At 09:02 PM 6/30/98 -0700, Gary V. Foss wrote:
>One last note on the decline of elves. The most important, telling,
significant,
>ultimate proof that elves are in decline. Ready? Here it is:
>
>They're written that way.
>
>Elves are almost ALWAYS in decline. Aside from being long lived, blondish,
skinny and
>musical, they're inevitably also on the way out. It's Tolkien, baby,
there's just no
>fightin' it. If you have a world with elves that are slowly dominating the
planet,
>then there is something inherently wrong with it. It's unnatural. What's
next? A
>breed of six foot halflings? (Not stouts, not tallfellows... we'll call them
>ganglies.) Innocent orcs? Dwarven teetotalers? Maybe we should just have
tapioca
>breathing dragons or make the Gorgon a surrogate mother?
>
Yeah, I know, it's Tolkien, he's to blame. I liked his books, but every so
often, I despaired of the stupid decisions that were made. Just once, I'd
like to see a RPG world where humans aren't the future of the world. For
all I care it could be the orcs who are going to take it all. However, this
business of the humans must always win in the end in TSR's worlds is really
kind of annoying after a while.

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada