The mystery and wonder that is the Cerilian elf

[ConjurerDragon]

cccpxepoj schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
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> cccpxepoj wrote:
> people just imagine the advance of elven army, traveling trough land,sky even a shadow world and all that followed whit thunder,lightning.......
> ok i need to rest :)
>
The sidhelien have lost and are a retreating race in a continent
formerly theirs.

IMO an army as you describe it is unfitting for the Birthright setting
after the human-sidhelien wars. Novels are not canon - but I do like the
novel "Greatheart" in that it describes the sidhelien of the Sielwode as
mourning every *single* dead sidhelien as an immortal gone forever.
Losing a dozen sidhelien is a major loss and even the thought of several
companies of sidhelien destroyed in a war would be unimaginable as would
a large army such as you describe. Vietcong guerilla warfare from hiding
to attempt to prevent the unnecessary loss of any immortal life.

Or another picture that would fit Birthright: The last alliance of elves
and men of Gondor marching against Sauron - the whole army is as small
as former armys vanguards.

[AndrewTall]

The sidhelien have lost and are a retreating race in a continent
formerly theirs.

I do like the novel "Greatheart" in that it describes the sidhelien of the Sielwode as mourning every *single* dead sidhelien as an immortal gone forever.


For a race who lost - mostly prior to Deismaar, the sidhe are certainly taking their sweet time to die... A resurgence would be slow but is possible given the fractured nature of most of the opposition - Innishiere for example is likely to grow strongly following the absorption of Khinasi refugees as half elves become common place - and are welcomed by Cerilian elves unlike in many other settings.

But I strongly agree with the reluctance to lose troops, a human realm can absorb hundreds of dead without noticing, the Gorgon probably uses wars to cull the excess goblin population, the elves suffer for every casualty.

[ryancaveney]

For a race who lost - mostly prior to Deismaar, the sidhe are certainly taking their sweet time to die... A resurgence would be slow but is possible

Hence my opinion that most BR campaigns should include the beginning of that Sidhelien resurgence: they have bided their time long enough to build their power up to the point at which some of them think it comfortably exceeds that of all the other races, so the time has come to emerge from the forests and eradicate them all.


But I strongly agree with the reluctance to lose troops, a human realm can absorb hundreds of dead without noticing, the Gorgon probably uses wars to cull the excess goblin population, the elves suffer for every casualty.

Therefore, they should make extensive use of charmed, summoned and created troops. Charming (e.g., the Subversion realm spell) is particularly nice: steal some of your enemy's units and use them to fight the rest -- whether you win or lose the battle, every casualty on both sides works in your favor in the long run. Summoning elementals or creating golems is also very useful since those creatures tend to have good damage reduction, so can easily smash their way through very large numbers of normal soldiers.


Ryan

[Beruin]

Vietcong guerilla warfare from hiding to attempt to prevent the unnecessary loss of any immortal life.


This is a bit nit-picky, but your example left me squirming.
Have you ever compared the American losses (58.226 soldiers dead or missing) with the Vietnamese losses (1 million Vietcong and NVA fighters, plus 4 million civilians according to Vietnamese sources)? You just can't say that guerilla warfare attempts to prevent unneccessary loss of life. You'll come to similar results when you look at the German army against the Russian partisans in WWII, the Russians in Afghanistan or, more recently, in Chechenia, or when you consider the present situation in Iraq.

Guerilla warfare in our world is always the weapon of the underdog, who has no other way to strike back. Moreover, it is waged on the back of the civilian population, leading to a very high body count and it also nearly always requires a territory already occupied.

That said, the Elves in Cerilia will surely employ hit-and-run tactics, they might also prefer to fight on home territory, and they will turn the very forest against any invader, and they will not fight very chivalrous against human vermin. I guess that is what you mean by 'guerilla warfare' and so far I agree. However, I'd also say that they will fight tooth and nail and to the last elf before they'll allow an enemy to come near to one of their cities.

[ConjurerDragon]

Beruin schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3853
> Beruin wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
> Vietcong guerilla warfare from hiding to attempt to prevent the unnecessary loss of any immortal life.
>
> -----------------------------
>
>
> This is a bit nit-picky, but your example left me squirming.
> Have you ever compared the American losses (58.226 soldiers dead or missing) with the Vietnamese losses (1 million Vietcong and NVA fighters, plus 4 million civilians according to Vietnamese sources)? You just can`t say that guerilla warfare attempts to prevent unneccessary loss of life. You`ll come to similar results when you look at the German army against the Russian partisans in WWII, the Russians in Afghanistan or, more recently, in Chechenia, or when you consider the present situation in Iraq.
>
> Guerilla warfare in our world is always the weapon of the underdog, who has no other way to strike back. Moreover, it is waged on the back of the civilian population, leading to a very high body count and it also nearly always requires a territory already occupied.
>
> That said, the Elves in Cerilia will surely employ hit-and-run tactics, they might also prefer to fight on home territory, and they will turn the very forest against any invader, and they will not fight very chivalrous against human vermin. I guess that is what you mean by `guerilla warfare` and so far I agree. However, I`d also say that they will fight tooth and nail and to the last elf before they`ll allow an enemy to come near to one of their cities.
>

When comparing then don?t count only the soldiers of the USA on one
side. South Vietnam had casualties as well. When you compare the overall
casualties and leave the american air raids and bombings out of the
comparison then it?s more what I wanted to show. Vietcong tactics used
by the sidhelien - while the human and goblin opponents have no airforce
available.
Or perhaps a comparison less likely to bring up images of modern wars:
"Robin Hood"?s methods employed by the sidhelien against humanities Guy
of Gisborne.

[cccpxepoj]

Or perhaps a comparison less likely to bring up images of modern wars: "Robin Hood"?s methods employed by the sidhelien against humanities Guy of Gisborne.

There is no "robin hood" tactics for elves, to have efficient "robin hood" tactic you have to have local population on your side, and that way they will never expand their borders. That tactic work only in the state of occupation by the foreign power( humans,humanoids,dwarfs,other elves more likely) .

[irdeggman]

There is no "robin hood" tactics for elves, to have efficient "robin hood" tactic you have to have local population on your side, and that way they will never expand their borders. That tactic work only in the state of occupation by the foreign power( humans,humanoids,dwarfs,other elves more likely) .


Actually the comparison seems pretty decent.

The elves do have local population on their side (the elves within the forests).

The humans are trying to insert their influence (ala Gisborne) and are being met with stinging tactics.

Elves have pretty much not been able to expand their borders - they have at best been able to keep the "infringement" from outsiders to a minimum in the centuries since the elf-human wars.

[ryancaveney]

the (Robin Hood) comparison seems pretty decent.

Not to me. Robin Hood is about resisting the depredations of an occupying power. I don't think any human army in "present-day" Cerilia could possibly occupy a Sidhelien province for long enough to make a guerrilla-type resistance movement necessary. I see the response as far more overwhelming than merely "stinging." In my view, five minutes after the "humans have crossed the border!" alarm rings in the capital, several high-level wizards appear, and unleash enough magic (including charming some of the humans, summoning monsters and animating the trees) in a matter of minutes that the human force of thousands is retreating in disorder or utterly obliterated less than half a hour after their incursion began. I see attempting to invade the Sidhelien forests as more akin to walking slowly across no man's land in 1916 -- in broad daylight, into the teeth of the machine guns and artillery barrages -- than anything else.


Ryan

[kgauck]

Only yesterday, as I read these posts, I reflected on how I see the elven armies as highly brittle, devestating first strikes, but no staying power in the field. The elves appear on the battlefield at moments of their choosing, inflict a devestating strike, then fade away before the enemy has a chance to recover their footing and harm any elves.

The casualties of N Vietnam were so high because America intentionally adopted a stratey of attrition, and as a totalitarian state, N Vietnam was able to endure those casualties.

The sidhe enemies likewise could (and probabaly would be happy to) adopt a strategy of attrition, even unfavorably, because like the Americans, the elves can't abide casualties (ah ha, the apt analogy puts the elves in the American position!).

So instead the sidhe adopt a policy of overwhelming force.

I think of a science fiction version of the elves, the Romulans, who like their sidhe counterparts, have an anxiety about casualties, and have a superior magic - the cloaking device and plasma torpedo, which allows them to make devestating first strikes which attempt to cripple the enemy before they can respond appropriatly. Like the Romulans, the elves can appear anywhere, either "cloaked" with invisibility, or through magical transportation (flying, actual transportation spells, so on) inflict their mighty attack (and though the fireball does bring up images of the plasma torpedo, others are right to suggest the sidhe won't use it in the forest).

[Beruin]

When comparing then don?t count only the soldiers of the USA on one
side. South Vietnam had casualties as well. When you compare the overall
casualties and leave the american air raids and bombings out of the
comparison then it?s more what I wanted to show. Vietcong tactics used
by the sidhelien - while the human and goblin opponents have no airforce
available.
Or perhaps a comparison less likely to bring up images of modern wars:
"Robin Hood"?s methods employed by the sidhelien against humanities Guy
of Gisborne.

The South Vietnam army had 223,748 losses, the SEATO countries, mainly Australia and New Zealand, lost about 5,000 soldiers, even if taken together the Vietcong/NVA still suffered a lot more casualities. The civilian losses were evenly divided between North and South Vietnam (2 million each), but are probably quite imprecise anyway. North Vietnam could only prevail in this war because it was willing to suffer this losses and to sacrifice so many of its own people and carry on regardless.
In my view, you can't take the massive air bombardement out of the picture, it's part of this war and also quite typical of trying to counter guerilla tactics. The exertion of massive force results in part from military doctrine (i.e. trying to demoralize the enemy), but also from helplessness, i.e. the US could think of no other way to oust the Vietcong apart from trying to destroy their supply base or 'defoliating' whole regions to deprive them of their hiding places.
In contrast, guerillas often try to provoke excessive retaliation to show the civilian population how vile and brutal their enemy really is, hoping that they will garner more support this way.

Okay, let's stop the Vietnam debate and get back to Cerilia. One analogy I see though, is that enemies must be willing to exert a massive amount of force, their only chance to oust the elves being to literally burn down their forests to the ground. However, the question is who can bring in more firepower.


ah ha, the apt analogy puts the elves in the American position!).


That sounds about right to me. Damn, I spent about two hours researching Vietnam and thinking on how to put my position, and kgauck sums it up perfectly in a few sentences;)
However, the question remains how the humans could be so successful in Cerilia if the elves were and still are able to bring such an overwhelming amount of force to bear.
So far, I see Ryan's thoughts on deity-dampened magic and the presence of avatars as the only viable solution...

[ryancaveney]

The elves appear on the battlefield at moments of their choosing, inflict a devestating strike, then fade away before the enemy has a chance to recover their footing and harm any elves.

Yes, exactly the modern American position -- massive, overwhelming firepower from a distance. Aerial bombardment, in fact.


though the fireball does bring up images of the plasma torpedo, others are right to suggest the sidhe won't use it in the forest

There are several responses to this. The traditional one is that there are many spells other than evocations which are useful in mass combat. While I do appreciate those, I like finding ways for them to use direct-damage area-effect spells also. One is by researching an alternate version which specifically doesn't harm plants in the area of effect; perhaps it can't hurt anything with Int below 3 (to also spare natural animals), or perhaps it even harms *only* humans (or goblins). In some spell design systems, like the generally excellent Sovereign Stone d20 Codex Mysterium, this actually makes it *cheaper* to cast; I wouldn't use that modifier in this particular case, though, because the target limitation is being employed to reduce, rather than increase, the typical restraints on casting the spell. Another way is by ensuring they only have to cast it outside the forest. I see the edge of a Sidhelien forest as essentially a living fortification: trees, brambles and vines with poisonous thorns grown into a massive, tangled barrier thicker and higher than any castle's curtain wall. They don't want visitors, and neither do the trees. Where this border touches unforested human lands, casting *out* from behind the barrier harms no trees -- neither does casting them on the humans below as you fly invisibly over their towns -- so fireballs and ice storms are just peachy as long-distance weapons.


Ryan

[AndrewTall]

Hmm, I'm going to have to disagree with Ryan. If every tree and root attacks an invader then the invader responds by burning them first - the Spiderfell issue. The woods should not be actively hostile in the most part - but then I don't think it needs to be.

To my mind the elves would use more of a Russian defense - retreat, repeatedly use hit and run attacks, and watch their enemies flail around in hostile terrain with no clear line of attack. Since the elves have superior 'technology' (i.e. better equipment, magic, more skilled warriors) they turn the normal guerrilla-war tactical position of this world on its head - they become the enemy who always chooses time and place of attack, and always out-powers their foe...

I see an invasion of elven lands as a march into a feared realm of dark forests, punctuated by arrows from the distance and constant attrition of guards. Those soldiers sent to chase the elven attackers either find nothing but air, or vanish never to be seen again. A general could lose half his troops roaming the trackless woods before leaving without ever once drawing blade on an enemy...

Those people who have elven cities, have the problem of the attackers finding cities and destroying them to defeat the elves. However as virtually the entire population is effectively made up of young adults the best invaders could hope for would be to destroy a few buildings and livestock - the elves themselves would simply fade away and return when the army withdrew. Given the low elven emphasis on material goods, and preference for portable goods if any are required, the loss would not be substantial.

If the elves have almost no buildings then the invading general has to be able to track the elves down and out-maneuver them to actually do any damage at all, no small task.

Regarding buildings, as elves have no industry, they only need buildings for shelter. I personally don't see them as needing shelter beyond a comfy tree branch or somewhere to store what few possessions they have as I don't think they should be affected by norms of weather - they are quasi-nature spirits in my system. It's a wood elf view of the sidhe, but that seems more appropriate to BR than the 'high' elven lifestyle (which I accept would require a number of buildings)

[ryancaveney]

If every tree and root attacks an invader then the invader responds by burning them first - the Spiderfell issue.

I don't think those woods can be burned (at least not without a whole lot of very high-level castings of Dispel Magic and Control Weather), or they would already have been long ago. "Every root and branch attacks the invader" is also a very good summary of exactly how Ruins of Empire describes Sielwode. The other obvious approach is that of Innishiere -- keep the entire realm protected by Warding at all times.


I see an invasion of elven lands as a march into a feared realm of dark forests, punctuated by arrows from the distance and constant attrition of guards. Those soldiers sent to chase the elven attackers either find nothing but air, or vanish never to be seen again. A general could lose half his troops roaming the trackless woods before leaving without ever once drawing blade on an enemy...

I like this image a great deal, but I see it more as the description of the elves in attack, rather than defense. I think the elven magical defenses of their own lands are so strong that they keep out all trespassers on their own, without ever having to interrupt the inhabitants' tea parties at art galleries. Your method might be appropriate for a more human-friendly realm like Rhuannach, but even there I think if the resident refugee humans ever misbehave, the trees will all animate and grind them to mulch at the first hint of Sidhelien displeasure.


Ryan

[ryancaveney]

A further note on Andrew's way of Sidhelien warfare:

I agree that your model is the correct description of what the war was like before Deismaar, but in the centuries since I think the Sidhelien have invested heavily in fixed defenses. In fact, I think their doing so is essential to explaining why their realms cover such a small fraction of the continent they once filled, especially concerning the tracts of forest adjacent to but not part of the elven realms. If they mainly defended themselves by fighting as you describe, Cariele and the wooded half of Dhoesone should still (or at least again already) be part of Tuarhievel. Only if they created massive magical defenses around small, fixed enclaves within the formerly continent-spanning forest can I explain why they were pressed back into those areas without rapidly expanding again.


Ryan

[Beruin]

Regarding buildings, as elves have no industry, they only need buildings for shelter. I personally don't see them as needing shelter beyond a comfy tree branch or somewhere to store what few possessions they have as I don't think they should be affected by norms of weather - they are quasi-nature spirits in my system. It's a wood elf view of the sidhe, but that seems more appropriate to BR than the 'high' elven lifestyle (which I accept would require a number of buildings)

I always found it hard to swallow that elves have no industry. How then do they get their superior equipment? And how do they produce enough food for their population?

[MatanThunder]

:D :cool:

To think that the Cerilian Elf lacks the skills and organization to have the foundations of trade and craftsmanship is patently false. They are strictly a society that trades within itself, complete with traders, merchants, and guilds. They move though the culture in the most unobtrusive and nature friendly way possible.

Elven industry and merchants exist in all other types of campaign settings, and I think that the idea would work well for Cerillian Elves to especially in the light of the fact that the Cerillian Elves could well be the ancient pure stock of elves that started it all for elvenkind.

They don't hare industry and buildings dedicated to it.....I don't know about that.

Later

:D

[Beruin]

I'm inclined to agree. The elves value quality over quantity and will be slow producers of non-perishable goods compared to humans, but the results of their craftsmanship will be designed to last for a millenium. Nevertheless, they need ore to craft weapons, armour and arrowheads, and they need charcoal to smelt the ore and work they metal, so even they will have to cut wood for industrial purposes.

[Gwrthefyr]

On that point - it would be patently illogical that they were anything else than stone age if they had no industry or trade (or they may be simply reusing whatever's left of their old arsenals and stores, while elven civilisation follows the elves themselves in their gradual decline - however, a functional great bow will get used up, at some point: it's wood or/and bone, and it's not being treated kindly if it's used).

I just had an image of the possible spectacle in an elven palace - nobles with tattered clothes along with their newest silks and jewels, hints of rust here and there among the retinues, ruins hidden with plants and fading illusions. I think I like tragedy too much: if I listened to myself, there'd be hints of the shadow world everywhere.

[ConjurerDragon]

Beruin schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3853
> Beruin wrote:
> I`m inclined to agree. The elves value quality over quantity and will be slow producers of non-perishable goods compared to humans, but the results of their craftsmanship will be designed to last for a millenium. Nevertheless, they need ore to craft weapons, armour and arrowheads, and they need charcoal to smelt the ore and work they metal, so even they will have to cut wood for industrial purposes.
Not necessarily. Wood can be gathered as it falls. The large branch that
was struck from the tree by lightning could be used for whatever purpose
an immortal can imagine without any haste. They could "grow" wood in the
forms they need.

I really can?t see ore mines in the forest worked by sidhelien. Perhaps
in former times goblin slaves worked mines for them in the hills and
nowadays they get the ore in trade from the dwarven realms or melt the
iron weapons of their slain enemys.

[cccpxepoj]

Beruin schrieb:
I really can?t see ore mines in the forest worked by sidhelien. Perhaps
in former times goblin slaves worked mines for them in the hills and
nowadays they get the ore in trade from the dwarven realms or melt the
iron weapons of their slain enemys.
i agree with you, dwarfs are probably the only source of ore for the elves .

[AndrewTall]

Elves and dwarves make perfect trading partners - both have something the other wants, and neither has any interest in the other's land. What stops elves trading is lack of interest in material things - who cares about a painting if a few decades wandering elsewhere sees it rotted to nothing? A cerilian elf can live thousands of years and time is nothing to them, to me an elf might sit and let time flow over them as they watch an oak grow from an acorn to towering giant of the forest simply from curiosity of wondering which way its branches will turn - they are spirits clothed in flesh not mere animals that can think...

Just as brownies, pixies, etc subsist primarily from mebhaighl and natural growths the elves have no need of agriculture (beyond asking bushes to grow berries, etc) and very little need for anything else. If your elves all live in shining cities working 9 to 5 they are humans with pointy ears, not spirits taken mortal form...

As I've mentioned before I see the sidhe as akin to the Chai'asi and hulderfolk of Taladas - possibly the Grugach of Greyahwk... The ultra civilised gold and moon elves of the Forgotten realms they are most certainly not.

Twisting the races - elves and goblins most of all - is one of the things that made BR so distinctive.

So I'll happily have elves wearing clothes of silk, bark, leaves and woven grasses clothe themselves in illusion and so on rather than force them to spin wool, wield weapons of wooden or dwarven origin, etc. I certainly can't see an elf grubbing around in the dirt to get ore - it involves being undergound (ugh), dirty (double ugh), and boring manual labour (beyond ugh...)

Of course making the elves dependent on mebhaighl not only ties them to their beloved forests (leave and become fully mortal, eat, sleep and age) but forces them to either have a parasitic or symbiotic relationship with it - I see the sidhe as spirits taken form to defend the forests and so favour the latter. similarly it keeps the population down, makes them vulnerable to poisoning of the mebhaighl, and quite possibly to powers that affect spirits (such as priestly powers...).

Incidentally I can't see the elves ever having slaves - they have no interest in anything the slaves might do for them since they need nearly nothing, have no interest on power for its own sake, consider free will the highest good, etc - all of which suggest slavery would be abhorrent to them. Dominate them briefly to try to teach the goblins civilisation instead of slaying them yes, annihilate them for proving incapable of living in peace yes, enslave them? Why bother? in many ways elves are like cats, graceful, savage, changeable, and the like - cats play with prey and fight for dominance but have no interest in leading a pack of lessers...

[ryancaveney]

how do they produce enough food for their population?

This is one of the reasons I decided that most or all of their nutrition comes not from food, but from ambient magic (as quantified by the maximum source level of the province). They may eat if they wish, but in their home forests, they have no need to. If they were to enter human farmland, however, they would have to eat much more than humans, and would become susceptible to sleep, disease and even aging if they stayed too long, but would be healed if they returned to high-magic lands. I think the elves have to reforest Cerilia in order to live in all of it.


The elves value quality over quantity and will be slow producers of non-perishable goods compared to humans

The Japanese style of multiply-folded metal swords always struck me as more appropriate to elven patience and standards of excellence than to any human D&D culture.


they need ore to craft weapons, armour and arrowheads, and they need charcoal to smelt the ore and work they metal, so even they will have to cut wood for industrial purposes.

I think magic can supply these needs. Magic can easily produce heat or fire without wood, and can refine ore far more efficiently than medieval technological processes. The ore itself could be obtained in trade from the dwarves, or it too could be obtained by magic (alchemy to turn surface rocks into solid steel, ritual magic to detect lodes underground and teleport them to the surface) or magical labor (constructs, earth elementals, friendly xorn). They can even make tools, armor and weapons out of wood and leaves and make them magically as hard, sharp and fire-resistant as metal, while retaining the pleasant coloration of trees.


I really can't see ore mines in the forest worked by sidhelien.

I mostly agree, except for one thing: elves are elemental spirits made flesh. Those of them who are descended mainly from earth elementals, or have a strong Reynir bloodline, might really enjoy burrowing in the earth. Those who are descended mainly from fire elementals, or have a strong Basaia bloodline, would enjoy working with them to melt and reform metals.


What stops elves trading is lack of interest in material things - who cares about a painting if a few decades wandering elsewhere sees it rotted to nothing?

So why do humans enjoy watching sunsets? Elves can still appreciate the ephemeral for its aesthetic qualities, even though to them more things are ephemeral.


the elves have no need of agriculture (beyond asking bushes to grow berries, etc)

Even those who don't think (as Andrew and I do) that elves subsist on magic should keep that point in mind. Plants naturally produce fruit which animals eat, as a crucial part of the plants' reproductive cycle. The same kind of symbiotic relationship with elves should exist at a magically-accelerated scale.


The ultra civilised gold and moon elves of the Forgotten realms they are most certainly not.

They are ultra-civilized in the sense that their society has no poor or working class. Their realms are peopled entirely by artists and scholars, with nary a proletarian in sight. Wondering how any society could consist solely of patricians is what first led me to decide they are sustained by mebhaighl. Otherwise, there have to be plebeians somewhere, which leads back to large-scale enslavement of the goblins, which I don't like either.


it involves being undergound (ugh), dirty (double ugh)

I think this is a much more glaring FR-ism than is living in shining cities. Why, exactly, would nature elemental spirits worry about getting dirty? On the other hand, given that they pass without trace naturally, which means they don't leave footprints in mud or clothing fibers on thorns or grass crushed underfoot, it's distinctly possible that they *can't* get dirty.


I'll happily have elves wearing clothes of silk, bark, leaves and woven grasses clothe themselves in illusion and so on rather than force them to spin wool

I think they can magic the worms into weaving the clothing for them. Failing that, at least they can create magic spinning wheels and looms, or spin and weave magically in midair without any apparent mundane tools. In summary, then, I think all the standard industries do exist among the Sidhelien, but they are all performed using magic by part-time, recreational (though still incredibly skilled, given thousands of years to practice) artisans who do their crafts for fun rather than survival. They're like modern idle rich who can buy any food they like at the grocery store by writing a check against a giant interest-bearing trust fund, but decide to take up gardening as a hobby -- the same gardening that millions of human peasants are obligated to do if they want to avoid starving to death. That alone should be the cause of immense resentment of the Sidhelien by the other species.


Ryan

[Autarkis]

Elves and dwarves make perfect trading partners - both have something the other wants, and neither has any interest in the other's land. What stops elves trading is lack of interest in material things - who cares about a painting if a few decades wandering elsewhere sees it rotted to nothing? A cerilian elf can live thousands of years and time is nothing to them, to me an elf might sit and let time flow over them as they watch an oak grow from an acorn to towering giant of the forest simply from curiosity of wondering which way its branches will turn - they are spirits clothed in flesh not mere animals that can think...

Just as brownies, pixies, etc subsist primarily from mebhaighl and natural growths the elves have no need of agriculture (beyond asking bushes to grow berries, etc) and very little need for anything else. If your elves all live in shining cities working 9 to 5 they are humans with pointy ears, not spirits taken mortal form...

As I've mentioned before I see the sidhe as akin to the Chai'asi and hulderfolk of Taladas - possibly the Grugach of Greyahwk... The ultra civilised gold and moon elves of the Forgotten realms they are most certainly not.

Twisting the races - elves and goblins most of all - is one of the things that made BR so distinctive.

So I'll happily have elves wearing clothes of silk, bark, leaves and woven grasses clothe themselves in illusion and so on rather than force them to spin wool, wield weapons of wooden or dwarven origin, etc. I certainly can't see an elf grubbing around in the dirt to get ore - it involves being undergound (ugh), dirty (double ugh), and boring manual labour (beyond ugh...)

Of course making the elves dependent on mebhaighl not only ties them to their beloved forests (leave and become fully mortal, eat, sleep and age) but forces them to either have a parasitic or symbiotic relationship with it - I see the sidhe as spirits taken form to defend the forests and so favour the latter. similarly it keeps the population down, makes them vulnerable to poisoning of the mebhaighl, and quite possibly to powers that affect spirits (such as priestly powers...).

Incidentally I can't see the elves ever having slaves - they have no interest in anything the slaves might do for them since they need nearly nothing, have no interest on power for its own sake, consider free will the highest good, etc - all of which suggest slavery would be abhorrent to them. Dominate them briefly to try to teach the goblins civilisation instead of slaying them yes, annihilate them for proving incapable of living in peace yes, enslave them? Why bother? in many ways elves are like cats, graceful, savage, changeable, and the like - cats play with prey and fight for dominance but have no interest in leading a pack of lessers...

I only have two comments. If you read Player Secrets of Tuarheivel it mentions commoners and nobles. If Sidhe didn't like dirt or boring manual labor then how could they field an army? How could they have a common class? Not all Sidhe are nobles, crafters, or scholars. They do have a working class and hierarchy.

My second comment is in regards to Sidhe and slaves. The Sidhe did own slaves, kobolds and goblins, and attempted dominated the dwarves for 4,500 years before they went back underground. The war with the goblinoids was started by the Sidhe, not the goblinoids. They were just as expansionistic as the Anuirean Empire, but lasted longer.

Read through Player Secrets of Tuarheivel and it will give a little more insight into the BR "elf."

[Gwrthefyr]

I guess it works in your campaigns, but that's a view quite idyllic from the suggested canon - and for spirits taken form.

The "fairy cults" as Jenner called some folk traditions of the british, were accompanied by systems of offrands - they were considered fed, but through a certain symbiotic relationship (good luck, not too much interference, you get your strawberries and creams [EDIT - and mead[) - history makes it so that such a mechanism is hardly possible between the sidhe and humans. The "fey" in british legends do toy with other's free will, have social organisation, etc.

As for multifolded steel, the practice was also found in Europe (Scandinavia, Spain) and did not tend to make particularly better blades (a typical katana can be as brittle as an early rapier (not as bad as a small sword, but you're unlikely to use it on a fully armored foe). It has more (lapsus) to do with limitations of ressource than any standards of excellence (romanticism excepted).

[AndrewTall]

I only have two comments. If you read Player Secrets of Tuarheivel it mentions commoners and nobles. If Sidhe didn't like dirt or boring manual labor then how could they field an army? How could they have a common class? Not all Sidhe are nobles, crafters, or scholars. They do have a working class and hierarchy.


The Sidhe can very easily field an army without peasants, remember that they have no elderly, almost no children - that has a huge impact on society (women aren't just child bearers and raisers but full members of society, all members are fully productive). With less need for food, goods, etc your population has plenty of time over the centuries to gain martial skill - particular as elven tactics avoid mass warfare which needs intensive training.

Commoners and nobles is in my view a humanism. The elves have no need for the concept of inheritance - indeed it is completely illogical from their point of view. Nobility is simply then a human tag to any elf who is forced to serve society in one role of another - not a separate social class.

Remember that in addition to being immortal (removing any real concept of inheritance) elves are so independent and against the concept of fealty that they have no gods - so making a peasantry/nobility split very unlikely.

What is the working class to do anyway? Elves don't till fields, build, etc - if they did the source level would drop with population as for any other race. A working class is needed when you need manual labour to obtain food and other basics - the elves either don't need these or gain them via trade/magic. Work for pleasure as Ryan says yes, work like a dog because otherwise your master will beat you? Because otherwise you will freeze in the cold rains? Because you will starve? If your elves worry about any of those three then you are back to pointy eared humans - not nature spirit types and we are talking about completely different races.

Do you have faerie dragons, sprites, dryads, etc working small fields to earn a crust? If not, why have elves work?




My second comment is in regards to Sidhe and slaves. The Sidhe did own slaves, kobolds and goblins, and attempted dominated the dwarves for 4,500 years before they went back underground. The war with the goblinoids was started by the Sidhe, not the goblinoids. They were just as expansionistic as the Anuirean Empire, but lasted longer.

Read through Player Secrets of Tuarheivel and it will give a little more insight into the BR "elf."

PS Tuarheviel has many 'issues' - failure to follow through strands from the initial canon, a pitiful handover story, etc. It reads very much as the 'human view of Tuarheviel' - quite likely given the perspective in other BR stuff - rather than an impartial view. The Goblins throw away line is in a similar vein, to a human if the golbins lived amongst the elves for a while they must have een slaves - how else can two people live? Similarly as both dwarves and elves are different and compete with humans they must have competed against each other in the human view...

I clearly disagree with Ryan regarding the prevalence of magic, or more accurately, his industrial use of it. To me to create such a system requires a mass demand for products and I simply don't see the demand. I see the elves as making artifacts when the artifacts are needed, but not otherwise. Similarly they may make a building and various elves live there or not as the whim takes them, without any consideration of real ownership - land ownership was foreign to a number of human peoples and the elves should almost certainly scorn it.

Also I see elves as spirits of air/water, not of earth/fire (the latter would be dwarves), so elves wouldn't be burrowing underground at all - indeed I always had mine as claustrophobic - sometimes to the point of going crazed in captivity...

Reading various other BR sources on elven guilds I can't see any support for the idea that the elves are happily working in mines, factories, and so on. PS Tuarheviel aside, I can't see any support for the elves=pointy eared humans really.

I find it deeply saddening how little consideration is given to the impact of low birthrate and eternal youth on elven society in most works - so much of human society revolves around inheritance, child raising, protection of the elderly, etc that removing any such needs should have a huge impact on elves - and make them far more alien than the dwarves ever are.

Some of my stuff - seeing elves are able to let time pass over them, subsist entirely on mebhaighl, etc are non-canon, or at least, not stated but not contradicted, but the lack on industry and general disinterest in following leaders seems fairly well supported.

[vota dc]

How could the elves enslave kobolds?Cerilian kobolds live only in the underground or however in caves...elves hate that kind of places.And also dwarves and orogs are interested in kobolds....how the unmotivated (in underground businnes) elves could be more effective of the dwarves and orogs?
And we must remember that cerilian kobolds aren't stupid like goblins:they are even good magicians.

[ConjurerDragon]

vota dc schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3877
> vota dc wrote:
> How could the elves enslave kobolds?Cerilian kobolds live only in the underground or however in caves...elves hate that kind of places.And also dwarves and orogs are interested in kobolds....how the unmotivated (in underground businnes) elves could be more effective of the dwarves and orogs?
> And we must remember that cerilian kobolds aren`t stupid like goblins:they are even good magicians.
>
In the 2E Atlas of Cerilia it was mentioned that the enslaved races
retreated into impenetrable underground warrens as far as I remember -
so the kobolds fled the sidhelien slavery by retreating underground.
Before they could be enslaved because they did not live completely
underground.

If you remember that kobolds aren?t stupid as goblins, then please also
remember that (cerilian) goblins are also not stupid like goblins ;-)

[RaspK_FOG]

I will make a comment as to the folding of metal, just to clear a few things up.

The Japanese ferrous ore is pretty poor because it's rather sandy (i.e. is very impure and imperfect), so their weaponsmiths figured out at some point that, instead of the traditional, Chinese-based techniques that were excellent for the good Chinese ore, they should fold the steel, hammer some impurities out of it, and repeat - the process usually done thrice (thus giving 9 layers, since the blade was already two blocks of soft and hard steel layered one on top of the other: SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH --> HHHHSSSSSSSSSHHHH --> HHSSSSHHHHSSSSHH --> HSSHHSSHHSSHHSSH, for example).

The Westerners used pattern welding mostly, which is a very different thing.

[AndrewTall]

If you remember that kobolds aren?t stupid as goblins, then please also
remember that (cerilian) goblins are also not stupid like goblins ;-)

I always forget that one. I tend to go with the view that most are fairly dim but some are viciously cunning... So they have the same intelligence range as humans but a different weighting to the norm. I see them as far more savage than humans however, without the joy in life which tempers the elven soul.

[Autarkis]

The Sidhe can very easily field an army without peasants, remember that they have no elderly, almost no children - that has a huge impact on society (women aren't just child bearers and raisers but full members of society, all members are fully productive). With less need for food, goods, etc your population has plenty of time over the centuries to gain martial skill - particular as elven tactics avoid mass warfare which needs intensive training.

Commoners and nobles is in my view a humanism. The elves have no need for the concept of inheritance - indeed it is completely illogical from their point of view. Nobility is simply then a human tag to any elf who is forced to serve society in one role of another - not a separate social class.

Inheritance is not illogical from their point of view, as can be seen by their adherence to inheritance when it comes to leadership. (see Sidhe timeline below from PSoT and Dragon Magazine (Nov. 1997) since you are disregarding PSoT.


Remember that in addition to being immortal (removing any real concept of inheritance) elves are so independent and against the concept of fealty that they have no gods - so making a peasantry/nobility split very unlikely.
Sidhe have concepts of fealty and Empire building. They had armed conflicts with dwarves from -15705 HC to -1435 HC when they signed a peace accord with the dwarves. There is also a write up in the Dragon Magazine Nov '97 that talks about The Sceptres of Old Oak speaking about lords appearing and warring amongst themselves:

"After centuries of uncotested dominance, the elves faced challenges from these "lesser" races. The elves had grown great indeed, but the others grew plentiful. The goblins arose against their elven lords and battled them. Other humanoids did the same. The elves fought back and blamed each other for their failings."

"In time, certain elves arose among the throng and declared themselves lords of their people. These lords took charge of the battles against the humanoids first, but then sought to rule their peple as well. Soon, external conflicts ceased as each lord fought for dominance."

Seem like they are very familiar with the concepts of fealty and lording over others. Don't mistake the fact that they don't believe that gods are important enough to worship for not believing that hierarchies exist.


What is the working class to do anyway? Elves don't till fields, build, etc - if they did the source level would drop with population as for any other race. A working class is needed when you need manual labour to obtain food and other basics - the elves either don't need these or gain them via trade/magic. Work for pleasure as Ryan says yes, work like a dog because otherwise your master will beat you? Because otherwise you will freeze in the cold rains? Because you will starve? If your elves worry about any of those three then you are back to pointy eared humans - not nature spirit types and we are talking about completely different races.

Do you have faerie dragons, sprites, dryads, etc working small fields to earn a crust? If not, why have elves work?

If the elves did not need manual labor to obtain or other basics, why did they conquer races and war with them? Sidhe are the ones credited with creating tighmaevril, which means they have basic mind set to do things you can't or won't credit them the ability to do so. They may not till fields or build homes the traditional way, but they do. Tuarhievel and Sielwode speak about buildings grown from trees.

The reason source levels don't drop when they rule provinces is not because they don't build, but because they are in harmony with nature and their building techniques differ from dwarves, humans, goblins, etc... in that it does not impact the magical sources of the province.

Sprites, dryads, faerie dragons, etc.. don't eat and don't have a structured society, the Sidhe do. Again, nothing in canon supports your position.



PS Tuarheviel has many 'issues' - failure to follow through strands from the initial canon, a pitiful handover story, etc. It reads very much as the 'human view of Tuarheviel' - quite likely given the perspective in other BR stuff - rather than an impartial view. The Goblins throw away line is in a similar vein, to a human if the golbins lived amongst the elves for a while they must have een slaves - how else can two people live? Similarly as both dwarves and elves are different and compete with humans they must have competed against each other in the human view...

See above for Sidhe competing with themselves and Sidhe competing with dwarves (and other races.) Also, see the timeline I will post after this one. PSoTh also states that the book is worded so humans can relate to it since, well, that is what the player base is. It would be difficult for the writers of setting material to describe Sidhe mentality with words that we wouldn't understand. Thought the Sidhe are different, they do have the similar characteristics with dwarves, globlins, orogs, humans, kobolds, etc...

Dislike for how setting material is set forth and attempting to use it as a basis for supporting your point doesn't strengthen it.


I clearly disagree with Ryan regarding the prevalence of magic, or more accurately, his industrial use of it. To me to create such a system requires a mass demand for products and I simply don't see the demand. I see the elves as making artifacts when the artifacts are needed, but not otherwise. Similarly they may make a building and various elves live there or not as the whim takes them, without any consideration of real ownership - land ownership was foreign to a number of human peoples and the elves should almost certainly scorn it.

Also I see elves as spirits of air/water, not of earth/fire (the latter would be dwarves), so elves wouldn't be burrowing underground at all - indeed I always had mine as claustrophobic - sometimes to the point of going crazed in captivity...

Reading various other BR sources on elven guilds I can't see any support for the idea that the elves are happily working in mines, factories, and so on. PS Tuarheviel aside, I can't see any support for the elves=pointy eared humans really.

I find it deeply saddening how little consideration is given to the impact of low birthrate and eternal youth on elven society in most works - so much of human society revolves around inheritance, child raising, protection of the elderly, etc that removing any such needs should have a huge impact on elves - and make them far more alien than the dwarves ever are.

Some of my stuff - seeing elves are able to let time pass over them, subsist entirely on mebhaighl, etc are non-canon, or at least, not stated but not contradicted, but the lack on industry and general disinterest in following leaders seems fairly well supported.

So are dwarves just stumpy humans because there are certain correlations with human culture?

[Autarkis]

And the timeline for elves:

-16,294
Sidhe Braelachhiem unites elven tribes of what eventually will be known as the Aelvinnwode into one nation, initiating the Golden Age of elven culture.

-15,705 to -11,205
Dwarves emerge from the depths of the earth, only to be dominated by the elves; dwarves eventually retreat into the mountains again.

-4,905
Elves enslave the primitive kobolds and goblins of the Stonecrown Mountains, teaching them civilization.

-3,905 to -3,705
The kobolds rebel, retreating into the mountains south of the Aelvinnwode and building impenetrable underground warrens.

-37,00 to -515
Rise and fall of human empires in Aduria.

-3,515
Founding of Baruk-Azhik.

-3,500
Founding of Lluabraight.

-3,205
Birth of Tuar, future queen of Tuarhievel.

-2,968 to -2,911
Massive goblin uprising during which Sidhe Braelachhiem is killed; individual powerful elves proclaim themselves lords over portions of the forest; end of Golden Age.

-2,910 to -2,749
Humanoid Wars. Tuar manages to secure a haven for the elves (later known as Tuarhievel); she is declared queen.

-2,249
Tuar constructs Thorn Throne in Tuarheivel.

-1,435
Dwarven-elven peace accords.

[AndrewTall]

Inheritance is not illogical from their point of view, as can be seen by their adherence to inheritance when it comes to leadership.

Hmm, let me see. Tuar rules for 3,000 years, Sidhe Braelachhiem for 13,000 - what need for an heir? Human realms need an heir because they change ruler every 2-3 decades so it's a constant pre-occupation. I'd ask rather why the timelines seem to change elven rulers every century or two...

If you ignore the oddness of a race of immortals presuming mortality to be so apparent that a concept of inheritance must be created to ensure stability and continuity after the death of a member, then consider the number of children, grandchildren, great-to-the-nth-degree grandchildren a ten thousand year old elf might have and figure the inheritance issues.

Canon does say that the land's choice dictates elven blood inheritance - strongly suggesting to me that inheritance more than just whichever child was born first. As I see the land's choice as the unconscious choice of the population (neither supported nor conflicted by canon as far as I am aware) that would make the elven heir the potential heir who is followed by most elves - that might well be the immediate lineal descendant (who would have a visibility head start) - but is quite likely to be otherwise.

I don't disregard the PSoT btw - or the Dragon article based on it - but I do see it as written from a human point of view, by temp authors never seen afterwards, and not in keeping with canon elsewhere in BR, that means that where necessary I interpret it to make it coherent.




Sidhe have concepts of fealty and Empire building.

"In time, certain elves arose among the throng and declared themselves lords of their people.

Seem like they are very familiar with the concepts of fealty and lording over others. Don't mistake the fact that they don't believe that gods are important enough to worship for not believing that hierarchies exist.


I wouldn't read too much into having 'lords' and believing that to be human fealty - fealty assumes birthright, divine right, immutable social strata, etc. Again, lords could simply be elves who have won greatness and the respect of their peers, rather than been born into power. If elves accepted fealty, etc so easily, why not accept deities also? Why are law holdings generally so low and rarely used?


I see no problem with elves having a pecking order - call them lords and ladies etc as you will, I do have a problem with a cultural system that tells someone they are going to be a grindingly poor peasant for the next ten thousand+ years - you would need a horrific society to have that sort of ongoing oppression, or a totally submissive underclass - canon clearly describes the sidhe as independently minded in a number of areas and nothing in canon that I can recall suggests the sort of rigid social immobility you suggest. Remember please the elven lifespan - it should impact heavily on their culture.




If the elves did not need manual labor to obtain or other basics, why did they conquer races and war with them?


Again you are using human assumptions of reasons for war (conquest and empire building) and not considering the relevance of those reasons to elves - why take land if you have no population pressure to drive the acquisition?


The only references to wars of conquest I can find are the timelines you note from PSoT and its related Dragon article - given how much the concept of empire building and domination opposes other elven cultural issues and the birth rate (war equals fatalities) and I'd suggest that the handful of lines in question be read as human misunderstanding or propaganda.




Sidhe are the ones credited with creating tighmaevril, which means they have basic mind set to do things you can't or won't credit them the ability to do so. They may not till fields or build homes the traditional way, but they do.


And the reason for almost zero guild holdings across the elven realm is? The reason why in Innishiere they produce no income? Unless you are gong to suggest that every single nation book's realm summary for elves be disregarded because of the PSoT's mention of guilds and the like I'd suggest sticking with crafts only on a small scale.

I'm happy to credit elves with whiling away a few decades in pursuit of some skill - similarly I see no difficulty in having them spend a few decades, even centuries, mastering a skill and then abandon it as the whim moves them. I'd note that only one elf is credited with tighmaevril - why have elves, who live so long, not invented a hundred such wonders? If elves were industrious they should have done so, and Ghiogwnnwd should have made thousands of tighmaevril weapons...



Tuarhievel and Sielwode speak about buildings grown from trees.

I've no problem with buildings grown from trees - although I'd see it more as trees shaped to act as houses - and mostly simple niches fitting the body and the like.

If you have elves as needing fire for warmth, rather than being immune to vagaries of the temperature, then you need to make some major changes to elven attitudes towards tree felling, add lots of coal mines, or assume mass magic heating for coherence. If elves are immune to temperature changes, then what do they need houses for? Without need, why build them? If the only buildings are those needed for defense, or to shelter goods, then you have very few buildings in an elven city as I suggested...




source levels don't drop ... because they are in harmony with nature and their building techniques differ from dwarves, humans, goblins, etc...


And how does my perception of them as partly nature spirits not mean harmony with nature? Any clearing of land for industry, building of roads and other aspects of civilisation, etc as you suggest is the norm is fundamentally in opposition to nature - the more human like you make elves the more they should impact source levels.

If you want to make it clear why one way of building impacts sources and another doesn't, I'd suggest you need to do more than say 'they build with wood not stone, they have nice curvy walls that follow natural contours, etc' - to justify such a major impact on source levels you need a radical change in building techniques and that in turn indicates a change in culture or physiology that is more than skin deep. I'll grant you the throwaway line for the island mage - but see that realm as anomalous anyway.



Sprites, dryads, faerie dragons, etc.. don't eat and don't have a structured society, the Sidhe do. Again, nothing in canon supports your position.


Again, you assume structured society equaling industrialised society- I fail to see canon supporting your contention either, and think both positions equally valid. As the reason for having elves to me is to create a wholly different society for PC's to rule or to interact with I'd recommend making them spirit-like like other fey creatures...




See above for Sidhe competing...


I fail to see your point on competition with other elves or races. Where have I suggested that elves should not be competitive? Not interested in certain reasons for competition yes, but they would certainly compete with goblins and humans (to defend or regain their lands), dwarves on occasion (outright incomprehension), and each other (for love, influence, etc).



Dislike for how setting material is set forth and attempting to use it as a basis for supporting your point doesn't strengthen it.


Setting material can be interpreted in many ways. When I remove the human bias that you accept is present and consider how the physical differences, etc would impact elven culture and mentality I get to a different end point to you, neither necessarily better nor worse, simply different.

I am not arguing from dislike for the setting - quite the contrary - I argue that the elves are dis-interested in industry precisely because the setting makes it clear again and again that they have no guilds. PSoT has the guilds as human run as I recall - hard to square with elven merchants and the like being common.

Similarly I argue that they would have few buildings because of necessary physiological changes to support other areas of canon re: clearing of land and the like.

Wanting birthright elves to be pointy eared humans like in oh so many other settings doesn't strengthen your point either - if that is what you want (I'm not sure). To make them different I consider it best to see what we are told about their differences and make reasonable extrapolations of the impact on society and culture - what do you do?



So are dwarves just stumpy humans because there are certain correlations with human culture?

Correlate by all means - but please also differentiate. A drive for industry is the key difference in the human and elven cultures - to ignore it as you seem to makes no sense to me. We can talk about how dwarves are different to humans in another thread if you like, although in his interview Rich Baker regretted not making them more different still see: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Interview_Rich_Baker_One question 7.

[Gwrthefyr]

That seems much closer to elfer than to the sidhe (IMHO) - why take an irish term if you're not going to draw from the Irish (and British) myth (aside from the problem that a number of their mythical kings are identifiable to various deities). Why make them germanic feys with funny names ;) .

The various tales do see them as having a degree of industry (but most of it away from mortals), roughly eternal life but mortality (and a distorted sense of time which affects those who live in their palaces). They have internal strife, where mortals are sometimes asked to mediate. We find them tampering with mortals' lives, sometimes quite dangerously. And with their distorted perception of time in the mortal world, what's to tell us that they don't get stuck in their ways at some point - that doesn't make for many innovations.

[MatanThunder]

:D

Elf or Sidhe it hardly matters to me. Sidhe are immortal and Elves live thousands of years. It once again lends a bit of credence to my view that the Sidhe of Cerilia serve a very nice niche for being stock from the original race of elves. Call them Sidhe if you like, but they are just the parent elvish stock.

They offer many of the same viewpoints as all elves (Irish or otherwise), which is nature is to be revered and used only in ways that are harmonious to that of nature as a whole. It was a major beef with me that TSR said elves couldn't be Druids.....so I DM'd it in anyway.

Each to their own, but the Sidhe and a mixing with human stock could well have led to what is now considered an Elf.

Just one DM's opinion.

Later

;)

[Gwrthefyr]

:D

They offer many of the same viewpoints as all elves (Irish or otherwise), which is nature is to be revered and used only in ways that are harmonious to that of nature as a whole. It was a major beef with me that TSR said elves couldn't be Druids.....so I DM'd it in anyway.



My beef had been the reverse - I never felt the druids to be... druids at all. Too much tree-hugging and too little celtic pagan theocrat quite embedded into an urbanising civilization. I also don't see that dimension in the sidhe - I've seen more than one legend where they could be described as fairly civilized, only that their civilization was not in this world or often found underground, but not even always.

[Autarkis]

Hmm, let me see. Tuar rules for 3,000 years, Sidhe Braelachhiem for 13,000 - what need for an heir? Human realms need an heir because they change ruler every 2-3 decades so it's a constant pre-occupation. I'd ask rather why the timelines seem to change elven rulers every century or two...
Sidhe Braelachiem ruled over all the elves and when Sidhe Braelachiem died, seven lords fought for dominance and fought each other. The November '97 article hints that the seven lords created seven lands: Alvinewood, Coulladaraight, Tuarn Annwn, Cwmb Bheinn, Lluabraight, Tuarhievel, and Rhoube. Sidhe Braelachiem not having an heir and seeing the land sundered by fighting to the point where whatever force create the Sidhe intervened and forced reciprication among the lords.


If you ignore the oddness of a race of immortals presuming mortality to be so apparent that a concept of inheritance must be created to ensure stability and continuity after the death of a member, then consider the number of children, grandchildren, great-to-the-nth-degree grandchildren a ten thousand year old elf might have and figure the inheritance issues.

If you ignore the race of immortals who can remember the infighting when there was no heir and would put a system in place to inheritance occured to ensure that it did not occur again.


Canon does say that the land's choice dictates elven blood inheritance - strongly suggesting to me that inheritance more than just whichever child was born first. As I see the land's choice as the unconscious choice of the population (neither supported nor conflicted by canon as far as I am aware) that would make the elven heir the potential heir who is followed by most elves - that might well be the immediate lineal descendant (who would have a visibility head start) - but is quite likely to be otherwise.

Canon only says Tuarhievel uses Land's Choice through the Thorn Throne, not the other realms (Page 10 to 11 of Book of Regency.)


As the examples indicate, most elven realms employ monarchy as their primary form of government. Since elves do not have their own gods and do not worship human or other deities, they do not believe in divine right. Elf regents sometimes have to prove their worth to their populace—before and after donning the crown. Still, heredity does play a part in the lineage of most elf regents.


I don't disregard the PSoT btw - or the Dragon article based on it - but I do see it as written from a human point of view, by temp authors never seen afterwards, and not in keeping with canon elsewhere in BR, that means that where necessary I interpret it to make it coherent.

Making it more coherent in your interpretation, not canon.


I wouldn't read too much into having 'lords' and believing that to be human fealty - fealty assumes birthright, divine right, immutable social strata, etc. Again, lords could simply be elves who have won greatness and the respect of their peers, rather than been born into power. If elves accepted fealty, etc so easily, why not accept deities also? Why are law holdings generally so low and rarely used?

Some elven realms use hereditary titles, others with their rulers proving themselves and one with Land's Choice (as the norm.) They have as diverse a choice in how rulers come about as humans, dwarves, goblins, etc. There are examples of Sidhe realms with low law holdings and others with high. So do humans lands with low law holdings mean there is no industry or lower/upper class? Again, they do not accept dieties because of the simple fact that 1) most were probably around before the gods walked the earth and 2) they see the gods as equals doing their duty, not worthy of being elevated above them for doing theirs, whatever theirs is.



I see no problem with elves having a pecking order - call them lords and ladies etc as you will, I do have a problem with a cultural system that tells someone they are going to be a grindingly poor peasant for the next ten thousand+ years - you would need a horrific society to have that sort of ongoing oppression, or a totally submissive underclass - canon clearly describes the sidhe as independently minded in a number of areas and nothing in canon that I can recall suggests the sort of rigid social immobility you suggest. Remember please the elven lifespan - it should impact heavily on their culture.

And you are using a "human" term for peasant, an idea you have railed against through this entire thread, to strengthen your argument? It is not to far off the mark to think that an elven "peasant" is more well off than a human peasant. It would be like comparing an individual with an Master today who specializes in agriculture to a peasant in the Middle Ages growing wheat in the field. The Sidhe probably use magic to grow food, raise animals, and create items.


Again you are using human assumptions of reasons for war (conquest and empire building) and not considering the relevance of those reasons to elves - why take land if you have no population pressure to drive the acquisition?

I am not making assumptions, I am basing it off what I have read in the books. The elves can be just as spiteful and hateful as a human/dwarf. The Manslayer and the Gheallie Sidhe are examples, as are them overlording over goblins and kobolds and attempting to conquer the dwarves.



The only references to wars of conquest I can find are the timelines you note from PSoT and its related Dragon article - given how much the concept of empire building and domination opposes other elven cultural issues and the birth rate (war equals fatalities) and I'd suggest that the handful of lines in question be read as human misunderstanding or propaganda.

I use the PSoTh and the Dragon Magazine article because those are the only two articles dealing with it. Again, you are saying canon doesn't count because you say it doesn't and back it up with....?


And the reason for almost zero guild holdings across the elven realm is? The reason why in Innishiere they produce no income? Unless you are gong to suggest that every single nation book's realm summary for elves be disregarded because of the PSoT's mention of guilds and the like I'd suggest sticking with crafts only on a small scale.

The reason for no guild holdings is they don't need to trade. They don't need to trade with village A for fur because Village B has a surplus of apples, their just is no need. Not having guilds does not mean they don't have a heirarchy, it is a false correlation. It is like saying that people who are tall have large shoe sizes. Increasing someone's shoe size does not make them taller.


I'm happy to credit elves with whiling away a few decades in pursuit of some skill - similarly I see no difficulty in having them spend a few decades, even centuries, mastering a skill and then abandon it as the whim moves them. I'd note that only one elf is credited with tighmaevril - why have elves, who live so long, not invented a hundred such wonders? If elves were industrious they should have done so, and Ghiogwnnwd should have made thousands of tighmaevril weapons...

Why would they need to create thousands of weapons? This more leans to the fact that the weapons he made were probably given to the elite or the noble because of the cost in making them.


I've no problem with buildings grown from trees - although I'd see it more as trees shaped to act as houses - and mostly simple niches fitting the body and the like.

If you have elves as needing fire for warmth, rather than being immune to vagaries of the temperature, then you need to make some major changes to elven attitudes towards tree felling, add lots of coal mines, or assume mass magic heating for coherence. If elves are immune to temperature changes, then what do they need houses for? Without need, why build them? If the only buildings are those needed for defense, or to shelter goods, then you have very few buildings in an elven city as I suggested...

They need houses the same reason they tried to conquer the dwarves and they warred and enslave humanoids. Though the rain may not bother you, it is still nice to be covered from it. It is also more pleasing to the eye to eat with friends and family in a dining room than around a wood stump.


And how does my perception of them as partly nature spirits not mean harmony with nature? Any clearing of land for industry, building of roads and other aspects of civilisation, etc as you suggest is the norm is fundamentally in opposition to nature - the more human like you make elves the more they should impact source levels.

It is how they clear land that differentiates them from other races. They don't disrupt the magical energies or ley lines. It is that simple.


If you want to make it clear why one way of building impacts sources and another doesn't, I'd suggest you need to do more than say 'they build with wood not stone, they have nice curvy walls that follow natural contours, etc' - to justify such a major impact on source levels you need a radical change in building techniques and that in turn indicates a change in culture or physiology that is more than skin deep. I'll grant you the throwaway line for the island mage - but see that realm as anomalous anyway.

There are alot of things you like to throw away from canon when it conflicts with your view.

[Autarkis]

Again, you assume structured society equaling industrialised society- I fail to see canon supporting your contention either, and think both positions equally valid. As the reason for having elves to me is to create a wholly different society for PC's to rule or to interact with I'd recommend making them spirit-like like other fey creatures...

I fail to see your point on competition with other elves or races. Where have I suggested that elves should not be competitive? Not interested in certain reasons for competition yes, but they would certainly compete with goblins and humans (to defend or regain their lands), dwarves on occasion (outright incomprehension), and each other (for love, influence, etc).

They didn't war with goblins to defend their lands, they warred with them to conquer them. It doesn't say they misunderstood the dwarves, they wanted to conquer them. Or for some reason they misunderstood the dwarves for 14,000+ years before they signed a peace accord.

Setting material can be interpreted in many ways. When I remove the human bias that you accept is present and consider how the physical differences, etc would impact elven culture and mentality I get to a different end point to you, neither necessarily better nor worse, simply different.

I am not arguing from dislike for the setting - quite the contrary - I argue that the elves are dis-interested in industry precisely because the setting makes it clear again and again that they have no guilds. PSoT has the guilds as human run as I recall - hard to square with elven merchants and the like being common.

Similarly I argue that they would have few buildings because of necessary physiological changes to support other areas of canon re: clearing of land and the like.

Wanting birthright elves to be pointy eared humans like in oh so many other settings doesn't strengthen your point either - if that is what you want (I'm not sure). To make them different I consider it best to see what we are told about their differences and make reasonable extrapolations of the impact on society and culture - what do you do?[/quote]

I read canon material and make assumptions based on what we are told. You disregard canon material and make assumptions based on what you think. Saying that the canon I quote is just re-inforcing "elves as pointy eared humans" is similar to politicians spouting catch phrases with no meat.

Correlate by all means - but please also differentiate. A drive for industry is the key difference in the human and elven cultures - to ignore it as you seem to makes no sense to me. We can talk about how dwarves are different to humans in another thread if you like, although in his interview Rich Baker regretted not making them more different still see: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Interview_Rich_Baker_One question 7.[/QUOTE]

It seems he was unsatisfied with dwarves (and I think the only reason he was dissatisfied with was he didn't give a good enough reason for why they lived underground and loved working with stone), but satisfied with the elves. I feel if he was satisfied with the elves, then what material was printed on them should be close to what they are.

You are basically disregarding all of canon to place the Sidhe as you would want them to be.

Hmm, let me see. Tuar rules for 3,000 years, Sidhe Braelachhiem for 13,000 - what need for an heir? Human realms need an heir because they change ruler every 2-3 decades so it's a constant pre-occupation. I'd ask rather why the timelines seem to change elven rulers every century or two...
Sidhe Braelachiem ruled over all the elves and when Sidhe Braelachiem died, seven lords fought for dominance and fought each other. The November '97 article hints that the seven lords created seven lands: Alvinewood, Coulladaraight, Tuarn Annwn, Cwmb Bheinn, Lluabraight, Tuarhievel, and Rhoube. Sidhe Braelachiem not having an heir and seeing the land sundered by fighting to the point where whatever force create the Sidhe intervened and forced reciprication among the lords.


If you ignore the oddness of a race of immortals presuming mortality to be so apparent that a concept of inheritance must be created to ensure stability and continuity after the death of a member, then consider the number of children, grandchildren, great-to-the-nth-degree grandchildren a ten thousand year old elf might have and figure the inheritance issues.

If you ignore the race of immortals who can remember the infighting when there was no heir and would put a system in place to inheritance occured to ensure that it did not occur again.


Canon does say that the land's choice dictates elven blood inheritance - strongly suggesting to me that inheritance more than just whichever child was born first. As I see the land's choice as the unconscious choice of the population (neither supported nor conflicted by canon as far as I am aware) that would make the elven heir the potential heir who is followed by most elves - that might well be the immediate lineal descendant (who would have a visibility head start) - but is quite likely to be otherwise.

Canon only says Tuarhievel uses Land's Choice through the Thorn Throne, not the other realms (Page 10 to 11 of Book of Regency.)


As the examples indicate, most elven realms employ monarchy as their primary form of government. Since elves do not have their own gods and do not worship human or other deities, they do not believe in divine right. Elf regents sometimes have to prove their worth to their populace—before and after donning the crown. Still, heredity does play a part in the lineage of most elf regents.


I don't disregard the PSoT btw - or the Dragon article based on it - but I do see it as written from a human point of view, by temp authors never seen afterwards, and not in keeping with canon elsewhere in BR, that means that where necessary I interpret it to make it coherent.

Making it more coherent in your interpretation, not canon.


I wouldn't read too much into having 'lords' and believing that to be human fealty - fealty assumes birthright, divine right, immutable social strata, etc. Again, lords could simply be elves who have won greatness and the respect of their peers, rather than been born into power. If elves accepted fealty, etc so easily, why not accept deities also? Why are law holdings generally so low and rarely used?

Some elven realms use hereditary titles, others with their rulers proving themselves and one with Land's Choice (as the norm.) They have as diverse a choice in how rulers come about as humans, dwarves, goblins, etc. There are examples of Sidhe realms with low law holdings and others with high. So do humans lands with low law holdings mean there is no industry or lower/upper class? Again, they do not accept dieties because of the simple fact that 1) most were probably around before the gods walked the earth and 2) they see the gods as equals doing their duty, not worthy of being elevated above them for doing theirs, whatever theirs is.


I see no problem with elves having a pecking order - call them lords and ladies etc as you will, I do have a problem with a cultural system that tells someone they are going to be a grindingly poor peasant for the next ten thousand+ years - you would need a horrific society to have that sort of ongoing oppression, or a totally submissive underclass - canon clearly describes the sidhe as independently minded in a number of areas and nothing in canon that I can recall suggests the sort of rigid social immobility you suggest. Remember please the elven lifespan - it should impact heavily on their culture.

And you are using a "human" term for peasant, an idea you have railed against through this entire thread, to strengthen your argument? It is not to far off the mark to think that an elven "peasant" is more well off than a human peasant. It would be like comparing an individual with an Master today who specializes in agriculture to a peasant in the Middle Ages growing wheat in the field. The Sidhe probably use magic to grow food, raise animals, and create items.

[Autarkis]

Again you are using human assumptions of reasons for war (conquest and empire building) and not considering the relevance of those reasons to elves - why take land if you have no population pressure to drive the acquisition?

I am not making assumptions, I am basing it off what I have read in the books. The elves can be just as spiteful and hateful as a human/dwarf. The Manslayer and the Gheallie Sidhe are examples, as are them overlording over goblins and kobolds and attempting to conquer the dwarves.



The only references to wars of conquest I can find are the timelines you note from PSoT and its related Dragon article - given how much the concept of empire building and domination opposes other elven cultural issues and the birth rate (war equals fatalities) and I'd suggest that the handful of lines in question be read as human misunderstanding or propaganda.

I use the PSoTh and the Dragon Magazine article because those are the only two articles dealing with it. Again, you are saying canon doesn't count because you say it doesn't and back it up with....?


And the reason for almost zero guild holdings across the elven realm is? The reason why in Innishiere they produce no income? Unless you are gong to suggest that every single nation book's realm summary for elves be disregarded because of the PSoT's mention of guilds and the like I'd suggest sticking with crafts only on a small scale.

The reason for no guild holdings is they don't need to trade. They don't need to trade with village A for fur because Village B has a surplus of apples, their just is no need. Not having guilds does not mean they don't have a heirarchy, it is a false correlation. It is like saying that people who are tall have large shoe sizes. Increasing someone's shoe size does not make them taller.


I'm happy to credit elves with whiling away a few decades in pursuit of some skill - similarly I see no difficulty in having them spend a few decades, even centuries, mastering a skill and then abandon it as the whim moves them. I'd note that only one elf is credited with tighmaevril - why have elves, who live so long, not invented a hundred such wonders? If elves were industrious they should have done so, and Ghiogwnnwd should have made thousands of tighmaevril weapons...

Why would they need to create thousands of weapons? This more leans to the fact that the weapons he made were probably given to the elite or the noble because of the cost in making them.


I've no problem with buildings grown from trees - although I'd see it more as trees shaped to act as houses - and mostly simple niches fitting the body and the like.

If you have elves as needing fire for warmth, rather than being immune to vagaries of the temperature, then you need to make some major changes to elven attitudes towards tree felling, add lots of coal mines, or assume mass magic heating for coherence. If elves are immune to temperature changes, then what do they need houses for? Without need, why build them? If the only buildings are those needed for defense, or to shelter goods, then you have very few buildings in an elven city as I suggested...

They need houses the same reason they tried to conquer the dwarves and they warred and enslave humanoids. Though the rain may not bother you, it is still nice to be covered from it. It is also more pleasing to the eye to eat with friends and family in a dining room than around a wood stump.


And how does my perception of them as partly nature spirits not mean harmony with nature? Any clearing of land for industry, building of roads and other aspects of civilisation, etc as you suggest is the norm is fundamentally in opposition to nature - the more human like you make elves the more they should impact source levels.

It is how they clear land that differentiates them from other races. They don't disrupt the magical energies or ley lines. It is that simple.


If you want to make it clear why one way of building impacts sources and another doesn't, I'd suggest you need to do more than say 'they build with wood not stone, they have nice curvy walls that follow natural contours, etc' - to justify such a major impact on source levels you need a radical change in building techniques and that in turn indicates a change in culture or physiology that is more than skin deep. I'll grant you the throwaway line for the island mage - but see that realm as anomalous anyway.

There are alot of things you like to throw away from canon when it conflicts with your view.


Again, you assume structured society equaling industrialised society- I fail to see canon supporting your contention either, and think both positions equally valid. As the reason for having elves to me is to create a wholly different society for PC's to rule or to interact with I'd recommend making them spirit-like like other fey creatures...

I fail to see your point on competition with other elves or races. Where have I suggested that elves should not be competitive? Not interested in certain reasons for competition yes, but they would certainly compete with goblins and humans (to defend or regain their lands), dwarves on occasion (outright incomprehension), and each other (for love, influence, etc).

They didn't war with goblins to defend their lands, they warred with them to conquer them. It doesn't say they misunderstood the dwarves, they wanted to conquer them. Or for some reason they misunderstood the dwarves for 14,000+ years before they signed a peace accord.


Setting material can be interpreted in many ways. When I remove the human bias that you accept is present and consider how the physical differences, etc would impact elven culture and mentality I get to a different end point to you, neither necessarily better nor worse, simply different.

I am not arguing from dislike for the setting - quite the contrary - I argue that the elves are dis-interested in industry precisely because the setting makes it clear again and again that they have no guilds. PSoT has the guilds as human run as I recall - hard to square with elven merchants and the like being common.

Similarly I argue that they would have few buildings because of necessary physiological changes to support other areas of canon re: clearing of land and the like.

Wanting birthright elves to be pointy eared humans like in oh so many other settings doesn't strengthen your point either - if that is what you want (I'm not sure). To make them different I consider it best to see what we are told about their differences and make reasonable extrapolations of the impact on society and culture - what do you do?

I read canon material and make assumptions based on what we are told. You disregard canon material and make assumptions based on what you think. Saying that the canon I quote is just re-inforcing "elves as pointy eared humans" is similar to politicians spouting catch phrases with no meat.

Correlate by all means - but please also differentiate. A drive for industry is the key difference in the human and elven cultures - to ignore it as you seem to makes no sense to me. We can talk about how dwarves are different to humans in another thread if you like, although in his interview Rich Baker regretted not making them more different still see: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Interview_Rich_Baker_One question 7.[/QUOTE]

It seems he was unsatisfied with dwarves (and I think the only reason he was dissatisfied with was he didn't give a good enough reason for why they lived underground and loved working with stone), but satisfied with the elves. I feel if he was satisfied with the elves, then what material was printed on them should be close to what they are.

You are basically disregarding all of canon to place the Sidhe as you would want them to be.

[MatanThunder]

:cool:


There are alot of things you like to throw away from canon when it conflicts with your view.

There are lots of things that we as DM's will and continue to throw away from the Canon material. Maybe this is better expressed by saying that what some people put forth as Canon needs to be challenged to change it.

Or maybe that is just to shoot it out of a cannon......I can never remember which.

Quite wordy points all. I did read them but could best illustrate them in a couple of well thought out lines.

One of you likes it one way the other will see it his way. I will keep reading, but it seems that you may have made your points a couple of times now.

Later

:rolleyes:

[Thelandrin]

Autarkis, you seem to have written the same post three different ways. Could you perhaps clean it up a bit? Thanks.

[ryancaveney]

I clearly disagree with Ryan regarding the prevalence of magic, or more accurately, his industrial use of it.

I may have given the wrong impression, since "industrial" in the modern sense really isn't what I meant. All I meant to say was that any time they do anything which in other species would involve unpleasant or dangerous labor and building devices which help despoil the landscape, elves do it with magic instead and leave no trace.


To me to create such a system requires a mass demand for products and I simply don't see the demand. I see the elves as making artifacts when the artifacts are needed, but not otherwise.

I don't think demand is all that important, unless you are positing a true mercantile system. I think it is a supply-driven "economy", in which people make whatever they feel like, whether or not it will ever be of any use to anyone else. There may be a guy who really likes making magic swords, even though none of his friends and neighbors need them, so he has a pile of several hundred of them under a tree somewhere. The same thing could work for pottery, clothing, or any other handicraft -- they are practiced as hobbies irrespective of demand; then whenever a demand does appear, the person who decides they want something starts by asking around whether anyone has some samples handy that they aren't using anymore.


Also I see elves as spirits of air/water, not of earth/fire (the latter would be dwarves)

I don't like putting the dwarves on the same footing as the elves. Are they also inherently magical, immortal spirit creatures? Certainly not. Therefore, although dwarves do have a strong tie to elemental earth, I think there also needs to be a separate sidhe-equivalent guardian spirit power for earth and fire; it makes the most sense to me to decide that those spirits are also part of the Sidhelien. Also, the elves would be rather poor guardians of the trees if they weren't good at handling dirt and bending fire to their will -- and no tree would ever grow at all without nourishing soil and the burning of the sun. I think the Sidhelien work best as elemental spirits if all the elements are among them, as it takes all the elements together to make life.


Ryan

[kgauck]

Earth and Water would be the more natural plant elements, I think.

The question of supply and demand for craft production, magical or mundane is only relevant if changing these factors alters the cost of production. If the cost of making an item is the same whether you make 1 or 10 (or 1000), then it doesn't matter of there is demand for an item.

Modern economies are based on taking advantage of scale. Craft production has some scale, but by and large craft production is pure marginal cost (since fixed costs are either inherited or barriers to market entry), so again, demand is really only a macro-economic issue, not a micro-economic one.

[AndrewTall]

I am not making assumptions, I am basing it off what I have read in the books. ...

As am I of course :)

At the very least you are failing to make basic interpretations of the impact of the statements in PSoT, or to consider how they conflict with statements elsewhere; imo in imputing human motives to the elves you are making assumptions as much as I am by considering alternate motives.



They didn't war with goblins to defend their lands, they warred with them to conquer them. It doesn't say they misunderstood the dwarves, they wanted to conquer them. Or for some reason they misunderstood the dwarves for 14,000+ years before they signed a peace accord.


Again, a few lines from PSoT. Even if you ignore the canon descriptions of history of the other realms since they oppose the line from PSoT, think about the consequences of immortality and low birthrate to elves - war for conquest invites casualties far more so than other conflicts - why have the elves not driven themselves to extinction through their aggression? The elves are fewer then they were but a long way from extinct. At best you can say 'they did war for conquest millennia ago but stopped now' - but that needs a fairly fundamental shift in racial mindset. Please explain why the elves haven't warred for conquest at any other recorded time? Why they don't do so now, and by realm write-ups elsewhere have not done so for centuries at least? Why their far more numerous neighbours haven't united to eliminate the elven threat? How do you explain their distaste for battlemagics if they desire power? Interpreting the lines in the PSoT timeline as a human assumption of motivations for early conflict avoids breaking many aspects of canon elsewhere.



I use the PSoTh and the Dragon Magazine article because those are the only two articles dealing with it. Again, you are saying canon doesn't count because you say it doesn't and back it up with....?


I am saying that those lines of canon are inconsistent with all other parts - do you really want me to point out every reference to elven immortality, low birth rate, dislike of battle magic, use of warding to shun the outside world, etc, etc? By all means explain how these are consistent with the elements of the timeline you seem to cherish so dearly, I would welcome an argument from you beyond blind repetition of some lines I discredited in my first post.



The reason for no guild holdings is they don't need to trade. They don't need to trade with village A for fur because Village B has a surplus of apples, their just is no need.

Hmm, your argument as I understand it was that elves share human interests in making and retaining wealth and possessions - if elves did have these interests they would have guild holdings as guild holdings reflect precisely that impulse.

PSoT which elsewhere you seem to hold as gospel says that Savanne holds the guilds as important in contrast to all previous rulers - that she is thinking of bringing in halflings to replace the human merchants - why would this be so if elves by nature covet wealth and are ambitious?

I would note that no need to trade assumes both that the elves mine and refine their own metal in order to be self sufficient within each economic unit, and that they do not specialise in crafts - the first undermines the canon on source levels, the second your belief in their mercantile interests since specialisation is key to economic success.



Not having guilds does not mean they don't have a heirarchy, it is a false correlation. It is like saying that people who are tall have large shoe sizes. Increasing someone's shoe size does not make them taller.


Hierarchy was a point you raised as I recall, to which I said that the concept of human feudalism does not fit the elven mindset as described in canon. Feudalism is based on a substantive wealth gap and low social mobility - medieval societies are not rich so to make a 'wealthy' class you need a much larger 'poor' class to support them. They also require acceptance of social order and obedience to command. I see far more in canon to support a society where those who are successful and strong are revered than one that is feudal.

Call their leaders lords, kings, etc by all means, but I would suggest that there is little correlation in terms of inheritance or social structure to the medieval human societies using the same terms (incidentally amongst the human nobility inheritance is of dominating import - such cannot be true of a once every three thousand year event).

I note that if you eliminate the peasantry in a feudal society as your other post indicates, then you are left with the situation I described of a relatively 'born equal' society where advancement is driven by ability not birth order.



Why would they need to create thousands of weapons? This more leans to the fact that the weapons he made were probably given to the elite or the noble because of the cost in making them.


You suggested that like humans elves are industrious and motivated by wealth. If elves are industrious and motivated by wealth they will work continually and trade the surplus, so Ghio would have made thousands of blades - and become vastly wealthy as a result (demand for magic weapons being limitless). As I see no substantial trade routes or guilds amongst the elves, I see any industry amongst the elves as being very small scale, and more akin to that of gentlemen artisans than proletariat.



Though the rain may not bother you, it is still nice to be covered from it. It is also more pleasing to the eye to eat with friends and family in a dining room than around a wood stump.


I am from an industrialised nation but enjoy a picnic or barbecue. If I wasn't harmed by vagaries of the weather, heat and cold, etc, then I would do so far more often - also I'd say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, an elf might well see it as more pleasant to eat fruits and the like perched amongst the branches of an oak than huddled in some cramped windless smelling hovel.

I note that since canon suggests against substantive stone working or lumbering for houses that would impact source levels, etc, the lack of need for houses is a very useful way of explaining canon - not a divergence from it.



It is how they clear land that differentiates them from other races. They don't disrupt the magical energies or ley lines. It is that simple.


And your explanation of the mechanic is:confused: What do elves do, or not do, that other races do? What do you say when your wizard regent says 'I rule up the province but build nice wooden houses that follow local leylines just like the elves - oh look, GB income and no source impact :D what logical argument do you make against them?



There are alot of things you like to throw away from canon when it conflicts with your view.


Really? I ignore a handful of lines from PSoT, you by contrast seem to ignore chunks of every elven realm history write up, immortality, low birthrate, lack of elven expansion, guild levels, comments on low law levels, comments on spirituality, lack of interest in evocation magic etc, etc, etc. That said by all means ignore the bulk of canon on elves if you wish - or fail to consider the impact of it to the same end - but I would suggest that by examining its inconsistencies you may find a far richer elven society emerges.



I read canon material and make assumptions based on what we are told. You disregard canon material and make assumptions based on what you think.

You are basically disregarding all of canon to place the Sidhe as you would want them to be.

I could make at least equally valid points of you and your support of PSoT above other books - I would hold PSoT as lesser as it was written by freelancers/bungee writers who have, as far as I can see, no other BR credits.

May I suggest you explain why you even want elves to be conquerers? Why you want them to be mercantile? In what way do these changes - and they would require major changes to elven realms - enrich your game?



Saying that the canon I quote is just re-inforcing "elves as pointy eared humans" is similar to politicians spouting catch phrases with no meat.


No, it is the logical outcome of your arguments thus far. The reason I said 'pointy eared humans' is because by making elves have the same culture and lifestyle as humans - as you seem insistent upon doing - that is exactly what they become. I would suggest that by having elves as a distinctly different culture and race you will enrich your gaming experience - but by all means ignore me - its your game too. :)

[AndrewTall]

I don't like putting the dwarves on the same footing as the elves. Are they also inherently magical, immortal spirit creatures?

To a degree they would appear to be with dense bodies and the ability to subsist on dirt and the frequent comments on smithcraft indicate ties to fire. It would shift canon (and therefore clearly upset some) to make dwarves tied to earth and fire, but could be interesting and would differentiate them from humans more.



.... Also, the elves would be rather poor guardians of the trees if they weren't good at handling dirt and bending fire to their will -- and no tree would ever grow at all without nourishing soil and the burning of the sun. I think the Sidhelien work best as elemental spirits if all the elements are among them, as it takes all the elements together to make life.
Ryan

Water and air tend to be the elements of life in systems I've seen, with the earth and even sun simply 'being there' (however vital they are). The Chinese (?) element of wood perhaps being a good alternative to earth for such a system. I'd expect a spirit of earth to be less interested in 'ephemeral' growing things than one of water for example, and fire as destructive in the context of forests more than creative and so avoid these elements - although it depends how metaphorical you are getting. Elves could easily reflect fire as passion for example and could be spiritual in non elemental terms.

[Autarkis]

Autarkis, you seem to have written the same post three different ways. Could you perhaps clean it up a bit? Thanks.

It took three posts to respond to all of his posts, there were character limitations. :)

[ConjurerDragon]

AndrewTall schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
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> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
> They didn`t war with goblins to defend their lands, they warred with them to conquer them. It doesn`t say they misunderstood the dwarves, they wanted to conquer them. Or for some reason they misunderstood the dwarves for 14,000+ years before they signed a peace accord.
>
> -----------------------------
> Again, a few lines from PSoT. Even if you ignore the canon descriptions of history of the other realms since they oppose the line from PSoT, think about the consequences of immortality and low birthrate to elves - war for conquest invites casualties far more so than other conflicts - why have the elves not driven themselves to extinction through their aggression? The elves are fewer then they were but a long way from extinct. At best you can say `they did war for conquest millennia ago but stopped now` - but that needs a fairly fundamental shift in racial mindset. Please explain why the elves haven`t warred for conquest at any other recorded time? Why they don`t do so now, and by realm write-ups elsewhere have not done so for centuries at least? Why their far more numerous neighbours haven`t united to eliminate the elven threat? How do you explain their distaste for battlemagics if they desire power? Interpreting the lines in the PSoT timeline as a human assumption o!
> f motivations for early conflict avoids breaking many aspects of canon elsewhere.
>
The article with the Cerilian timeline in Dragon Magazine tells the same
story as the PSoT in that point. The sidhelien conquered the goblins
Why the sidhelien have not driven themselves to extinction? Because they
stopped acting as before?.
Uniting against the elves needs people willing and able to unite. That
may be possible in some games when players suddenly forget that their
realm fought for some hundred years against their human neighbour and
set aside rivalries to united against the sidhelien - but in a
consistent game it would take much to actually unite several human
realms against the sidhelien as long as they stay within their forests.

> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
> I use the PSoTh and the Dragon Magazine article because those are the only two articles dealing with it. Again, you are saying canon doesn`t count because you say it doesn`t and back it up with....?
>
> -----------------------------
>
> I am saying that those lines of canon are inconsistent with all other parts - do you really want me to point out every reference to elven immortality, low birth rate, dislike of battle magic, use of warding to shun the outside world, etc, etc? By all means explain how these are consistent with the elements of the timeline you seem to cherish so dearly, I would welcome an argument from you beyond blind repetition of some lines I discredited in my first post.
>
Canon as I understand it is what exists as published material from
Wizards. Yes, sometimes it contradicts itself. But that does not mean it
could simply be said by anyone that it is no longer canon. How the
contradictions are explained is open to any DM?s interpretion. And the
whole 2E Atlas was written with "anuirean bias" or from the point of
view of an Anuirean sounds reasonable when considering that the given
author was the Chamberlain of Anuire.
> And your explanation of the mechanic is:confused: What do elves do, or not do, that other races do? What do you say when your wizard regent says `I rule up the province but build nice wooden houses that follow local leylines just like the elves - oh look, GB income and no source impact :D what logical argument do you make against them?
>
Sidhelien are a special case. Their racial abilities also tend to show
that when they have e.g. "Pass without trace" when I remember right
which no human race has. Their impact on nature is lower and that can?t
simply be copied by any other races leader who decrees "I build like the
elfs!".

> No, it is the logical outcome of your arguments thus far. The reason I said `pointy eared humans` is because by making elves have the same culture and lifestyle as humans - as you seem insistent upon doing - that is exactly what they become. I would suggest that by having elves as a distinctly different culture and race you will enrich your gaming experience - but by all means ignore me - its your game too. :)
>
Game mechanics allow to make a distinction without being distinctive. A
law holding can be anything from the royal guard to robbing bandits. The
same is true for guilds, they can be the fuggers merchant empire or the
mafia in disguise. So a human guild and a guild in a sidhelien realm
might look and act very different while the "guild holding (1)" looks
the same in both realms and allows a player to receive comparable income
to compete on the realm level.

[AndrewTall]

The article with the Cerilian timeline in Dragon Magazine tells the same
story as the PSoT in that point. The sidhelien conquered the goblins
Why the sidhelien have not driven themselves to extinction? Because they
stopped acting as before?.
Uniting against the elves needs people willing and able to unite. That
may be possible in some games when players suddenly forget that their
realm fought for some hundred years against their human neighbour and
set aside rivalries to united against the sidhelien - but in a
consistent game it would take much to actually unite several human
realms against the sidhelien as long as they stay within their forests.


A common enemy is often used to unite opposing factions - any non-human race is particularly easy to make a common enemy from, overthe length of Cerilian history I wouldn't bet on the elves avoiding being a target for so long - particularly given their history as enemies of all the human tribes - unless they were a sufficiently low threat and hard conquest to make an attack counter productive for the would-be uniter.



Canon as I understand it is what exists as published material from
Wizards. Yes, sometimes it contradicts itself. But that does not mean it
could simply be said by anyone that it is no longer canon. How the
contradictions are explained is open to any DM?s interpretion. And the
whole 2E Atlas was written with "anuirean bias" or from the point of
view of an Anuirean sounds reasonable when considering that the given
author was the Chamberlain of Anuire.

Indeed, but where multiple points contradict a single point? I have tried to explain why I think the PSoT lines (and there aren't many) on conquest which were raised by Autarkis are opposed to canon elsewhere, I was overly snippy (my apologies to Autarkis) and long (further apologies to all uninterested in game background, etc) in responding to him but struggle to see how to reconcile elves having human desires for conquest with canon elsewhere.



Sidhelien are a special case. Their racial abilities also tend to show
that when they have e.g. "Pass without trace" when I remember right
which no human race has. Their impact on nature is lower and that can?t
simply be copied by any other races leader who decrees "I build like the
elfs!".

My point is identifying why they are a special case - to me a mechanic must represent something to be meaningful. I interpret the mechanic is saying a low impact civilisation, that in turn requires further assumptions about culture and physiology.

[ryancaveney]

To a degree they would appear to be with dense bodies and the ability to subsist on dirt and the frequent comments on smithcraft indicate ties to fire. It would shift canon (and therefore clearly upset some) to make dwarves tied to earth and fire, but could be interesting and would differentiate them from humans more.

Oh, I agree completely that they have *ties* to earth and fire -- I just don't think they're as strongly related to them as the Sidhelien are to their elements. My personal Cerilian cosmology offers an explanation of this: the very-earth-linked individuals among the Sidhelien helped create the rather-less-but-still-quite-earth-linked dwarves.


Water and air tend to be the elements of life in systems I've seen, with the earth and even sun simply 'being there' (however vital they are).

I've always thought that lacking any of the four, there could be no life, so life has to be made of all of them -- and of which of the four are *bodies* made, if not earth? (Yes, I know we're really mostly water, but I'm not talking about a 115+ element periodic table right now.) I don't think I came up with that myself ("ashes to ashes, dust to dust," for example, or Harry Belafonte on the Muppet Show: "we come from the fire, living in the fire, go back to the fire, turn the world around..."), but I don't remember exactly where I first encountered it. The Sovereign Stone d20 para-elemental system, which I quite like, is Plant = Earth + Water, Animal = Earth + Fire, Weather = Air + Water, Lightning = Air + Fire.


Ryan

[Dcolby]

Ryan you just love those elves eh??

"And on the Seventh Day the Elves rested..." ;)

[void]

I think the dispute about whether the elves magic everything or not, or have buildings can be solved by saying that the elves are really accomplished in geomancy. When they build houses, they build on geomantic principles to not disturb chi flow ( meghblaih). The human wizard from the above example wouldn't be able to rule his province without decreasing the source because all the buildings would have to be built using geomancy. Unless the wizard personally does this, or trains large enough numbers of engineers to be experts in geomancy that every building is magic flow friendly, he reduces the source when increasing his populace.

If you go from the other thread where the people are already there and you are actually just upping your control of the populace, that makes the wizard's attempt to skirt the rules even easier to deny.

[Elton Robb]

Summoning elementals or creating golems is also very useful since those creatures tend to have good damage reduction, so can easily smash their way through very large numbers of normal soldiers.


Ryan

Not just any Elemental you know, Titanium Elementals!!! :D

[ryancaveney]

Not just any Elemental you know, Titanium Elementals!!! :D

I like Chlorine Elementals even better -- they're self-mobile Cloudkill spells! Sodium Elementals would cause impressive explosions, but they wouldn't last long. Plutonium Elementals even more so, and the radioactivity is a drag if you want to live there afterwards... =)


Ryan

[AndrewTall]

I think the dispute about whether the elves magic everything or not, or have buildings can be solved by saying that the elves are really accomplished in geomancy. When they build houses, they build on geomantic principles to not disturb chi flow ( meghblaih). The human wizard from the above example wouldn't be able to rule his province without decreasing the source because all the buildings would have to be built using geomancy. Unless the wizard personally does this, or trains large enough numbers of engineers to be experts in geomancy that every building is magic flow friendly, he reduces the source when increasing his populace.

If you go from the other thread where the people are already there and you are actually just upping your control of the populace, that makes the wizard's attempt to skirt the rules even easier to deny.

Hmm, there's an interesting idea, although you'd need to stop anyone learning their secrets somehow... I had a look through various books (handy when arguing canon you read a while ago, as expected support for both sides and neither, occasionally both on the same page...) and the descriptions from realm write ups vary tremendously. Some describe either nothing (Tuarheviel's realm write up has the thorn throne a glade surrounded by trees, similarly for Rhuannoch - although it has comments of homes in trees and under hills, others describe ancient 'celestial' cities of crystal and stone (LLuarbriaght, Sielwode) while the phrase 'perfect harmony with nature' while recurrent can be read in many ways...

The real issue on sources however is clearing of land for crops, damning of rivers, roads, etc - I struggle to see how any of this can be done in harmony with nature - I first considered the need for elves to be sustained directly by mebhaighl when considering the fruit and seeds necessary to sustain the population without agriculture and the knock on effect on insects and therefore also birdlife...

I'll probably write up the stuff I've seen in canon and what I consider obvious implications on a page in the wiki rather than clog up people's inboxes. Similarly how I square the comments on nobility in some realms (i.e. Llua, Tuarheviel) with lack in others (i.e. Coullabhie) and the implications I see from immortality on social structure...

[MatanThunder]

:cool:

One of the Elvish architecture and city ideas comes from material that they use in their Spelljammer craft. It is living crystal. It grows and needs to be trimmed on their ships, but in a city it could be trimmed as any plant to form complex structures that meld with the natural trees around their cities.

It could also be a material that they use to make products and resources in their trade. They could easilly shape the crystal into weapons then alter the spell Glasssteel to be Crystalsteel. This would offer an alternative construction material to another issue brought up previously about their need for ores and metals. Why bother when you can replace is with a specially fashioned, light weight, and specially shaped material that could form anything from a basket to a 2 handed sword. A structures wall to a wheel rim. All with the strength of steel.

Oh and it regrows, so you don't have to find a new source later on.

They could do well using the living crystal idea, even if they are not part of the true spelljamming races of the phlo.

Later

:rolleyes:

BTW....I would go with the Plutonium 238 elemental from the deep elemental plane of earth....I really should send a message to Rhoube about it.

[ShadowMoon]

:cool:

One of the Elvish architecture and city ideas comes from material that they use in their Spelljammer craft. It is living crystal. It grows and needs to be trimmed on their ships, but in a city it could be trimmed as any plant to form complex structures that meld with the natural trees around their cities.

It could also be a material that they use to make products and resources in their trade. They could easilly shape the crystal into weapons then alter the spell Glasssteel to be Crystalsteel. This would offer an alternative construction material to another issue brought up previously about their need for ores and metals. Why bother when you can replace is with a specially fashioned, light weight, and specially shaped material that could form anything from a basket to a 2 handed sword. A structures wall to a wheel rim. All with the strength of steel.

Oh and it regrows, so you don't have to find a new source later on.

They could do well using the living crystal idea, even if they are not part of the true spelljamming races of the phlo.

Later

:rolleyes:

BTW....I would go with the Plutonium 238 elemental from the deep elemental plane of earth....I really should send a message to Rhoube about it.


Well Sielwoode has a crystal palace, that supposedly nature built itself for the Sidhe, so You can use Your idea in that example...

[Thelandrin]

I get the suspicion that people have been reading Rich Burlew's sublime The Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0468.html) comic strip :)

[MatanThunder]

:eek:


I get the suspicion that people have been reading Rich Burlew's sublime The Order of the Stick comic strip

I think that Spelljammer might just predate that comic strip...I've never seen it.

The elves tweak (with respect) nature into the forms they desire. The whole living crystal aspects of the society could provide quite a lot for the society.

Crystal Palace....maybe the Cerilian Elves really did start up the Spelljammer races of the elves.....

Later

;)

[ryancaveney]

I get the suspicion that people have been reading Rich Burlew's sublime The Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0468.html) comic strip :)

I certainly have -- I think it's the single best gaming cartoon ever! And yes, you old timers, even better than the Foglios' "What's New With Phil and Dixie." Of course, the art is intentionally nowhere near that good, but the writing is amazing.

Matan -- it's certainly more than a decade newer than Spelljammer, but it is a reference for titanium and chlorine elementals. You should check it out.


Ryan