How does elven beauty/grace affects orcs/goblins in your vision?

[Jonjonjon4]

We know that elves and orcs/goblins are old time enemies. We also know that elves, both in dnd and in the original mythology, are described as graceful and beautiful. So how does this interaction work's?


This question appeared at my table. We got into a conclusion that yes, orcs and goblins males would still consider elven woman very attractive, probably even more attractive than females of their own kind. Orc woman probably would consider elven males too weak for their taste. Goblin woman may find elven male attractive.
Yet, we are still sure that the rivalry between this races are scream louder than the attraction.


So, how do you or your group interpret this interaction?

[Inevitability]

There's human/orc hybrids. There's human/elf hybrids. There's no orc/elf hybrids. I feel like that already says something about their relative attitudes.

More seriously: there's probably some objective aspects of beauty (facial symmetry for one), but social standards and individual preference matter a ton too, and that's before getting into the way in which certain traits aren't attractive per se but considered attractive for what they signal (like how some people are not into anyone who's had plastic surgery, because they consider that a sign of vanity and they find vanity unattractive).

Orcs and elves have such different societies with such different lifestyles that I'd be surprised if their ideas of beauty match, because the forces that give rise to ideas of beauty just don't match. Humans and elves are much closer together, in that regard.


All of this assumes we're talking about the D&D world as a supernatural-but-mechanistic place; it kind of neglects the sort of narrative logic that underlies D&D games and especially D&D lore.

[Prezes]

In one old game you could meet elf/orc hybrids which live in ghettos (They was named Hoberkians of something like that)

[Crake]

Think its worth noting that there are wood elf variants that get +str at the expense of -int, so “orc women would find male elves too weak” seems like a bit if a misnomer.

Remember that a tolkein elf was quite literally an orc’s equal, because orcs are just twisted elves

[AMFV]

I'm sure that different species have different beauty standards. It's notable that Elves do not get a bonus to Charisma, which doesn't track to beauty, but it does track to elements that people are going to find attractive (personality, ability to carry a conversation and the ability to present yourself in a way that is going to be attractive). I think that Goblins and Orcs could probably recognize that Elves are what might be "classically" beautiful without necessarily being attracted to them. And possibly even deliberately rejecting that depending on what kind of Orcs and Goblins they were. There are plenty of people who would rather date the metal/goth chick over the cheerleader. Even if the cheerleader might be considered more "conventionally attractive". And that's without enormous societal pressure.

If we're talking FR we have some idea of what Orcs look for in a mate, which is kind of consistent with a lot of medieval societies and some modern ones. Wide hips, signs that were considered to mean that somebody would be good at bearing children. That's stated in at least a few places. And notably is likely to be something that Elves lack.

Goblins I would suspect would likely be into quirky and cunning mates. But it probably depends.

Basically you can't answer the question without a deep dive into the culture of those races and they tend to be pretty varied in their depictions.

It's also worth noting that "Elven Beauty" doesn't actually have a mechanical effect, it's not like Nymphs who are supernaturally attractive. So it's possible that somebody just wouldn't be into Elves, possibly even other Elves (there are a bunch of Half-Elves around). In fact that's actually a notable thing, many Elves are certainly attractive to other species, but in order for those Half-Elves to come around, many Elves have to sleeping with non-Elves when presumably they could sleep with Elves.

[ShurikVch]

There's no orc/elf hybrids..

Tel-Amhothlan (Friend & Foe: The Elves and Bugbears of Tellene)

[Berenger]

In one old game you could meet elf/orc hybrids which live in ghettos (They was named Hoberkians of something like that)

That would be the Holberkians from The Dark Eye, whose ancestors were chimeras created by a mage, presumably without consent from the involved orcs and elves.

[Prezes]

Not sure. I mean some sort of hybrids in one old computer game based on D&D

[MonochromeTiger]

It's all perspective. "graceful and beautiful" are labels you can easily have disagreement on between individual people, more so between different cultures with different common standards for beauty and what something moving gracefully actually looks like. The safe assumption is that if you have a setting with multiple races instead of just Humans then most of them are going to derive their idea of beauty and grace from themselves and likely see something a bit off or different about the rest.

Just because Elves are usually portrayed as close to ideal for a specific group of Humans doesn't mean an Orc or Goblin will turn around and decide "nope, our people are too ugly, gotta go find an Elf girlfriend/boyfriend/significant other." The idea of universally agreed on attractiveness in a fantasy setting is in itself laughable and the only exceptions I can think of that make sense are cases where some passive magical effect encourages it, and that goes into Succubus or Nymph territory where "magic says you're attracted even if you wouldn't be normally" can make things very creepy very fast.

[Tiktakkat]

For Orcs, all it does is enrage them. Orcs despise Elves so completely that anything that might otherwise attract Humans instead incites Orcs to violence. As it goes, Elves feel the same way about Orcs, though in this case, anything that a Human finds merely disgusting provokes a violent repugnance. Even those Elves and Orcs that have sufficient willpower to not immediately react with violence can still not get past the innate revulsion to even begin to contemplate sex, and the suggestion of such to them is more than enough to push them over the edge. This operates on a fundamental biological level and cannot be overcome by cultural conditioning.

For Goblinoids, their cultural standards reject any thought of such actions. Instead, it provokes their need to test "worthiness", which means proving strength by ordeal. The best result of that is an Elf subjected to such qualifies as a sacrifice. Hypothetically, a Goblinoid raised by humans could contemplate it, but would feel nothing. Elven beauty simply does not register on them, no matter their cultural training. It would instead baffle them, as they would feel none of the attraction their Human caretakers tell them they should feel when seeing an Elf. It is vaguely possible they could develop a desire anyway, but then they would come up against the default Elven attitude that Goblinoids are fancy talking animals who somehow have a bipedal form, something that offends them. (This does not apply to the fae. Elven psychology is weird like that.) While Elves do not react to Goblinoids with the same kind of ingrained, biological, violent response they have to Orcs, that they know Goblinoids will invariably torture them to death makes most Elves inclined to kill first and consider other options after they have cleaned their weapons. The sole exception to this are the Drow, who enjoy tormenting the Goblinoids they have serving them, though only the most decadent and deranged of them would possibly consider anything involving an attraction, and then almost certainly because the Drow in question knows it would disgust a typical Goblinoid.