Typical high fantasy setting

>Typical high fantasy setting
>Not humans, but elves are the dominant race.

How would you do it?

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Like this.

Humans are new to the world, in the not so distant past their rulers lead a great invasion into this world through some means or another and were for the most part defeated. Though there are some human kingdoms that persist in the remote places of the earth or close to the where the race entered the world, the vast majority of humans now live within the Elf kingdoms, integrating slowly, suffering some discrimination and growing their population steadily.

Dominant is in the only one or the most populated?

Either way, the elves would own everything, so there would be vast, sprawling, pristine cities of alabaster spires and flying buttresses, with aqueducts and perfectly-manicured forests surrounding them. The world would be a lot more civilized on the surface due to the elves being more long-lived and able to put long term plans into action.

Beneath the splendor of the cities though, sinister forces would be abundant. Lesser races would be either treated as second-class citizens at best or culled at worst. Elven superiority would probably grow more egotistical and there would be lots of political maneuvering and backstabbing between the different kinds of elves, and even amongst each other. Gangs might also form, but they'd be organized syndicates like mafias based on illegal trade and less like common bands of thugs and looters.

Magic would also be a commonplace thing and part of everyday life for the elves.

Cont'd

If dominant doesn't mean most populous I would make elves the nobility, humans the commoners.

I would kill the elves.

>How would you do it?
More like how would you not do it?
They remain young either forever or for a very long time and are very intelligent. You need to pull excuses out of your ass to keep them from being the dominant force in a setting.

Or you need to stick them in a world populated by people who are just as powerful in which case all the lesser races are either slaves or only mentioned in the books as "those guys who got exterminated because they made for shitty slaves".

>immortal, but keep having children as per a tradition from when they were few in number and it was vital for their survival as a species
>huge numbers of old elves hold onto their old fashioned worldviews
>technological advancements stagnated for millenia due to their belief that since they've always done things x/y/z way, then x/y/z way is right
>out compete other species due to their sheer numbers
>population size reaching breaking point but they're too sutbborn to do anything about their situation
>end up fighting eachother more and more often as land becomes more valuable

Cont'd

Now, how humans would fit into this. I'm going to base this off humans being the new kids race-wise, having just recently evolved into modern homo sapiens.

Humans may not exist at all, or have been relegated to a slave race status by the elves for their quick breeding, strength and willingness to follow orders after being whipped enough. Keeping a human slave to an elf would likely be viewed the same as humans keeping a pet now. Some elves might even keep them as sexual objects, although the fact that they produce viable offspring would be seen as disgusting to them. The bastard offspring between the two would likely either be culled or kept as a curiosity or research subject.

Slaves would be intentionally hampered, most likely through removing the tongue and limiting their access to seeing printed word and any weapons. As long as they can't communicate, they can't rebel.

Having a good old fashioned slave revolt would make a good starting point for a campaign.

many settings with elves have a period of history that is basically this. a golden age of elfkind before a period of long decline.

all you need to do is roll back the clock.

you forgot the part where they're hippies. Seeing as they live so long, they're so jaded they can't see the point of getting shit done in the first place. Also they're infertile and racist as fuck. They wouldn't want slaves from another race. Given how the races are characterized in Tolkien (and his derivatives i.e. D&D) it makes perfect sense that the humies would be the Mario race (pretty much like whites IRL), the halflings would be hypersocial and the dwarves would be industrious and they would all be bros and get shit done. Meanwhile the elves have their heads stuck up so far their asses that they can't even build houses, refuse to fell a tree or have more than a child per century. All they're good for is getting swarmed by orcs. Seriously OP, if you want elves to be dominant all you need to do is make them want to. But I wonder, can such a thing still be called an elf?

Tolkien characterized the dwarves as money-grubbing obsessive-compulsive jews. Like all white men who lived before 1950, he was a virulent anti-semite and the dwarves were his anti-semitic morality tale.

He doesn't seem to dislike them much; he has them be the down to earth good guys most of the time. Also, dwarves don't leech off of other races and meme them into self-genocide; they build stuff and work hard. If he wanted to make an anti-semitic parable, he could have done much better.

That's a whole lot of excuses being pulled out of your ass.

that's the definition of what an elf is generally understood to be. An excuse would be an external or circumstancial factor preventing them from taking over. As long as they're all about peace, isolationism and nature, they won't progress much

They were never about peace.
If you weren't such a faggot maggot, you would have read the books more thoroughly and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

They didn't want to fight over middle earth because they had nothing to gain from it because they were getting ready to leave anyway.

Zelda already did it. Hyruleans are Elves.

>that's the definition of what an elf is generally understood to be
I think you should go back reading books again.

To be fair, that is the definition of what an elf is to niggers and nigger wannabees that grew up watching hentai and fap to NTR and traps.

>How would you do it?
Assuming I would, because generally having one race be dominate is boring and done to death. But ok, for argument's sake:

>Elves are split into four subspecies
Wood
Nigh
Snow
Drow

Each has a member on the ruling council. Three other races sit on the council as well. Human, Dwarf, and Saurus / Lizardmen.

The Elves vote in a block almost all of the time, so their political power is basically unchallenged. Humans, Dwarves, and Saurus don't have the same kind of unity so there isn't much of a challenge for them.

While wars do break out between the council races, they're small and localized, with few exceptions. However, the council does wage war on the Orcs, Beastmen, and other races that inhabit the world.

The Elves hold dominance not through anything intrinsic, but voting in policies and laws that benefit them more than the other races.

Elves have the best magic, just different flavors. Dwarves are the world's best smiths. Humans are the premiere explorers. And Saurus have the best science.

This is actually alright, a good starting point for something like this.

Realistically they should be.

My GM's homebrew setting had elves as the dominant race for most of the setting's history.

Any crossbreeding with elves always results in a full-elf child. No half-anythings. On top of this, -all- elves used to be favored by their patron deity. He gifted them physical strength, health, long life, and each person the ability to tap into two different schools of magic. They rose to supremacy on their half of the globe very quickly, dominating the western continent until another god forced the elf god to reign in his shit.

This is ancient history by the time the game takes place, but you could easily run a campaign at that point in time.

>Nigh Elves
>they're just humans with slightly pointier ears
>real elves got them to play along to get the vote scheme working

>technological advancements stagnated for millenia due to their belief that since they've always done things x/y/z way, then x/y/z way is right

This is literally the most bullshit trope ever.

Damn it. brb committing Sudoku.

Meant High Elves

The elves weren't hippies, they were a superior civilization that had reached its epoch and now were traveling across the sea because there was nothing left to do in Middle Earth. The Elvish civilizations were powerful, warlike, and advanced. Even the wood elves had a pretty sophisticated sounding fortress in Murkwood, they were just all alcoholics.

youtube.com/watch?v=rvJsG4F2Img

That literally is "my world" OP.

They're immortal assholes thta have shitloads of slaves and live life decadently.

Elves have runic golems/controlled treants/elemental servants.
or
Humans are early Celt level tech, Elves late Medieval plus more refined magic.
or
The other races have warred themselves to the point of near extinction, and the elves kept out of it in their secluded valleys
or
The Elves have possession of one or more super-relics that allow them to pull of some incredible shit/bend the rules of magic/manipulate the minds of non-elves.

Lots of ways to do it.

Oh and they can't have kids.

...

A nightmare in which humans are hunted for sport by a savage degenerate race driven mad by their long lives and the passing of years. Their morality is incomprehensible to the young race of man having experienced nothing but utter cruelty under the Elves horrid dominance. The noble Dwarves have been slaughtered, DARING to even voice a single utterance of resistance to the Elven savage lead to their extinction.

It's a Grimdark world where the Gods of Light and Honor have been forsaken in favor of Slaughter and Lust. Where entire musical instruments are driven by the pitiless torture of mortal men. Where Elven women are prudish and kept covered up. Where the only hope lies in the savage, but free, Greenskins who only survive thanks to the famous apathy that composes much of the Elfin character. It's a dark world, a violent world, and you want to know what made it this way?

Oh no, it's not the Elves being first. It's due to the Elven men simply having confidence and being alpha instead of the effeminate pushovers who let their sluts fuck everything that moves.

Tolkien's elves aren't infertile. They don't have children because they don't need to, and having them drains some of the mother's power. In fact, Elven women are said to be almost evenly matched physically with most males, with the gender disparity only becoming evident once they've had children. They're a spiritually "unfallen" race that hasn't lost their connection to the divine, in a christian sense. This means elves don't just get bored and decide to have sex, so birth control and a lot of other worldbuilding shit Veeky Forums loves obsessing about doesn't even come into the question.

After the First Age elves are more likely to feel pity or disappointment at humans rather than downright disdain. The corruption of men right after their creation was a big deal because they were originally supposed to put their ability to actually change the course of history (as opposed to the Elves and the AInur who are the powerless PCs on Eru's massively railroaded campaign) to work and amend the Marring of Arda, which otherwise would be (and became) impossible.

The only reason elves ever had to dislike dwarves was that they were ugly and they kinda let that go. Early Dwarves even built a lot of shit for the Elves for free (including a whole KINGDOM) because they were that excited to test out their new skills. The only race they're actually racist towards are orcs, who were explicitly made to be the servants of the god of evil and nothing else

Do like the Iron Kingdoms did, where the elven gods were actively helping the elves get a leg up on all the other races. Just skip the part where they fucked everything up, possibly forever.

No, they are not.

Basically this minus the whole space thing

They have pointy ears, live a very long time and are persistent enemies of pig-like savages. These are the fundamental features of the Elf. Your opinion is untenable.

so basically Melniboné of good olden times

>elves are dominant

well, they are now after they led an Alliance that BTFO the humans so hard that the humans fled the continent across the sea, never to be seen or heard from again

they then proceeded to track them down a few hundred years later, set up a giant magical 'no fly zone' that surrounded the isles that the humans took for themselves, filled it with a world destroying avatar to keep the humans locked in. the humans don't know about it, all they know is if they get a certain distance out to sea, they get attacked by a giant whale/bird thing.

well , african bush people and aboriginal bush people do exist , alongside all of the other guys who still life in bushes running around naked

>pig-like savages
Pig orcs are an early D&D and Japan thing. WoW and Warhammer style muscular green skinned barbarians are more common. Tolkien literally invented orcs and his weren't pig like

But the stereotypical elves in "generic fantasy" always WERE the dominant race, in the barely-remembered age of miracles when they conquered the known world and invented everything first and best, including epic magic items that literally can't be made again because the world is running out of magic.
Just set your story a couple millennia before the elves got lazy.

Why minus the whole space thing?

It's high fantasy, give the knife ears space boats and massive heavenly cities that forever loom above the lesser races.

Artifacts that are deemed obsolete or broken by the elves are simply tossed over the side, where the people below scramble and fight over them.

Sounds more like angels would fit that role better than elves.

nah angels would be too typical and fedora for that.

>le dwarf meme xD

Too fedora? Not necessarily. Maybe they're just Aasimar instead and use their angelic blood as a justification for their collective superiority complex.

Or maybe God is mad at them for being greedy, belligerent, and prideful; and sending them floating about in the stratosphere is considered a demotion. Maybe God is still mad with the angles and wants the PCs to use the angelic technology they salvage to fly up and put the angles in their place.

First, I'd want to avoid changing elves too much from their traditional form. They'd still be long lived, little bred, and carry a certain mysticism.

Humans would still be the large population that makes up most kingdoms, but the land would mostly be united under an elven emperor. Elves would basically be the ruling class, managing humans and keeping them running properly. It would be toned more like a bureaucracy than anything like slavery, the humans are a necessary workforce and the best among them will be treated like elves in status, but for the most part elves don't look down on humans so much as they take it as a responsibility for themselves to keep them happy and stable.

Indeed, or Naggaroth. Aha that's why Elfin men are so asshurt all the time. They know if they had a backbone, they could have effortlessly dominated the planet but instead... They're cuckolded by their women and the laughing stock of everyone from the lowest Kobold to the greatest Eagle.

>They're cuckolded by their women and the laughing stock of everyone from the lowest Kobold to the greatest Eagle
Alright, I'll bite. What are you basing this impression on?

Aasimar or Elf would be best.

Elric saga?