What is your preferred portrayal of elves? Do you like the image of a perfect and unifying people that Tolkien was fond of, or do you prefer a more militaristic, nature-loving, and domineering kind of elf? Or a different portrayal entirely?
I prefer the former; elves should seem otherworldly and representing a purity that other races can only stand in awe of. It's part of the reason why I don't particularly like (or use) drow in my campaigns. They are proof that the elves are flawed, and while I'm sure they have their own internal conflicts, the drow are something they can't hide. Plus a race of subterranean BDSM slavers never sat well with me.
I like different stripes of elves. The generic high elf, wood elf, dark elf combo. To be more specific, I do like elves to be ethereal creatures that are borderline alien and offsetting to everyone but themselves. I suppose you could say a bit of a Fae bent, in that they're vain and differing degrees of insane, with a heavily romanticized culture. Throw in a healthy dose of pride and superiority complexes, and that's ideal. And beautiful, but not in a "everyone wants to bone them" kind of way. Beautiful as in eerily perfect, too symmetrical, like they walked out of a painting and aren't real. At least for the high elves. Who would also be the most insane.
Ethan Cruz
I like my elves being raped by orcs.
Chase Gonzalez
I often find that the 'standard' portrayal of elves is just a bunch of mutually contradictory traits thrown into a barrel. I like to pick a handful of traits and create a unifying culture around it. For example >Haughty, arrogant and racial supremacists who are actually objectively superior in some way What prevents them from being a military superpower? Why wouldn't they be extremely militant, if that's how they view the world? If they see it as their oyster, and other races as inconvenient bugs to be squashed?
>Nature-loving, woodland archers Let's say we go with this angle. What would stop them from being muscular savages rather than svelte, beautiful creatures? The woods aren't a nice place, they're filled with plants that hate you and animals that want to kill you. You only survive there by being the thoughest motherfucker around. Such elves wouldn't be the beautiful and refined creatures we often think of, but more beast than man. Though you could make them somewhat feline in their approach, if you want to preserve some of that 'refinement'.
As for the Tolkien-esque perfect creatures, that's fine too. But I believe that precisely because of how perfect they are, such elves shouldn't be player races. They should be NPCs.
#MeToo
Elijah Garcia
Tolkien's elves are the only way to go.
Jose Evans
You're everything wrong with modern fantasy. If it refuses to crawl out of Tolkien's basement we'll just get the same shit rechewed over and over and over, until there's more saliva in there than actual substance.
Cooper Fisher
Crispy on the outside, gooey in the middle, and served piping hot.
Jackson Hill
Tolkien Elves. But actual Tolkien Elves, not pseudo-watered down barely-the-same-concept Tolkien Elves. In short
>Extremely long-lived if not outright immortal >Very refined, intelligent, cultured beings >Broad knowledge of the world, but far more interest in the pure 'scientific' knowledge then practical applications. >Very good at crafts
What are their weaknesses you say? They don't have any, they are the Good Folk, the Fair Folk, the Wise People who if they don't run the world its because some great tragedy has befallen them beyond their power and control and now the scepter must be passed to more barbaric peoples.
Oh and if you play as an Elf you're basically obligated to play it as some Nordic masturbatory fantasy that exists purely as an excuse to blare Time Stands Still [on the Iron Hill] after everything you do.
Isaac Butler
Implying muscular isn't beautiful. Why aren't scandinavians more polar bear than man?
Justin Morales
Tuatha De Danann. But actual Tuatha De Danann, not pseudo-watered down barely-the-same-concept "Tolkien Elves". In short
>Extremely long-lived and ever young >Much more magical than humans, with all advantages and disadvantages of that
What are their weaknesses you say? Great might can come at the price of inconvenient gesas, like not being able to kill your other Sidhe neighbor, for example.
Cooper Torres
Tolkien designed his "elves" (he wanted to call them fairies but some asshat pointed out that the term was quickly being associated with gay people) to be flawless paragons that the other "lesser" races looked up too. They are the First and while they probably could mollywop men and dwarves as their soldiers are ancient with thousands of years of fighting experience and are therefore each a one-being army, they are more interested in the preservation of life and being kind, fair mediators. It's kind of hard to hate them when they really just want what's best for you, even if they do it in an unintentionally haughty way.
Camden Cruz
Greek/Roman elves.
Levi Torres
>each a one-being army
So the elves have entire armies of Legolas'? Why haven't they gone full Imperium yet?
Joshua Harris
You are wrong. The best elves are shotas.
Owen Gomez
Because they don't have the smalldick Napoleon complex that leads to humans trying to be zOMG DAH KONKERERS.
Cooper Evans
>Conquest is driven by having a small dick >Resources/scarcity have nothing to do with it >Napoleon was short How do I know you have no idea what you're talking about?
John Flores
According to Tolkien, they literally could not be raped. He went out of his way to expressly write that.
James Wilson
>Shitposts on Veeky Forums demand a serious respond >Everything must be taken literally >The bait must be taken How do I know you're a shittershattered soyboy?
Jason Kelly
>The woods aren't a nice place, they're filled with plants that hate you and animals that want to kill you. You only survive there by being the thoughest motherfucker around. By this logic anything that isn't a raging rip your face off angry bear could not survive in the woods. It also ignores actual people that have gotten along fine in woodlands without having to murder or burn everything in sight. Granted, most of them got murdered and burned by people with no clue of how to survive in the woods, but at least it wasn't the woods that killed them.
Andrew Howard
>hurr I was only pretending to be retarded
Brody Miller
>oh no this pretend retard has caused me to reveal that I am an actual retard >better point out that that he was a pretend retard
Nicholas Thompson
I like my elves to be the "fallen" race. They were once the most powerful beings on the planet, but in their pride they challenged the heaven (or hells) and they were reduced to a few scrambled individuals that are only a reminiscence of their past glory and tend to annoy people with the stories about their empires and power.
Ayden Martinez
Now you just stopped making sense.
Nathan Gray
>By this logic anything that isn't a raging rip your face off angry bear could not survive in the woods. Anything that isn't a raging rip your face off angry bear, learns to avoid raging rip your face off angry bears. If you want to go that route, you can always choose to make elves some kind of meek bunnyfolk vegans who only survive because they fuck faster than their enemies can kill them.
Ethan Miller
>He went out of his way to expressly write that. Because even he knew.
Adam Watson
What does that even mean? Do they have duck vaginas or something?
Kevin Moore
You could just replace elves with humans. "Avoid big scary thing" and "fuck so much you overrun the territory" is a tried and true human strategy after all.
Dylan Torres
That Guys aren't a new phenomenon.
Christopher Powell
They poof or something if you try to rape them
Camden Gutierrez
No, they die so you're left with a corpse to fuck.
Julian Phillips
Tolkien stole elves from their proper place as tiny men who make shoes in the night for overworked cobblers.
Aaron Johnson
That wouldn't stop the people you should really be worrying about.
Adam Powell
>The elf king looks disapprovingly in your direction
Brody Sullivan
Being fit isn't exclusive to being Tolkien-esque - in fact he emphasized Elves were athletic. The Hobbit movies sucked but casting someone who's been working out as a wood elf captain makes sense.
Owen Baker
Low as hell birth rate. Maturity takes decades.
Lost troops are hard to replace for the elves.
Lincoln Davis
illiterate, cannibalistic, weak, insane tree huggers that only survive because they breed like rabbits
actual pests
they use wooden swords like what the fuck
t. dwarf
Lincoln Gutierrez
I like it when elves tend to be notably shorter than humans, like in Dragon Age.
Josiah Young
>ctrl f >slave Doesn't Veeky Forums like elf slaves anymore?
Asher Bennett
the elves should be to the other races what a first world country is to a second or third world country
Wyatt Gray
because they dont want to
super stats, super morality
just dont steal their shiny rocks
Gavin Reyes
>Implying knife-ear filth are civilized
Jose Hill
>implying america is civilized
Charles Scott
They should enjoy deep fried potato sticks
Jose Reyes
dark elf >potato elf
Joseph Fisher
and it's nice if they got some serious badonkadonk
David Barnes
>warrior society that kills off weak individuals while the strong survive
Asher Martinez
>WE WAZ ALFS
James Gonzalez
DELET! Erufuda is cute and cuddly, not obese!
Camden Jones
who this? dark elves?
Sebastian Collins
ya what m8
Parker Gray
No, we figured what to do with them and discussion kinda died
Liam Butler
>Do you like the image of a perfect and unifying people that Tolkien was fond of, or do you prefer a more militaristic, nature-loving, and domineering kind of elf? someone hasn't read much tolkien
Lincoln Barnes
Potato elf was a mistake
Juan Baker
It's you!
Andrew Cruz
I would be interested why? Why he wrote it, or felt he had to and why they can't be raped... Like, do they die??
Lucas Miller
They mature as fast as humans. Probably does take decades more to get Legolas tier though.
Ian Richardson
Elves are just yuppies of the fantasy universe
Justin Ramirez
I prefer elves as a super-advanced precursor race, people who created a vast and world-spanning empire, laying the foundation for those to follow.
Brandon Howard
Tolkienesque, with wiggle room. I'd say tolkien elves, eldar, and warcraft elves, among others, all fit under this banner. Strange, ancient beings, alien to humans, who are superior in every way but numbers, due to slow reproduction. They see themselves as the true dominant species of their world, the high elves are empire builders, wood elves take a responsibility to preserve nature for what it is, and dark elves take their position as the dominant species to be hedonistic and deviant.
I understand people trying to move on from tolkien, but if your elves aren't the one thing tolkien's elves were: Superior to humans and alien to them, they aren't elves as he understood them, so why call them elves? You look less original with pointy-eared hippies running around acting exactly like humans than you do from just ripping tolkien, because tolkien actually did research and spent an autistic amount of time on his setting, while much of modern fantasy seems to only know elves as "pointy-eared fuckers from DnD"
Dwarf fortress elves are cool and all, but why call them elves? Call them Dryads or something.
Xavier Perry
incorrect picture, nice taste (both in games and elves)
Benjamin Robinson
Gonna be honest. I don't like the ear-tentacles the Wild Walkers have. They just look weird to me.
Ryder Bennett
Honestly, just don't use elves at all. Elves, have all been done to death. Tolkien had a very specific niche for elves that worked within his very specific story. Don't use Tolkien races at all.
Anthony Brooks
The older I get, the more I prefer urban fantasy, so my elves are basically interdimensional humanoid entities that can't really be seen properly in our world without special equipment, and are the basis of modern alien abduction stories.
Nolan Bennett
Because the source Tolkien drew from wasn't the only one with creatures called elves. You can be just as autistic at your setting building as he and still end up creating elves considerably different than his that also have every right to be called elves. It's just like that when you're working with a thing that has a broad base in folklore.
Hunter Sanders
Tolkien's elves don't have a low birth rate. In fact they are usually walking and talking by their second year. They're not sexually mature before half a century, but they can fight well before that.
Bentley Evans
I'm pretty sure they CAN be raped. However, they cannot be made to reproduce if they don't want it. Like, a female elf can will her womb closed or something. I dunno, Tolkien never really explained the process well, just that he felt like elves should be beyond such disgusting things.
Adrian Miller
It's stated Tolkien elves lose all desire to fuck after like two kids. Feanor was notable specifically for having so much fire in him he couldn't stop fucking till the seventh kid. Probably would've made more if he didn't literally burst into flames.
Brayden Adams
see
Juan Bell
Sorry. I meant a slow maturity rate.
James Powell
I prefer the utter alien elves who's motives are indecipherable and who's actions seem nonsensical to humans yet tend toward cruelity.
Benjamin Howard
Why would such elves be allowed to exist? Exterminate the alien.
Nicholas Scott
Only modestly long-lived but with a long period of youthful appearance before shriveling into wizened elders. Primarily live on a secluded island that was cut off from the rest of the world for most of recorded history. Publicly reserved and conservative with a strong focus on crafts with secrets often passed along family lines with adult adoption of promising apprentices being common.
In short, nip elves.
Jaxon Richardson
No, two kids are the norm but many have had more, Finwë and his sons besides Fëanor all did.
Alexander Torres
>Elves typically have four children or fewer. Fëanor and Nerdanel, who had seven sons, were a notable exception. Whenever the Eldar married, whether in youth or in later life, their children were produced within a relatively short time after their wedding. However, in mortal count, a century or two may pass before the begetting of the first child and even longer between child and child. After their time of children, the desire to procreate soon ceases. They turn their powers of body and mind to other tasks and arts. Nonetheless, they cherish the days of bearing and raising children as the happiest times of their lives. Seems four is the number before their sex drive dies. So it seems elves actually do better than modern humans.
Logan Long
Tolkien wouldn't mention it but wonder if the drive for recreative sex also dies? Funny enough, Elves are also strictly monogamous which means not remarrying ever as going to Mandos does not count as death, Finwë was the only one who did and it caused the Valar to beseech Iluvatar for a permission.
Grayson Bailey
got 4 types of elves in my setting.
The wood elves, or Erun, are typical elves. Deep into magic, preservation of nature, standoffish in general, but amicable and level-headed in governance and merciful acts. They formed the primary force against the demonic invasions of five centuries ago, and suffered the heaviest losses.
The dark elves, or Dammar, are the most-alien. They still worship old gods they have no names for (because those gods died), and were used by the demonic invaders as a slave force. Nowadays they tend to be a grim people, wary of most everyone. They feel at home in the subterranean jungles.
The sea elves, or Aroki, are basically merfolk. They'd got webbed hands and feet, fin ears, and are by far the most militaristic and orderly of the elves. Masters of the sea who hold to a strict code of conduct. They never advanced far as a society due to a number of factors, primary among which is their constant warring with their undersea neighbours.
Then there's the sky elves, the Ciel. They fled the lands below five centuries ago, making a home in the sky. So detached from war or even a struggle to survive, they developed beautiful arts, song, dance, and poetry. They are deep romantics, to the point where they are more amorous with other folk than may be comfortable for them. An era detached from the ground below, these hedonists are enamoured with the ground-dwellers and find it difficult to see fault in people.
Nolan Lee
IIRC the one time an elf remarried, he had to ask his dead wife for permission? The eldar are weird.
and fuck no I'm not looking back into LACE just to figure it out. it's in Morgoth's Ring if anyone wants to dig out their copy of the Histories and write up a full report on elf fucking
Sebastian Young
>which means not remarrying ever as going to Mandos does not count as death Because dead elves are coming back one day, they still count as married. Because the living can't tell the dead what to do, only the dead can break the marriage and allow the living partner to remarry.
also if a dead elf is reborn they only get to be reborn if "they desire to take up their former life and continue it" and "soon recover full memory of all their past" so dying doesn't automatically get you out of marriage.
and all of this is unnatural exceptions, as elves aren't meant to die and elf marriage isn't meant to end, it's just because fucking melkor or what have you
Jaxson Martinez
I have three and the creation myth to them is that the God was lonely so he decided to create races that would entertain him. When he baked elves, he draw the first batch too soon, the elves were too pale and raw. So he threw them away and tried again. This time he forgot them in the oven and they were all black and burnt. So he threw them out again and tried the last time, carefully watching his creation. And it was delicious brown success.
James Perry
oh and if you say your living partner can remarry, fuck no you're never getting out of mandos yourself. that would be unnatural, because the love triangle would get weird and sad.
Dylan Sanders
and now I want to go to the halls of nandos myself, well, fuck.
Christopher Brown
Makes sense. Elves are better at everything else, why not fucking too?
Jackson Hughes
First things first: we actually do know what elves called their dicks, because even the glorious JRRT couldn't keep his hands out of his pants. The poetic term (yes, elves seem to have engaged in erotic poetry) would be gwî, but for everyday usage gwib was the preferred term. Puntl is provided as the coarse, moderately transgressive term, and likely what you would be invited to suck if you went down on a male elf. Alas, due to the ban on the Noldorin language, we have no surviving slang for Fëanor's johnson.
Second, if we assume that JRRT's intention is the guiding light for inferred details of the history and function of Arda, we are left with several clues as to the genital features of elves. In early drafts of the Silmarillion and pre-LotR writings that would eventually give rise to the War of the Ring, JRRT called them "gnomes" rather than "elves," a detail that reflects his internal monologue about them and is consistent with his para-LotR writings about them, including mutilations, betrayals, incest, genocide, colonial violence, and misotheistic rebellion. His mental image during the construction of Ardan history was almost certainly closer to the Rankin-Bass imagery than the Peter Jackson interpretation. Thus we are left to interpret the idea of gnomes-- a Paracelsean ideology tied closely to alchemy-- and of their Germanic and Norse equivalents, nature and household spirits that include classic Germanic dweorgs (that is, dwarves) but with the added qualification of tallness as a common indicator of worthiness.
Joshua Kelly
I discern here between dwarf-figures of Greek and British mythology, which tend to be lusty, massively endowed pranksters, and gnomes/dweorgs, which are rarely cast in a sexual light. Some textual support could be interpreted for the influence of Pan on the elves, given that Silvan elves (and their Rivendell cousins) are singing, dancing, merry-making, traveler-harassing figures throughout the books. If we adhere to this interpretation, elves are probably packing huge veiny wangs that could put your fucking eye out while you're trying to slip em the suck.
I feel that it is, however, more likely that JRRT would have viewed his elves as more romantic and less sexual. Certainly they reproduce at an exceedingly slow rate and for an incredibly small window of their adult lives. A Panic elf would be extremely unlikely to live for two thousand or more years and sire no more than three or four offspring. For this reason, we are most likely dealing with the less overt sexual characteristics of a Paracelsean elf, which rules out giant Priapus-style horse cocks that are eternally bone-ready, but leaves us with less to go on than we might need, if we're gonna pour a giant silicone elf dick.
In the early texts only Noldor among all elves were called gnomes, this is due to their association with mining and smithing among elves. They probably were strapping folks even then, as the Fall of Gondolin (1919) has plenty of descriptions and Tuor is around as a human measuring stick.
Carter Hill
Shame we don't know what "vagina" is in elvish. I like to think it's really flowery and full of accent marks.
