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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 14:54 PM 

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Hello again, Lore junkies!

As my character was progressing, I was trying to dial in some philosophies or theories that he could be working on. I'm interested though, in the current state of affairs, philosophy wise, in Elven life.

My theories have to deal with the shape of time. I think ultimately, it's probably wrong, but few philosophies or theories are right on the first go around. This being said, I ran into issues where cosmology, astrology, and philosophies. I didn't want to assume the elves knew too much or knew too little. Is there any direction I can be pointed, or any answer that can be given?

To summarize the questions:
"What are the current elven philosophical theories on astrology, cosmology, the flow of time, etc. What's the current paradigm of Elven philosophies? Are there any moods, central beliefs, events, etc that push the elves toward believing or pursuing a certain theory/idea?"


I hope it's not too vague. I can try to narrow the question down if needed.


 
      
Dieu_Le_Fera
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 15:22 PM 

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What's the current paradigm of Elven philosophies? Are there any moods, central beliefs, events, etc that push the elves toward believing or pursuing a certain theory/idea?"


This is a loaded question. It all depends on the subrace of the Elf in question as well as upbringing and location. A Wood-Elf would take a much more practical approach, while a Sun-Elf might go a little more scientific as well a bit more speculation when it comes to the ideas oh a none-elf. A Moon-Elf would be more open to none elven ideas, though a Sun-Elf from Silverymoon -might be- more open to outside ideas then an Evermet Sun-Elf, due to city trying to emulate Myth-Drannor.

Time is an easy question to answer*at least part of it anyway*, elves are long lived so an abundance of patience would be one way to look at it. Though, in places like Chondalwood and High-Forest where conflict and inherent danger come into everyday life that patience might be taken to the four winds, but still keeping a sense of practicality.

Death is an interesting thing when it comes to time for elves, at least for me. When an elf dies they believe they make the "Journey West" to Arvandar, where the elves were said to have originated from. Some are quite superstitious about this, some might think that a traumatic death before the elf in questions time might *i stress might as this is superstition" prevent them from making the "Journey West".

Really, this all comes down to subrace, personality, education level and many other aspects of it. I am actually looking forward to seeing what the other elven players and dms opinion on this is.

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 16:46 PM 

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Those are the similar kinds of things that I was familiar with. To clarify, my character's a Sun Elf. But I'd really be just as interested with some of the other more common subraces as well.

But to narrow this down a little bit, I'm trying to understand what precisely (Or somewhat vaguely) the Elves have "discovered" so far. Do they understand, for example, planets orbiting and the connection to the changing of the seasons?

Ah, here we go. That being said, I think I can narrow this further. What about Elven "Scientific" theory? I understand they aren't gnomes, but they still justify their natural surroundings in one way or another. Yes, there are religious answers and yes, there are spiritual/natural answers-- But what are they? Even these answers carry with them a theory.


 
      
DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 17:26 PM 

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The elves have been fascinated with the stars for millenia. They know that the constellations move in the sky during different times of the year (and I believe they even call individual constellations something different based on time of year though I can't remember where I read that/got that idea from). They also have superstitions about when certain things appear in the sky.

Here is my least favorite bit of elven lore:

Vhoori Durothil rescued a space-traveling elf and learned how to build spaceships, but Evermeet doesn't go into space. They keep their flying ships hidden and use them only in extreme emergencies to defend the island. Most elves on Evermeet don't even know they exist.

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Mobile_Svensk
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 17:32 PM 

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Question - Does elves go to Kelemvor when they die?

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DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 17:42 PM 

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That's arguable from an OOC level, though Evermeet: Island of Elves seems to indicate that they do not.

IC, however, the elves firmly believe that their spirit travels (and this is corroborated in the book) through the Weave for a time until they find their way to Arvandor.

And contrary to what Dieu said, even elves who die a traumatic death (except in rare cases) pass to Arvandor. It is said that those elves that were devoured by the Elf-Eater had their spirits stolen by the beast and were wiped from existance, denied passage to Arvandor.

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 18:10 PM 

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Which is why death is generally seen as a welcome stage of existence (Yet they don't disregard the gift of Labelas by committing suicide to get there). Elves fear domination of the mind more than death, because such cases like the Elf-Eater were just so rare. I always thought that was neat.


So there's definitely something there regarding the moving constellations. But is the process thought more of like the Native Americans (Or any tribal people), and considered to be... say... meaningful? Spiritually speaking? I know there's some kind of lore about Dragon disciples/blooded creatures going wild when a certain star appears. So are there any other Elven beliefs regarding the stars?

What about the other areas of science? Anatomy, physics, and the like?


My big concern in playing an elven philosopher is coming up with theories that are too advanced or too far behind the current times. I'm trying to come up with theories that don't really exist in the real world. It's actually a lot of fun- Coming up with ideas about our current surroundings that are proven incorrect by current science, yet could be reasoned with simpler logic.


 
      
TormakSaber
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 18:51 PM 

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DerkDerkistan wrote:
The elves have been fascinated with the stars for millenia. They know that the constellations move in the sky during different times of the year (and I believe they even call individual constellations something different based on time of year though I can't remember where I read that/got that idea from). They also have superstitions about when certain things appear in the sky.

Here is my least favorite bit of elven lore:

Vhoori Durothil rescued a space-traveling elf and learned how to build spaceships, but Evermeet doesn't go into space. They keep their flying ships hidden and use them only in extreme emergencies to defend the island. Most elves on Evermeet don't even know they exist.


We don't use Spelljammer.

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Gobbledygook
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 21:26 PM 

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What about the other areas of science? Anatomy, physics, and the like?

I've always seen this stuff go hand in hand with various disciplines of magic. It seems to me that wizards are generally leading the fields of science and physics. For anatomy, that might be clergy of Salandra and other churches which deal with healing the body. Could also have a look at the Order of the Long Death, who study anatomy to better grasp the concept of 'death'.

In terms of general philosophy, I've always thought it best to come up with your own base ideas. This sort of ties in with my questions about Clerics/Metaphysics/Knowledge, because without knowing how much a typical character understands about the FR cosmos, it's hard to develop philosophy based on FR.

My own Elven Philosopher is a Cleric of Oghma, who seeks to preserve truth through logic and reasoning. Have a look at this website, http://plato.stanford.edu/ which has a good deal of general ideas on philosophy. Of course some things would be different due to the nature of the Forgotten Realms, but I imagine philosophers in that world would think along similar lines of reasoning to ours.

This is definitely just the way I see it and play my characters, other people may think differently.

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Wed, Mar 21 2012, 22:27 PM 

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Oh by all means, I come up with my own ideas (I loave philosophy), I just don't want the ideas I come up with to be outside of the climate. And then I was just interested in what the philosophical/scientific climate was- Hence, me post. Here's an exaggerated example of my concern.

"Elf philosopher thinks that the body is made up of millions of tiny pieces." That's a bit strange, and those kinds of philosophies and theories REALLY don't start popping up and becoming accepted until much, much later (If we compare DnD to a veritable medieval age with magic). I'm just concerned about being at least -generally- lore consistent with the current times.

The idea to look to various magic is interesting, though. Transmutation and the ability for things to "change". Or maybe some theories of destruction with evocation. Surely there's a horde of elemental theories and practices. But is magic how they answer questions, or a 'tool' wielded because they already understand these questions?

I would assume that various races have many different beliefs. The Clergy of Salandra and the Order of the Long Death are both organizations that surely know and theorize about things, but the organization that I'm trying to figure out is the race of Elves. Maybe they take certain things from orders such as the Salandrans, but what kind of concepts do the Elves -themselves- employ?

Edit: And I'm purposefully trying to be a little vague about my own character and my intentions-- because I don't really think that's what the lore forum is supposed to be used for.


 
      
Mahtan
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 3:02 AM 

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TormakSaber wrote:
DerkDerkistan wrote:
The elves have been fascinated with the stars for millenia. They know that the constellations move in the sky during different times of the year (and I believe they even call individual constellations something different based on time of year though I can't remember where I read that/got that idea from). They also have superstitions about when certain things appear in the sky.

Here is my least favorite bit of elven lore:

Vhoori Durothil rescued a space-traveling elf and learned how to build spaceships, but Evermeet doesn't go into space. They keep their flying ships hidden and use them only in extreme emergencies to defend the island. Most elves on Evermeet don't even know they exist.


We don't use Spelljammer.


Sadly I think what he is referring to is from Evermeet: Island of Elves :(

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DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 3:13 AM 

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Yeah, that's what I was talking about. I hate it, so much. So, so much. It almost made me stop reading the book.

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Dieu_Le_Fera
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 3:15 AM 

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Quote:
And contrary to what Dieu said, even elves who die a traumatic death (except in rare cases) pass to Arvandor. It is said that those elves that were devoured by the Elf-Eater had their spirits stolen by the beast and were wiped from existance, denied passage to Arvandor.


I said it was superstition :)

Quote:
Some are quite superstitious about this, some might think that a traumatic death before the elf in questions time might *i stress might as this is superstition" prevent them from making the "Journey West".


I know one well played elf character who isn't me who believes this superstition. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

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DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 3:22 AM 

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Touché. That'll teach me to work on my reading comprehension. :D

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Dieu_Le_Fera
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 3:35 AM 

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Quote:
Question - Does elves go to Kelemvor when they die?


I don't want a proper answer to that because it ruins so much IC potential for RP.

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Gunz
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 5:52 AM 



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This is very difficult to answer. Like Dieu said, this would definitely vary from sub-race to sub-race. To go even further, this would vary from region to region, country to country, continent to continent and surely from society to society. Example: On Faerun, Elves can be very superior minded, thinking themselves betters and even displaying it by living in their own cities. In Zakhara, it's not like that. Here, people are people. Humans, Elves, Hin, Gnomes, Dwarves, Ogres, Orcs, none of them are considered less or more. People are people. It's a social difference that would play a big part in how philosophy in a continent would come to develop.

Elven philosophy would definitely be among the most advanced though, I would say. Elves are long lived and they're thinkers, generally speaking. I would say that Elven knowledge is a mixture of learned understanding and natural understanding. Let me explain what I mean by that. Compare a wizard to a sorcerer. One has a learned understanding of magic, while the other has a natural understanding (of course they also learn and train, but you know what I mean). Some sub-races and societies would lean more toward one than the other. Take the Wild Elves of the Shaar forests. These Elves have a more natural understanding of the world and their philosophies are rooted there. They're among the wildest of the Wild Elves, after all. Now take a Sun Elf from Evermet. They likely lean more toward the learned understanding because a lot of them are very logical and academic minded.

I'm not sure if that last bit made sense, sorry. It's difficult to answer this and there isn't an answer. There are just ideas to go off of.

Just don't go too overly modern with your theories, unless they're modern theories that are quite simple and fit the setting.

Also, the Forgotten Realms isn't Medieval with magic. People keep saying this, but it's not true. The Forgotten Realms is way more complex than that simple and false assessment.

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Ravenovf
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 7:15 AM 

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When in doubt a good reference can be the real world, there have been countless ideas thought of long, long, long before the technology to prove them right was invented. Others were simply observed over the course of time. In the case of elves where generations last multiple upon multiple centuries its that much more time to observe the functionality of the cosmos, nature magic and any number of things.

Being mostly chaotic and good on the racial average elven culture to me seems like a breeding ground for individuals to pursue philosophical interests of varying degree and interest.
On that same though I'd consider elven patience and tradition could stymie such pursuits and simply put them on par with the younger lived races.

Philosophers have often in our real history been a bit out of synch with the times and cultures they have found themselves living in so perhaps in the end its best to just run with what ever comes to mind and see how others chose to react.


 
      
Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 12:28 PM 

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Thank you again for the answers, as I understand this really isn't a simple question. I do like how you've worded it, Gunz, and I'm pretty sure I understand. I think that, at the bottom line, I'll just be really cautious with any theories I come up with. And if I'm feeling dangerously unsure, I can always ask a DM with all the specifics of my intentions.

I didn't mean to belittle the Forgotten Realms settings by comparing them to Medieval with magic, and I'll be more cautious about it in the future.
~~~

And I think you're touching on some neat things, Ravenovf. The Elves have a racial average alignment of Chaotic Good. That kind of trait speaks a lot about who they are, how they're driven- and could probably be a driving factor into some social philosophies. So more commonly accepted philosophies would be those which contain ultimate liberty, self-determination and autonomy. Sure, Law and rules exist, but social theory could bounce ideas (Even somewhat chaotically) off of the current condition that would test and try their own situation. Now, it's still a racial -average-, so there are certainly outliers, but I think that you've touched on something that would have a lot to do with their mindset and the direction of their philosophies.

And on your second point, Patience and Tradition. From how I view the elves (And just remembering what I think I've read in the source books), the elves are generally patient but far more specialized in their fields. So maybe, in all their 300+ years, instead of just waiting until the last few to develop an idea, they spend all those years refining one of their core ideas. Perhaps then, while the range of different philosophies might be smaller, it could be reasoned that the depth of the individual theory would be much more grand?

~~~

Gunz wrote:
Like Dieu said, this would definitely vary from sub-race to sub-race. To go even further, this would vary from region to region, country to country, continent to continent and surely from society to society.


Gunz wrote:
It's difficult to answer this and there isn't an answer. There are just ideas to go off of.


In summary, as a Sun Elf hailing from Evermeet and clerical training from Labelas' faithful, his approach would be a logical one, one based from the long history of the Elves, combined with perhaps a mystic reverence of the natural surroundings?


 
      
Gunz
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 14:32 PM 



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I can't tell you how your character would view philosophy. A cleric of Labelas would very likely have some kind of logical and academic understanding though, I would say. They're lore keepers and historians, after all.

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Thu, Mar 22 2012, 14:45 PM 

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Right, right, right.

Well, I think this has answered my question. Though if there's further input or discussion, *Shrug* I suppose it could still happen.


 
      
Liz
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 24 2012, 23:01 PM 

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how to contribute to this thread, and I think I’ve got something useful to add. It’s kind of subtle, but the ramifications of it, I think, help shape a great deal of the mainstream elven mindset. Or at least what I consider to be the mainstream. Your elf is free to believe something different, of course. And when I say “mainstream,” I probably more properly mean “Evermeet sun-elven.” YMMV. And I apologize in advance for being long-winded. It’s a flaw, I know. :)

In various lorebooks, there’s a lot of examination of what the various races believe the afterlife is like. In these discussions, most PC races are referred to as having a “soul,” while elves are just about always referred to as having a “spirit.”

An elf does not have a soul; an elf has a spirit.

This is a pretty fine distinction, since both a soul and a spirit serve the same purpose for a mortal being, during her mortal lifespan. But they’re very different from each other.

If you’re a human, dwarf, hin, gnome, whatever, you have a soul. A soul is yours. It more than just belongs to you: your soul *is* you. It didn’t exist before you did; it was created specifically for the purpose of incarnating you, uniquely and individually. (One of Moradin’s titles is “Soul Forger;” he’s responsible for this act of creation among the dwarves.) Once your mortal flesh fails, your soul will go on being *you*, wherever it goes, forever.

If you’re an elf, you have a spirit. A spirit is a piece of a larger whole; it’s a small current diverted out of a greater stream and, during your mortal lifespan, through you. It’s *in* you, and it’s what makes you more than just an empty husk of flesh. But it’s not *you*, and it’s not yours. It properly belongs to the greater whole. When your mortal flesh fails, that small current that was diverted into you at the moment of your creation will be returned to the greater stream again. All that you learned, all that you became, all that you added to that spirit during its time within you will be added to the continuum of spirit that flows throughout all elven-dom. The elves of the Forgotten Realms call this continuum Arvanaith.

(Incidentally, this was the reason why, in earlier editions of D&D, an elf could not be raised from the dead. Trying to rez an elf would be like pouring a cup of water into the sea, and then trying to scoop that exact same configuration of water molecules back into the cup: it was considered to be beyond the ken of mortal magic. But this little snip of lore was scrapped for game-mechanical reasons.)

The difference between spirits and souls seems like a small thing, but it goes a long way towards helping explain elven attitudes towards some very big things.

For example: everyone knows that elves feel incredible rage and hatred over the betrayal of the drow. But fewer people understand why the lorebooks also use words like “shame” and “pain” and “remorse” as well. This is more easily understood when considering that those drow spirits are no longer being restored to Arvanaith when the drow dies. Drow spirits are pulled down to the Demonweb Pits to be snacked on by Lolth, so therefore, every time a drow is born, a fragment of the elven continuum of spirit is permanently lost. In this light, the banishment of the Ssri-tel’Quessir was literally an act of self-mutilation. It was a hideous amputation, a great festering gushing wound that can never, ever heal. Would that be the sort of thing that you’d take lightly? Talk about casually?

Another example: among the reasons some elves can be so troubled or even offended when an elf reproduces with a human is precisely because they believe that those half-blooded spirits *are* being restored to Arvanaith, and they’re sweeping along a lot of stuff that doesn’t belong. Arvanaith isn’t just sacred, it’s sacredly *elven*. It was created to serve the same purpose for elves that souls serve for other races, and for those races to intrude on it simply isn’t appropriate. They already have their own afterlife; interfering in the elven afterlife is an imposition and an injustice. Remember, elven spirits don’t just return to this stream when they die, it’s also the source of the spirits of newly created elves. Every time a half-elven spirit is restored to Arvanaith, that human influence will be inextricably commingled throughout the greater whole, and every elf that will ever be born in the future will be just a tiny bit less elven. And if human influence isn’t appropriate, imagine the impact that fiendish taint would have. When that elf-blooded tiefling dies, the twisted fragments of polluted spirit that manage to return to Arvanaith are going to echo permanently throughout the entire future of elvenkind. A snooty sun elf who’s disgusted at the thought of another elf bearing half-blooded children isn’t thinking, “How can you do that to yourself?” She’s thinking, “How can you do that to *us*? How dare you diminish us like that?”

To an elf, this universal elven participation in the great river of spirit is something that the other races really can’t understand. It’s part of what keeps the elves thinking of the world not in terms of elves and dwarves and humans and hin and gnomes and on and on and on, but rather just in terms of elves and not-elves, of tel’Quessir and n-tel’Quessir. Elves believe that they’re part of something larger than themselves, in a way that no other races can ever be. Every elf literally has within her a small portion of every elf that came before, and every elf will literally be a part of every elf that comes after her. In this sense, anything done to any one elf is quite literally done to all of elvenkind. This is why many elves consider a crime against an elf to be worse than the same crime committed against someone of another race. It’s not because the other races are icky, or lesser, but simply that if you wound a human, you’re only wounding one creature. If you wound an elf, you’re wounding an entire people.

Anyways, I’ve babbled on long enough. I could go on, about the impact of these ideas on elven attitudes about reincarnation, or undeath, or their long lifespans, or arranged marriages, or why many elves believe that Kelemvor has nothing to do with what happens to them after they die. But, I think I’ve rambled sufficiently to make my point. :)

So... I hope someone somehow manages to find in this something they can use. And, as always, everything I say is my opinion only. Feel free to tell me I’m full of crap.

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TormakSaber
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 0:49 AM 

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Elves have souls and not that mary sue crap you just posted.

Ed: Unless the elf DMs say we actually use all that, I suppose. I think it's incredibly silly that Elves have special treatment on basically everything compared to every other race in the entire setting, is all.

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Gunz
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 2:49 AM 



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To be fair, she's only sharing her ideas and theories, not saying that this is the way it actually is. Elven philosophy.

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DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 3:52 AM 

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TormakSaber wrote:
Ed: Unless the elf DMs say we actually use all that, I suppose. I think it's incredibly silly that Elves have special treatment on basically everything compared to every other race in the entire setting, is all.


Well, to be fair, the whole premise of the elves is that they are incontrovertibly different than the non-elven races, something alien and unknown, incomprehensible. It is, as Lizzie put it, why the elves refer to themselves as People (tel'quessir) and everyone else as Not-People (n'tel'quessir). The elves aren't even native to Faerun.

There is far, far more to the elves than simply being long-lived humans with pointy ears and what Lizzie touched on is something that is deep within the core of the elves and their beliefs and ways. To take that away really bungles every bit of elven lore that is a direct result of their complete and utter different-ness.

Every race in the FR has its own "special treatment". The elves' special treatment is simply their sense of community, which is precisely what Lizzie illustrated. This sense of community stems directly from the point that Lizzie made.

Sure, the elves as a race might be a little too "perfect", a little too Mary Sue, but that is part of what makes them interesting. It's why the elves are wary and distrustful of non-elves. It's why non-elves are wary and distrustful of the elves. Their sense of community is reflected in their pantheon. They all co-exist with each other and cooperate, despite having different portfolios. The human pantheon squabbles and makes/breaks alliances with each other over the course of time.

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Gunz
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 4:05 AM 



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Eh... Using the gods as examples of Elven community is a poor one. Lolth was once a member, remember? The Drow were once Elves too. It's not a strong sense of community that makes Elves so different. The Hin beat them at that game as well as at having gods that get along. The Hin are the only race that have never had an evil god or a god that went against the rest. The Ghostwise have since left the evils of their past, in general. Elven social constructs are certainly unique though. Elves are unique because of their Mary Sue state of being over all. The way they live, how long they live, how they die, their mystical superior knowledge with natural magic, etc. They were clearly created with intent to make them way better off in almost every way than the other races, which ironically works against them in a lot of ways as well.

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DerkDerkistan
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 4:16 AM 

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I do remember Lolth and the drow. That is why, as Lizzie put it, their treachery is a painful one. When they were excised like a tumor, it tore apart the community. It is why the removal of them is such a wound that will never heal. If someone in your neighborhood killed someone, would it be something that shook you to the core for the rest of your life? Of course not. But the treachery of the drow in the elven community was one that has shaken them to the core for -millenia-.

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Mahtan
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 8:11 AM 

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Pretty much what Derk and Lizzie said, Elves are weird. As I understand, they don't go to the Wall and that. They are extremely spiritual some more than others. They of course have souls BTW. But it is still quite different then normally viewed.

Their souls and the like are basically already claimed by the Seldarine, so them dying they go right to Arvandor. The Material Plane is just a phase for them, death is generally viewed as a great thing to them, not bad. Unless they have duties that keep them bound to the Material, which would be Baelnorns.

I believe fey would be the better thing to say have no souls. Elves would be Fey with souls. to put an extreme generalization on it. As they came from the Feywilds as well. Where Feytouched fall in this I am not sure, they are another oddity. Probably just ones will an even greater connection to their fey side.

The Drow no longer have this luxury, that spirit, that connection was removed, and dumped away. It is more then their skin, and all that. If not for Elistraee and the other Dark Seldarine, they were a race of great religion and faith suddenly turned to silence and ignoring. A Devastating punishment not many people consider. Then they are taken by Lloth, where many are corrupted further, other killed for resisting. Survivors either find other UD gods or Eilistraee got to them. Eilistraee is the closest one to giving the Drow their former spiritual connection back. But even she can not match what Corellon and the Seldarine made.

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TormakSaber
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 18:48 PM 

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Mary Sue crap it is, then!

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Maias227
 
PostPosted: Sun, Mar 25 2012, 21:51 PM 

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To build on Tormak's statement of evny of the kewl elves you can find a lot more about the elven mindset in Elves of Evermeet. Another of the highpoints is that the elves have a very close connection to the weave which renders them very attune to the magic around them. That ability is also why many elves prefere to practice at least some magic or work with magic items. P.s. its been discussed a few tiems wherever the elven souls ever see the fugue plain or just take the soul train straight to the realm of Seldarine. Elves very likely believe they don't while Kellies might disagree, but in the end its hard to know for certain what happens once the curtain falls.

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Liz
 
PostPosted: Mon, Mar 26 2012, 3:20 AM 

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Just to clarify a little bit what I meant...

I didn't mean to assert that elves just have a hole where their soul should be. I meant that the elven "soul" functions differently for elves than the human soul does for humans. I chose to apply a different word to it (spirit vs soul) only to emphasize that difference. Call it a soul if you like; I'm not finicky about the semantics.

I'm not sure where the idea came from that anything I described would somehow constitute "special treatment." I never argued that anything I described would lead to the elves being able to claim some sort of advantage, neither OOC mechanically nor IC spiritually or culturally. I don't argue that elves are better, but I do argue that elves are different.

And Derk is right: every race, in one way or another, claims that it's different than every other race. Gunz did it himself, by pointing out that the hin gods are unique among all the FR pantheons in their solidarity. And their gods' spirit of camaraderie is reflected in the hin, too: Demihuman Deities directly states that the hin are the PC race that most rarely succumbs to evil. Does that make the hin Mary Sue? No, it just makes them different.

Different is good. I believe that the server should encourage people to understand and embrace whatever it is that makes their character's race different from all the other races. Otherwise, we should all just be playing humans.

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Liz
 
PostPosted: Tue, Mar 27 2012, 0:48 AM 

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I knew if it bothered me long enough, I'd remember where I read that reference.

Demihuman Deitites, p.112 wrote:
One is struck in elven theology by the close relationships between the Fair Folk, magic, and the natural world. Most of elven faiths emphasize elven unity with life and nature, and they tend to blend the distinction between elves and their environment, much as the Seldarine are held to be spirits of Arvandor. For example, the Fair Folk have spirits, not souls, and many elves believe they will be reincarnated as animals, plants, faerie folk, or even elves once again.

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