So You Want To Play An Elf (3.5, Fluff)

[Yitzi]

Gods are still in progress. In the meantime, if there's anything on elves specifically that you think should be added in or would like to see, let me know.

I really would like to see how this affects half-elves.

[Fable Wright]

Gods are still in progress. In the meantime, if there's anything on elves specifically that you think should be added in or would like to see, let me know.

I know I'd like to see how Drow are affected by this, though I'm somewhat afraid that if they get mentioned as a footnote in this thread, it wouldn't do them justice as a race...

[afroakuma]

I know I'd like to see how Drow are affected by this, though I'm somewhat afraid that if they get mentioned as a footnote in this thread, it wouldn't do them justice as a race...

Drow aren't elves. They're drow. They're going to appear in a different article series of similar thoroughness. "Drow aren't elves" will be a major theme.

Half-elves are half-elf; they'll get their own (considerably shorter) article.

[willpell]

Drow aren't elves. They're drow. They're going to appear in a different article series of similar thoroughness. "Drow aren't elves" will be a major theme.

Well this is the first thing you've said here that I 100% disagree with. Drow are exactly what all elves have the potential to turn into, IMO.

[Jane_Smith]

Well, I think drow should be considered elves still; but... if the loss of lolth's divinity in the past made normal elves lose there ambition and desire for conquest/etc and the "drow" retained it, does that also mean that the normal elven traits of appreciating art, beauty, dance, grace, etc from C.L. mean those aspects got removed from the Drow? Suddenly drow are now ungraceful, violent, thuggish, brutal, unrefined, and want to conquer the world.

[afroakuma]

Well this is the first thing you've said here that I 100% disagree with. Drow are exactly what all elves have the potential to turn into, IMO.

...which means they're not what elves are now. Want to maybe show a bit of good faith and hold your hat for the drow article?

[LadyGareth]

Personally IMO drow are still elves, just a different kind. Kind of like mastiffs and wolves are both dogs, but their really are only a few base similarities before they diverge wildly.

To go along with this, I've always actually liked the drow better than I do elves. I like elves well enough, don't get me wrong, and I really think the 'long time' and 'short time' are really cool idea's, but I have always found drow to be more real then surface elves. Their culture might be horrible and wrong, but you can really get into it.

[Lord_Gareth]

Okay. So genetically, Drow are elves. No one's arguing about that; the two races share a common ancestry and are in some small ways similar. But consider, for a moment, that these days Drow don't even see in the same way as elves.

Leaving out Drow culture for just a moment, the Drow's native environment is a light-less tunnel world full of some of the most incredibly and arbitrarily deadly things in D&D. Their neighbors include colonies (not single encounters) of Beholders, Mind Flayers, Duergar, and slime people, all of which are malevolent and hostile and also highly mobile. Add on top of this a racial goddess who is insane even by the standards of gods of evil and a culture that encourages treachery, ambition, murder, greed, ruthlessness, betrayal, hate and wrath and you've got a recipe for a gigantic, species-wide forced short-time that never ends ever. Eventually, the capacity for long-time is lost entirely and even the memory of it fades out of Drow consciousness (good news: no more headaches. Bad news: still living in the Underdark). Add the Underdark's own soul-warping magical radiation (I'm not kidding) on top of that and the end result of such long-term exposure is an unbridgeable rift between Drow psychology and Elf psychology, to say nothing of the changes in their actual physical traits. Even good-aligned drow (like followers of Eilistraee) cannot escape the fact that Drow have physically, mentally, and even magically adapted for the most hideously lethal environment on any campaign setting. Even if the Drow threw off the yolk of their vastly evil "pantheon" and rose above the brutality that has come to define them, they wouldn't be like elves are again. Too much has changed for them to ever really be the same.

[willpell]

Their neighbors include colonies (not single encounters) of Beholders, Mind Flayers, Duergar, and slime people

You forgot aboleths, driders, troglodytes and kuo-toa. Also, who are the slime people? Something to do with Ghanadaur?

[Lord_Gareth]

You forgot aboleths, driders, troglodytes and kuo-toa. Also, who are the slime people? Something to do with Ghanadaur?

I don't remember their names, they're from the Forgotten Realms. They live in the Underdark and also have a presence in the dungeon-realm of Undermountain.

[God Imperror]

Ghaunadan (slime people) are detailed on monsters of faerun.

OP, cool approach to elves

[afroakuma]

Updates continue.

[Answerer]

I really like the concept of Melira Taralen. Do elves see in her, as I do, the possibility of finding a bit of purpose and destiny for themselves? She's not letting them stagnate the way Araushnee's fall would otherwise have them do.

[willpell]

Loving the elven deities so far. Several names I don't recognize, and a few with specific links to your long-time and short-time concepts; are any of them your own creations, or just from obscure sourcebooks which you've adapted?

One in particular I wanted to pick on was Megwandir. In my campaign world, I imported the Blood Elves of World of Warcraft as an alternate "evil elf" subrace to counterpoint the drow; they're radical extremists who absolutely refuse to admit that there's anything wrong with anything they do in the names of avenging themselves against their perceived tormentors. The writeup you've done for Meg here makes her sound like she would absolutely be their patron, though the alignment is a bit iffy since I tend to have the Blood Elves leaning a bit Lawful and a lot Evil compared to elves in general.

[afroakuma]

I really like the concept of Melira Taralen. Do elves see in her, as I do, the possibility of finding a bit of purpose and destiny for themselves? She's not letting them stagnate the way Araushnee's fall would otherwise have them do.

They do indeed, and I'm so pleased you recognized that. Melira's a muse to both composers and other artists (who are inspired by example). She's the reason that elves continue to create art as opposed to stagnating.

Loving the elven deities so far. Several names I don't recognize, and a few with specific links to your long-time and short-time concepts; are any of them your own creations, or just from obscure sourcebooks which you've adapted?

Many of them are extremely obscure. Kerythakar and Reloseer are my own creations, though they draw from existing D&D material. Megwandir exists in D&D canon already, although she's very obscure, and I developed a unique place for her.

[afroakuma]

Updated with Rellavar Danuvien, Tarsellis Meunniduin and Kerythakar Dragavae.

[willpell]

Many of them are extremely obscure. Kerythakar and Reloseer are my own creations, though they draw from existing D&D material.

I would be interested to know what you mean by that. Are you saying that gods such as Reloseer were implied by the fluff but not previously detailed? Or there was explicitly a cowardice/despair/whatever-exactly-it-was god for the elves but you gave it a name?

Megwandir exists in D&D canon already, although she's very obscure, and I developed a unique place for her.

[bigvoice]How obscure is she?[/bigvoice} In other words, where is she detailed?

EDIT: reads the update. Okay, so Kerywhatsis is basically Sauron (and rather cliche IMO, but that's not your fault I'd assume). But wait..."snow elves" are a real thing? I thought I made them up.

[afroakuma]

I would be interested to know what you mean by that. Are you saying that gods such as Reloseer were implied by the fluff but not previously detailed? Or there was explicitly a cowardice/despair/whatever-exactly-it-was god for the elves but you gave it a name?

Oh no. As the fluff implies, Reloseer is not his real name. The god in question did previously exist, but this particular role of his did not.

[bigvoice]How obscure is she?[/bigvoice} In other words, where is she detailed?

Detailed? Nowhere. Mentioned? Dragon magazine. #155 if I remember correctly.

EDIT: reads the update. Okay, so Kerywhatsis is basically Sauron (and rather cliche IMO, but that's not your fault I'd assume). But wait..."snow elves" are a real thing? I thought I made them up.

Oh he's not Sauron. Ohhh no.

[Lord_Gareth]

Aaaagh, I shoulda known where you were going with him after our discussions on Megwandir and Reloseer in the chat! I cannot believe I missed that >.<

I like the winter deities, by the by.

[afroakuma]

Aaaagh, I shoulda known where you were going with him after our discussions on Megwandir and Reloseer in the chat! I cannot believe I missed that >.<

I like the winter deities, by the by.

Ehehehehe.

[afroakuma]

Updated with Rillifane Rallathil, Tethrin Veraldé and Vandria Gilmadrith.

[afroakuma]

Updated with Hanali Celanil and Ye'cind.