Elves and the Fey creature type

[Doublebond]

My own personal bit of fluff for elves runs thus:

• They cannot die of old age, but do age albeit at a much slower rate than humans, meaning that they just slowly whither away until something kills them eventually.
• Their memories do not measure up to their life spans. If they're not paying attention and deliberately trying to remember, they can quite possibly forget their entire life before so many years ago. This is where the whole "carefree" personality of fey come in, as from their perspective everything (including themselves) just exists—the matters of ages past and trials eventually to come seem almost irrelevant (at the very least dull or uninteresting) to them.
• Nonetheless, a civilization is not built without recognizing its history, and to that end their is an established tradition in elven cultures of appointing what amounts to a designated historian for each community, whose purpose is essentially to remember. This tradition isn't kept by this point because the other elves realize the important function remembering serves, but rather partly because the historian doubles as a wise-man for the community (with whom one can often seek and receive advice) and because, well, it's tradition. Somewhat ironically, no one longer remembers why or how the tradition was established in the first place, and who was behind its conception. Having a designated historian is just viewed as part of what it means to be an elven society.

[Catodon]

First some food for thought. Real humans live about twice as long as a typical mammal of the same mass. With better health care and better quality of life in the west we are seeing people changing careers several times in life. Thirdly lack of aging in elves means lack of mental decline. They should learn as well as a 30yr old human. Finally at 40 I am easily smarter, more competant, more resilant, better educated and with betterphysical skills and endurance than I was at 20...

With all of the above in mind, perhaps elves actually gain a lot of benefits for thier long lives. PC elves are realtive youngsters. Most elves are actually hundreds of years old with each individual has experience in tens of careers and is frozen in the physical prime of life. Elves are scary. Maybe elves rule the world.

[CmdZOD]

I had to chime in on your post Doublebond, making elves not better (or worse) than humans at remembering things is a great idea ! Consider it stolen, sir.

Also, elves could possibly live for hundreds of years but being active for their first century only, slowly turning to a vegetative state. In my world, elves are alive for their first 2 centuries after which they fall in an everlasting slumber. What happens to them after that is your choice 

I also like to think that elf adventurers are the young brash adolescents of their kin, forced to leave the elf cities between their 40s and 100s, not allowed to come back and found a family before they are considered "adult".

Lastly, with such long lifespan, their social structure could be highly hierarchical with drastic birth control. One could go as far as to make elves akin to bees, with one mother queen (or a group of elf mothers) and her elves children working for her(them).

[Doublebond]

Lastly, with such long lifespan, their social structure could be highly hierarchical with drastic birth control. One could go as far as to make elves akin to bees, with one mother queen (or a group of elf mothers) and her elves children working for her(them).

Such a sophisticated system implies serious forward-planning, which I am not inclined to attribute to elves. Rather, I'm keen on the idea that as a society they live very much in the present, and to a great extent embody the philosophy of "seize the day"—to so great an extent that I ponder whether they should know about how they reproduce at all. Certainly the wise man of the community would know, and if population dwindled they would consult him and consequently *ahem* the situation would soon be remedied, but would they really remember all that in, say, another century?

[MilitiaJim]

If you are "seizing the day" that hard, every day, I don't think there will be a shortage of children...

I can also see most elves getting sent off on their way when they finish adolescence.  They may return when they have something to contribute to the community.  Depending on fertility rates, this may be something that kills many or most elves; so would training and rites of passage.  (It is somewhat cruel and rather brutal, but starving to death after overpopulating an area is probably worse than being eaten by a bear.)

[Doublebond]

If you are "seizing the day" that hard, every day, I don't think there will be a shortage of children...

I can also see most elves getting sent off on their way when they finish adolescence.  They may return when they have something to contribute to the community.  Depending on fertility rates, this may be something that kills many or most elves; so would training and rites of passage.  (It is somewhat cruel and rather brutal, but starving to death after overpopulating an area is probably worse than being eaten by a bear.)

I do believe you have misconstrued my intent and have consequently ended up on the other end of the spectrum, here. I'm not even certain I'd have them reproduce sexually. Regardless, I like the idea that they might simply forget about the matter entirely and only centuries later find themselves in a population crisis with no clue as to how to fix it.

I bet it'd make for an interesting adventure, at any rate: the party is tasked with finding the (recently lost) wise man of an elven community so that the they might seek his advice as to how to handle the population crisis. The party might then attempt to explain it to the elves themselves only to later (after a series of very awkward events and discoveries later) realize that elves don't reproduce sexually but rather through some sort of bizarre magically filled process.

[MilitiaJim]

My interest.  You have it.

[Coyote0273]

If you're looking for realism, Elves won't have many children. Nature tends to compensate in that area. The longer something lives, the fewer offspring it has. Otherwise, they would quickly overwhelm and destroy the things they need for survival.

[MilitiaJim]

Well, until you get around to anti-biotics, disease is a huge problem.  If they never get around to agriculture, then starvation will be a regular issue.  (And the attendant fertility suppression that accompanies malnutrition.)

If they stay stone age, like the American and Australian aborigines, the population will be weighted towards the older.  The very old will be rather scary survivors, but the young will have a ferocious mortality rate, even if you cut the birth rate by half.

[pawsplay]

In the real world, people who live to be 70, 80, and beyond differ in specific ways from younger people. They tend to be resilient in the face of change and sudden stress, but also set in their ways. They tend to be less tolerant of undesirable behavior, but more tolerant of people. They are usually at peace with the idea of dying, although most wouldn't mind living a little longer. Many very old people are still in relatively good health and remain active.

In my thinking, elves are people for whom reaching 70, 100 is a second maturity. To elves, typical life stages might be childhood -> Adolescence -> Early Adulthood -> Middle Age -> "Old Age" -> "Very Old" -> post-centenarian -> Post 200-300 years (probably a lucky soul to have avoided death by hazard) -> near millenials. You can portray elves as profoundly wise, or you could portray them as somewhat superficial, unserious, or even sociopathic, but either way, the long lifespan suggests they are very, very canny and they are very resilient. You could point a crossbow at one and say, "Your wallet or your life," and even your ordinary elf might give you a pitying look and explain how killing them would be a decision they might someday regret, or just whipping out a dagger and fighting back because they are feeling fed up.

In practical terms, immorality and a lifespan of 300 years are effectively interchangeable, unless elves are disease free and lead very, very sheltered lives.

[pawsplay]

Well, until you get around to anti-biotics, disease is a huge problem.  If they never get around to agriculture, then starvation will be a regular issue.  (And the attendant fertility suppression that accompanies malnutrition.)

Actually, agriculturalists are more prone to starvation. Hunter-gathers have plentiful food, typically "work" 4 to 6 hours a day, and enjoy relatively low stress (because, duh, we were pretty much evolved to be able to handle that lifestyle). The downside is low security. If there is a drought, you head for the coast and hope you make it before everyone dies. If you get raided, the raiders might wipe out your entire genepool in minutes.

Agriculture doesn't really match hunter-gatherer societies in food output until you get real engineering and the plow, which was roughly early Iron Age for most of Europe and Asia, and a little later for the Americas.

[Agent 333]

Pawsplay, the problem with that logic is ignoring the fact that a much smaller percentage of the population needs to devote its time to food acquisition in an agricultural society. Yes, the food output per area unit is lower (at first, but once engineering takes over...), but the food output per person is much, much higher, and only gets better as technology advances.

[Bhurano]

Ok, quite many responses... I'll try to tackle this step by step.

To clarify things a bit further, the elves in my settings are just physically immortal... just as stated in the creature type fey. They come of age like humans... but don't age any further after they are full grown - somewhere around 21 - 30 years. Bad luck for them is whacking them is not any harder than with normal humans and sickness can off them quite as well. Not to mention all the unnatural ways to go out (stabbing, poison, occasional disasters, accidents of all sorts).

Since I have a history buff in my group I invest some time to make the setting more complex by giving some serious thoughts how all these different species, power groups and what not interact with one another. He is more of a logic person and therefore brings up all to obvious flaws. After I told him that in FC elves are immortal, he elevated them to a (quite free translated) "greater threat than dragons". Since my group is giving me advice about several things they would like to see it is most of the time not that hard. But sometimes I need all the input I can lay my stubby, grubby fingers on.

Ok, here is what I likely use, after all the food for thought:

After all these replys I concur that the elves as a long-lived species can't be that numerous... they would just overpopulate any given area. It is quite likely that they are mentally quite different than humans. They need this mental difference just to fathom a possible "eternal" life - but they might grow slowly into it, so that they have possible a phase in which they are curios. The tradeoff is they don't reproduce that often - possibly even only once in a decade. That would also lead to the fact that they value their children very high and grant them quite some freedom.

On the other hand even after they are full grown they will still be trained for the challenges of life and to see where the interests of any given elf are and to facilitate these. This might go well into their 60's - possibly by undergoing some kind of ritual trial or some tradition that makes them grown-ups in the eyes of the society. In general a elven society might go the way that their members are self-reliant to a far greater extent than humans and that you have to contribute something to the community. There can be no dead weight in their society as in a human society. A rich human merchant can be just rich and life a good life. In a elven society so few numbers, the merchant better knows how to fight, navigate his way and a dozen other things any rich human merchant can buy.

When it comes down to the mental differences of elves, it stands to consider that they don't age. So they might never experience such a thing as being set in their ways. If so, that would be a trait which would aid their survival. Since they have the capricious mind of the faeries, they seek new experiences so that their mind is never dulled by repetitive tasks. That leads inevitably to a situation where they might seem fickle to humans, since they abandon a task that bores them or which is of no pleasure to them - it could still take some years before that might be the case. On the other hand this shapes them into beings that are versatile and possibly up to any challenge. On the note of remembering things - they are faeries - they will remember more than humans - it's just inevitable that they are better at remembering things - but with the greater span of life, there comes also more time to dilute or warp these memorys.

Since elves are at least outnumbered by 1 to 10 (possibly even 100) when compared to humans (orcs would tip the numerous advantage even more in their favor), they need to be able to match and even surpass the abilitys of most humans. And that just to stand a chance, otherwise they would be doomed to extinction - a comparison would be modern humans against neanderthals, which supposedly got offed because our ancestor were not necessarily smarter, but they could better adapt to new situations and they were more numerous.

The definite advantage of any elven community would therefore be experience. A commodity which at last comes plenty... even if we suggest that only 25 % of any born elves grow older than 100+ these will still be experienced beings in their own right - beings that . It gets worse for any enemy of the fair folk the older they get. It stands to reason that any capable elf undergoes armed combat training. With so few elves anybody is needed to repel attacks or at least to hold his own until support arrives. Common weapons for young elves might be a sword (rapiers aren't weapons for war), spears and most importantly ranged weapons. Since they have plenty time at hand they will inevitably begin to study magic, the only field where mastery isn't achieved in  mere decades - as fey creatures they are curios anyway, and even if they only study magic for a tenth of each century this will hurt for anybody they consider an enemy.

Ok, on to the next one. As creatures that life damn long they won't stumble in any fight that is offered to them. It is far more likely that they send envoys to negotiate peace or other treaties to appease the far more numerous species. If negotiations aren't helpful or counterproductive they might play species against species or even pit the-powers-that-be against each other. The notion of a long live might also mean that they fight fair. What worth is immortality if you get beheaded in a straight "fair" fight or bleed to death. On another notion, will any sane thinking elf seriously doubt that the more numerous humans wouldn't bring their superior numbers to bear? Most certainly not. Not to mention the fact that "true" knightly behaviour gets anyone killed in no time. So if engaged by an enemy most elves wouldn't go to a straight fair fight. Even if they wanted to in most cases they just can't. They come up with a 100 experienced warriors, any other foe comes with 1.000 warriors or more, and orcs just drown you in numbers. So even if they inflict massive casualitys on the enemy side, they would suffer more. So to survive a harrowing experience as war or conflict elves need to be combat pragmatists. Without they are out. With so few numbers, they are on the brink of extinction each and every day from a human perspective.

If elves go to a straight fight army against army... the opposition better runs, because the pointy ears are damn sure to win no matter the odds. War against an elven society might run the way that the opposition trys to pin them down and inflict as much damage as possible to cripple any efforts of the elves and has no repercussions to fear. The elves on the other might possibly go the route that they scare the enemy away, disrupt his communication, supplies, killing important personel and attacking key locations. It is also possible that many of counted as special characters. In that case even superior numbers might not be enough to stop them... but, yeah I expect that 1.000+ years old elven 10-times grandpa won't go down without a big epic fight - or as my buddy put it: "They are a greater threat than dragons."

These are some of my more general thoughts with regard to elves, to portray them as that what they are... with quite a alien mindset compared to humans. There will still be elves like in LOTR and The Dark Eye, but the greater part of the elves should be the guys I outlined above - for the sake of a more "realistic" approach. If you find any illogical parts... please point them out, so I can fix it.

And thanks again for all the food for thought until now. I love this forum.

[Bhurano]

@paddyfool

How much slower would the physical growth be? That they slower reproduce is just logical. I wouldn't agree with the part that they frown upon hazardous activitys of their children. Because, how are their children supposed to learn their limits and physical capabilities and I would go a step further and even suggest that - because of their low numbers - train them physical and mental in different arts to facilitate a high self esteem and confidence.


@Agent 333

If the elves are in the Classic era and anyone else hitting the Reason era how do they stay free? I mean anyone else has guns and cannons and other advanced stuff, but what have the elves to stop a hostile takeover dead in it's tracks? Magic? Some kind of odd artifact that protects their "realm"? Strategic Alliances? Access to minerals or other that only they have?

@Doublebond

Your idea sounds a bit like the gallic tribes, who had their druidic lorekeeper. As the romans began to kill them off, the tribes had a hard time remembering who they were and suffered of some nasty sting of roman occupation, all made easier since there were virtually no druids left to teach the tribes their culture and history. Nice Twist.

@pawsplay

Your life stage system for the pointy-ears seems quite nice to me, I'm gonna so use that idea. I agree that immortality or a lifespan of 300 years is for the game in itself not important. But the mindset of an immortal and a guy who can life 300 years are quite different - at least I assume so. One grows old, infirm and dies. The other has potential lifetimes over lifetimes. So the supposed immortal is better mentally equipped from birth to life so. So he has to stay young, set his mind to new things and go on and on, while everyone around him withers and dies... ok, for immortals who life in seclusion this might not be a big problem, but if you begin travel and want to see the world... not to mention that eventually even a immortal might decide to bring his life to an end on his on will when he has suffered to much loss or tragedy.

[Catodon]

...but a true immortal knows that given enough time you can get over anything, you just have to wait out the sorrow knowing it will go away eventually.