Lets make interesting Elves

you implied that tolkien elves were shit and in this thread you would make one elven race who is better than the tolkien's one.
>The other thread seemed to devolve into a hot tolkien mess so lets just create an interesting culture over here.

Tolkien elves work best for Tolkien. Unless you've got them there in the same role that Tolkien had, for the same reasons, you're not really doing anything that's worthy of having 'em in your setting.

It's not that Tolkien elves are somehow inherently superior, it's that Tolkien's writing, his depiction of Elves and his role for them in his world is masterfully crafted and fits together beautifully. That's what makes them great. So yeah, none of us will reach that level of writing, but who gives a shit? We should do things that are cool and make sense in our own worlds, not blindly follow the coolest shit we've seen.

Tf. I meant the thread quickly devolve into a scub tier Tolkien discussion. I never said our Elves will be better. Please don't be a butthurt fangirl.

THIS.THREAD.IS.NOT.ABOUT.TOLKIEN.
PLZ.USE.THE.OTHER.THREAD.FOR.THAT.

This post gets it.

The memory thing actually gives me an interesting idea:

The upper and middlebclass of the society (I think a Magocracy would fit here) have access to Memnotic Magic allowing them to store their memories perfectly. The lower classes are forced to rely on their diaries/tales/songs warping their perception of their past.

Maybe the lower classes have a huge problem with nostalgia googles and I could easily see the upper class exploiting that for propaganda purposes. Its easy to change some diaries or songs with magic...

Thats would lead to historians being a very prestigious and important group (that is probably in cahots with the government to tinker with the official records for the plebs...)

And if we don't go the whole low fertility route I could see a very violent society with duels, strict laws and liberal use of the death penalty.

I like it. The magocracy makes a lot of sense when they are the ones who have perfect recall, while the lower classes don't. If they can keep trust up then they can basically manipulate history as they see fit, assuming large scale book editing spells work.

Regarding proto-fascist, if you want actual fascism rather than the modern usage of "anyone I don't like", have a read of the first few chapters of "The Vampire Economy", a book written by a businessman who escaped Nazi Germany in 1939. It's about how business works there, pic related.

>strict use of the death penalty, low fertility
You don't even have to do that. I mean, death penalty and duels is fine, laws don't have to be that strict though, especially as you're aiming for proto facist. The Magiocrats simply have to manipulate the economy to make it less or more economically viable for the lower classes to have large families.

>How do elves choose what they remember?

Good question.

>rich/important elves:

There is a special group of mages that are able to store memories into a precious metal/diamond/McGuffin. Ofc thats expensive so only the very rich conserve their whole memory. Most just save important milestones.

Oh and and the Memnotic Mages can always tinker with memories. Ofc they would never do that....

>poor Elves/the natural process:

>skills: As long as skills are used occassionally they are safe. If not they slowly decay, you start forgetting the finer details and eventually you even loose the basics.

This could lead to the paradox situation that Elves have certain skills but they have no clue when and how they got them.

>Memories:

I would propose a pretty "human" capacity. Depending on the individual maybe 30-50 years of "clear" memory. And a "fading" zone of 20-30 years where memories are unreliable and slowly fade into the oblivion of forgetting.

Special memories like your wedding etc. might last much longer if recalled often but you forget the context. You clearly remember your wedding but you have no idea who tf half of the people in the Memory are.

This gives poor elves a rudimentary control over their Memory and its common to keep certain events in mind on purpose and to supplement them with your diaries.

>Lets create interesting Elves and their cultures.

Step one: Don't allow them to be a playable race

There I did it.

>This could lead to the paradox situation that Elves have certain skills but they have no clue when and how they got them.

Well I am not hung up on proto-fascism and I would put the emphasis on proto.

Actual fascism is a fucking nightmare to define especially because the left has a nasty habit of labeling EVERYTHING as fascist.

For actual fascism to work you imho need not!commies/socialists, a at least partially modernized economy society that has been liberalized to a degree. Otherwise you just have reactionary nobles.

So lets maybe but the proto-fascist aspect on the backburner.

>the left has a nasty habit of labeling EVERYTHING as fascist.
Hence why I recommended reading a book written by a businessman about doing business in a fascist society.

My man I studied History the book sounds interesting but my knowledge is deep enough. Actually I recently finished a book about the third Reich economy.

For NatSoc for example your idea to just regulate the Economy makes no sense. It was a holy cow for them to abolish the damaging myth of the 2 child family.

Fascist Systems in General were pro population growth mostly.

Elves that fill the role of aristocracy/nobility in human society. Their long lives and mastery of all types of combat mean they are better suited to administration and combat roles, delegating the harsher menial tasks to their human serfs. The middle class of society are half elves, they use their longer than average life span to master trades and crafts deemed below the pure bloods but above the mortals. Because of thousands of years of inbreeding and violent plotting againt one another the pure bloods are increasingly paranoid causing them to at times purge their human and half-elf subjects in an attempt to deter rebellions. The purebred are often even more harsh to one another, in particular members of their own family because most sons and daughters will only succeed the throne upon the death of the current occupant. Due to excessive succession wars and assassinations among their own they are forced to rely on humans and half elves to bolster their armies setting the stage for a revolution.

Will your party play humans and lead humanity in to an age of freedom from the long lived oppressors or will they fight for their elvish kin and suppress the vile humans that desire the destruction of your race?

>your idea to just regulate the Economy makes no sense.
If something's more expensive, people do less of it. If having kids is expensive, people will have less kids. That's how it works IRL, and how it could work in a fantasy game. If having a kid incurs massive cost to the parents, they're going to wait, and have less kids. Regulating and manipulating economic factors makes perfect sense.
Whether or want you want that is a different matter.

That said it does depend on how expansionistic they are.

Sure what I was trying to say that Fascist Systems mostly were ideologically dead set on population growth.

Like
said:
Expansionism probably would have been the Solution for overpopulation fascists would use.

Ok, I hate to be the guy to open this can of worms but is National Socialism the best example we can use of a 'fascist' economy?

Are there any primary sources from Mussolini's Italy or Falangist Spain, or Salazarist Portugal?

It seems to me that Fascism is more or less unique in each country that employed, which would also help explain why it's such a hard thing to pin down in the first place.

In contrast to the 'not true communism meme,' I'd argue that there is no such thing as 'true' Fascism.

Although I guess the real question is, 'What the fuck does this have to do with Veeky Forums and elves?'

So to that end, I suggest the following considerations:
Firstly, what is the common conception of the Elven Nation? What national mythos exists to catalyze the Elven people? Do they have past glories they can look to as something to 're-acheive' such as Germany's First and Second Reich or Italy's Rome? Perhaps a racial belief system that is experiencing a rebirth such as Spainish Catholicism or Romania's Orthodoxy?

Furthermore, for Elves to be "proto-fascist" there must be some movement or belief perceived as a threat to the Elven zeitgeist. Fascism is probably the best example of a Hegelian Synthesis, in that it spread as an ideological counter to Marxism while at the same time absorbing elements of Marxism and Reaction to create something new.

Also, I suggest reading Umberto Eco's essay on 'Ur-Fascism,' as it provides an analysis of the various shades of Fascism and tries to identify common threads throughout.

Well lets do it methodically then:

>Elvish Nation and a catalyst for revanchism:

Lets keep in mind the following thing:

>The upper classes meddle with History and peoples memories in a BIG fashion.

>Italy actually was on the winning side in WW1 and yet the percieved "unjust victory" acted as a catalyst for the unholy mix of nationalism, reactionary thought and revanchism that breeds Fascism.

>An reactionary ideal like the 2nd Reich.

Well why not the following:

The Elvish Nations for the longest time were united. Due to a number of costly wars (mostly phyric victories) and growing political fractions this feudal coalition eventually broke.

The regions developed differently, the proto-fascist and expansionist Magocracy was the former heartland of the Elvish Realm. There are some other nations that took different paths, alining themselves with other powers and going down different political routes.

Combine this:

The Magocracy (that at the time was an ordinary kingdom) fought a costly war to preserve the independence of another Elvish Nation (maybe from Orcs). Ultimately the war was a every costly win. When the Independent Elvish state pursued an independent foreign policy that was opposed to the Kingdoms interests the Monarchy fell. It was replaced by an Republic. The republican leaders proved incapable of mending the growing rift between left and right.

>a movement that threatens the Elvish Zeitgeist

On the left an ideology emerged that strongly was in favour of a new economic policy of redistribution that was supposed to allow everyone to maintain their memories. They were the first to start using memory altering in a political and propagandist way. Anti-interventionism and a focus on improving the situation of the lower classes were the other tenets of their beliefs.

On the right a counter movement emerged that wanted to preserve the privileged position of mages and actually thought to install a Magocracy.

2/2

The "fascist" movement sought to make memory conserving available to the masses aswell but were staunchly opposed to changing the Social hierarchy. Instead they held surpremacist beliefs that see Elves as the superior race and Mages as the Natural leaders. So in order to reach the level of wealth necessary the Elvish people have to be united in a strong centralised Nation that then would be able to subjugate other races and to claim their wealth.

They used memory altering on an even larger scale and were fervently supported by the old monarchist elites.

The memory altering eroded the political center and the republican elites felt threatened by the redistributory rhetoric of the left. Enabling the Magocrats to eventually gain the power and to do a large scale purge and memory altering.

After gaining power they quickly followed a course of assimilating the other Elvish Nations that fucks up the balance of Power on the whole continent. In some other Elvish states Pan-Elvish movements overthrew the Government enforcing unification while other territories were acquired with military force.

Most other foreign powers are hesistant to interfere due to the traumatic memory of the costly wars of Elvish independence but they slowly realize they have to take a stand at some point.

Godwin's Law applies to elf threads too.

>thread about alternative elves
>a fascist Elvish culture is proposed in the second post

Ofc we talk about Nazis at some point but Godwins Law is more about discussions where Nazis aren't a Natural subject that is going to come up.

And, like other threads, there's no point in continuing after that comes up.

Veeky Forums is weird sometimes. Thats a really retarded statement.

>Lets create interesting Elves and their cultures.
My starting point for elves is usually that elves tend to be chaotic in terms of alignment (as opposed to dwarves who tend to be lawful) according to D&D books. However, elven society usually isn't seen as utterly dysfunctional, and chaotic also tends to imply an emphasis of personal liberty over tradition, so it feels like republicanism would be the natural mode of governance for elves. They're too haughty and at the same time too free-spirited to bend the knee to a king or queen, prefer the idea that they rule themselves and are always skeptical of authority. Culturally this always leads me in the direction of three famous republican cultures: Ancient Rome, Revolutionary France and America. In my setting they're some unholy mix of the first two, but now that I think about it maybe the last one is the best fit? You can even get that "muh nature" element in there by specifically taking inspiration from American frontiersmen. And I don't mean it in the same sense as that redneck elf that gets posted here frequently, I mean it more in the hardy wilderness guy wearing a Davey Croquet hat way.

Interesting in what way?

Are you talking about Elves in general? Or Elves of a certain type?

Chad Elves that live in a Caribbean/Mediterranean archipelago. Magical warrior society whose warriors have the ability to become even stronger via eating the quarries they slay (and they go after only the strongest of beings). Their gods are made out of extremes. One goddess is an expy of Ishtar (but crazier), while one god of theirs is both a god of discipline (and self-discipline) half of the time while the other half it's being about parties and having fun.

They also have sea-weed elementals that turn into surf desks that they ride into battle.

Their women also have perfect booties as standard.

This now requires a "Virgin Quendi, Chad Eldar" edit

All the 'magical races' in my setting are really just genetic alterations resulting from a war that humanity sort of lost but not . . .
Anyway, certain genetic traits were coded into the various super soldiers to make them viably distinct and easy to identify.
As an additional 'back up' or perhaps just natural evolution these races generally only breed with themselves and have some alterations to their reproductive cycle making any half blood offspring HIGHLY recessive even after only one or two generations.

So that said, my elfs are genetic mutants who were shaped for dexterity, stamina and kinaesthesia.
Like most the crafted races they tend to heal better and have longer lives do to some advanced immune systems along side more efficient metabolisms. The elf ears are just their genetic marker, and elfs tend to be thought of as better looking buts that more do to design and not getting scared up with age.

what a motherfuckin unholy idea of a thread
let's purge it.

Thats interesting.

I would do certain Safety limitations though.

Why not making them infertile?

Elves are a boring, overused concept. They are a creative dead end. You cannot make interesting elves, they're just too much of a cliche. There are some interesting ideas in this thread, but they're interesting ideas in their own right, not because of anything related to elves. If anything, these ideas get degraded in value by being pasted arbitrarily on elves.

Huh I like this.

>able to store memories into a precious metal/diamond/McGuffin

To this, I would say that Elves can store their memories in anything. However they need to have (a relatively) easy access to the McGuffin to retire them their thoughts.

Gems, Arms & Armor. Sure then you end up with super important magical or named items, like the "Jewel of High Autumn" or whatever. Maybe over item the item becomes enchanted if it possesses really powerful/emotional memories.

Classically Trees! Yeah elves of your "Common" variety like to store their thoughts in trees. Preferring fantasy-type trees that can live forever, and tree with sorter life spans are used for less important memories.
Gives a reason why elves would be so hard core against cutting down certain forests, and not care about others.

Or esoterically more powerful Elf mages can store their memories in other creatures such as humans, or even a lineage of humans. So long as the bloodline lasts the elf will be able to access his memories.
Gives way to the idea of an Elf whose sworn to protect this land / family even royal lineages.

>Maybe over item the item becomes enchanted if it possesses really powerful/emotional memories.

If two really powerful memories from two different elves are in the same object.
In 100 years, you get a new baby elf? Maybe already the equivalent of a 10 year old? The kid now possess those memories until he store them somewhere himself.

I should ask to incorporate that into a game I'm in. My character is an Elven Wizard from a homebrew Elf race (well, more or less a Sindar Elf from Tolkien) who has a lineage of Human descendants from a Human woman over a century ago.

I've been trying to figure out an interesting twist to their relationship beyond the general "they're his family." One thing I was going for was that he was trying to direct their bloodline so eventually a woman would be born with exactly the characteristics of the one he loved, but having his memories of her metaphysically linked to their bloodline is a much more interesting idea.

>for trees

I had the Idea of a sentient forest that is in symbiosis with a lineage of Elves. They are the keepers of a wood that is interested only in growing. Its like a cancer and not really a natural wood. For normal races these wood Elves are really strange folk.

>bloodline of humans as a memory saver

Thats a great idea. Might explain the certain interest in enslaving other races.

Well of-course you can take my idea! I stored it in that Thread post. In fact I don't even remember what is was now.

>But seriously that sounds hella fun. Have at it!

>I had the Idea of a sentient forest that is in symbiosis with a lineage of Elves.
After so many memories get stored in a forest it grows sentient? Fuck! This could be where Treants and Dryads come from.

Thats why most Elvish states wouldn't dare using a forest to save their memory.

Living things tend to create weird results...
Humans die before it gets really dangerous but trees live veeeery long...

Here's how I do elves:

>waning empire of miserable has-beens who spend most of their time high as fuck dreaming of better things
>very limited sense of morality, only rarely do any of them fall in love
>emperor is a sickly albino with a demonic sword
But that's just me tho.

go away morecock

elves based on the ancient persians

As long as you continue to be a shit writer your elves will always be shit.

>Living things tend to create weird results...
Ah! reversion to previous idea.
>If two really powerful memories from two different elves are in the same object. In 100 years, you get a new baby elf?

Too create a new living being (Elf) you must placing two or more powerful memories from two (or more) elves into a living being, or something which grows. Commonly tree yes.

-Memories that are not powerful enough result in "Not-Quite-Elves." Trees may result in Treant or Dryads. Flowers into faeries or pixies? Humans result in half elves I suppose?
So there is always a want and sometimes a need to place memories in living things.

- Naturally elves are androgynous? After all they don't naturally have genders or a need for them. It's only when half elves start popping up do you get male or females.

>Running out of my rather tiny elf art collection.

Metaplot is they were supposed to be; but has to do with the nature of this human war.
Short version is that in order to save the bulk of humanity we turned Earth itself into a massive trap and then locked everyone still on earth and the evil aliens into a pocket dimension. Fast forward 10,000 years and you have my fantasy setting.

knowing that there would be few survivors they didn't limit the chances of life in any way. the goblinoids, humanoids and elvenoids all given as many advantages as they could design into their genes and left alone. Several cataclysms later you get fantasy races and a whole lot of back sliding.

There is an eternal cyclical war going on with the true enemy and all other (once) human race(s)

But between bouts you have the normal thing with wars and strife and whatnot.

Hey ever read the Dark Sun book? Or play the RPG?

Every race came from halflings.

The way I have things working 'magic' is really a system of self sustaining nano effects that was installed into the earth itself, so magic is runes and devices as well as specific methods to store and use energy.

Elves tend to either keep to small enclaves that either lord over the area they live more than willing to use their natural advantages in war to gain a hold over their neighbors, or tend to be wanderers, the largest number of them known as Nauphtsarine or 'nautical elves' who more or less are gypsies of the sea.

It's been a long time, I read the original setting back in 2ed I think it was. Didn't really like it.

All in all I think that the way to do elves is DONT.
My 'efls' are not that, not really immortal, no hippy tendencies they're just humans with some particular genetic quirks so they do things in a differing way.
Like my 'Sarine' as I call them have great stamina and almost superhuman awareness of their own bodies. So they tend to out maneuver their foes in battle, moving back and around and keeping things moving until the humans are tired.
If fighting their own then a game of almost ritual lines and formations begins watching to who will trip up first.
They don't shy from gun and cannon, though heavy artillery is not good for a mobile force they they use small arms and light cannon, usually to good accurate effect.

In politics they tend to the same sort of tactics; they all come from soldiers who were reformed for strategic thinking and quick decisive attacks so they circle around in conversations not saying anything important and waiting until an opening then blast their point home.

So really, elfs have a sort of 'big picture' mentality where even a trooper in a unit knows what the plan is and more so, they stick to it.

Oh, I did give in and make 'wood elves' but they're sort of horrible little ultra territorial hobbit monsters than much else. So more like a fairy tale version of elves/brownies. Short, never more than about 4'6" they were once intended as guards, being small they could make use of all the nooks and vents in a vast underground or in space stations and the like..

user to me that honestly sounds like "The only way to to use elves is Don't use them at all just use humans!" Which at that point why bother even making a difference between races. Then you go on to describe basically the Movie version of Tolkien elves- all combat focused and probably looks pretty.
Not trying to be insulting, just how I see it.

Taking a future earth setting where civilisation rose and fell during 2 ice ages.

>All demihuman races including Elves were the result of designer babies.
>Orcs were the heavy-labor slaves mostly used for dangerous work like mining. Their creators were Arabs who regained control of modern day Turkey.
>Dwarves were a Chinese project to create even cheaper reliable manual labor and craftsmen.
>Elves were a Russian project to create super-soldiers.
>Goblins, Gnomes and Halflings are the wild degeneration of the above.

I had an idea for a post-apocolyptic fantasy flavoured SciFi elf race.

Components of an elf are made from the detruis of our failed civilization, elves would be made from plastic, long lived and flexible, but prone to photo-degradation.

I go on about the combat as that seems to be the thing most people are interested in.

If you want something more unique, how about this:
part of the elf reproduction cycle is external.

A female gives birth to a 'womb sack', like a hyper complex egg which then has to gestate another few months on its own. So reproduction is not only much longer but also very exposing. So say ten months of internal carrying of the fetus and another three external in the womb sack.

As for just use humans; yea that's kind of it. Elfs are just humans who seem to share a specific genetic trait of 'pointy vulcan ears' and more categorized by their societal methods. Like one in a hundred humans have the muscle memory to quickly learn complex physical motions and the wits to back it up. You get enough of the all living working and interacting with others as a unit then you get a unique group.

Like Navy SEALs if they were a family line and not a trained group. So say an entire subrace of navy seals is founded, they have their own odd ways, habits and customs.
From that angle it's more about what habits and physical pressures shaped this culture, more so how they overcome them that defines a race.
Without some cultural basis it's hard to just name some random traits and slap some ears on them for ELF v1.2.
Personally I spent more time in thinking up what I call Gigans, a ten foot tall more or less human race who have some Scottish/Celtic leanings kilts, pipe and all.
My goblins are more just harry humans with some feral leaning tendencies, more like an old D&D hobgoblin.

>I had the Idea of a sentient forest that is in symbiosis with a lineage of Elves. They are the keepers of a wood that is interested only in growing. Its like a cancer and not really a natural wood. For normal races these wood Elves are really strange folk.

Elves are not truly immortal. Through various stages of an Elf's life they will undergo an enormous physiological change. Everything from height to skin color to even sex in some cases can change to be something else. The shift seems to be brought about by the condition of an Elf's surroundings with danger and stress being the most common triggers. Elven soldiers are known to go through several shifts in the course of a decade in conflict. An Elven artist will go through far fewer shifts, although theirs shifts can be no less extreme. There are documented cases of an Elf undergoing a shift that changed the entire body to such a degree that their previous occupation of sculpting was no longer possible because the sculpter's body had become so tuned for combat that gazing on their creations sparked a sudden blitz of adrenaline and aggression.

This means that an Elf can go through many many different professions over a life time. This shifting comes with a cost. While the physical body remains strong, each shift takes a toll on the mental faculties of an Elf. Entire sections of memory can be lost. Muscle memory rapidly deteriorates with every shift. Some of posited that these Shifts are attempting to wipe the slate clean of a previous life.

Most Elves are killed in combat or due to accidents. The oldest Elf is Krazier xa Krazim, documented to be well over a thousand. His original name and sex are unknown. He has undergone so many Shifts that he has been rendered incapable of speech because he can no longer distinguish between voices, dialects, and languages in his age. He serves as an important case study in the mental deterioration caused by Shifts. The man is largely comatose. His long stretches of complete immobility are sometime interrupted by sudden and extreme cases of violence or inspiration. Lives lived take their toll and sometimes cement their place. With the deterioration of faculties it becomes more difficult to distinguish between the real and imagined.