Quote from: GeekyBugle;1132302That's just one for one copy of D&D

Did the sea elves never make it out of 1E?! Man, that's a gyp.

QuoteLet's keep the Kelpies as Kelpies, seahorses that can take either human form or a weirdly formed horse form, eat human flesh and smell of brine.

Welp, there's my Nightmare Fuel for the next week. :eek:

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser;1132307Did the sea elves never make it out of 1E?! Man, that's a gyp.



Welp, there's my Nightmare Fuel for the next week. :eek:

You need to read about the faeries from the original sources, not a single one of them is good, at best they are indifferent and easy to offend which would end with the guilty party fucked up. And at worst truly evil creatures that eat children.

The Seelie Court were the indifferent Elves, the unseelie were the other kind.

Glamour was a power they all seem to share, the ability to look like something they are not, even human children while the real children is facing a terrible fate.

I like how Talislanta handled elves.

In an impromptu semi-collaborative setting I did many moons to year ago I ended up including three types of elves that may become the default in my worlds, unless I have something different planned for them. Elves in my worlds are Fey (usually native to the Otherworld), and the three types of elves are: Light, Dark and Snow.

Light Elves: Pale to rosy colored skin, with a wide range of hair colors. Affiliated with the Light/Forest Fey.
Dark Elves: Dark skin the color of the earth or stone, with white, gray or black hair. Affiliated with the Dark Fey.
Snow Elves: Pale skin with bluish undertones, white or light colored hair.

The division between the three types of elves occurred eons ago during the War of the Three Sisters, which was a conflict between three elven sisters of royal descent. The war started when one of the three sisters declared herself queen and elves as supreme over all other creatures. She sought to enslave the world and grant liberty only to the Fey who were loyal to her--everyone else, Fey or mortal, was to be subjugated and become her slave. But her younger sister opposed her, claiming that she was illegitimate, as it was the third of the three sisters who was in line for the throne. But the eldest sister didn't want to become the ruler of all Fey, so she left the other two to squabble over the rightful ruler.

The two younger sisters fought and amassed great armies. But the rebellious younger sister, who was on the side of liberty and harmony with other creatures, attracted an elven champion who had great skill with the sword and magic. Her champion vanquished her foes and the two fought and defeated the tyrannical middle sister, who became known as the Dark Queen. And the Dark Queen was cast out into the depths of the earth with all Fey who were loyal to her, who became the Dark Fey--including dark elves, goblins, ogres and trolls.

Then the younger sister declared herself the Elf Queen, ruler of all Fey and the Light Elves, and took her champion as Elf King and commander of her army and the security of her kingdom. The eldest sister was banished to the north pole for failing to take sides in the conflict and allowing the Dark Queen to run amok. Those loyal to her were allowed to accompany her and became the pale bluish skinned Snow Elves. And they built a great crystal palace where the eldest sister could rule as the Ice Queen. But the Frost Giants who had ruled there since before the elves were not happy with this decision and have been at war with the Ice Queen ever since--rejecting all elf queens in favor of frost giant independence.

PS: Basically all types of magical creatures from folklore (other than undead and such) are considered to be Fey in this scenario, including goblins, trolls, frost giants, etc.

Quote from: tenbones;1132310I like how Talislanta handled elves.

I think how they handled the elves in their lore was nothing short of perfection IMHO.

D&D has alot of elves because designer X just cant imagine elves living in diverse ranges and having diverse tastes so you have...
High elves: Probably live in high magic cities.
Wood elves: loves them some trees.
Dark Elves: elves pretending to be dwarves.
Sea Elves: Mermaids with legs.
Eladrin elves: teleport elves? No clue.
Avarial elves: winged elves.
Moon elves: no clue what these are.
Lava elves: Dragon Dice Drow with a fire fixation instead of spiders.
Valley Elves: from Greyhawk.
Space elves: those jerks from Spelljammer.
And a few other oddities.
Many are just rethemeings of the basic elf for a specific setting. Others are practically a new race.

Traveller had space elves they called Darrians.

Quote from: tenbones;1132310I like how Talislanta handled elves.

You mean how they proudly and loudly proclaimed that there were NO elves but then proceeded to catalogue 150,000,000 different varieties of elf?

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1132332You mean how they proudly and loudly proclaimed that there were NO elves but then proceeded to catalogue 150,000,000 different varieties of elf?

Yep. That Talislantia. :rolleyes:

Ya, Talislantia does have a number of elfy ones in there. ha  Darrians for Third Imperium setting, pretty ridiculous.  I like Tolkien and all, but often hobbits (halfling you must) seem just like another version of elf, merging folklore, same with dwarf.

Quote from: Omega;1132328D&D has alot of elves because designer X just cant imagine elves living in diverse ranges and having diverse tastes so you have...
High elves: Probably live in high magic cities.
Wood elves: loves them some trees.
Dark Elves: elves pretending to be dwarves.
Sea Elves: Mermaids with legs.
Eladrin elves: teleport elves? No clue.
Avarial elves: winged elves.
Moon elves: no clue what these are.
Lava elves: Dragon Dice Drow with a fire fixation instead of spiders.
Valley Elves: from Greyhawk.
Space elves: those jerks from Spelljammer.
And a few other oddities.
Many are just rethemeings of the basic elf for a specific setting. Others are practically a new race.

Athasian Elf: Long legged sprinty elves from the desert.
Half-Elf: Elves from humans who couldn't keep it inside their pants.
Sylvan Elf: Another variety of wood elves they felt the need to include along with wood elves.
Wild Elf: More wood elves, but these ones were called wild (I think they narrowed them down to just "wood" elves in later editions).
Kagonesti Elf: Wild elves from Krynn.
Silvanesti Elf: Snobbish civilized elves from Krynn.
Qualinesti Elf: Non-snobbish civilized elves from Krynn.
Drow-Tiefling: Tieflings with drow parents as part of their ancestry, and the greatest level of snowflakery.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1132245High Elves: Live in Underhill, Pale skinned, blueish white hair, snob, really good at magic.

Silvan Elves: Live in the forests, their skin takes the color of the bark of the more prevalent trees around them, greenish brown hair, good at magic and bows, talk to animals and plants.

Dark Elves: Live in deep caverns, white skin and white hair, evil, their Queen wanted more power and married the God of the Underworld Veles, good at dark magic, the more powerful among them can command the creatures of the underworld.

Any more?

I prefer to keep TYPICAL elves out of my gaming entirely. They're too magical and fey and inhuman, so in the worlds I build they're either inorganic or evil or disparate fragments of a long-lost past. Seeing an elf is like watching a comet barreling towards the earth.

I wrote a long post shitting all over them and they way they are TYPICALLY portrayed, such is my ire.[/URL] :cool:

Interesting thought though: people that trip balls on DMT/Ayahuasca consistently report seeing "clockwork elves" or "machine elves", which are thought to be some sort of entity responsible for pinning the material world to the immaterial world.

Also aren't mermaids like...I dunno...fish elves?

Quote from: Omega;1132328D&D has alot of elves because designer X just cant imagine elves living in diverse ranges and having diverse tastes so you have...
High elves: Probably live in high magic cities.
Wood elves: loves them some trees.
Dark Elves: elves pretending to be dwarves.
Sea Elves: Mermaids with legs.
Eladrin elves: teleport elves? No clue.
Avarial elves: winged elves.
Moon elves: no clue what these are.
Lava elves: Dragon Dice Drow with a fire fixation instead of spiders.
Valley Elves: from Greyhawk.
Space elves: those jerks from Spelljammer.
And a few other oddities.
Many are just rethemeings of the basic elf for a specific setting. Others are practically a new race.

The jerks from Spelljammer were my favourite.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1132332Traveller had space elves they called Darrians.



You mean how they proudly and loudly proclaimed that there were NO elves but then proceeded to catalogue 150,000,000 different varieties of elf?

I looked at all 150,000,000 of your allegations and I SAW NOTHING! Nary an Elf to be found!

Quote from: Shasarak;1132457The jerks from Spelljammer were my favourite.

Imperial Elves are the only elves I recognize in D&D. All the rest are hippy-larpers.

Quote from: tenbones;1132574I looked at all 150,000,000 of your allegations and I SAW NOTHING! Nary an Elf to be found!

Except for all those toootaly-not-elves elves. mm-hmm.