What are the most interesting elves you ever encountered?

What are the most interesting elves you ever encountered?

dunmer are the only elves that matter.

None.

Elves are just humans with pointy ears. There is nothing interesting about them, because they are the ultimate Human+ race.

that comic had some interesting elves

I bet you read it for the plot and articles too.

And what comic is that?
For the articles of course.

The best elves are Tolkien elves, dunmer, WHFB elves, dark eldar, and Lorwyn elves. IK elves are interesting for basically having the opposite reaction from most elves to the whole dying race thing, but they're tragically underdeveloped compared to the human factions.

hehe no reason you can't enjoy both

look up "Arbuz Budesh" on HF. That is the artist's handle. Last I saw it was some hundred pages long.

>Best elves are long-lived, long-eared humans with absolutely no flavour in them
Then elf-fags wonder why people poke fun out of them.

Danke

Give us your great elves then.

>I don't know what I'm talking about: the post

Please leave.

Which part of this you didn't understand the first time?

There is no such thing as "interesting" or "great" elves, because the race violates it by the very existence.
Fair folk WAS interesting, before it was turned into one of the most obnoxious memes. Fairies were interesting, before they were turned into pixies, removing the elf part of them.
And everything that didn't fit, was just turned into yet another cookie-cutter one-dimensional "race" we all know thanks to D&D.

Elves are boring. Deal with it. You can literally play just a well-aculturated human noble in most settings to get what elves are, WITHOUT changing the race. Rings you a bell how redundant they are at this point as setting element?

I remember Witcher TTRPG doing a really great inversion of this shit. The way how Nilfgaard is potrayed in the game's lore makes them more elven than the actual elves of the setting. While they are just humans with sophisticated culture.

...

>Elves are just humans with pointy ears
Even if that was true...so what?

>so what?
What's the point of having them then? Because they don't even add variety.

So, you didn't come to answer OPs questions, but to state you opinion about not liking them in the first place. Great, now please leave.

Humanity fuck yeah ruined humans.

Eberron's Elves. All of them.

>What's the point of having them then?
Who else is gonna live in Alfheim?
>Because they don't even add variety.
Sure they do.

...

>A-user stop!
>N-no, stop

Not even him, but ever occured to you "none" is also an aswer?

It always seems that human only autists always seem to forget the subtle changes to psychology that elves would have due to certain things they have in D&D and other settings. Like living for centuries or not sleeping. Just the subtle effect of them not having the ability to dream via sleep necessitates a strong difference to humanity.

Living with long pointed ears and having stronger senses is pretty different to humanity.

Living for centuries and knowing you'll live for centuries really takes some of the strong drive to get shit done now since you know you can just pick it up a couple decades if an inconvenience like a human war crops up.

Of course human only autists can only fixate on superficial differences in appearance.

Please enlighten us how elves bring any variety to the setting, if you previously admitted they are nothing more than long-eared humans.
Because I'm not following your logic.

Dead elves.

/thread

>Human only
Did I said anything about "human only" setting? Did I fucking stutter? Because I don't think so. Then why the fuck you put words into my mouth?
>the subtle changes to psychology
Such as? Or, which is even better, have anyone actually played elves as anything else than long-eared humans with semi-sophisticated culture? Or just long-eared arrogant jerks? Because that' literally the two varieties of elves in existence.

>Just the subtle effect of them not having the ability to dream
Funny, because I don't have dreams. At all. Does that makes me elf? Does that makes my anyway different than remaining 7 billions of people? I seriously doubt that.

>Living for centuries and knowing you'll live for centuries really takes some of the strong drive to get shit done now since you know you can just pick it up a couple decades if an inconvenience like a human war crops up.
This is the only good argument you have. But here is a thing - no game setting reflects it. None.

Your opinion has been noted, (You)s have been given. I see no reason for you to stay in this thread except for getting triggered by a fictional race.

in my setting elves have innate telepathy and never developed a spoken or written language

But I see.

It's currently on a straight way to being derailed, with bunch of idiots triggered.
You must be really new here to not realise this could be the whole point.

My DM did some pretty nice elves. They were very rare things, living solitary lives except for when they would meet once every few decades to mate, sort of like polar bears. They had no society or country, and lived entirely feral lives, and they hated being in large groups, to the point where elves that aren't raised by humans cannot even enter villages or have conversations.

How do they communicate, anyway? With pictures?
Because you must be aware deaf people who never learned any language have REALLY hard time to think, since they have no way of assembling their thoughts.

Came here to post this. Dark elf best elf.

Have you ever read Similarion>

I'll give you another (You), you seem to need it badly.

So they are basically non-sentient?

Different user, but this is how Tolkien elves read
>Here are those special elves, that are so much better than humans in everything they do, because I say so
Dunmer for live.

>that are so much better than humans in everything they do
So, you haven't read anything from Tolkien.
>because I say so
Yeah, but this is so much better
>here is my greentext HFY story, in which humans are the best and will always win at anything, because I say so

>Did I said anything about "human only" setting? Did I fucking stutter? Because I don't think so. Then why the fuck you put words into my mouth?
It was a more general thing and I also forgot to remove your reply since I heavily edited my post after typing soemthing more specific for you.

>Such as? Or, which is even better, have anyone actually played elves as anything else than long-eared humans with semi-sophisticated culture? Or just long-eared arrogant jerks? Because that' literally the two varieties of elves in existence.
Its not my fault your poorly read on different elven cultures. And besides, human psychology or thought isn't all that special or unique except for a few specific things we have retained via our ape ancestry.

>Funny, because I don't have dreams. At all. Does that makes me elf? Does that makes my anyway different than remaining 7 billions of people? I seriously doubt that.
No, but you still sleep. And you still dream, though you don't remember it. Elves are physically incapable of dreaming. They do not sleep in fact, but rest their minds by a form of meditative trance.

>This is the only good argument you have. But here is a thing - no game setting reflects it. None.
Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Eberron, Golarion, Greyhawk, and a multitude of other D&D games specifically call it out and show how it affects them and their psychology. Hell, there was an entire book specifically for elves in 2e, Races of the Wild for 3.x covered it, and Elves of Golarion talks extensively about how they see the world and its affects upon them. You're just poorly read on them and more than likely got your info on elves from all the shitposts here.

Well, if they're just long-eared humans then they add variety in terms of ear aesthetic.

But usually they're absurdly long lived, long-sighted, idealistic but self-absorbed, wrathful, artsy and expressive versions of humans, capable of inhuman excellence in a variety of fields, and very insightful yet often impaired by their own high opinion of themselves. That's a little more interesting.

Most fantasy races aren't really trying to be alien, the point is that you exaggerate certain human characteristics as a way to reflect on humanity. I think everyone has a little elf in them, some more than others; same with dwarf, orc,halfling, what have you.

of course they can think, just not with words like we do
the elves would probably send eachother pictures, desires and emotions

Tiste Andii

I suppose they have a form of language, but it is expressed with feeling rather than words. They literally share their feelings with someone they are communicating with.

They have very poor memories and critical thinking skills due to the lack of structured language, which is especially unfortunate given their long lives. An elf that has lived for hundreds of years acts no different from an elf who has lived for twenty. Living in the moment is the only way they have ever known.

Elves that grow up around humans behave totally differently. The muscles in their throats aren't developed enough to speak beyond simple words, but they can understand what is being said, and can learn to read and write. Humans are sensitive to Elf telepathy, but and Elf can't read a human's thoughts or feelings. The Elves broadcast what they are feeling all the time, making it very hard for them to lie.

Wild elves survive and live long lives due to their affinity with magic, but humans in my setting can't normally use magic ever, so they don't know how to train young elves in magic. If an elf doesn't learn magic at a young age, they can usually never learn it.

Despite visual similarities, humans and elves cannot cross-breed.

My homebrewed setting has Primitive Celtic-Spartan Elves that are extremely resistant to disease, they reproduce as quickly as Humans do. War is their way of keeping the population down, and some of their elite warriors have centuries of combat experience. They wield primitive but masterfully crafted and enchanted weapons and armor. They're basically the Orcs of the setting.

The actual Orcs are closer to Mongols.

I've never seen an elf portrayal which did NOT emphasize their extremely long lives and the difference in perspective which this creates. It's the main trope which defines elves, moreso than pointed ears even. Further development usually builds on that, dealing with how different their perspective and priorities are as a consequence.

Other point of fact, everyone dreams. You don't trance for 4 hours and then return to full consciousness, you sleep like a human and don't remember our dreams.
But to answer your question, actually, yes, not remembering your dreams makes you very different from the people who commonly do remember their dreams.

>Despite visual similarities, humans and elves cannot cross-breed
Thanks, I despise half-anything.

Yea bro, Tolkiens elves are superhuman in a million ways but there are still times when a specific human is better, when humans in general are better, elves being cowardly, elves being arrogant, elves being stupid in specifically elven ways, etc etc. Turin was "As fast as any elf but stronger". Beren went 1v2 and beat two sons of Feanor (and compared to the list of shit Beren pulled of it wasn't even that impressive).

Alo humans have a completely different afterlife and its something elves spend a lot of time thining about and somtimes seem to envy. "You know not where you go when you die; that is your doom. We are bound to this world until it is broken; that is ours". Something like that. But then of course humans are jealous as shit of elf "immortality".

But yes, there's no specific thing that a human would NEVER do and an elf would. They aren't inhuman, they're a different shade of human.

>implying any of these guys are humans with pointy ears

I'm not sure Tolkien elves are even described as universally having pointy ears. Their primary feature in comparison to humans is that their fea (soul) and their body are basically the same thing, and his part of the material world, meaning that they have greater metaphysical power and greater ability to influence reality with it, but are ultimately bound to the earth and its fate.

I don't know what to even say to you if you think dunmer or deldar are just like humans. Or Lorwyn elves, who have horns and ayy lmao faces and are irrationally obsessed with things we'd consider petty. That's super retarded.

>more stuff
Without magic, the average life expectancy of an Elf is around 45 years due to health problems they normally avoid with magic. Without health problems, they can live to be 800.

Elves have never been to war and when living along side humans are rarely the victims of violent crime. When you can literally feel the pain and fear of the person in front of you, you feel really bad about hurting them... unless you are a psychopath. They are, however, frequently the victims of cons and scams.

Elves are better at learning process oriented tasks than memorization. The general thought is that elves aren't too smart, due to their problems with language.

Elves in human societies usually have labor and service jobs, but do horribly in sales positions.

...

>There is no such thing as "interesting" or "great" elves, because the race violates it by the very existence.

That's a dumb statement.

Even if elves were just pointy eared humans, then by your logic, no human society can be interesting. If you can't do anything with elves that you can't do with humans, and all elves are boring shit concepts, then all humans are boring shit concepts.

So they were...not elves?

Out of interest, what fantasy races do you like?

Elves were only interesting when I first discovered them at 11ish years old, when I first started playing tabletop RPGs and reading fantasy novels that had elves in them.

I think at 20ish or so I realized this and lost all interest in them.

What makes you say that?

/The Ending of the Thread is Almsivi

Uh, all of it. The whole thing.

>this fantasy race is bad because I can imagine humans having the same society as it!

No shit, that's all fantasy races. Our entire conception of society is based on human societies, as those are the only ones we've ever experienced. There are no pantheons in mythology, no aliens in science fiction, no races in fantasy, that do not ultimately have their roots in our own experience of the world.

Also, you guys seem to be implying that allegory is bad. Which makes you tremendous plebs.

None

>Elves don't dream
They don't sleep, but that's because they pretty much just have lucid dreams for 4 hours a day.

I don't see any elf corpses. You can do better than that.

Elves in my setting are biologically immortal, but they aren't *mentally* immortaly. Every 500-2000 years an elf has a complete mental breakdown and runs off into the woods to wig out for a few days, and when they return they are a new person, greatly influenced by the repressed dreams and aspirations of the previous person, but still functionally and legally a different person.

I'm pretty sure this whole idea came from Veeky Forums but I don't remember the specific conversation. Does anyone else?

Anyway, I'm running with it. There are ways to extend your "life" as an elf but they make you crazy and everyone knows it. The elf king and queen are super super old and super crazy and everyone knows it. Also they had to start punishing new elves for crimes committed by their previous self, because at one point it was WAY too common for them to break the law right before a rebirth or feign a rebirth to get out of punishment. Nevertheless reborn elves are seen as innocent, a lot of their tragedies are about being born into a trial.

Right.

Then they are clinically retarded.

If they form any culture above most basic hunter-gatherer tribe (I'm talking pre-homo sapiens forms here), you've failed sociology and communication forever.
To properly communicate and even HAVE elaborate thoughts going other than most basic ideas (thus, for example, being able to formulate cause-reaction patterns of thoughts) you need language, period.
Just like the other user mentioned the example with deaf people (wild children are also good case-example), unless you are able to communicate in ANY language, you can't think properly and your IQ will be around 50-60. A lot for animal, but that's literal clinical retardation, making Forrest Gump looking like a genius by comparison.

Deaf people, who learned sign language as their first language, think in gestures. They don't think in ideas or images or emotions, but formulate entire pattern of thoughts in gestures. For comparison, if they learned to read as their first way of communication (which happens from time to time), they think in text instead. Again, no images, emotions or bare ideas.

Communication just doesn't work this way. And please, don't bring the tired "but this is fantasy and they are not humans" arguments. This works for primates, too. If they are taught sign language, their ability to analise their own surroundings is increased fourthfold. And they are just primates.

Conversely, if savage children don't learn any language until they hit puberty or so, they are permanently locked at state of semi-sentience and behaving like an animal. Only because their brain never learned how to properly formulate reactions.

Language is one of the most important achievements for any species to have. Communication without it is so limited it makes no fucking sense.

>I never played anything more complex than D&D
No shit, we didn't notice!

Lel, everything, literally everything, is based on what we experience.

Whatever speshul snowflake donut steel race you like is no exception.

That just means your shit at world building and can't make a better elf. Whenever I see people say x is only humans with rubber forheads, I cringe a little. I mean sure aestetically that may be the case, but if your any kind of decent you can Make them interesting. They don't have to be just humans if your creative enough

Tl;dr your an uncreative sodd, nothing wrong with elves, it's you.

itt: MUH REALISM

Hello.

That sounds like it could lead to a lot of fun character opportunities for elves acting out those repressed dreams of their previous 'life'.

user, here is a deal:
Elves in tabletop are for 50 years now
Elves in their modern incarnation are around for almost a century

And in all that time, with all the effort put into it, they are humans with pointy ears.
But hey, call people who point this out uncreative, not the actually uncreative idiots behind this, that will totally work!

40, my bad.

Three years.

It's been three years since I've last played Dwarf Fortress.

And yet I look at this image and I can see the main hallway, the microcline storage chambers flecked with native gold, the goblin corpses rotting alongside fresh white bones.

Good god, you never just "forget" what these things are, do you?

muthsera

Well they were humanoids that looked very similar to humans, they had pointy ears, they were in tune with nature, they were naturally magical...

They were elves.

Ah yes, great take on really standard wood elves. Industrial production of buildings, our arrows will blot out the sun.

But this is fantasy, and they are not humans.

Everyone's thought includes sounds and images and bare feelings or ideas to at least some mall extent. No one thinks purely in language. And it varies from person to person, more than you realize by the sounds of it, some people aren't very verbal at all and are drawn to non-verbal forms of self expression.

Advanced communication does depend on language, your basic point is good. But do you not experience non-verbal thoughts and ideas? That is very hard for me to believe.

Anyway. Telepathy as that user described it is still a form of communication. My read on it was that they can still broadcast complicated ideas to each other, but its done in an emotional and semi-involuntary way, like a human who can't stop spouting their stream of conscious out loud.

user. While it is true that the lack of creativity on a larger level is not your fault, when you get together to game you can customize things to your liking. I'm just saying if the solution in your mind is, well we'll just get rid of elves because they suck, while you are well within your rights to do so, it seems a little like giving up. I'm just saying if your so unhappy with it make something you can be happy with. Or don't I suppose, it is your choice, and I guess I came off as overly confrontational. I occasionally speak before I think, and that was ruder than I intended.

Yep, you have no idea how communication works.

Please explain in emotions, ideas and images you need 4 people go there with their bows, climb the rock over there and create the ambush, opening fire on given mark.
And do that WITHOUT making a "video" out of it, step by step. Also, take the "lenght" of such "video" into consideration.

So my suggestion - drop the "never developed spoken language". Replace it with "cease to use it" and you are golden.
Because don't get me wrong, I really like the idea, but for it to work, you simply need language first. Just ideas and images won't do, no matter what.

>And in all that time, with all the effort put into it, they are humans with pointy ears.

Says you.

You've failed to adequately respond to any mention of elves not being pointy eared humans, because you have no argument.

Also, what is your definition of a race that is different enough from humans to be valid? Is it thri-keen or dwarves or some shit? Because those are just, in their most common form, just exaggerated forms of societies found in our world.

Might have been nice, did they not share a setting with much better factions like Jewish vampiric constructs, kobold diplomancers and a medieval megacorporation.

Ok, one step more:
If it's so easy, here, give us elves that aren't just pointy-eared humans. And I mean it sincerely. You don't need to do it now, you can use pastebin, but go ahead.
Because from the way you are talking about it, it's obviously a very easy task that can be done in just few hours if one has dedication.

... or you are the classic Idea Guy, who is pushing bullshit.
Your choice.

Does that mean that the least creative setting would be primitive animism, and the most creative would be SJW Adventuretime Indie Game?

my plan was that the wild elves live in the forest doing acting like animal, chasing animals, eating fruits, sleeping in the dirt. The thought that they could build something or alter their environment in any way just hasn't occurred to them, and neither has the thought occurred that they can dress themselves, or cut their body hair. They also have no reservations about bodily functions; they go when they feel like even if around others.

a wild elf in my setting would never think to make a tool as complex as a bow. Most barely use tools at all, let alone make tools.

Wild elves smell really bad, act like animals, and are undesirable to be around. They act however they feel. The magic that extends their life? They know the feeling in their stomach hurts and they make it go away, like scratching an itch. They have no understand of it beyond that.

Humans originally sought to keep elves as pets, but were surprised when they could actually be taught language, and that when raised as a human could actually think and do things on their own.

Also some of these posts aren't me.

user, but riddle me this: where is your own argument?
Because you know how it looks now?
>Me
Elves are pointy-eared humans
>You
No, they are not

None of us is presenting any argument. Yet you act like this applies only to me

Bah.

Broken Lords are just humans without bodies.

Drakken are just humans with scales.

Cultists of the End are just scientologists.

None of these races are original or special enough. We have to go deeper!

>a wild elf in my setting would never think to make a tool as complex as a bow. Most barely use tools at all, let alone make tools.
So they are basically early hominids?
I'm ok with it then.

see
The pro-elf side are the only ones presenting examples or arguments. You're just going "no" in a cursory manner that tells me you don't actually know enough about the examples cited to dispute them effectively. If you want them to go into more detail about why these things are good, you could just admit that you don't know what you're talking about. People expect most others on these boards to be informed to some extent, but it's okay if you're not. Just tell us and we'll educate you.

Also, come on. What fantasy races are truly original and are different enough from anything found in the real world to be valid?

You have to admit it gets kind of frustrating though. It's easy to make up fantasy empires and kingdoms based around humans, because we have a ton of human examples. But with elves or dwarves, we have to work to make them feel different. And if they end up too different, it's hard to explain them in a human world on a human scale, especially since elves can't just not affect the nearby human not!Roman Empire in some way.

Sure they're very human, since it's impossible not to be for the reasons you said. I agree with your point. It's just difficult to make them feel unique without going crazy, and if you don't make them feel unique, it gets difficult to find a good reason to include them at all.

basically this

the biggest conceit is how they have the neurological development to function when taught language at an early age, as this isn't true of any primates today aside from humans. Chimpanzees and other higher primates can be taught sign language and can express ideas, but they don't develop enough such that they could even remotely function alongside humans. I don't have the paper handy, but when I took a psychology course for general ed it was mentioned how researched attempted to raise a chimpanzee among humans and treated it as if it were a human, but it stopped brain development past a certain age, as where humans continue for decades beyond that. They stopped the experiment when they feared it would impact the human children the chimpanzee was interacting with. Basically that higher non-human primates don't ever reach past about a 2.5 to 3 year old equivalent of brain development.

>Those are the arguments
>Links to another 3 posts with no answer, but counter-opinions
K

user, explain me something - why it's so hard for you to admit you were trying to use cheap eristics and was caught on it? What? Better to dig yourself deeper and try to change goalposts?

>You have to admit it gets kind of frustrating though.

Honestly? No.

I find it really goddamn easy, actually.

The only frustrating things about it are the people who project traits they dislike on a fantasy concept and then invent reasons to pretend their dislike for this concepts is illogical and everyone should share it. The statement "all fantasy races are, like, bogus dumb humans with [insert trait], we shouldn't even have them" means an instant dismissal from my campaigns, because the speaker is clearly not creative enough to be a good roleplayer anyway, and probably just needs to read more widely.

Just tell us an original fantasy race, godamn.

If you could see my thoughts and know what I was thinking that would be a very easy idea to convey.

(that rock over there)

Now, *I* couldn't thought-broadcast that shit to an elf, because *my* thinking is largely verbal, because I am a human and not a telepathy-elf. Also, if I hadn't been taught a language I would be retarded, because I am a human and not a telepathy elf.

Would it help if, instead of "they telepath their thoughts", I said "they think in telepathy"? My brain i built around my species' mode of communication, theirs would be built around theirs. A telepathy-elf who grows up isolated from other telepathy-elves would be telepathically retarded (but, from what user says, could develop spoken language and verbal thought instead. This is very interesting to me).

I'd recommend looking at cases where human children weren't raised with adequate parenting, or in an environment otherwise not good for development. There were some Romanian orphanages where the children were very, very poorly cared for and often left to their own devices, and even the better off ones tend to have psychological scars. It might help give you an idea of how the human-raised elves work.

Maybe it never occured to you, but I'm arguing against elves. Elves specifically.
So here is your (you) and perfect picture

I dunno, I just work a lot with history and know a lot about that kind of human development and culture and such, so elves tend to be a monkey-wrench in my plans. Best I've managed to do with them so far is making them the not!Chinese.

Those aren't opinions you dumbass.

is a fact.

Also a fact, it is a logical fallacy to state that if elves are just humans with pointed ears, elves can't be interesting... because that means humans can't be interesting either.

Is an example of why you're wrong. The post literally summarizes why elves in LotR are not human, as well as these lorwyn guys. The image is also a pretty good example of how dark eldar ain't just pointy eared humans.

Stop stalling, present your argument for what things are truly original fantasy races.

It's not hard user. Just give us some examples.