I have started my first EVER elf. I mean ever. Not in any setting, not the original game, not ever in PnP... EVER. Elves are squishy, soft, sexually confused pansies and that is all the nice things I have to say about them.....
That being said I want to try one. So I started one, read all I could find and it is obvious that I need to know more to be successful here. People use "elvish" terms that I should probably know so... any links, advice and general tips on RPing elves would be greatly appreciated.
To give some food for thought, discussion and otherwise, he is a moonelf of Shevarash.
Go.
Disclaimer: I may take the advice and I may not. I may play a great elf or the worst elf EFU:A has ever seen, but damn't if I aint gonna give it a try.
It might help to remember that the same actor who played Elrond also played Agent Smith. Toss all that pansy, flowery stuff out of your mind and go full-bore evil. Shevarash is a good place to start.
Quote from: Twelve;179284Elves are squishy, soft, sexually confused pansies and that is all the nice things I have to say about them.....
Sounds right to me...
Quote from: Lulzebub;179289Shevarash is a good place to start.
He seems the least "elvish" of the Seldarine. So it was a good handicap for a non-elf playing type.
I don't even know who Agent Smith is... I assume that is from a movie... alas, if it is not sports I rarely watch TV. I know, an oddity with geeks like us.
Quote from: Twelve;179296I don't even know who Agent Smith is...
This dude.
(http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6190/agentsmithy.jpg)
I have 4 little words that are oh so important to elf players. Map The Walk Button. I swear half the reason elves have a bad rep is the number of clueless players running like their arses are on fire because they can't turn on Detect Mode.
Quote from: Egon the Monkey;179300Map The Walk Button.
THIS.
I switched "S" to walk, and I use "X" for reverse. It makes things soooooo much easier.
I just use shift click to walk as an elf.
I've been considering playing up a very elfy elf, but my plate is full right now. Things to remember as an elf -
1. Your like, a hundred fucking years older then everyone else. And those weren't wierd faksie years, just because elves "mature" slower then humans. You should be a font of information humans have commonly forgotten.
2. Your culture is millenia old. Your better then humans. Fullstop. Your art is more refined, your history more rich, your study of EVERYTHING more complete. At worst, you can view humanity as filfthy monkies or like the people of the Zig view the tribals, at best as a younger race to guide and slightly patronize. Consider them all...heady teenagers.
3. Elves aren't Pansies, they've been fighting vicious wars against damn near everything in the multi-verse since time immemorial. There's a reason they get two martial weapons as a feat, no matter what class they play. Any elf should be ready for a fight, any time.
4. You have all the time in the world, petty human antics are typically beneath your notice. Your going to be kicking it old school when these peoples grand children are pooping in their adult diapers. Human politics are mostly irrelivant to you, only more perminant changes to the Island matter. Your own goals certainly take paramount over any human desires.
5. Your seperation from events doesn't mean you can't do good - It just means your more willing to wait for The Count or the Duke to die of old age. More deathless issues like the undead, demonic, or otherwise are important. Age old rivalries or foes such as the Drow, or protection of sacred groves and/or elven relics.
6. The Elven connection to nature doesn't necessarily mean you smoke pot and hug tree's, but your long lineage gives you insight into how important your actions are. Humans, IRL, are just now beginning to understand the impact they make on the environment, and Elven empires have existed for millions of years. The concepts of deforestation, erosion, and climate shift are all too familiar to them and they actually live long enough to see the results.
7. Your race is dieing. Even your ancient foes/friendly rivals the dwarves has had their thunder blessing, but the Elves are slowly dwindling due to war, low reproduction, and scattering. It is unknown if this can ever be reversed. Moreover, your ancient empires and cities, awesome in their splendor, are falling into shadow as well. This lends an impetus and desperation to your actions, and every elven life could be of dire importance. It is for this reason Elves are fain to fight or kill each other unless absolutly necessary- except for course for the drow.
8. Half Elves are a point of contention - some see them as a desecration, an insult on the level of halforcs. This isn't helped by the fact that certainly some Half-Elven children, if not most, were not the product of thoughtfully planned relationships. Rape, arduous flings, or doomed marriages mark the birth of most halfelves. Halfelves are viewed with revulsion or pity by Elves, or even a mixture of both. Half Drow confuse the point even more, and their Drow heritage certainly does nothing to endear them to you.
I reccomend D&D 3.5 - Races of the Wild for further reading. It gives in depth looks at elven instincts and cultural norms. I certainly wouldn't EVER suggest you aquire it anyway but legally *coughcoughtorrentcough* so i'm not sure how you could find it in a very convenient pack of other dungeons and dragons books readily availible for download *coughtorrentcoughcough*
Excellent read GoblinSapper.
Thank GS... good stuff.
Great post GoblinSapper.
Nothing beats bisexual Elves.
The Elves of Faerûn (//%22http://www.escapefromunderdark.com/forums/The%20Elves%20of%20Faer%C3%83%C2%BBn%20project%20is%20a%20fan-made%20compilation%20of%20elven%20lore%20in%20FR,%20written%20in%20a%20half-IC%20format.%20A%20lot%20of%20it%20is%20canon,%20but%20I%20must%20warn%20that%20some%20of%20it%20has%20player-added%20fluff.%20%20http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19848934/Elves_of_Faer%C3%BBn:_Directory%22) project is a fan-made compilation of elven lore in FR, written in a half-IC format. A lot of it is canon, but I must warn that some of it has player-added fluff. Be especially wary of the subrace section. Check out the Eaerlann article, I mostly wrote it, woo! (Though Karsus added some apparently non-canon stuff and erased source citations, hrmh.)
The all-time best book on FR elves is Cormanthyr: the Empire of Elves. You can download it for free at WotC website (//%22http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads%22), more specifically here (//%22http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2/fr_downloads/tsr1165.zip%22). For more history and detail, you can also get The Fall of Myth Drannor. (//%22http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2/fr_downloads/tsr9558.zip%22) The third good FR book on elves is Elves of Evermeet, and the novel Evermeet: Island of Elves. You can read the latter here (//%22http://www.scribd.com/doc/26600900/Evermeet-Island-of-Elves%22), but it's probably illegal. I'd also recommend another Elaine Cunningham novel, Elfshadow (as well as Silver Shadows for green elves). For recent events, there's the Last Mythal trilogy, but it's mostly garbage. The associated short story anthology, Realms of the Elves, is entertaining enough. For a novel depiction of Cormanthor, check out Ed Greenwood's Elminster in Myth Drannor.
Other useful game books include Races of Faerûn, the Complete Book of Elves (not FR-specific, so be wary; the same applies to Races of the Wild), and the regional books of wherever your elf is from.
GoblinSapper's post is a good place to start, too. I'd only slightly contest point 8, because there's no unified stance on half-elves and in some places they're treated equally. Especially among moon elves who live outside of purely elven settlements, I can imagine half-elves would be welcome company.
Point 7 is especially true lately, because Evermeet's king was recently assassinated, it was invaded by traitor sun elves, drow and stuff and elves lost their centers of High Magic in the process, Evereska was ravaged by Phaerimm and Evermeet's forces were taxed in that war as well, and very recently (if that's canon in EfU:A) the Deamonfey have slaughtered elves in the High Forest and campaigned against the already greatly weakened Evermeet. The elven situation has hardly ever been as dire as it is now, though there is also hope. The Retreat has come to a halt, and there's some enthusiasm for a Return to reclaim the elves' place in Faerûn or at least participate again to find a new place for the race. In my opinion, this is the big political and ideological question that seperates elves in their approach to the world and other races (mostly moon and sun elves; the wood elves never left their homes or isolated themselves in quite the same way).
Quote from: Coldburn;179387Nothing beats bisexual Elves.
You are in time-out. Go stand in the corner.
Quote from: GoblinSapper;1793072. Your culture is millenia old. Your better then humans. Fullstop. Your art is more refined, your history more rich, your study of EVERYTHING more complete. At worst, you can view humanity as filfthy monkies or like the people of the Zig view the tribals, at best as a younger race to guide and slightly patronize. Consider them all...heady teenagers.
Don't forget that in FR, humans are one of the five creator races (as in, oldest native races), whereas the Tel'Quessir only came about springing from Corellon's blood or something. So humans do predate elves.
Quote from: Porkolt;179434Don't forget that in FR, humans are one of the five creator races (as in, oldest native races), whereas the Tel'Quessir only came about springing from Corellon's blood or something. So humans do predate elves.
HUMAN PROPOGANDA!
All the better then, that means every Elf is of the blood divine, and humans are just misshapen monkies u_u. And even if Humans predate elves, Elven CULTURE is far older.
How can there be like a few thousand years of a race existing without a culture, exactly? I mean, Elven culture is probably -better-, yes, because someone who got to practice stonehewing for 800 years is probably a bit better at it than someone who goes into retirement at 60.
High culture, then.
After the rule of the monstrous creator races, there were giants and dragons. Then there were the elves. Humans didn't really come into the equation for millenia until Imaskar, Netheril etc. And at that point, the first generation of great elven empires had already dwindled. It was the time of Eaerlann, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Cormanthyr and Illefarn, most of which came after the Crown Wars.
Humans did exist, and of course they had culture, but they hadn't systematically developed any advanced societies on their own. Netheril came to be when the elves of Sharrven (or was it Illefarn?) taught them magic.
Quote from: GoblinSapper;179439HUMAN PROPOGANDA!
All the better then, that means every Elf is of the blood divine, and humans are just misshapen monkies u_u. And even if Humans predate elves, Elven CULTURE is far older.
Moon elves rival gnomes in their jovial friendliness and welcoming attitude. They're as we would say here in ireland "common as muck" a lot of people confuse moon elves and SUN elves in the way they carry themselves.
Elves aren't actually native to Faerun (or even Toril for that matter), which is why they're not one of the Creator Races. They arrived from other realms.
Elves actually came from another plane of existence called 'Faerie' which underwent some catastrophe about thirty thousand years prior to our current date. They came during a time when Dragons actually ruled Faerun, and were under their thumb for a short while until some High Mages came up with the King Killer Star. While the plan worked in a sense, it also has screwed up civilizations time and time again.
Once the Dragon Empires fell, Elves ruled until the end of the Crown Wars, when they began their slow decline.
Humans have indeed been around longer than them, but it has not been until the time of Netheril where humans ever achieved anything close to dominance. They've served as slaves to many empires along the way, and were disorganized tribes most of the rest of the time.
Granted, none of this information should be known to any but the most learned of Elven Scholars, and perhaps not even to them!
To shape a decent Elf, I would truly recommend this sourcebook right here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/2/fr_downloads/tsr1165.zip
Its an old edition TSR book on one of the most recent Elven Empires, Cormanthyr, which fell as of six hundred years ago, however the sourcebook is not exclusive merely to that. It covers almost every aspect of Elven culture, and is a definite must read to research an Elven character.
After you've read up on Elven culture, its a good idea to choose a contemporary homeland from where your Elf came from. Evermeet, Evereska, Silverymoon, The High Forest and the Dalelands would be amongst the most common homelands for Elves, but obviously they can be from anywhere. Was your Elf raised in a human city? Was the culture they raised on Elven? How would they feel growing up in a human dominated region where they'd be looked upon with derision? Or, was your Elf raised in an Elven homeland? Are they a little shell-shocked now experiencing the other races for the first time? Do they look at them with wonderment and amusement, or a quiet air of contempt?
What truly defines a good Elven character though, is a great set of goals that are distinctly Elven, but involve the server as a whole. And admittedly I never accomplished this with many of my Elven characters. Its tricky. Elven goals are distinctly Elven, and thus tend to seperate themselves from the affairs of a human culture. It is best to form a group of Elves who share a bond of kin-ship, and come into conflicts with other PC and NPC groups due to their beliefs.
Quote from: TheImpossibleDream;179567Moon elves rival gnomes in their jovial friendliness and welcoming attitude. They're as we would say here in ireland "common as muck" a lot of people confuse moon elves and SUN elves in the way they carry themselves.
Well, I'd say
some moon elves are like that, and it's more typical than among sun elves. Many novel depictions and other canon NPCs do keep a certain haughty distance, even if they're social. I wouldn't say that Elaith Craulnober, Keryth Blackhelm, the Starym mage who hunted Elminster, or the royal family of Evermeet, are particularly jovial among humans. I guess you could roughly divide moon elves into two: those who live or travel with humans and those who live with elves. The latter are probably just as distant and proud of their culture as the average sun elf.
But that goes both ways: only some sun elves are dead-serious, arrogant and xenophobic. They're also said to be deeply passionate, emotional and caring. These are charicatures whereas real characters tend to be more diverse. Just look at Seiveril Miritar or Araevin Teshurr. Hells, or even more obviously: Coronal Eltargrim and Srinshee, probably the most lovable elves in history, were both sun elves.
I'd say the race most unlikely to be haughy, arrogant and self-righteous are the wood elves. That isn't to say they're overly social. They may keep to themselves, but they're nonetheless friendly towards most races and have chosen to live in the same world as them.
Thanks for the information on this thread, it was very useful to me.
THREAD NECROMANNNCYYY!
Really sorry, but I need help myself now. There was a link somewhere that provided a free wizards of the coast download of The Call of Cormanthor (Myth Drannor), does anyone know where it is?
6
Righ, found the fall of cormanthyr, there was also a source book that detailed the Crownswar, does anyone remember what it was called?
EDIT: Nevermind found that too
By the way: the WotC page with free downloads has disappeared, which I had feared for a long time now, but the direct download links still function. So if you haven't, you can get Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves, and The Fall of Myth Drannor, through the links in my first post. Unfortunately I don't have the links for the rest of the stuff that was there.