Ecology of Souls

[Enso]

Hey y’all! Here’s an idea:

Regarding science fiction, the issue of “rubber-forehead aliens” is often raised. Why do all the aliens look pretty much like humans, save for minor aesthetic differences, like glow-in-the-dark skin or extra arms or mouths or eyes? And it’s been answered in plenty of different ways: maybe the various alien species were seeded by ancestral architects long ago, in the vein of themselves; maybe humanity was in fact the architect, hence the similarity to the human form; maybe the general humanoid figure is favored evolutionarily, so it naturally arises that way across the cosmos; etc.

Yesterday my wife and I were talking about this, and she raised a question I hadn’t really considered before: what about elves and dwarves and orcs and hobbits? The classical fantasy races are for the most part very “rubber forehead”-y themselves, and even the more exotic creatures—centaurs and minotaurs, mind flayers and djinn—are still mostly humanoid hybrids or distortions. Why is that? Of course, there are plenty of rationales for us to consider here as well: if the races are the creations of the gods, and the gods are angelic humanoids themselves, then that makes sense (this is the Tolkien approach, akin to the “ancient architects” of sci-fi lore). Or since the many races all occupy the same world, they could be divergent evolutionary chains of the same primordial ancestor (homo sapiens svirfneblins, and so on). The concept of magic makes all of this a lot easier to swallow—the boon of supernatural justification, poetry of the cosmos.

Raising an idea I’d stumbled across here on the forum, though, my wife and I came up with another schema, which I thought I’d present here for your consideration, and help fleshing out. Perhaps the various mainstream fantasy races are so biologically alike because they are in fact the same creatures, in different stages of life and development. Relying on my wife’s background in biology and my own study of religious lore, we came up with this:

DWARVES, ELVES, GNOMES, AND THE TREE OF LIFE

Dwarven society begins with the World Tree. This massive tree, larger than any in our world, towers enormously over the forest surrounding it, reaching high into the sky and digging its roots deeply into the Earth. These roots serve as the home of dwarven culture, where cities are carved from wood and caves are burrowed through soil. The dwarves are intimately connected to the World Tree, considering it the great grandparent of all. Their ancestors have occupied these underground cities since time immemorial, and their continued existence depends entirely on the World Tree.

This is due to the nature of dwarven reproduction. Rather than copulating with each other to produce offspring, dwarves must harvest seeds from the fruit of the World Tree far above, which they bury in the ground of special nursing chambers. For seven years a seed will sleep and develop, growing from a small mound into a formidable hill, and nurtured by special sunlight-soaking sap obtained from the World Tree. After this seven-year gestation period, a young dwarf will emerge from the hill—a bearded child, ready to enter into the workforce of dwarven society. Dwarves are born linguistically capable, owing to the efforts of dwarven storytellers, who read aloud fables and treatises on culture and etiquette to the developing mounds. Thus a dwarf is born, and becomes apprenticed to an older dwarf/adopted parent, to learn a particular trade and take its place in society.

Dwarven biology is peculiar: born from seeds harvested from the heavens above, dwarves naturally possess a penchant for life down below, in the hollows of roots and soil. Darkvision, acute senses of directionality and navigation, immunity to most natural poisons—these all serve the dwarven lifestyle, and a natural resistance to magic also guards them from side effects of prolonged exposure to the natural magical resonance of the World Tree. Though they do not reproduce through copulation, dwarves do possess distinct biological sexes, male and female, although due to the lack of biological incentive, romance just as often occurs between members of the same sex as it does those of opposite sexes. These models of partnership are the cornerstone of dwarven society, and though they may involve exchanges of physical pleasure, the more important functions of partnership are those of mental companionship and social support. Bonded dwarves will cohabitate, support each other’s endeavors, raise apprentices together—the standard fares of a married couple. Marriage itself is not a ritual within the culture, and though these bonds are typically monogamous, they are not eternal; sometimes companions will drift apart and find new lovers, though others will stay together for their entire lifecycles, hundreds of years. Nothing is ever ceremonially institutionalized, though, so that those who stay together do so from the basis of continual choice. They have chosen each other, and will continue to choose each other as long as it is good. That’s the dwarven way.

(Also, all dwarves have beards, including women and children. Of course.)

Rather than ritually binding themselves to each other, all dwarves are married to their culture: society is the most important property of dwarven life, and dwarves do everything they can to maintain the integrity and functionality of their society. Individuals carry on the trade they learn from childhood, and are expected to maintain this trade throughout their lives, eventually taking on apprentices as adopted children of their own. While social hierarchy is based on age—the older you are, the more respect your thoughts and opinions are worth—profession is essentially caste-based. Whatever craft you’re assigned just after birth, that’s what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life. Though the various professions aren’t hierarchical, some jobs are held in higher prestige by the community at large. Architecture and metalworking are especially revered, the former for its necessity in maintaining their biological living space, and the latter because of the alchemical expertise needed in manipulating the rare and mysterious metals drawn from cave networks reaching deep into the Earth. Alchemy is considered the pinnacle of dwarven cultural knowledge, and metalcraft is the application of these principles. Perhaps the strangest and most taboo of dwarven jobs, though, is that of the seed harvester. These are the dwarves who leave their homes in the hollows to climb the branches of the World Tree, scaling the heavens to harvest seeds from the fruit above, to be brought back down and planted in dwarven nurseries. While such dwarves are respected for their daring—they must face great heights and open sky in their season-long travels, as well as the myriad of strange Fey and other creatures that occupy the World Tree’s upper levels, in order to retrieve the most crucial element of dwarven cultural survival, the seeds of unborn dwarven souls—they are also seen as peculiar and eccentric, transgressing the comfortability of the underworld so wildly. Harvesters are thus somewhat outcasts, frequenting taverns during the off-seasons to drink away the horrors of the weird world above, although tales of their exploits are favorites amongst dwarven youths. Every child dreams of the upper echelons of the World Tree sometimes—but reveries are reveries, and dwarves really belong to the depths.

Dwarven society is agricultural: they farm a wide variety of mushrooms and maggots, to cook into dwarven delicacies, as well as responsibly mining the sap of the World Tree, which, in addition to being fed to the mounds of the nursing chamber, they also ferment into delicious dwarven honey ale, to be consumed with every meal. Hunters and herbalists also bring home meat, roots, and other supplements, but the majority of dwarven diet is this: mushrooms, maggots, and beer.

Though dwarven society is largely community based, there is a streak of individuality that runs through dwarven philosophy and biology alike, which dwarves refer to as “the calling.” At some point in their lives, typically within the first hundred years, dwarves gradually find themselves drawn to a particular ineffable goal, understood only by them; every calling is individual, and every calling is unique. In addition to performing the societal duties of their profession, dwarves will take up hobbies related to this calling: perhaps they begin whittling wooden figurines, or carving art into cavern walls. Perhaps they pick up an instrument and study music, or dive into particular ideologies or philosophies with frenzied passion. Perhaps they begin tending potted mushrooms like houseplants, or attempt to breed the perfect grub—whatever they are, these hobbies point toward some ineffable perfection that the dwarf is trying to achieve, an inborn life goal that only they can understand or ever reach. As they grow older and more sophisticated, the calling becomes better understood by the individual, but ever less understood by society. These callings often lead the dwarves on deeper and deeper sojourns into the depths of the world, following the hollows to ancient rivers and caverns flowing deep below. Elder dwarves will disappear for weeks or months on end, exploring the bottomless depths in pursuit of their esoteric drive. And then, eventually, a dwarf will be gone for several years, and it will be understood that that dwarf is never coming back. He or she has taken the final plunge into his or her calling, entered into the solidity of dwarven destiny: to pursue their calling to the end of all things, into death and beyond, and finally achieve that unspeakable dream. This is the end of life in dwarven society, and understood as lonely but peaceful departure. If a dwarf lives long enough, this is where he or she goes: away.

But where? This is where the dwarven story ends, and the transformation begins. For the dwarves that disappear into the depths of the Earth do not die. Rather, they follow these deep dark caverns as far as they will go, trusting the intuitive senses they’ve been developing since birth. Eventually, the lone dwarf reaches great crystal caverns, leading to the peaks of enormous mountains far from the native World Tree. Here, the dwarf builds itself a cocoon crafted from the overgrown hair of its own body, which has become silver and ethereal. Wrapping itself in this material, the dwarf becomes one of the crystals, a beautiful mysterious chrysalis, within which it will develop into the next stage of its life.

* * * * *

This is where elves come from. Dwarves are, in fact, the larvae stage of elven development (though they do not know this), and all their life has been spent preparing them for this transformation. Following a hibernation period lasting many years (which can be as short as 49 years, and as long as millennia, depending on the individual), the being will emerge from the cocoon, a dwarf no more. The stout and powerful body of the dwarf has become long and lanky, and the only hair that remains is that on the upper head, no longer matted into dreadlocks but now long and flowing, the graceful mane of an elven adult. Elves do not remember the entirety of their past lives, which seem to them a dream. However, they remember their calling, which has developed even more esoterically during their metamorphic slumber. Thus begins the long mating ritual of the elf, it’s sole purpose in life.

Elves live thousands of years, traveling the world and gathering knowledge, always in search of their perfect mate. Lonesome and rare, elves do not gather into societies, but rather wander endlessly, passing through wildernesses and civilizations, and pursuing the same mysterious art that called them from the hollows long ago. They thus create great works in the world: pyramids and colossi, magical relics and revolutionary religions. These are the mating calls of elves, meant to catch the eye of another wandering soul. A romance between elves will thus last centuries, as they marvel upon the works of another individual that they find time and again, coming to understand much about their prospective mate before they ever meet face-to-face. These romances are psychical and magical affairs, bringing such beauty into the world, though not always beauty as we would understand it: perhaps the elven work of art is to create an empire of slaves to be sacrificed en masse for their love, or to open a rift in the world that destroys villages and ecosystems, but creates the most magnificent canyon on the planet. Not all elven works are this destructive, but some are, and thus elves are mistrusted by most, especially dwarves, who see the elven solitariness and wanderlust as anathema to their collectivist society.

In addition to these practices, elves also practice making love, though never with other elves. This accounts for the preponderance of half-elves across all cultures. Elves are otherworldly Casanovas.

Eventually, two elves will find each other and join their journeys, eventually locating the sacred site of their mating grounds. Here, the elves will exchange vows and fluids, bonding physically in the process. The elves will die like this, at the apex of their union, and from their crystallized bodies will sprout a sapling. Over hundreds of thousands of years, this sapling will develop into a World Tree. Because elf pairings are so rare, there are only a few hundred World Trees on the planet at any given time. Beneath the World Tree will develop a dwarven society, and the whole process will start over again. This is the grand lifecycle of elven-dwarven biology.

* * * * *

But not all dwarves become elves, and not all elves becomes World Trees. Dwarves who die before disappearing into their calling are buried in special entombment caverns, where their decomposition may feed the World Tree, with the belief that their souls will be reincarnated into the seeds above. Also, many dwarves become lost in the caverns, growing blind and weary as they dig ever deeper into the Earth. They may eventually dig themselves into the Earth, suicidally reconstructing the hilly mounds from which they were born. It is somewhat rare that a dwarf actually makes it to a crystal mountain, to enter into chrysalis with others like itself.

Elven development, also, can be stunted. In addition to the possibility of dying for their arts, or being hunted or killed by other beings in the world (including other elves), some elves develop an attachment to the material plane, such that they abandon the calling of biology for the promise of immortality. Pursuing alchemy and magical science, these elves disrupt their own natural processes, eventually growing small and shriveled from such efforts. This is where gnomes come from. Gnomes are, in a sense, failed World Trees, though the failure was chosen. They develop evermore complex alchemical and magical rituals to keep themselves alive, pursuing immortality and their own individual agendas. Gnomes thus become the key players behind many of the world’s societies and civilizations, conspiratorial puppet masters of world events. They are despised by elves as ancient abominations, and feared by dwarves, who think of them as demonic boogeymen, while gnomes think of elves and dwarves alike as underdeveloped, ignorant fools. This is how these three fantasy races can all emerge from the same lifecycle and yet hold such antipathy toward each other.

* * * * *

So those were our ideas for linking these three races together, combining metamorphic biology (dwarven caterpillars, elven butterflies) with Nordic mythology (world trees and underground societies). But I think there’s a lot more work to do here, mostly regarding all of the other races in the world: how do all of these creatures fit together into an interesting and cohesive ecology? Here were some other ideas we kicked around, though didn’t develop as much:

HALFLINGS & HUMANS: Perhaps these are the descendants of alchemical experiments conducted by dwarves, elves, and gnomes. Halflings could’ve originally been developed as homunculi, little replicas of their humanoid masters, which eventually got free and formed their own societies, gradually evolving into modern halflings and humanity. Likewise, the various hybrid races—centaurs, minotaurs, merfolk, etc.—could be the evolutions of alchemical hybridization. This is an adaptation of the “ancient architects” idea addressed above, with the alchemical dwarves, elves, and gnomes taking the place of the architects.

DUERGAR & DROW: Rather than being a separate race of related beings, we imagined the duergar as dwarves in exile, having been cast out of their most sacred cultural touchstone: society. These would be dwarves who committed a great taboo, such as crime against fellow dwarves, or who rejected their professional caste, and thus had no place in that world. Because they have not finished in their emotional development, though, most duergar cannot pursue their calling in the same way, such that they are never led to the crystal caverns to develop into elves. As such, many duergar die alone and unloved, or worse yet, descend into twisted imitations of their chrysalis process, relying on deep dark psychic parasites of the underworld to instigate their transformations. Duergar thus emerge as drow, twisted dark elves, with black skin and silver eyes and hair, and often more monstrous deformities as well: arachnid legs or centipede lower halves, and other parasitical corruptions. These drow are the worst stuff of dwarven nightmares, which elder dwarves must face in their long journeys to the crystal caves.

GIANTS: These are the greatest enemies of dwarven culture, and the most feared of overland threats. Rare and monstrous, giants will occasionally emerge from mysterious natural phenomenon—crawling from volcanoes or the cracks in the ocean floor, stepping from hurricanes or glaciers, etc.—and make their way across the land, in search of the only food that can satisfy their massive hunger: World Trees. Part of dwarven society is thus dedicated to a strictly defensive military, developing soldiers and technology alike to meet these world-devouring threats, always preparing for the day such a terrible force of nature might arrive. In this model, we imagined the giants as less humanoid and more abomination, kind of Lovecraftian Nephilim fusion, and considered a few different origins: perhaps they are the natural predators of World Trees, hibernating for millions of years before emerging to consume their prey and keep the planet from being overrun by dwarves and elves. Perhaps they are extraterrestrial invaders, their embryonic spawn having crash landed on Earth millennia ago and developing deep in the crust until they emerge and begin their own lifecycles. Perhaps they are ancient alchemical experiments gone horribly wrong. Whatever they are, to dwarves and the other civilizations they pass through, they are walking apocalypses.

GOBLINS & ORCS: Similar to the dwarf-elf-gnome relationship, it seems like there’s a lot of fun to be had linking these creatures together into a coherent biological family. One idea we had was the idea of a fungus, which would infect dwarf societies and twist them into goblinoids, thus explaining their humanoid appearance. Another option would be the branching biologies, such that goblins were the distant cousins of dwarves and elves. There’s a lot of fun to be had with the variety here, as well: maybe goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears are all different biological castes, like how some insect hives operate—goblins as scouts and laborers, hobgoblins as warriors, bugbears as massive shock troops or nursery guardians. Orcs, then, might be individual leaders, all answering to a might ogre ruler, until an orc develops enough to overthrow the ogre and take control of the nest itself. Or maybe orcs are the husbands of the sole female ogre, who births all goblinoids and acts as hive matriarch… Basically I think there’s a lot of possibility here. What about trolls, gnolls, nilbogs, norkers, half-orcs, worgs…?

FEY: We imagined these as kind of mystical bugs, exotic and various, which lived symbiotically within the branches of the World Tree, similar to the bacteria in our guts, but didn’t get much farther than that. They could also be related to the ancestor elves’ souls, or perhaps further sub-species born from the World Tree itself. How about the eladrin, and other outsiders and their descendants—aasimar, genasi, tiefling? And what makes a svirfneblin any different than the other gnomes in this world… are they related to the duergar-drow progression?

DRAGONS: Again, I feel like there’s a lot of ideas to play with here: dragons and all the different dragonoids, down to kobold—how do these things fit together? I feel like dragons should be a major part of any D&D cosmology and ecology, since they’re right there in the name, but we haven’t really come up with anything yet. It’d be nice to tie them in closely with the central World Tree motif, or possibly the crystal mountains of elven chrysalis. The kobold rivalry with gnomes also sets up a nice potential for world conspiracy shenanigans… and what about the dragonborn? I feel like there’s a lot here, and we obviously haven’t even scratched the surface.

Then what about mind flayers and beholders, and the other creepy crawlies of the Underdark? Zombies and vampires and the undead? Werewolves and worgs…? There’s so many weird and interesting D&D species, and the idea of tying them all together into an intricate and meaningful ecology really intrigues me. So I’d love to hear feedback and further suggestions. Also I’d like to credit the forumite whose idea sparked this whole conversation, but I don’t remember the original post… it was regarding a post-Ragnarok world I believe, where the notion of dwarf as elf larvae was mentioned. So if any one remembers, I’d love to give that poster a shout out and invite them into this conversation, too!

* * * * *

tl;dnr version: dwarves are elf larvae; gnomes are ancient elves; they all come from the lifecycle of World Trees; and everything else is related, too. Somehow. That’s what we’re still figuring out: the rest of the fantasy biosphere.

[brian 333]

I have always wondered if our humanoid monster myths derived from our racial memory of a time when our ancestors shared the planet with other sapient hominids.

But even lacking stories passed down hundreds of generations, humanoids would still be our enemies because lions and bears have learned to fear us. Our only real enemy for the last 15 centuries has been creatures which look just like us.

[Balyano]

Reminds me a bit of an idea I posted a few years back.
I've dug it up for comparison.

Spoiler

Show

The dwarf like svartalfr grow up in the maze of caverns beneath the earth, learning trades and working for the family. Each warren is a single big family. They are boring, nose to the grind stone, rules obsessed, work work work, make things the same way over and over because thats the right way until someone can show a better way to do it, types.

Then when they grow big and old enough, their backs split open and a full grown alf crawls out of the dead husk. Like a cycada.

The grown alfr are whisical, creative, tend to be wanderers, travel the world types. They go out, mate, make cool stuff, use cool stuff to show off, use showing off to mate more. They are less about planning long term and more about short term solutions, since you probably wont be in this area next year.

Reproduction
When an alf has a baby instinct sends her back to the warren where she was raised. She leaves the baby at the mouth of the cave for the svartalfr to retreive. Of course they have to smell right, if they dont have the right scent the dark elves wont take them. If the mother can tell they smell wrong, or if she is too far from her warren she will instead steal a human baby and replace it with her own, hoping no one will know the difference. Since the adult alfr dont raise children, they have little real parental instinct, their life is focused on producing large numbers of children and sending them back to the warren. It's their child form, svartalfr, that have the instinctual desire or resources to raise children. The svartalfr lifestyle is focused on feeding large numbers of children. The svartalfr are raised like a big litter of dogs, all of them in a warren are related through their female line.

Changelings
When the ones that get switched at birth go undiscovered you might end up with instances of a svartalf changeling living in a community for twenty to thirty years. One day someone comes by to buy some of their wares, finds the body, split open, emptied out, think to themselves ''who ever did this is a sick twisted psychopath'' and look theres a new guy in town, and look whoes clothes hes got. So a couple of people are like ''yeah, no one liked the weirdo, but he made nice things and he was one of our own'' and the lynch mob forms.

Halfalfr
If an alf breeds with a human the half-alf gets a kind of intermediate life cycle. They are the ugly duckling, ugly, bland personality, keeps to themselves, terrible with people, then puberty hits in their late teens and suddenly their beautiful, outgoing, social butterflies.



As a svartalf things are very structured and dont exist to be changed much. You make something, use it till its no use, reuse the material to make something else. Once you make something you dont do much alteration beyond matainance, time is better spent being productive than artistic. Your pants rip, you patch them and move on.

As an alf appearance is key. If an alf isn't a wanderer and has a home, then expect every bit of exposed wood to end up intricately carved, every bush to be in the shape of some animal or something, every wall painted with intricate designs or scenes that are changed often.

The svartalfr need to raise a surplus of children. Productivity is key.

The alfr need to atract mates and show off their fitness and displays, like birds building nests, collecting pretty stuff, dancing, singing. They have no responsibilities except to themselves. Once the child is there, they are passed off to the family.



For a look into how an alf deals with needs.
Lets say you have a alf woman.
Winter is coming on, she buys a new dress.

Spring comes and that dress is too warm for the weather. So she cuts the sleaves off, trims the dress down to a knee length skirt, uses some of the left over fabric to decorate a wide brim hat to keep the sun off.

Then fall comes and winter is setting in, its getting cold. So she adds long wool stockings to cover her legs, adds wool coat, trims off half the brim on the hat, bends the remaining brim down, lines the inside with fur. Now her wardrobe is ready for winter.

Then spring comes, and this year she has arranged some work as a fisherman. Wet cloths are a problem. So she ditches the wool stockings and jacket, cuts the middrift from the dress, hems up the edges, cuts the skirt shorter and sows it shut, removes the fur from the hat, raises the brim again, turns it around so the brim is keeping the sun from her eyes, adds a stuffed bird and some glued on bird seed to the brim of the hat. Now she has shorts and a tank top, and a hat that keeps the sun out of her eyes, she is ready to work around the water.

Soon winter comes again, this time she buys some pants, a fur coat with a hood, and works with that next spring.

Alfr in this are not long veiw, they are short term thinkers, since they will be moving on soon. They are modify on the fly types. The svartalfr would have just packed their winter clothes away and waited to use them agian. The alfr on the other hand live and travel light. They get really good at making pretty stuff that they can sell when they dont need it anymore. They live in a constant state of change.

They are typically friendly and playful, good with people, after all it wouldnt work out for them if they had bad people skills since they travel so much. Of course they do make enemies. Humans see them as harlots and cuckolds, if they know about them, still not sure about how obviously differnt they are from humans.



A svartalfs beards is important because the length shows how old they are. Senior svartaelfr have higher authority, so beard length is a quick easy way for the svartaelfr to figure out whos in charge. An alf on the other hand has no need of this and they dont grow beards, so to them a beard is a sign of physical imaturity. Of course this means that svartalf girls do have beards and alf men do not. Do not cut a svartalfrs beard, it will impact their rank in the warren.

Svartalfr are greedy and their greed is due to being focused on securing resources for the warren. Svartalfr live in a communist type society but with less structured government and more gerontocracy. They are somewhat paranoid of outsiders, after all they have to protect the warren. The alfr are more anarchist, not that they go out of their way to oppose governments or anything, they just live outside of normal societal order, not suprising for semi-solitary semi-nomads.

In someways they are like some fey from myth. They sometimes steal babies, switching them with their own. As for what happens to the stolen baby...lets just hope they sold the kid to pay for a boat ticket and didnt just leave them in the woods, would depend on the alf. Like helpful brownies they make all kinds of cool stuff, or do menial labor, just for food. Like traditional faries they sometimes steal horses. Both habits make sense for a travelling alf.

[Consensus]

Reminds me a bit of an idea I posted a few years back.
I've dug it up for comparison.

Spoiler

Show

The dwarf like svartalfr grow up in the maze of caverns beneath the earth, learning trades and working for the family. Each warren is a single big family. They are boring, nose to the grind stone, rules obsessed, work work work, make things the same way over and over because thats the right way until someone can show a better way to do it, types.

Then when they grow big and old enough, their backs split open and a full grown alf crawls out of the dead husk. Like a cycada.

The grown alfr are whisical, creative, tend to be wanderers, travel the world types. They go out, mate, make cool stuff, use cool stuff to show off, use showing off to mate more. They are less about planning long term and more about short term solutions, since you probably wont be in this area next year.

Reproduction
When an alf has a baby instinct sends her back to the warren where she was raised. She leaves the baby at the mouth of the cave for the svartalfr to retreive. Of course they have to smell right, if they dont have the right scent the dark elves wont take them. If the mother can tell they smell wrong, or if she is too far from her warren she will instead steal a human baby and replace it with her own, hoping no one will know the difference. Since the adult alfr dont raise children, they have little real parental instinct, their life is focused on producing large numbers of children and sending them back to the warren. It's their child form, svartalfr, that have the instinctual desire or resources to raise children. The svartalfr lifestyle is focused on feeding large numbers of children. The svartalfr are raised like a big litter of dogs, all of them in a warren are related through their female line.

Changelings
When the ones that get switched at birth go undiscovered you might end up with instances of a svartalf changeling living in a community for twenty to thirty years. One day someone comes by to buy some of their wares, finds the body, split open, emptied out, think to themselves ''who ever did this is a sick twisted psychopath'' and look theres a new guy in town, and look whoes clothes hes got. So a couple of people are like ''yeah, no one liked the weirdo, but he made nice things and he was one of our own'' and the lynch mob forms.

Halfalfr
If an alf breeds with a human the half-alf gets a kind of intermediate life cycle. They are the ugly duckling, ugly, bland personality, keeps to themselves, terrible with people, then puberty hits in their late teens and suddenly their beautiful, outgoing, social butterflies.



As a svartalf things are very structured and dont exist to be changed much. You make something, use it till its no use, reuse the material to make something else. Once you make something you dont do much alteration beyond matainance, time is better spent being productive than artistic. Your pants rip, you patch them and move on.

As an alf appearance is key. If an alf isn't a wanderer and has a home, then expect every bit of exposed wood to end up intricately carved, every bush to be in the shape of some animal or something, every wall painted with intricate designs or scenes that are changed often.

The svartalfr need to raise a surplus of children. Productivity is key.

The alfr need to atract mates and show off their fitness and displays, like birds building nests, collecting pretty stuff, dancing, singing. They have no responsibilities except to themselves. Once the child is there, they are passed off to the family.



For a look into how an alf deals with needs.
Lets say you have a alf woman.
Winter is coming on, she buys a new dress.

Spring comes and that dress is too warm for the weather. So she cuts the sleaves off, trims the dress down to a knee length skirt, uses some of the left over fabric to decorate a wide brim hat to keep the sun off.

Then fall comes and winter is setting in, its getting cold. So she adds long wool stockings to cover her legs, adds wool coat, trims off half the brim on the hat, bends the remaining brim down, lines the inside with fur. Now her wardrobe is ready for winter.

Then spring comes, and this year she has arranged some work as a fisherman. Wet cloths are a problem. So she ditches the wool stockings and jacket, cuts the middrift from the dress, hems up the edges, cuts the skirt shorter and sows it shut, removes the fur from the hat, raises the brim again, turns it around so the brim is keeping the sun from her eyes, adds a stuffed bird and some glued on bird seed to the brim of the hat. Now she has shorts and a tank top, and a hat that keeps the sun out of her eyes, she is ready to work around the water.

Soon winter comes again, this time she buys some pants, a fur coat with a hood, and works with that next spring.

Alfr in this are not long veiw, they are short term thinkers, since they will be moving on soon. They are modify on the fly types. The svartalfr would have just packed their winter clothes away and waited to use them agian. The alfr on the other hand live and travel light. They get really good at making pretty stuff that they can sell when they dont need it anymore. They live in a constant state of change.

They are typically friendly and playful, good with people, after all it wouldnt work out for them if they had bad people skills since they travel so much. Of course they do make enemies. Humans see them as harlots and cuckolds, if they know about them, still not sure about how obviously differnt they are from humans.



A svartalfs beards is important because the length shows how old they are. Senior svartaelfr have higher authority, so beard length is a quick easy way for the svartaelfr to figure out whos in charge. An alf on the other hand has no need of this and they dont grow beards, so to them a beard is a sign of physical imaturity. Of course this means that svartalf girls do have beards and alf men do not. Do not cut a svartalfrs beard, it will impact their rank in the warren.

Svartalfr are greedy and their greed is due to being focused on securing resources for the warren. Svartalfr live in a communist type society but with less structured government and more gerontocracy. They are somewhat paranoid of outsiders, after all they have to protect the warren. The alfr are more anarchist, not that they go out of their way to oppose governments or anything, they just live outside of normal societal order, not suprising for semi-solitary semi-nomads.

In someways they are like some fey from myth. They sometimes steal babies, switching them with their own. As for what happens to the stolen baby...lets just hope they sold the kid to pay for a boat ticket and didnt just leave them in the woods, would depend on the alf. Like helpful brownies they make all kinds of cool stuff, or do menial labor, just for food. Like traditional faries they sometimes steal horses. Both habits make sense for a travelling alf.

Hm, I really like some of the ideas in here, I might add it to my setting as a more player-accessible type of fey

[Balyano]

Hm, I really like some of the ideas in here, I might add it to my setting as a more player-accessible type of fey

I hereby give my permission for you to do something you don't actually require any permission to do and I would have no effective way to prevent.....or would I?!