DnD Economics: elves

[TheThan]

I’m working on creating a dnd campaign setting. I’m currently writing up information on an elfish country, you know the typical stuff; military, society, politics, economics etc.

That’s where I’ve hit a bit of a snag. See this nation is located primarily within the bounds of a very large forest. Now these are typical tree hugging elves we’re dealing with, so obvious things like logging and trapping are most likely out of the question.

So I need ideas on what sorts of items a country of forest dwelling elves can export for profit. So does anyone have any ideas?

[dsmiles]

Herbalism, Animal Husbandry, and Alchemy. There is the distinct possibility that a society that dwells within a primeval forest could have access to plants and animals that no other society could reasonably have access to.

[ryu]

Also elves tend to be fluffed as high magic. Take full advantage of things like say... Enchanted cleaning implements and other useful but bland magic utilities. You know you'd enjoy a fridge of holding. Think bag of holding with a weak ice spell persisted to last for decades by a powerful elven sorcerer. You could have some fun with actually practical magic.

[comicshorse]

Medicines, magic items. Maybe human resources, elven archers hire out as mercenaries, elven bards entertain the rich and powerful or they run schools there teaching the arts they are expert in to any one can afford their exorbitant fees

[Randel]

I would say that elves do export wooden items, but they tend to be higher quality instead of quantity. Trees are plants (albeit long-lived ones) and eventually some trees die or need to be removed to make room for new generations of trees. Or the elves clear out some trees to make the forest thin in some places so light can shine through (often, tress in a forest grow so close together that they block the sun from shining on the plants below so its just trees and dirt or moss. The elves might clear out some trees to let light shine through so their forests also have grass in them.)

Also, due to the long loves of elves, there could be master tree growers who study the trees and grow the best ones to make wooden items with. Elven wood is made from trees that have been carefully tended and bred over centuries to make the perfect items.

Elves might also be good architects, like they develop a sort of insulation or building material to make their homes more efficient so they need to burn less fuel (could also be that elves only burn twigs or dried leaves for their fires... or they use animal feces like dried cow pies or whatnot for fuel).

Elven exports could include things like pottery, artwork, wooden items or weapons, medicine, herbs, seasonings, various wines and spirits, and magic items like everburning torches or bags that create food every day or whatnot.

I'd say that the elven economics could also depend on the economics of the other races:

Dwarves are one of the elves chief competitors in many crafts due to both races being long-lived and thus more master craftsmen in their ranks than other races. Dwarves would mostly specialise in weapons and things made of metal or stone while elves would likely use animal hide or bones and wood to make their things. Also, due to the tendancy of dwarves to build their cities in tunnels then dwarves might make more explosives while elves make things like telescopes, tea, and hempen ropes whos materials are more abundant in the woods or have better use there.

Dwarven immunity to poison could also make threm less likely to build anti-toxins or medicines. Thus, elves make healing items to differentiate from dwarves.

Humans are likely the ones who mass-produce thing more than other races. Build as much stuff as you can, and let the other races deal with the more specialized stuff. I suspect humans would be more likely to experiment (though gnomes could be more experimental as well. Lots of new magical or mundane items could originally be invented by gnomes and then picked up by human entrepreneurs and mass-produced).

[Tvtyrant]

Another option if you want to go into the realm of madness is elves. The single thing most literature agrees on about elves is that they are hot, so the government orders attractive commoners who are raised to be adept in human courts to be courtesans/wives of human nobles as a way to protect their borders.

Or have them be the worlds best producers of wine, music, poetry, culture, etc. Make them essentially Hapsburgs, with a high culture that everyone wants in on backed my military might (wizards, Rangers and Rogues that use particularly deadly hit and run say).

[TheThan]

I really like most of what has come up here in this thread so far. I particularly like the idea of the forest being manicured and well tended.

[Yanagi]

I mostly "know" Forgotten Realms elves, but generally in those splatbooks there's a lot of emphasis on how longevity is paired with a culture that celebrates both artistic expression and craftsmanship. So maybe elf-community economies are less based on the sale of bulk commodities than the creation of added value in processed items.

Ergo, your elves actually import unprocessed goods relatively cheap--grain, leather, wood, et cetera--and via labor generate added value, then export the result to profit. Given their basically horicultural-plus-foraging economy--by which I mean elves generally don't do intensive agricultural, nor heavy industry--I'd suggest that any surplus generated by their own property would similarly create far more revenue with in-house processing. The best grapes in the world are going to garner you a fisful of coppers per bushel--turn the same bushel into one bottle of elven wine and your return is a fistful of silver.

So long as there's a bourgeois consumption audience available--and there totally is, given the weird wealth distribution created by adventuring--a cluster of elven cottage industries could reap a considerable profit after expenses and taxation (if any). It would be like Tolkien's version of Wealth of Nations.

And that's before considering the intangible value to "elven" goods: the distinction as Bourdieu would put it. I mean, in pretty much every fantasy setting there's a cachet to "elven-made," which, sort of like "French wine" in RL, corresponds to a pricing increase. And at some point the line between cachet and meaningful metrics of quality would blur--as happened with French wine (grumble)--so even mediocre elvish craftsmen coud command an above-the-market price...particularly from anyone with too few ranks in Appraise.

There would, however, be an issue with gnomes making knockoff elven goods and selling them at half the price.

[Irreverent Fool]

I don't know that it will work for you, but one of the two major groups of elves in the game I run do not operate in terms of export and profit. They lead a sustainable life and focus on developing the arts. They have everything they need and hold enough of a surplus of goods to cover hard times (made easier with magic, of course.)

I feel that this helps emphasize the entirely different cultural values between the races.

[JonestheSpy]

Definitely agree with the line of ought that elves would produce very high quality, expensive goods instead of exploiting their forest home as a source of raw materials.

Also, if you're going with the classic vision of elf society, it would probably be extremely self-sufficient and isolationist, as I. Fool suggests. Living as long as they do, it may not seem worth the trouble to establish economic ties to a nation that might completely change in a few short decades. There's some pretty interesting information about treetop ecosystems out there - elves could probably grow most of their food in the sun on the highest branches of the forest, and mine ore from riverbeds or tunnels below the forest floor. They'd know where to find clay for earthenware. They are probably very good at maintaining and preserving items to last for centuries.

So the question may be not what the elves export, but what would they want to bother importing? Jewels and gems, perhaps. Wines from the best grape-growing regions. Animal products that aren't practical to raise in the forest (definite nod to the Wood-elves and their butter tubs from The Hobbit, here). But probably nothing they couldn't do without.

[lightningcat]

Silk has been linked to elves in different books, so that might be used as an export as well as clothing for the elves. With even a minor amount of magic, silk production becomes a lot easier and more sustainable.

[Yanagi]

Expanding out from the tight question of "what would elves export?" I'd tend to agree that most D&D elves are portrayed as living pretty self-sufficient lives. Depending upon their material culture and patterns of consumption, small communities could be wholly self-sufficient and maintain a very good standard of life...though, frankly, D&D susbsistence economics are just as suspect as the monetary.

[Cyrion]

Assuming that the elves are fairly self-sufficient:

The merchant who can boast that an elf (the higher the status the better) uses/wears his products gains tremendous prestige- thus, elves are paid to import products and need export nothing.

Yes, my friends, elves are celebrities and live via endorsements!

Famous elves include Linden Lohan, Jon Bon Grovi...

[Starshade]

I assume the elves eat meat? If so, they hunt, and could sell some few meat and/or animal products.
I would think woodland elves would not need to buy much, in same way Native American tribes didnt need much from the cities. But; I'd assume they want to. Who would not want a few luxury items?
Semi nomadic elves could be without iron production, though, remember there have been tribal societies in real life who did posess iron knowledge, as the Zulu of south africa. It is possible to imagine some semi nomadic elves too make some iron, by carefull gathering of wood, burning charcoal, and making bog iron in small quantities for own use, though it's possible it would be for use in rare items, if they didn't want to resort to logging...

Hmm, an possibility, know about the Wheel of Time book series, and it's race of Ogiers? Mystical woodshaping (as the Ogier's woodsinging abilities) could solve some of the issues, and magical wood/nature based equivalents of iron armor, and weaponry, magical ironwood swords, scale mail of wood, etc. Would be nice for export too, for allied nations.

It's also possible it could exist regional varieties of elves, who produce different things, and trade with each other. some produce wood items, even possible semi magical wood armor/weapons, others could produce some prized elven steel in small quantities, others could make, say, wine, elven mystics and wizards could produce some magical toys and minor trinkets, scrolls.

I think most want elves to be seen as the semi new ageish treehuggers as is common in fantasy? But, even with endless tree cities and elves without mining and logging, it is possible to tend the woods, cut down dangerous old trees, wander around and fetch some iron/gold lumps along streams, bogs, on the mountain sides close by, and use sparingly the technology the less patient races use reckless. But, I'd assume they would either hunt, and thus kill deer/elk/caribou/antelope or something similiar, or birds/hares, or be semi vegetarians and grow a lot of plants. Anyway, they'd need to use their nature to live, and buy things who do not grow/live where they live (as spices, odd fruit, textiles from foregin plant/animals not present there, etc).

[Ganurath]

Let's see, what do elves do?

Complete Champion: The Temple of True Aim actively hunts down and stamps out evil, because it's like a stain that won't wash out. They're also keen on opposing tyrannical governments.

Book of Nine Swords: Eternal Blades suggest an affinity for Devoted Spirit and/or Diamond Mind, while the designs of the Crown of White Ravens suggests a connection to that style. As surely as hobgoblins made Iron Heart Style, elves must have made one of these. Piety, mental discipline, and cooperation are strong elements of elven nature.

Complete Warrior: Bladesingers indicate the prominence of magic in elven culture, while Darkwood Stalkers highlight the conflict between elf and orc. Armor of the Unending Hunt indicates that they have rangers on long-term patrols that they can reasonably invest 20K into, and the section on Corellon for combat deities suggests he encourages self-reliance.

Complete Divine: Seekers of the Misty Isle indicate that ancient lore plays a signifigant role in elven culture, that diviners are valued, and that personal sacrifice for the many is cherished. Bow of the Wintermoon reinforces the hatred of drow, and implies active involvement by their patron deity, while Millenial Chainmail reinforces nature themes. The profile on Correllon suggests a value of lore, the arts, restoring what was lost, and killing drow. Temple descriptions give insight into elven architecture: Tree villages are for smaller communities, while larger ones have spires and fortified palaces of alabaster.

Player's Handbook 2: Duskblades reinforce a culture that values magic to supplement martial might, and the Elven Spell Lore feat indicates a unique understanding of magic that emphasizes understanding and flexibility. Elves of the High Forest indicate that they consider even the more practical elements of their culture art, and thus sacred. Sharulhensa indicates that the elves are less than what they were, reinforces the use of alabaster in architecture, and the prominence of magic in their culture.

That's just with what I have on hand, but there are some consistent themes: Art is sacred, everything they do is art, they want to reclaim what was lost, they are self-sufficient, and magic is prominent in their culture. They would value their artistic works too much to export them unless they can simultaneously keep them, which means that all they can export is information. Since they're self-sufficient, I'd recommend that their primary source of income from other nations be tuition at elven arcane colleges.

[jseah]

If you've ever heard of permaculture:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

This sounds like exactly the kind of thing tree-hugger elves could do.

They manipulate the entire forest and adjust the plants and animals in them to give the exact right balance that generates large amounts of diversity and natural products. Without the intensive work that farms have.

Thus they live off the land that they tend carefully with relatively little work (and lots of knowledge) so have tons of free time to devote to high quality crafts in other suggestions.

[hoff]

In the Hobbit the forest elves trade their magnificent wine with the humans from the lake.

Also magic item crafting is the single most expensive and profitable thing in traditional d&d campaigns, you can just say that the elves are good at it.

[Werekat]

My two cents, on stuff that hasn't been mentioned yet.

First, logging and trapping shouldn't be a problem. Seriously, elves need to eat and build their homes out of something. They make their own mark on the land regardless: they're just careful with it. I'm not sure they'd export - not unless there was some kind of reason for a perceived surplus - but they certainly use furs and wood, both specially grown and gathered.

I much like the 3.0 book "The Quintessential Elf". While not going into details on elven economy, for instance, they give such an interesting thing as aged alchemical substances. An elven alchemist can afford to make something for ten years. Once again - either luxury goods or something very rare and expensive.

I believe it is RoTW which gives the final word on elven self-sufficiency - they're self-sufficient to the point of ridiculousness. If an elf wants a house, she'll live in a hut she's thrown together in a couple days' time while she studies how to build houses. It's kinda like if you could learn any subject in a couple months' subjective time - there'd be no point in paying someone to make something you'll be using for a while afterwards. So the average elf ends up a jack of all trades, and maybe a master of one or two. This creates for an economy of services and of scholarship - in-between themselves elves usually trade expertise. I see no reason why they could not export that. They can train animals. They can train people.

RoTW gives us expertise in architecture. And - very important for a long-lived people - an interest in magical and mechanical prosthetics. For being maimed is worse than being killed at times.

To summarize: if you're talking classical D&D elves - within their small communities it's basically barter and the entire community pitching in for things like communal storages of raw materials. In larger communities, money is not unheard of, but still the main currency is expertise and favors.

[Odin the Ignoble]

Given the long lives of elves, they might be the world's investment bankers as well.

Others might see low interest loans as a low profit business, but when you live as long as an elf, they're more likely to see it like the fast paced world of Stock Broking.

If the Elves are particularly crafty, they might invest in individuals or Kingdoms on a basis that lets them influence world politics. Propping up friendly regimes and helping topple ones they oppose.

Elven military campaigns might be based around "Protecting Investments" as well.

[EccentricCircle]

Tourism?

"Experience the wonders of Loth Lorien, wonder the twisting paths of the greenwood, gaze upon the heart of elvendom upon earth. try your hand at the ancient arts of elven wood whittling and fall asleep under the stars as our traditional minstrels sing you to sleep with the balads of luthien. all for 900 Gp per night meals included. room service available."

[NNescio]

Dorf Fortress may have some ideas. Cannibalism notwithstanding, of course.

[ashmanonar]

Dorf Fortress may have some ideas. Cannibalism notwithstanding, of course.

Bah, you always resort to cannibalism.

[Randel]

Other ideas:

While elves may have a sort of self-sufficiency thing going which the culture perceives as good, there could be less legitimate practices made by evil or particularly chaotic elves.


Elves live self-sufficient lifes, live long lives of luxury, and don't breed as rapidly as other races. Thus, they just plain value their lives more than those of other races. While dwarven and elven soldiers exist who hone their battle prowess to expert abilities, there are also elves who just don't want to risk going into battle (because orcs can breed dozens if not hundreds of warriors within the time it takes to raise one elven warrior).

So elves try to get a surplus of gold, booze, drugs, or whatever to bribe others to do their dirty work for them! Why should the elves go deal with an orc tribe when they can hire human mercenaries? Why get involved in big wars when they can hold great feasts and banquets, invite foreign diplomats over, and be all buddy-buddy with them so nobody fights them or have them fight on their behalf?

Lets say that elves live for a very long time and alot of them develop crafts that let them make a decent profit in foreign trade (maybe not a huge one but still sizable), ther could even be elven merchants who've practiced the art of haggling and investing for decades or centuries longer than any other person and know how to invest gold to make their money work for them. Imagine if there were banks, investment firms, or other places run mostly by elves who always gave fellow elves the best deals. Eventually, while most elven families might live in tree houses and eat tofu or whatnot they still have bank accounts and centuries of savings that they never feel the need to dip into... except when they need to bribe the hell out of somebody.

Are you an adventurer going out to kill somebody who's "causing trouble?" Are you getting paid a pretty huge amount of money for the work? Is the mysterious old guy giving you the job an elf, half-elf, or just works for one?

Elves lead pretty self-sufficient lives but always make sure to get some profits and invest them wisely. They may not need it now, or even in a few decades, but eventually it will be nice to have a nest-egg to work with if the need arises.

The flipside of this is that elves may invest heavily in businesses of other races and that gives them a bit of leverage (assuming they don't pull out their money when it looks like the short-lived guy is going to die).


Also, there are plenty of stories about fey causing mischief among mortals. And with a fairly hedonistic culture dedicated to the arts, where its occupants live longer than members of other races, and they like to get the best things in life and frequently dine with foreign wealthy men, they could get into some shady stuff.

Prostitution, slavery, making drugs or unusually potent booze... ther could be plenty of established elven families who deal with such things. A foreign business partner of less then scrupulous morals might show up to dine with his cultured elven partner and spend some time eating the finest elven cuisine, looking at magnificent views from his treetop mansion, watch entertainers using the finest of theatric magic, and then when the night comes he might enjoy the company of a pretty human slave girl owned by the elves.

Elves don't necessarily need slaves (their economy is built on quality over quantity and would probably use hired hands to do any large-scale worh they need) but its always fun for a fey to pick some pretty "mortal" and give her a taste of what elven society has to offer. He's probably doing her a favor... out there in the human lands she would risk getting eaten by monsters or attacked by bandits or whatnot. Here, she gets taught in the finest types of etiquette and entertainment techniques to keep her elven owners happy. She might even bear some half-elf children (who might get cushy jobs in one of the many foreign businesses that the family has partners in) which does technically help propagate the elven race more than it usually does. And when she inevitably starts to get old like humans do then she can be dismissed to some other line of work (or killed if the elf in question feels like it... she'd jst die of old age anyway).

Basically, while the elves may have a good quality over quantity based economy and keep their lands neat and tidy, they do keep an interest in foreign affairs and will do some seemingly underhanded things to better get what they want.

After all, they are the elves and they deserve the very best in life even if the lesser races may not appreciate it. But that's okay, elves stick together and its fairly easy to get members of the shorter lived races to do what they want if they put on a nice face, offer them some quality goods, and dangle some money in front ot their eyes. Elves don't really need gold themselves, they just use it to motivate others.

[kieza]

There's a principle in economics called comparative advantage, which boils down to this: people will do not what they're best at, but what they're better at than other people. If they have a significant advantage over most other people, they will be major exporters. Andy may be a great farmer and an okay fisherman, but if everyone is a great farmer (or even a good farmer) but a bad fisherman, Andy will fish for a living and sell a lot of fish to farmers.

So, elves might be marginally better farmers, artists, or warriors, but what generally jumps out at me thinking about fantasy elves is that they're amazing spellcasters compared to just about anyone else. Assuming comparative advantage holds in D&D, elves are going to specialize in magic-related industries: they'll sell their magic, craft magic items, or do things that can't be done without magic, like use divination to beat the stock market. Now, in D&D, that works for the high elves, but the wood elves generally don't have the same talent for magic. Without that, they only have a minor advantage over anyone else. They aren't going to be major exporters, and they're going to have a lower standard of living as a result.

That's a generic suggestion, but here's what I've done in my setting: high elves have one big advantage in terms of magic: they have a better knowledge than anyone else of how to trace and use ley lines. All over elven lands, and found in a few elven-owned parts of other nations, are Ley Pylons, complex structures which skim a little excess energy off the top of ley line crossings. The elves can use this energy for all sorts of stuff: I'm using 4th edition, so I just say it produces residuum, but if you play 3.5, you could have it produce a material used in place of XP for crafting (for example). The high elves are the only ones who can produce residuum with their level of efficiency, so they wind up with a massive advantage in ritual casting and magic item creation, and they can just export the residuum as well. So, the high elves are the world's foremost exporters of magical items (from magic streetlights to vorpal swords) and services. (The wood elves, who don't have this knowledge, are a not-quite third world nation, since they don't have anything worth exporting. I got a kick out of telling my players about the marble-and-gilt cities of the high elves one session, and then sending them to a wood elf village full of dirt-floored huts and smoky torches.)

Incidentally, since dwarves were brought up earlier, dwarves are generally known as good metalsmiths, but not necessarily good spellcasters. They're going to be exporting mundane metalwork: heirloom-quality arms and armor, fancy jewelry, that sort of thing. If, as in my setting, humans are industrialized, you're going to have dwarven mastersmiths making a killing on quality, human foundries making a killing on quantity, and dwarven youngsters fighting over the scraps. Interesting plot hook...

[Gamer Girl]

Art!

First you have all the physical art objects: wood cravings, clay items, gemstone items, paintings and woven objects.

Second you have all the less physical art, such as stories, songs, and poems.

Third you'd have the amazing historical perspective that elves have compared to most other races. An elven bard can easily have personally witnessed dozens of historical events. And the poem about the death of King Kort by a bard who was their will have quite a value. Even simple history is of great value to people that want to know that history.

Fourth, you'd have the amazing detail that elves can give a topic. The average human can take a couple years and write a book, but the average elf can take a couple decades. Any sage or intellectual would love to have a copy of a 31 volume elven book 'birds of the world'.

Fifth, any of the above with magic. For example a harp that can play a 200 year old song or an animated picture tapestry.

[Jay R]

"As with most mythical creatures who live in enchanted forests with no visible means of support, the elves ate rather frugally, and Frito was a little disappointed to find heaped on his plate a small mound of ground nuts, bark, and dirt."
-- "Bored of the Rings", Harvard Lampoon

[Werekat]

Ooh, what Randel wrote would work great for the grey elves. Especially with their attitude "other elves are marginally people, the rest - little more than conscious animals."

I'd disagree on the elven warfare, though. Since it's an offtopic, I'm placing my musings on the subject under the spoil.

Spoiler

Show

I've always thought that elves would have tactics rather similar to contemporary special services - tactics that focus on you staying alive and at a distance, with calling in magical artillery and helicopters as required. The USA's Experience shows that this kind of tactic can have the few work against the untrained many with little in way of casualties.

I don't think elves, unless pressed very, very hard would have someone fight for them for this reason. They've already got everything (if we stick to the fluff of their culture being very explicitly magical) to be better warriors than the norm. The downside - they still can't afford all-out war. They need a really good position to use their advantages, and if the position gets destroyed by overwhelming force, they're screwed. There's still too few of them. And they are not suited for offensive warfare at all. Whatsoever. Because they don't rely on professional warriors like other races: the jack-of-all-trades thing kind of stops that. There are professional warriors, but they would be leaders in times of crisis, not the backbone of the army.

For this reason, I've always seen the elves and their across-the-board weapon proficiency as something that means all elves are combatants. The crux of their army is civilians who know how to defend their particular land very well.Which leads to elven forests being kind of like Switzerland on a plain, or in hills, whatever. Too much of a pain to ever take without burning the whole place down. When every single member of the population can and, more importantly, will fight back... When you've got druids creating a Deathworld scenario... And especially if you've got a reputation for this sort of thing... It's going to be easier to search for easy pickings elsewhere.

I think there could be elven mercenaries - mostly for stealth missions, stuff that requires a great amount of skill to pull off. But those would probably be very rare: most of them want to actually live out that lifespan. Still, that's why I loved Team Peregrine: that's the way I imagined things work, as well.

[Eldan]

How about this:

Elves don't really have their own culture. There are only few of them, and they just don't like any manual labour.

They are, instead, local or traveling sages. They live for centuries, or several human generations. You tell something to a passing elf, he passes it on to other elves he sees. Eighty years later, another elf tells it to your grandson, from memory, perfectly.

They are living archives, and work as lawyers, judges, librarians, record keepers, historians, priests, everything that needs a lot of knowledge.

[lesser_minion]

My impression is that even D&D elves don't go for all-out tree hugging craziness -- they just try to be sustainable. They're OK with cutting down trees if necessary, but most of their wood is obtained through coppice.

Part of that might include taking care to avoid population growth, and if the means by which they do so extend beyond celibacy and the Spartan way(s) then they might have another export.

[Eldan]

Well, they take a century to be considered adult. Their growth isn't very large anyway, I'd guess.