Do Cerilian Elves Have Souls?

[geeman]

One of the things about original D&D was that it borrowed from Tolkien`s

take on elves in that they did not have an immortal soul. (He got a lot of

his stuff on elves from various mythological sources, but attributing this

matter to JRRT is much simpler for our purposes here.) Game mechanically

this had relatively few effects other than the difficulty with which elves

were raised from the dead and their longevity--which made things like aging

effects from creating magic items, casting certain spells or the occasional

undead pretty harmless to them.



In 3e, of course, elves are not nearly as long lived as they were in

previous editions, and the majority of the aging effects have been excised

(along with the anti-aging ones.) For BR purposes, however, we have elves

that are immortal, not just long-lived. They are more in keeping with

Tolkien`s elves . They do not worship the gods for various reasons, some

of which may have to do with the nature of their own spiritual make

up. Elves certainly can die, but do they have an immortal soul that goes

on to some BR equivalent of the D&D planar cosmology to reach an ultimate

heaven-like existence? What do you guys think?



Gary

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by geeman@Aug 14 2003, 12:17 PM
out original D&D was that it borrowed from Tolkien`s

take on elves in that they did not have an immortal soul. (He got a lot of

his stuff on elves from various mythological sources, but attributing this

matter to JRRT is much simpler for our purposes here.) Game mechanically

this had relatively few effects other than the difficulty with which elves

were raised from the dead and their longevity--which made things like aging

effects from creating magic items, casting certain spells or the occasional

undead pretty harmless to them.



In 3e, of course, elves are not nearly as long lived as they were in

previous editions, and the majority of the aging effects have been excised

(along with the anti-aging ones.) For BR purposes, however, we have elves

that are immortal, not just long-lived. They are more in keeping with

Tolkien`s elves . They do not worship the gods for various reasons, some

of which may have to do with the nature of their own spiritual make

up. Elves certainly can die, but do they have an immortal soul that goes

on to some BR equivalent of the D&D planar cosmology to reach an ultimate

heaven-like existence? What do you guys think?



Gary

Gary, I don't know what is up but many (if not all) of your posts seem to have the very beginning cut off.

[geeman]

3 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>Gary, I don`t know what is up but many (if not all) of your posts seem to

>have the very beginning cut off.



Well, I don`t know what`s up with that. The post I get back from the

listserver looks fine. Arjan?



Gary

[geeman]

3 +0200, irdeggman wrote:



>Gary, I don`t know what is up but many (if not all) of your posts seem to

>have the very beginning cut off.



In looking over the BR.net boards it looks like its not just my posts, but

any that come from the listserver get the first two dozen characters or so

cut off (its hard to tell exactly how much) unless they start off by

quoting text. It doesn`t seem to matter exactly how the text is quoted,

but straight text without any quote loses some characters. Just the line

that states the time and date of the quoted material appears to be enough

to prevent dropped characters.



As an experiment, I`m going to send this exact same post, but without the

quoted text above.



Gary

[geeman]

BR.net boards it looks like its not just my posts, but

any that come from the listserver get the first two dozen characters or so

cut off (its hard to tell exactly how much) unless they start off by

quoting text. It doesn`t seem to matter exactly how the text is quoted,

but straight text without any quote loses some characters. Just the line

that states the time and date of the quoted material appears to be enough

to prevent dropped characters.



As an experiment, I`m going to send this exact same post, but without the

quoted text above.



Gary

[Arjan]

hmmm very strange, i will take a look into it tomorrow...

A.