The Elf--Half-Elf Dilemma

[kgauck]

I don't think elves reproduce sexually. I think they construct their own bodies magically and then inhabit them.

[ryancaveney]

The thing that elves find most significant about themselves--their magical nature--is shared by half-elves. That they see themselves as magical isn`t really cultural at all. They actually are magical creatures. Elven culture is an offshoot of that basic characteristic rather than a culture developed to include their magical nature. An elf would see a half-elf as "one of us" in a way that goes beyond social norms. Denying half-elves their Sidhelien nature would be the same as denying their magical nature.

This still doesn't require that their senses cannot perceive a difference, which you seem eager to hang on to for some reason. Even if the difference between the groups "elves who age and die" and "elves who are eternally young" is considered no more important than that between the groups "elves with brown hair" and "elves with blonde hair", in both cases the physical difference is still *seen* -- they just don't think it's important. I don't happen to agree that the full-elf/half-elf difference is unimportant to the Sidhelien, but at least it's a logically tenable position, unlike "their eyes can observe height and hair color but not aging and death," which is what I first thought I heard you say.

[ryancaveney]

I don't think elves reproduce sexually. I think they construct their own bodies magically and then inhabit them.

Aha! As of this moment, that is now true IMC. It interacts extremely well with frequent but not universal eventual self-resurrection, which I have come to like. The remaining question to answer is, can additional elven spirits be magically created, or is there a maximum number of elves which can exist at one time (e.g., there are precisely one million Sidhelien spirits in total, and at this moment every one of them is already embodied)? I can see it going either way, but at present I am inclined to say that new elven spirits form slowly but automatically in high-level source manifestations as a natural part of the flow of mebhaighl.

[ConjurerDragon]

ryancaveney 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=4121
> ryancaveney wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> `That`s a misconception. Elves are asexual.`
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Wow. Now that`s an unusual interpretation! Perhaps what she`s really implying is that elves reproduce by budding, or procreate through pollination rather than intercourse -- even if she`s not, this makes for a very interesting idea. In the thread from 2002 I mentioned earlier, I suggested that perhaps half-elves (unlike money) actually do grow on trees. This wasn`t really in jest, as in Cerilia I think of them as a created race of biological constructs, rather than the offspring of a Sidhe-human mating (which to my mind can never result in pregnancy).
>
Grown from trees? Have you perhaps read the book "Speaker for the dead"
by Orson Scott Card? In that book a species lives a live as humanoid
beings and can have a second life as a sentient tree when the heart of
the humanoid is -as a special honour- planted into the earth... The
species in the book actually wanted to honour a human and could not
understand the uproar because the humans had also talked about having a
"second life" (in heaven) as well... ;-)

[AndrewTall]

-12,500 to -8,000: Dwarves emerge from the depths of the earth, only to be dominated by the elves. Dwarves eventually retreat into the mountains again.

I am well aware of the timeline chucked into PSOT and then parroted in Dragon - as I have noted in this thread and elsewhere it doesn't make much sense given population growth patterns and the history noted elsewhere. In my view it's much easier to say 'elves are capable of extreme violence, generally in defense of what they perceive as theirs or in vengeance, but have little interest in conquest or war for glory's sake.'

Elves enslave the primitive kobolds and goblins of the Stonecrown mountains, teaching them civilization.

As noted this is open to considerable interpretation or simply wrong - they have, as noted earlier, no need for slaves given the (admittedly patchy) descriptions of their economy and lifestyle. Particularly when you consider the long view they would take teaching the goblins technology (mining and tool making for example) seems unlikely; I do however wonder what definition of civilisation would be used - some interpretations of elven culture leaves them as effectively having no community and therefore no civilisation to teach...

Warlike elves
In terms of being 'war-like' perhaps I should specify - I have no problem with describing elves as violent, which some seem to see as synonymous with being war-like. The Gheallie Sidhe is many things, indicative of a bunch of tree-hugging flower-power people it is not. To be war-like or hard wired for war however requires the community as a whole to seek to pro-actively assault and conquer other communities as a whole - and that means extinction for a race with a low birth-rate - everyone gets unlucky sometimes and battle is notoriously random, if you cannot recover from losses you are doomed. If the elves don't have a low birth-rate then places like Cwmb Bhein, the Sielwode etc which have avoided assault for centuries should be bursting at the seams with elves - which does not match with comments of a race in decline.

In terms of wars by and between the elves I'm not sure which you are considering. The best described period in BR is the post-Deismaar (indeed post Empire) period. After Deismaar the Sielwode closes its borders - as do Cwmb Bheinn, Rhuannaight, and several others, the elves then simply don't come out again - at all. Whereas much of Cerilian history is unmentioned leaving scope for short lived emporers, conquests which didn't stick, etc several elven races are mentioned as having closed their borders for centuries which precludes such things.

If the elves were warlike in nature they might close borders temporarily when at a disadvantage (warding is frankly obscene the way the rules are written) but they would be constantly looking for a chance to conquer their neighbours - and over the centuries they would have had many such opportunities. as a result if elves were warlike we would expect dozens of elf-overseen kingdoms, widely flung realms containing many other races, etc. The setting instead shows a handful of half elven rulers - generally in small / border realms and a few fairly isolated elven realms which are almost uniformly elven (Rhuannacht aside) in nature.

Even Tuar Annwyn and Lluabraight, the two apparently most warlike elven realms have per their descriptions spent centuries mostly just watching and feeling hard done by. In the last 15 centuries the only elven realm noted anyway as having taken a single province is Tuar Annwyn - hardly indicative of a warlike race. Orogs by contrast have taken at least one kingdom, the humans have gone through a dozen major wars in which provinces change hand by the bucket, the goblins are noted as continually raiding and enjoying conquest and domination (Kal Kalathor in particular this last) only the dwarves, halflings and possibly Rjurik have a greater claim to being less warlike as a culture.

The only conflict between elves I can recall at all beyond murders by the gheallie sidhe in PSoT and a few comments about Rhoubhe are off hand comments about disputes over who succeeds Sidhe Braelacchlaim in the Aelvinnwode - which could be discussing poetry competitions as much as they could be indicating wars. I'd lean strongly towards the idea that no leader had the rhetorical skills to inspire all the elves leading to separation of the whole as much more likely than wars of domination - frankly any leader who wanted to dominate other elves would in my view be shunned by all of the other elves. That is in part however due to my view that an elven leader is leader because they are followed - not followed because they are leader, so may be very different in other campaigns.

Many of the elven wars seem to have been started by the elves themselves, even if it is response to perceived "infraction" - they initiatied it.

I can't think of one war started by the elves. At best you could argue the war of the shadow but that seems to me to have been very definitely started by the humans, with the elves defending themselves for a few centuries with varying degrees of success before forming a temporary alliance of convenience with Azrai against a common enemy - before realising he was even worse and 'changing sides' (or from their viewpoint simply fighting him as well). Other elven wars that come to my (admittedly biased) mind tend to be of the 'Gorgon invades Tuarheviel, Raven invades Cwmb Bheinn' type rather than 'Prince Fhileraene decides he wants some more land and invades Cariele'. I'll happily agree that immortal elves may see war in very different terms - the humans see 20 years without fighting as peace during the first weaves of immigration, the elves see twenty years as a prolonged nap but part of the same conflict which could lead many Anuireans of the time to claim that the elves had 'just attacked' but in a historical context the elves seem remarkably passive to me.

Apologies incidentally to those who feel I oppress goblins incidentally, I know that BR goblins are more civilised than the norm. I like cannon fodder in a game and they are the obvious stooges, albeit less so than in non-BR campaigns (what I should beat up on the Vos? Come on, that's dangerous!)

[kgauck]

The remaining question to answer is, can additional elven spirits be magically created, or is there a maximum number of elves which can exist at one time (e.g., there are precisely one million Sidhelien spirits in total, and at this moment every one of them is already embodied)?

I would imagine that the number of possible Sidhelien spirits greatly outnumbers the embodied elves at present. As Gary as mentioned, there is a general sense of elves in retreat. So I think over the past, say 2000 years, or even early, since the whole of Cerilia was a forested land, some Sidhelien spirits separated from their bodies have chosen to dwell as spirits in the flow of mebhaighl, or as treants as you have suggested, or in some other form. So as far as embodied elves, there is a potential for many more elves, embodied in any animal or plant form, I have no good idea. And how many would be without bodies intentionally or because they are currently constructing their bodies, is another good question.

I imagine that when the elves put the plan into operation they will have already put out the call to Sidhelien spirits. Some will construct bodies to take part in later phases (depending on how early the notice goes out) and that in a future where the elves are successful in re-conquering the human lands, there would be a lot more elves running around.

I can see it going either way, but at present I am inclined to say that new elven spirits form slowly but automatically in high-level source manifestations as a natural part of the flow of mebhaighl.

This is very interesting, I had been thinking more like a fixed number of spirits created all at once, only some fraction of which is embodied at any one time, but this is compelling, as it creates new spirits that no one knows in the same way as "the third embodiment of so-and-so who has lived among us in various forms for five millennium" who I imagine is pretty familiar to everyone else.

While I'm on this subject, I'll also mention the business of half-elves being elves among the Sidhelien. Ryan has described physical bodies as fashion statements (which is consistent with our notion of constructed bodies) so that elf to elf familiarity is really about interacting with the spirit. If those who prefer half-elves to be a biological mix of human and elf parent adopt the notion that elves are seeing the flow of mebhaighl, then elves and half elves look alike, although it still makes sense that they can sense the unimportant differences between boy and girl, more or less tall, blonde and brunette, and issues related to parentage. Similarly, these would be superficial characteristics, although perhaps not fashion, since those who hold biological notions would see some heritable traits in apperance.

[kgauck]

that means extinction for a race with a low birth-rate - everyone gets unlucky sometimes and battle is notoriously random, if you cannot recover from losses you are doomed.

This didn't stop the Spartans. The Spartan population was always falling from its Archaic age high of 9000 Spartan citizens. By the classical age it was c. 7000. When the Romans arrived it was about 300. All Greek cities had the problem that their concept of citizen could not allow strangers, so that cities did die out. While it would seem odd from a design standpoint (if we were to invent our own society from scratch) to build in this kind of problem, there are many societies that remain terribly exclusive (and so have a low birthrate of insiders) and are warlike.

[Sorontar]

The following is inspired by Babylon 5 and the Minbari-Human crossbreeding (as well as all of your fine ideas) ...

Perhaps the half-elf is just a consequence of the Land shifting from being the Place of the Elves to being the Place of Man, ala Middle Earth 4th Age. As the Land changes, so is the magic and all things related. We already know that Man's heavy influence can reduce the Source power of a province. What if it was to do similarly with the reincarnation of elves? While some elves may be "reborn" as elves, others may stay as part of the mebh. stream. However, increasingly some may merge with the children of humans, creating a strange "half-elf". The Elves know it contains the soul of an elf and treasure it so, but to humans it is just a strange child who doesn't necessarily look exactly like either of the parents. Once the half-elf dies, the elven soul is lost as it is no longer able to return to the land or the stream.

As for the children of a half-elf, well that depends on the parents. Whatever the half-elf mates with will define the type of its child, e.g. half-elf + human = human, half-elf + gnoll = gnoll. Before we worry about what a half-elf + elf will be, how about we work out how elves reproduce first (if they do at all). Elves may not have sex at all. If so, then there may never be a half-elf + elf mating.

Sorontar.

[ryancaveney]

The following is inspired by Babylon 5 and the Minbari-Human crossbreeding (as well as all of your fine ideas)

Delenn and Sinclair transforming via the Triluminary were part of the original inspiration for my idea of the Sidhelien magically turning humans into half-elves as part of a very long-term plot to co-opt the entire human species. I also draw some inspiration for the Sidhelien from the Vorlons and the Shadows; in particular, I think any Sidhe ambassador to a human realm is going to seem rather a lot like the purple suit who replaced Kosh (for my "outright slaughter" faction) or Morden (for Kenneth's "seduce mortals into voluntarily trading their humanity for personal magical power" faction).

As the Land changes, so is the magic and all things related. We already know that Man's heavy influence can reduce the Source power of a province. What if it was to do similarly with the reincarnation of elves? The Elves know it contains the soul of an elf and treasure it so, but to humans it is just a strange child who doesn't necessarily look exactly like either of the parents.

Ooooh, this is good. I'm not yet sure I'll use it, but I like the sound of it. It fits very nicely with an earlier post in this thread:

I like the idea that half-elves are simply elves afflicted with humanity. The death of half-elf is mourned like every other elf, and humans are blamed for the murder.

Your suggestion could definitely answer a question I've had about my own theory: how did the elves first discover how to make half-elves? If they were already a naturally-occurring phenomenon which could be slightly adapted, then much less Frankenstein experimentation would have been necessary. I was always leery of the sci-fi vat-grown clone-warrior overtones of my ideas about BR half-elves (though I still think Rhuandice Tuarlachiem is Zentraedi mecha ace Miriya Parino Sterling, apart from the marrying a human bit), and adopting your idea would fix that problem nicely.

As for the children of a half-elf, well that depends on the parents. Whatever the half-elf mates with will define the type of its child, e.g. half-elf + human = human, half-elf + gnoll = gnoll.

I prefer that whatever the half-elf mates with, the result is always a "pureblood" half-elf. That is a crucial step in the long-term Sidhelien plan to replace every other race with half-elves. They don't have to magically transform every human individually; they just have to transform a critical number, then wait a few dozen generations.

As a side note, I think the reason half-elves look like humans is that, really, they don't -- they look like elves, and so do humans (at least far more than dwarves, goblins, gnolls and orogs do).

Elves may not have sex at all. If so, then there may never be a half-elf + elf mating.

I think they have lots of sex -- they're described as being far too hedonistic not to -- I just think they don't reproduce using it.

[ryancaveney]

Grown from trees? Have you perhaps read the book "Speaker for the dead" by Orson Scott Card?

Yes, indeed. I suppose it may be part of why I think a Sidhe whose temporary humanoid body gets killed might spend a while as a treant before putting on a traditional D&D elf body again, though I hadn't consciously referred to it.

In terms of growing, though, I'm thinking of Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style giant seedpods, either covered in dirt and leaves near the roots of a big tree or floating in a lake on a long reed.