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03-13-2004, 01:45 AM #31
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Originally posted by RaspK_FOG@Mar 12 2004, 07:01 PM
I think rangers were magic-users in 2e... Although I can't be sure, since that brat has "borrowed" my books for what, 10 months now?! Gonna kill it, fetch my books, then return to the community with much relief and joy! Just KIDding, people, but these can be nothing less but happy thoughts for me...Duane Eggert
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03-23-2004, 05:54 PM #32
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Being an Elfphile, I have done a lot of thinking about the question of elven deities. What I have come up with is this-
For one, you have to stop thinking of elves as pointy-eared humans. They're not. The Sidhelien are the personification of magic and nature. The natural essence of life shaped the elves into being and they are the guardians of the streams, trees, and harmony of nature. It is possible that the elves' existance began in the faerie-world (now known as the Shadow World), and they immigrated to the material plane because of a desire to watch over the land, or to flee a threat.
Simply put, elves are creatures of pure magic. They are nothing like humans and are not motivated by the same things. Though they are keenly aware of their spirituality, it is entirely different from a human's spirituality. They do not live to do a God's work on Earth, they live to maintain and learn about the natural world. When an elf dies, their essence returns to the earth. Their purpose is the strengthening and cultivation of magic, not a moral crusade or the furthering of a God's cause.
No race of people understand the futility of the Gods' wars on Earth. They do not see the human gods as omnipotent or perfect (which they are certainly not). Gods squabble and bicker as much as humans do. Perfection exists only in nature, and they seek to emulate that.
Just my view.
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03-23-2004, 07:00 PM #33
At 06:56 PM 3/23/2004 +0100, Amaranth wrote:
>No race of people understand the futility of the Gods` wars on
>Earth. They do not see the human gods as omnipotent or perfect (which
>they are certainly not). Gods squabble and bicker as much as humans
>do. Perfection exists only in nature, and they seek to emulate that.
That`s a very interesting comment on the attitude of the Sidhe, and I`d
like to incorporate it somehow. It is, however, vitiated by the
participation of elves in the war of Shadow and their appearance at
Deismaar--the ultimate conflict of the gods. Logically, if elves see the
conflict of the gods as being futile why would they have participated in
that war? I don`t think I like the possibility of making this a recent
"development" of Cerilian elves, since that seems to bespeak of a kind of
social evolution that, frankly, I see as alien to the spiritual and
cultural... well, stagnancy would be I guess the most apt phrase. It is
that stagnancy that is the true basis of the decline of the Sidhe, not
human access to divine magics (which, after all, many races had before
humans arrived upon Cerilia.)
Gary
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03-23-2004, 07:20 PM #34
One of the neat things taht come with developing multiple types of humans is
that it fills the need for variations on that theme, allowing the
demi-humans (as they were once called) to become more fundamentally
different. One can see how there is a new facination with humans in 3x
settings. Different kinds of people used to be described differently, but
were mechanically the same, but the new modularity of 3x makes it possible
to describe people differently (or to add creature bloodlines to humans),
within a regular system so that there is no longer a need for humans with x.
Elves (and dwarves, &c) can become more radically non-human. Success at
such an endeavour requires players to make the adjustement, though and that
requires more descriptive text. So far most settings are giving different
races little more descriptive text than different human types. So I`d say
that the ground work is laid for making demi-humans more significantl
different, but the system isn`t realizing its full potential. Because of
the limiting factor of players wanting to play what they know, it may never
fully realize it.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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03-23-2004, 11:50 PM #35
I don't think many of us described (or even think of) elves as pointy-eared humans... I do remember a lot of occasions when a player, used to the phrase "hey, my man" (something like saying: "Hey, dude", or whatever), the elf-o-phile players usually retort saying: "I am not human." Urgg... to me, this presents a lack of responsibility on the players' part, since it is something people are used to saying, and since elves are humanoids (or something like that, OK? Like humans being elfoids?!, well, it is like saying humans are not animals; while humans are not animals according to game rules, they actually belong to the animal kingdom.
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03-24-2004, 12:30 AM #36
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On Tue, 23 Mar 2004, Gary wrote:
> At 06:56 PM 3/23/2004 +0100, Amaranth wrote:
>
> >No race of people understand the futility of the Gods` wars on
> >Earth. They do not see the human gods as omnipotent or perfect (which
> >they are certainly not). Gods squabble and bicker as much as humans
> >do. Perfection exists only in nature, and they seek to emulate that.
>
> That`s a very interesting comment on the attitude of the Sidhe, and I`d
> like to incorporate it somehow. It is, however, vitiated by the
> participation of elves in the war of Shadow and their appearance at
> Deismaar--the ultimate conflict of the gods. Logically, if elves see the
> conflict of the gods as being futile why would they have participated in
> that war?
Involvement with Deismaar does not necessarily have anything to do with
gods. All that is required is an interest in the purely earthly result of
a battle between tribes of mortals: goblins (and the other "evil
humanoids"), Adurians and Vos against dwarves and the other humans.
Atheist elves are perfectly capable of having intervened based solely on
their own self-interest as individuals or groups. Possible examples of
such reasons include attempting to influence the geopolitical outcome
(e.g., "the goblins hate us for having enslaved them, so we can`t let them
win" or "help the group we think will be less destructive to the
environment"), as an obscure component of spellcasting or magical
research, because of a prophecy (given arcane magic, these need not
involve gods at all), or emotional desires such as revenge, expiation
(perhaps some of them wished to make things up to the goblins they had
enslaved for so long), adventure, or hoping to see every last one of the
squabbling, bickering, irritating mortals slain.
Even if the gods fought in person at Deismaar, that certainly doesn`t mean
every other person who fought there did it because they liked or disliked
or believed in any particular god. Many individual humans, goblins,
dwarves, etc. who were atheists or agnostics or worshipers of beings other
than the chief seven deities named in the rulebook would also have fought
for reasons such as payment, threats, obeying a ruler, impressing a
friend, or defending a loved one. You can have Deismaar entirely without
gods; even with them, not every cause or consequence of the battle has
anything much or at all to do with them.
Ryan Caveney
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03-24-2004, 05:00 PM #37
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RaspK_FOG schrieb:
>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...=ST&f=2&t=2336
>
> RaspK_FOG wrote:
> I don`t think many of us described (or even think of) elves as pointy-eared humans... I do remember a lot of occasions when a player, used to the phrase "hey, my man" (something like saying: "Hey, dude", or whatever), the elf-o-phile players usually retort saying: "I am not human." Urgg... to me, this presents a lack of responsibility on the players` part, since it is something people are used to saying, and since elves are humanoids (or something like that, OK? Like humans being elfoids?!), well, it is like saying humans are not animals; while humans are not animals according to game rules, they actually belong to the animal kingdom.
>
From a sidhelien perspective there really isn´t a difference regarding
humans, is it? ;-)
bye
Michael
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03-24-2004, 05:25 PM #38
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03-24-2004, 07:40 PM #39
At 06:25 PM 3/24/2004 +0100, RaspK_FOG wrote:
> Well, this is not so (and that was harsh, don`t you think?). A
> sidhelien does not think of humans as animals; while snobbish to no end,
> comparing them to animals would be in error, since humans are not acting
> "naturally"; I think you know what I mean.
Good point. Cerilian elves would probably consider _themselves_
animals--in the sense that they are both "part of nature" by definition--
before they would include humans. The actions of humanity are from the
elven POV inherently destructive and vile. Where "brother beaver" might
build a dam for reasons that are natural and good, a human built dam would
be considered a travesty and crime against nature.
The Sidhe would probably more likely compare/contrast humans with goblins
or orogs since they share many basic characteristics; breeding cycle,
divine or shamanistic magics, destructive, axe swinging tendencies,
etc. Dwarves are less likely as a comparison because dwarves have their
own reverence for the earth and a tendency towards isolationism that the
Sidhe probably find more palatable (and even rather polite.)
However, if one were to compare the elven attitude towards humans to the
human attitude towards animals, I think the analogy works better.
Gary
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03-24-2004, 10:14 PM #40
Seriously now, what you say is true... Still, some Sidhelien are not that stuck up with humans, just like there are people (like the Aboriginals) who respect animals.
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