Half-Elves, Cerilian

[karandrs]

Discussion thread for Half-Elves, Cerilian (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Half-Elves, Cerilian). If you would like to add a comment, click the Post Reply button.

[Lee]

I see that the wiki is set to re-direct from "Hanner sidhe" to "Half-elf, Cerilian" Is it the assumption that "hanner" is a Sidhelien word for "half-" or some such? If so, it needs to be written in there. I'll do some cogitating on this, and perhaps some editing soon.

[kgauck]

Yes, it means half. Its actually Welsh. Since Tolkien established the fantasy tradition of basing Sindarin (the language of the elves for T) on Welsh, and the BR materials seem to follow right along, I thought this was a natural way to express half-elf in Elvish.

The BBC (which used to teach the world English and is now dedicated to teaching the world Welsh) is an excellent resource for this purpose.

I recently thought it might be useful to write a history of the notion that half-elves are not the offspring of elves and humans, but humans altered by the elves, using the BR forums. This would be an Observation on its own page, but I thought since I was reading the forums for this material, I should mention such a document might be forthcoming.

[Lee]

There, touched it up a little.

I didn't mention that I find that concept a very useful one, as I am a fan of the idea of a long-term hidden sidhe plan to bring the humans under sidhe leadership. When I ran my Giantdowns campaign, I called it the "Queen's gambit" giving credit to Ibelcoris for putting Fhiele on the Dhoesone Throne as a means to gain some allies for her land. I used this to put some covert sidhe support behind a half-elf PC as he made his (reluctant) bid to impose some control on the Downs.
Savane makes a lot more sense this way, too.

[Thelandrin]

Savane is not a complete ghastly mess this way, no, but then some half-Sidhelien will still be biologically half-Elven (Fhiele Dhoesone and presumably Eriene Mierelen). It makes you wonder about the others though.

[Lee]

A suggestion, before I post it.

About aging, IMC, I've used a combination of the PHB's age tables for half-elves, using the half-elf lines for reaching maturity (a little slower than humans), and then the "elf" lines for middle age and the like, resulting in lifespans of hundreds of years for half-elves. To me, this would seem to support the "grand plan," as it creates allies with lifespans long enough to seriously affect the thoughts of generations of human subjects. One would also not have to worry about one's carefully groomed ally dropping dead every 20 years or so.

[kgauck]

Back in 2002 the consensus seemed to be that Cerilian half-elves should use the elf lifespan tables, since elves were immortal. I don't recall any disagreement at that point. Plus there does seem to be a certain agelessness to half-elves. The description of some of these figures includes text like "doesn't look a day older since they left" and so on.

[Caelcormac]

Would it stand to reason that Half-Elves are indeed mortal; but might simply live so long that humans, and even dwarves, might not notice this aging in their own life?