Elves. How Do They Work?

[Xzeno]

Right so I finally decided to make a thread about this. I'm generally extremely hesitant to ask a question that strikes me as too much along the lines of "Let me tell you about my campaign setting", and this thread is in that category. However, I have a logistically focused concern about the way I'm depicting a culture in my campaign setting.

So first, I'll tell you the required details: there is a culture in this setting we will call "elves" because it is the modern state of the civilization from which elves originate. Not only elves live in it, and most elves in the world live in other civilizations/cultures for reasons that will become clear.

The basic concept is taking the notion of hippie elves and running with it. Far. Like many fantasy elves, they're not into hurting nature. The difference is, these elves won't do it at all. They cannot:
-Kill animals for food or other goods.
-Kill or harm plants for food or other products.

Okay, pretty normal stuff. But they can't do those things, like, at all. To put it in perspective, they can't farm. They can't till the ground (because that kills or harms plants and bugs) and they can't damage vegetables and root crops by harvesting them. A vegetarian diet just won't cut it. Their sole source of food is fruit (eating fruit is allowed because that doesn't harm the tree) and the only method of increasing food production is no kill cropping: sprinkling fruit seeds on the ground and hoping for the best.

They can eat meat and make animal products -- if they find a super fresh dead animal. But really, the likelihood of finding a dead animal in a usable state is slim to none, especially considering that they can't kill or evict bugs that may be feeding on it. Realistically, their only source of meat is dead humanoids, either from their own groups or from battles, and that's not a reliable source.

So basically, here's the question: How the heck do these elves ever do anything? They can eat and... that's about it. What do they wear? They can hardly make clothes. They obviously won't trade in support of industries they find ethically intolerable. Are they all nudists? Where do they live? What sort of dwellings can they hope to construct?

A lot of (read: all) of these issues can be solved with magic, obviously. Given the system (3.5 D&D), there's no reason they shouldn't just live in a flying fortress made of force and trip create food traps for their meals. But, darn it, that's no fun. Their ethical extremes lose all purpose if they can be so easily addressed. For that reason, I'd like to limit magical work-arounds to their problems. Magic is certainly present and can help, but if it negates the hardships induced by a particular ethic, that ethic might as well not be there, because that just isn't very compelling to me. A group of people trying to use magic to avoid harming the world would be cool, but it's not these elves. I'm not against them using magic, I just don't want it to detract from the social impact if their lifestyle choices.

Now, I do accept some magic handwaving. Elves need bows as far as I'm concerned, and I'm perfectly aware that sticks found off the ground is not adequate for a bowmaking industry. But if anyone has a better idea for that, thanks.

So help me out, Playground: How can we keep these guys from dying cold, naked and hungry while a) observing their cultural stipulations and b) avoiding unfun magical problem solving.

And also if you feel so moved, feel free to make general commentary on how such a group would most efficiently exist and the logical consequences of their culture. Thank you, as always, for your insightful commentary on games and gaming.

[snoopy13a]

They can get milk from cows or goats, and they can get wool from sheep. They could also keep bees for honey. I realize vegans won't eat animal products, but you didn't specify that these elves were vegans.

[Jeraa]

With the limitations you've imposed, any group of these elves would have to be very small. There simply isn't any way to support a decent number of elves this way without magic (or outside support, like other people supplying them food/goods).

Just how many elves need to be supported? If the group is small enough, theft of what they need could also be a possibility.

[Kitten Champion]

The key point is their philosophical rejection of harming nature in any way. So, what about the unnatural? Even if they're inedible, monsters are likely to be numerous and large with hides to tan and bones to fashion into weapons and tools. They'd be pretty badass looking Elves too.

As for fruit, well, you could mix magic with horticulture to produce far more prolific supplies in a great deal more variety than we'd have here.

Silk is also a possible luxury they could pursue, for those who aren't keen on monster hides.

[Saidoro]

They don't... Not with the restrictions you've set.
Although, I suppose if you're willing to to subvert things a bit you could cobble something together. Make them a highly aggressive race in a state of constant warfare with absolutely everything else: they kill their enemies, eat their flesh and make clothes and weapons from their skin and bones. Give them strange and terrible magics, inescapable torture-houses where other sentients are bred and slaughtered as chattel and a warrior culture where a person's worth is valued only by how effective they are at removing "despoilers" from the world. And most importantly, give them an absolute and unshakable belief that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Basically replace hippy with militant hippy/ecowarrior/psychopath.

EDIT: Kitten Champion's suggestion is also good if you'd rather a path which wouldn't end in every other nation uniting to destroy them, a race which spends their time hunting down gibbering mouthers and making them into hats would fit your criteria.

[Eldan]

The key point is their philosophical rejection of harming nature in any way. So, what about the unnatural? Even if they're inedible, monsters are likely to be numerous and large with hides to tan and bones to fashion into weapons and tools. They'd be pretty badass looking Elves too.

As for fruit, well, you could mix magic with horticulture to produce far more prolific supplies in a great deal more variety than we'd have here.

Silk is also a possible luxury they could pursue, for those who aren't keen on monster hides.

So they would mainly eat undead and aberrations...
Maybe get them some regenerating monstrosity, that they could cut into leather and meat?

[The LOBster]

@Kitten Champion: Monsters, while not natural by our standards, could be considered natural by those who live in a magical world. If you're solely talking about Aberrations, then I think that eating or even wearing something like that would have very... Disturbing side effects. Eating Outsiders could possibly lead to being possessed by the demon or devil you just ate or turned into a nice leather jacket. That just leaves the decidedly unnatural constructs, and I'm pretty sure that Warforged are only tasty to Rust Monsters.

Also, silk is produced from boiling silkworms alive in their coccoons, so... I don't think they'd be making silk.

[Sodalite]

A quick note, the flower of a tree is, technically speaking, an individual organism. An organism engineered by the tree solely to produce gametes and which in turn eventually may become fruit, but an independent organism none the less, though I suppose it's possible that these elves simply aren't aware of this.

That doesn't mention parasites, of course, which their bodies will attack automatically, unless they have a race wide case of immunodeficiency, which actually goes along with the idea that they might live in a naturally sterile, or at least almost sterile, environment, where their impact on nature can reduced to a minimum.

Also, on the current matter of what types of creature they might eat, it's entirely possible that every one of these elves receives something akin to Tomb-Tainted Soul from the consumption of undead, which in turn implies they might migrate towards areas plagued by such. Also, cults of trolls who willingly sacrifice flesh to elves seems like a pretty unique possible quirk.

[Fiery Diamond]

Furthermore, with regards to milking (and possibly shearing), that's only not-harm for a certain value of not-harm. It depends on what they consider harm. There is a certain real-world organization that advocates not harming animals which I shall not name so as to avoid running afoul of board rules which ran a campaign a while ago trying to get people to drink beer instead of milk because "oh those poor cows." Granted, subsistence milking by hand is a lot less of an issue than modern commercial milking practices, but the point still stands about the ambiguity of "not harming."

[Eldan]

Also, cults of trolls who willingly sacrifice flesh to elves seems like a pretty unique possible quirk.

Hah. Now that's a new take on society. Every elven tribe has it's two or three food trolls. Highly revered, fiercely protected, and ritually butchered a few times a day.

[nedz]

They can eat cheese.
They can also bleed animals and consume the blood, possibly in the form of a sausage.

What about Fish ? I've known lots of vegetarians who eat fish (yes I know, but true none the less).

Elves can be viewed as spirit type creatures, perhaps they consume some sort of 'life energy' ?

Maybe they photosynthesise ?

[Riverdance]

What happens when an animal attacks them? A housecat may be able to kill a commoner, but at least the commoner would be able to fight back. In this scenario all the elf could do is run away. Or did you mean that they are only forbidden to kill animals for food.

They can eat cheese.
They can also bleed animals and consume the blood, possibly in the form of a sausage.

What about Fish ? I've known lots of vegetarians who eat fish (yes I know, but true none the less).

Elves can be viewed as spirit type creatures, perhaps they consume some sort of 'life energy' ?

Maybe they photosynthesise ?

Cheese is good, so long as you don't use rennet, and someone else mentioned honey, which can also be made into mead. Nuts should also be considered as a parallel to fruit. Blood drinking though? Hmm...
Although technically it was specified that they can't "kill" animals, the overall concept is stated as being that they don't like hurting them, and I think bleeding them out repeatedly for sustenance counts as hurting.

[Weirdlet]

You might want to look at real-world Jainism for an example of how people live while trying to abide by just those principals.

[Pokonic]

Go the extreme omivore route: Elves eat most things that would not go under the "inorganic" catagory. They suck out marrow and can munch on carron. A dead deer is a valuable source of meat even if a pack of wolves got it first. A dead bear's moldering fat? Chewy, but pliable. Lost human children? For the less moral, there fair game. Tree bark is like jerky, and live wood, while taboo, is like steak.


Before one says "how do they live on rotting matter and other nasty crap", I say Magic. To be exact, ties to nature. The only thing they do not eat are fellow tribe members, who are buried in the clans tree groves with a tree seedling planted on top of the earthen grave.

[toapat]

So they would mainly eat undead and aberrations...
Maybe get them some regenerating monstrosity, that they could cut into leather and meat?

hey!, there is one of those, its called the Tarrasque

but anyway: lets run the wtf off the chart:

No male elves.

[Sodalite]

I don't see how that's WTF. It just seems unrelated. How does there being no males solve any of their problems?

[Hiro Protagonest]

hey!, there is one of those, its called the Tarrasque

I am now imagining the hippy elves with their bone spears and leather hides, good friends with trolls and the Tarrasque.

but anyway: lets run the wtf off the chart:

No male elves.

Hey, in Exalted, Creation was formed by the bonding of two beings that both identify as female (then again, as Primordials, they pretty much are beyond gender).

[Amidus Drexel]

That doesn't mention parasites, of course, which their bodies will attack automatically, unless they have a race wide case of immunodeficiency, which actually goes along with the idea that they might live in a naturally sterile, or at least almost sterile, environment, where their impact on nature can reduced to a minimum.

Well, immunodeficiency would help explain their lower constitution.

[toapat]

I don't see how that's WTF. It just seems unrelated. How does there being no males solve any of their problems?

it doesnt, thats why

I am now imagining the hippy elves with their bone spears and leather hides, good friends with trolls and the Tarrasque.

yep

[Kitten Champion]

@Kitten Champion: Monsters, while not natural by our standards, could be considered natural by those who live in a magical world. If you're solely talking about Aberrations, then I think that eating or even wearing something like that would have very... Disturbing side effects. Eating Outsiders could possibly lead to being possessed by the demon or devil you just ate or turned into a nice leather jacket. That just leaves the decidedly unnatural constructs, and I'm pretty sure that Warforged are only tasty to Rust Monsters.

Also, silk is produced from boiling silkworms alive in their coccoons, so... I don't think they'd be making silk.

Magic silk then!

You could invent the taboos as you want, I can see a whole host of creatures not meeting their "natural" standards besides Eldrich Abominations. It would mean you could actually play an Elf in this setting, while keeping the zaniness. I think it would be fun, terrifying Elves clad in the skins, sinews, and bones of their most deadly enemies, delicately stepping aside for ants blocking their path and weeping at the sight of a fallen oaks.

They'd be somewhere between Dark Sun's Elves and Tolkien's too-good-for-this-sinful-world creations.

[J-H]

Look into Permaculture - specifically, look at the concept of a food forest. There are food forests that are hundreds of years old.

The elves can still keep domesticated animals, right? A chicken in captivity will have a longer, healthier, happier life than one in the wild, and it'd eat bugs either way.
Same applies for cattle. This allows them to have eggs and dairy products, and thus a reasonable supply of protein and some fats.

When their domesticated animals die of old age, they can still be processed - even if the meat is tough, it can be stewed until tender, and all of the bones can be used to make several batches of broth, which will be high in protein, calcium, etc. Refrigeration will be an issue, though

For the plants - It's actually bad for fruit trees, tomato plants, etc. to have too much produce on them. It impedes their ability to grow and be healthy and produce fully developed fruit... so if they really care about the plants, they will take care of them - including managing them via judicious pruning.


Option 2
Your elves have greenish skins and are photosynthetic.

[Saidoro]

Since we seem to have moved on to regenerating creatures this is relevant.

[Blightedmarsh]

What about fire?

They can't strip mine. Mining the old fasioned way causes problems with acid mine water. This rules out coal (and metal).

They can chop down trees and you try to find dead would that isnt covered in wooldices: you won't. This rules out wood.

They are left with magic, bone, dung (which may or may not be edible for a given value of edible), peat, oil and gas.

[Knaight]

Regarding food - the obvious case here is food that has fallen on the ground. They don't even need to pick fruits, there is the option to only use those that fall naturally, which gets fruits, nuts, and a few other things. If they have plains, this includes grain crops, as the grains do naturally fall off eventually, and can be scattered without burying them, followed by hoping for the best. Similarly, branches that fall during storms and similar could well be fair game. They won't be good for bows, but clubs and such are doable even without magic (they won't be very good clubs, but they will be clubs). As for fibers, consider wild sheep that broke off from a domestic herd. They would still have the wool of domestic sheep, and not the short wool of non-domesticated sheep; sheep will lose some of their wool every time they walk past a bush, and bush-removed wool could be collected for fibers. It's a slow process, which implies that clothing will be minimal, and cordage will be largely avoided - though, concerning arms, you can make a sling out of bush-wool.

Buildings are more difficult, but again, what is needed is there. Provided that the temperatures are consistently higher, which is basically needed for the sort of lush area for this to even be survivable, dwellings could be made of fallen sticks woven together with wool, with large leaves used atop them. Added to this, with a really low population growth dwellings are one of the things that makes sense to have magic applied, which means there could potentially be a few stone buildings mixed in with all the rest, with really old enclaves being largely stone.

Then there is the matter of captured goods - potentially, these elves could be attacked by those who see them as easy prey. If they very much aren't they could capture some goods that they would never make. What this would mean is that heirlooms would develop, of things vastly beyond their own. Metal cookware would be practically miraculous, there's fully made sets of clothing, there's various containers that the elves would have difficulties getting naturally, so on and so forth. As such, these should be distributed among the various enclaves, and taken care of extremely carefully. Repairing these objects is another task undertaken by the occasional mage, and if anything is enchanted, it's something captured. This also connects to the military - elite elven warriors use ancient bows and ancient swords, probably enchanted a long time ago, in styles no longer in use and bearing the artistic styles of ancient peoples. These warriors would form the basis for stories of great elven works, in their wondrous weaponry, their fancy, likely enchanted clothing (it can be enchanted if they only get it rarely) and armor, etc. Said stories juxtapose nicely against the reality for most, which is that of little clothing, primitive clubs, primitive spears, and slings.

That said - population density is going to need to be really, really low to pull this off. Still, this leaves elves that dwell in forests and plains that have slowly accumulated fruit trees, nut trees, and grain crops; using primitive clubs, primitive spears, and slings from gathered wood and gathered wool. Occasionally they will have something technological, in which metallurgy or ceramics or similar was needed for its creation, and much of this stuff would be very old and very well preserved, as well as magical. It sounds evocative to me, and certainly manages the coolness factor well enough.

[Serpentine]

Some thoughts (many of which have already been suggested):

- Fruit. Keep in mind that this includes a lot of stuff we call vegetables, like chilis (possible non-harmful defence?), pumpkins, and so on.

- Standard domesticated animals. There isn't anything in the OP to suggest that they can't have any domesticated animals at all, just that they can't kill or hurt them. This means, as mentioned several times, that wool, milk and eggs can be available. It also means that they can have fresh meat every now and then, as an animal dies of natural causes. Which brings me to:

- Meat. You touched on possible cannibalism, and I've just raised the possibility of eating naturally-dead domesticated animals. There have been some real-world cultures that incorporated cannibalism as part of their belief and social structure. It might be interesting to have something similar for these elves: the consumption of the beloved dead is a major part of their burial rituals. Watch out for Kuru, though.

- Non-standard domesticated animals. As mentioned, traditional silk is out. But what about all those monstrous spiders out there? Some of them are even intelligent. What if these elves are skilled spider-silk weavers?

- Plant manipulation. Maybe these elves have bred one or more trees to supply them with what they need without harming the tree itself - perhaps a tree that, with some physical manipulation (e.g. tying the branches a certain way), grows branches in a bow shape, and then naturally - and harmlessly - drops them; eucalyptus trees, for one, naturally drop their branches on a regular basis. Then maybe they can carve the now-dead wood.

- Natural paper. Have a look at paperbark trees. It naturally sheds its thin, paperlike bark (thus the name), which is then useful for writing, building, and maybe even wearing. Which makes me think of...

- Animals that shed their skin/fur/feathers. Maybe they keep around a lot of reptiles and birds, or have a deal going with a dragon or two, or sneak into the lairs of giant lizards. However they do it, shed materials could be useful.

- Metal and stoneworking. If they can't work with large amounts of good quality wood and leather, maybe they become skilled at working inorganic materials. I don't believe it would necessarily be harmful to acquire metal and certain rock, but if that's a concern then gold and gems are still an option: you can pan for gold in streams, and amber is easily found on certain beaches; that's just what I know off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's similar harm-free ways of getting other valuable materials.

You might like to have a look at certain real-world religions that demand complete non-harm, see how they deal with it.

[nedz]

Blood drinking though? Hmm...
Although technically it was specified that they can't "kill" animals, the overall concept is stated as being that they don't like hurting them, and I think bleeding them out repeatedly for sustenance counts as hurting.

Its possible to bleed an animal without causing pain, and as long as you don't take too much the animal will recover without any ill effect.
This is actually done by some pastoralist societies IRL.

[Yora]

But as a means of last resort, if I am not mistaken. When your camels can go for two more days without water but you won't make it to the next oasis without water, this is one emergency measure to keep everyone alive.

The idea of not harming plants for food is a weird one. How does one harm a plant?
And more important, why is it okay to allow animals to eat grass and leaves, but why isn't it okay for people?

With eating meat one could say with justification that some animals can't survive without meat and they don't have the intelligence to realize they have a choice to kill or not kill others, while people have means to be fed without killing animals for meat. But that alternative is plants! There is no alternative to plants. And even the most extreme vegan ascetics live with the fact that making food from plants always causes the death of bugs and bacteria.

[nedz]

But as a means of last resort, if I am not mistaken. When your camels can go for two more days without water but you won't make it to the next oasis without water, this is one emergency measure to keep everyone alive.

I was thinking more of the Sahal where there are pastoralists who do this to their goats etc.

And even the most extreme vegan ascetics live with the fact that making food from plants always causes the death of bugs and bacteria.

Ignorance is bliss I suspect.

[Yora]

No, there are some hardcore groups who always wear a net before their mouth and permanently sweep the floor before them when they walk to minimize any accidental harm to tiny creatures. They surely know that farming harms beings, yet they still continue living so they must eat something.

[Xzeno]

Wow. Thanks guys. I really appreciate the diversity of the responses. Having some time to think about stuff, I'd like to address a few things, based largely on my vague inclinations and thoughts.

-One major issue that's been brought up is the domestication of animals. My first inclination would be to keep this to a minimum. After all, they are forbidden from performing harmful procedures. Don't you think sheering wool is harmful, particularly given that, thus far, the elves can't reliably generate heat sources? Furthermore, the elves can't impose restrictions on an animal's freedom.

That's not to say that one has to fence in an animal to make it domestic. Storing food at all would probably have them acquiring at least some cats. Free range chickens would remain present if they had a reliable food source.

So having thought about it, I think a small number of domestic animals is appropriate, so long as they aren't harmed or restricted. As for milking animals, I don't feel like I'm familiar enough with the milking of domesticated animals or the evolution thereof to make a call.

My concerns are twofold: 1, is milking painful or harmful in any way? Based on what I know, the answer is probably not. My second concern is that they might not have access to animals sufficiently domestic to produce milk for a population of humanoids as well as themselves? The concern is that, if the process of extracting dairy products ever harmed the animals that would eventually become domestic, the elves could have never instigated domestication. Of course, they could certainly steal (I mean, rescue) dairy cows from more normal civilizations.

Which brings us to our next topic: war and theft. First of all, let me say that everyone who suggested populations of warlike murder elves is awesome. I can't deny that that is a logical conclusion.

Having considered it, sure, they should be accepting of war. And yes, theft is possibly even good, granted that it harms the industry they view as unethical. However, I'm not sure they should go to war solely for the purpose of personal gain. If they won't hurt plants to eat, why would they hurt people?

If they're already at war though, and they have bodies and corpses... well, what are they gonna do? Just leave 'em?

-Regenerating creatures and unnatural monsters: for the regenerating creatures, models that stressed the cooperative interaction of these groups are probably fine. Obviously, they can't hurt an unwilling regenerating creature. Perhaps I'll use some relationships with local trolls. That'd be pretty neat. Or a tendriculos, for plant matter. As for the Tarrasque, the issue there is that I might want to use it elsewhere in the setting, so I'd prefer not to tie it down, so to speak.

As for unnatural monsters, I'm gonna say hurting them for the purpose of food or industry is disallowed. MAYBE it could be okay to kill off unintelligent undead, based on the assumption that they aren't really alive and can't really feel pain. Maybe.

As far as specific responses go, I'm fond of Knaight's model of acquiring goods from other cultures. It does follow that these goods would be well taken care of, as well as the most obvious candidates for enchantment. Perhaps this could work well with Serpentine's suggestions regarding metal and stonecrafting. While I'd originally written off stone and metal as too hard to get, clay seems reasonably usable, and some stone is easy. I particularly like panning for gold, just because I like the idea of gold being the most abundant (albeit still rare) metal for these people.

Lastly, Yora has raised a concern: can they really avoid harming stuff? Even the all fruit diet hurts bugs and bacteria. That's true. They can't prevent it. They just do their best. I'll think about the cultural implications of that. As for different ethical standards for the actions of people and animals, I think that's a pretty normal cultural phenomenon.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Given the low, widespread population, I'm sure I'll be able to make use of most of these ideas in some form or another.