, they can notice that the inner walls have elven octagonal towers and the citadel looks to be built in elven style, with statues of elven gods torn down and replaced with human pantheon.

The ruins in the wilderness weren't a thing IRL that much, to force them to make sense, build the along a frontier of elven empire that no longer exists or is dangerous. Or maybe it's extra dangerous now, overrun with goblins or wild magic.
Those are good ideas.


Yes, ruins in the wilderness just means that the ruins have been abandoned for a VERY long time. There has to be a powerful motive to abandon such a large investment as a settlement and never return later to reclaim it.
The Second Unmaking provides the powerful motivation that when Elves cluster in large groups they tended to attract large numbers of Demons. When they dispersed their odds of survival went up, at least in the short term.


However, in fantasy, there can be a large number of reasons that the viability of a region could rapidly shift. This is part of the popularity of the post apocalyptic setting, instantly granting the story justification rapid degredation of the fortification to a ruined state and the collapse of the society that built the ruins explaining their inability to retain the structures.
Agreed


But most RPGs are looking for Indiana Jones style ruins. These are often places where powerful, sacred artifacts have been long hidden to allow them to rest while protecting the world from their destructive capacity

I haven’t come up with any mcguffins hidden away to protect the world from their destructive capacity. I thought of a couple landmarks that are permanently blessed or curses. Both my big Mcguffins are stones. The Line Stone marks the stone where the gods chipped off the first Dwarfs from. It’s holy to Dwarfs for symbolism but it also increases the fertility of underground plants and fungi for miles around helping provide a lot of food, making it coveted by all underground races. The other is the Bloodstone which was used by a legendary lich to create the first vampires but was lost from history when the vampires turned on their lich master.


Then there's LotR ruins that usually are half forgotten remnants of an age of economic affluence that ended as magic began draining from the world.

In fantasy (where elves live), there's all kinds of reasons that ruins might exist.

Agreed

Obligatory link to the work of everyone's favorite demonic sorcerer. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?258370-So-You-Want-To-Play-An-Elf-(3-5-Fluff))[/QUOTE]


Very interesting stuff in that link. It’s a great roleplaying aid and the concept of long-time and short-time is great.

I don’t agree with one of the conclusions afrokuma came up with. He concluded that parenting would be extra exhausting because children force their parents into short-time. I’m not a parent, but I’m an honorary uncle to enough of my friends’ and cousins’ kids that I think children are a natural fit for long time. They can get enraptured by repetitive activities that drive short-term humans like myself crazy. True kids can have a short attention span, but would elf kids have a short attention span? Doubtful.

I think if child rearing was enjoyable not infuriating elves could grow their population a bit faster which would be necessary for empire building. Related to child rearing. Would elves be more monogamous than humans or would they be more polyamorous than humans or about the same. The 2nd ed book of Elves talked about married couples taking a few decades apart. Not to sleep around but to get some space and then they would come back eager to see each other. That makes sense, but I could also see long-term drifting breaking couples apart permanently. I don’t think this would have a big impact on macro society but it would be important to consider for roleplaying.

Afrokuma’s excellent thread focuses on the individual elf and I’m looking at elf society. I didn’t read it being explicitly stated, but it seemed to be implied that a long-time paradigm would lead to Elves being nicer or at least politely neutral. Would elves be less likely to be evil than humans just by their very nature. My broad strokes backstory sort of depended on at least a substantial minority of ancient elves being selfish and petty.

Second thought. The elf thread mentioned that leadership would be a major burden because of the plethora of short-term concerns. Would this mean that a lot fewer elves would covet leadership positions compared to humans coveting leadership positions? In that case maybe they shouldn’t have hereditary positions because the person in line might not want it. Would elves naturally gravitate towards meritocracy or tournament systems of determining leaders instead of democratic or hereditary selection of leaders?

I might want to tone down long-time thinking to make elves more relatable, but I’d prefer to use at least some of the stuff in that linked thread.

[QUOTE=gkathellar;23054543]I'd think about what distinguishes elves in your garden-variety D&D-inspired fantasy setting from humans, and what those differences imply. Here are a few questions, based on general tropes.
Like humans, elves seem to vary based on the geography of their ancestral homes, but these variations are far more dramatic in the latter case. Why is this? Do elves undergo a particularly rapid process of natural selection? Were different elven races created by different gods with different interests? Are elves part of a massive genealogy of gods, mortals and nature spirits, with particular branches of the family having particular associated traits? Perhaps elves are not intrinsically different, and these traits are manually instilled by magical ritual, activated based on environmental exposure during early life, or even determined in utero based on environmental factors experienced by the elven mother during pregnancy.

What is the intra- and inter-racial social significance of these massive variations? On the first count, you should consider how different elven races organize their societies, and how these organizational schema are the result of their differences or the needs of their environments. Which, if any, elven phyletic groups are unified, and which have internal schisms along more human lines? On the second count, think about how different elven races view themselves in light of their cousins? Do they regard themselves as the "true" elves to a lesser of greater degree? Alternately, do they see themselves as disparate parts of a greater whole? As cut from the same cloth in different shapes? Perhaps some elven social sets are more interested in historical and cultural signifiers than physiological ones.


I would argue that humans would evolve variations much faster because they have much shorter generations. I think the main reasons fantasy elves have more variations than fantasy humans involve the biases and concerns of the writers. 1) Elves get a lot of variations because elves are sexy and sell books. 2) Humans don’t get a lot of variations because creating literal sub-races of humans opens the door to real world racism in a way no one dares touch.

Assuming we can avoid unfortunate implications. I figure different groups of elves (or humans) would develop different cultures based on their environments. Their favorite weapons and clothing would be geared towards their environment. Their philosophy on war would be determined by their foes and potential foes in the area. Favorite food would be based on what is available. Disparate upbringing would lead to different language patterns and art over time but the disparate elves (or humans) would be physically the same race as their distant culturally alien neighbors.

To make extreme physical differences I think magical interference trumps natural evolution with fantasy races. Meddling gods of course can shape a people into something they like better. Me I like the idea of elemental influences. Being born or conceived near a font of fire elemental energy prompting red hair for instance. There is other stuff to. I imagine living creatures living near a necromancer ruled realm might be physically hardier despite looking pale and sicker to casual observations.


Elves typically have strong associations with nature, and are depicted as living in forests - but what, exactly, does "nature" mean, and what does living in forests entail? Elves from the tropical rainforest, for instance, might plan their year around the rainy season and its periodic flooding. In dry equatorial forests, on the other hand, forest fires are equal parts existential threat and critical to the functions of the local ecosystem, so perhaps elves hailing from redwood forests are partially nomadic, leaving their ancestral homes in the dry season to avoid the flames. Elves with these differing lifestyles would probably have dramatically different views on the natural world, and of course either group would differ dramatically from elves living in traditionally temperate, humid subtropical, or arctic forests.

Reasonable idea. I’m not sure if I want to make all my elves nature lovers or just some of them.


There are lots of other things to consider - you may notice I focused principally on geography and genetics with my list above, because I think those are especially interesting causative factors, but other tropes worth exploring are: the elven trance and sleeplessness; the impact of being tremendously long-lived and the challenges faced by elves of different ages looking for social achievement; the common notion that elves are an "elder race" with a long history; the conflict between portrayals of elves as chaotic and flexible vs. portrayals of them as hidebound and traditional; the relationship between elves and fey; and of course the schism with the drow.

Well I decided I don’t want Drow, they are too extreme for me. I’d prefer normal elves who just happen to be evil. I am not sure how elves are connected to fey other than fey frequently having pointed ears. That’s literally a topic for another day.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?558327-Is-there-an-in-depth-D-amp-D-or-Pathfinder-book-that-covers-the-Fey-in-depth

I did come up with a definitive link between elves and satyrs.

There are lots of variation in the origin stories the Satyrs tells but they tend to follow this pattern: A stodgy Elven queen (or king or high priest or some other authority figure) in a stodgy elven nation (whose ruins are not far from this very forest!) banned dancing, alcohol, restricted music and generally was anti-fun.
A cult of Nami moved in to try to teach the subjects of said nation how to have fun. It worked out well, until the queen’s enforcers arrested them all. The queen was a powerful wizard (or had minions who were powerful wizards depending on the storyteller). She told the Nami cultists “If you will behave like animals, animals you shall be” and polymorphed them into goats.

Nami took pity on her followers and offered to turn them back into the elves, but they insisted on carrying a mark of their transformation as a band of honor. Thus, the first Satyrs were created from Elves. Finding civilization in general too stifling, the Satyrs opted to become nomadic forest dwellers. This is the story Satyrs are proud to share with outsiders.


also wheres the swamp elfs

The issue is that swamps are sort of the least hospitable place for humans (and therefore most demihumans) to live. Also there is a LOT of swamp monsters. I don’t think elves or any other humanoid would choose to live in swamps long term unless they literally have nowhere else to go.


When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England.




Oh, I dunno, it depends on the local environment. Take a look at the Yucatan, where settlements can disappear into the jungle in a matter of decades. Even where the old Mayan ruins aren't overrun with trees, the jungle is vast enough that, short of satellite photography, you might never find them without a guide (and that assumes guides with knowledge of any given area exist). Many of these settlements were simply abandoned because the agricultural/trade base required to sustain them collapsed. When
new kingdoms sprung up in the area, they often reclaimed the old settlements, either intentionally or just because they were trying to build in the same spot - Chichen Itza is a good example, as it was settled three times, with hundreds of years in between its disappearances.

Basically, in places where the line between "wilderness" and "settled lands" are blurry, it may happen repeatedly, and may not take very long at all. Even very experienced excavators can find themselves walking right by large structures: only very recently, new satellite photography techniques uncovered something like 50,000 new Mayan-era structures buried in the jungle, many of them in very close proximity of known sites, but which had gone unnoticed.

I figure it’d be even easier to lose ruins if the nature god decides to hit the fast forward button on plant growth or vandal demons knock the structures down.


That is another good point. Sometimes civilization can be fragile and the Wilderness can be robust

I also imagine fantasy wilderness would be more robust than real world wilderness. Thank of how terrified real world medieval humans were by the chaos of the wilderness. That’s where monsters and witches live!


Sooo... Reading your description, isn't that the basic premise of the Dragon Age setting?

I am not familiar with the setting you mentioned, but I am not surprised my basic premise was created by someone else first. There is nothing new under the sun.


In fantasy, Elves are traditionally all about the long game. They have long lives, and low birth rates, so every elf counts. They don't like short term solutions, they are careful not to burn through resources, and they are reluctant to pick fights they might lose.
They would prefer to make agreements with powerful dragons or rival nations, and if they proved to be violent or untrustworthy, then battle them with overwhelming violence trying to keep their casualties to a minimum. Because their cities are made to last for millennium, usually in fantasy it takes a great catastrophe to threaten them. Or short sighted races willing to suffer high losses to fight them.


But what if they were in a world where most of their rivals had similarly long life spans? Would that change the thought process. Everything is relative.


They wouldn't do anything by halfways, because they would want anything they make to be around for thousands of years and add to the species. Elf cities would be perfectly self sustaining and beautiful. Every elf would have a level or two of a magical class. Maybe high elfs have mighty towers full of magical artworks that took hundreds of years to make. Wood elves homes are made of living trees, over the centuries grown to meet their needs. All of their stuff would, to a human, be absolutely perfect. To an elf, ever evolving century after century. A place or city would be named, and keep the same name forever. No infighting or wars from within.

I am never a big fan of elves as a Mary Sue race that’s prosperity and peace puts humans to shame.

[Bansheexero]

Well, my thought would be that it would simply alter the perspective of the world in general on a more relative scale. Elves live a long time, but that is compared to other races. So that world would not view living 250+ years as super long, it would simply see several other races like gadflies. Assuming elves we're dominant, they'd have to fill at least some of the regions that humans are no longer occupying, so it would alter elf culture to make it more general rather than make general culture more elf-like.