04-02-2018, 10:41 PM | #31 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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04-02-2018, 11:25 PM | #32 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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My idea- instead of stretching the bounds of elfdom, combine the two streams. What would a Legolas Christmas elf be like?
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04-02-2018, 11:39 PM | #33 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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04-03-2018, 12:00 AM | #34 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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Elves there are implied to have been genetically engineered, or combined with, plants and possibly animals at some point in the distant probably to avoid human rights abuse charges... since they aren't human or derived from human stock... and originally intended as soldiers. |
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04-03-2018, 12:41 AM | #35 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
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04-03-2018, 01:06 AM | #36 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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Okay, I can see that too. |
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04-03-2018, 05:57 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
Way back in my '90s D&D-converted-to-GURPS campaign, our dwarves and elves weren't radically different. But Halflings, called Tsarsha Moot, lived in a desert badlands region where they formed tribes of warriors who issued fearsome ululating battle cries and rode giant cliff-clinging lizard steeds into battle. They became a beloved feature of the game world.
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04-03-2018, 09:38 AM | #38 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
Don't think I've seen elves done as proper, old school fae in an RPG yet ... although I see we've got a new GURPS Discworld out, in which elves were precisely that.
Tolkien has a lot to answer for in turning elves into humans with pointy ears ... and, to some extent the "like you but better" meme that has also stuck to them. I'm usually happier with the "we may look like you - but we are not like you" (and do not?). I'm even quite happy to eliminate them as a playable species if necessary to avoid them being devalued by over familiarity. My own contribution would be "elves", heavily cribbed from Tad Williams' Sithi and Norns, who were actually the descendants of ancient astronauts, and pseudo-Buddhist sequential hermaphrodites. Just to mix things up, I also removed the archery fetish that usually attaches to them. They were also the creators of most of the playable species. I would also like to try the fae elves - my general theme being to establish with players that an elf is something to be avoided at all costs. Oh, and whilst we're cliché busting - how about a riff on RuneQuest's mechanical dwarves? Maybe with some Elder Scrolls thrown in? I fancy a setting in which the dwarves went trans-dwarfish centuries ago to avoid a great plague, uploading themselves to crystal soul jars. Unfortunately, very few - if any - other people know about the soul jars and humans tend to break into "abandoned dwarven ruins", (and assuming they can) trash the automated security and steal the "magic dwarvern power stones" to power their magic. The few active dwarf-holds remaining deal with outsiders using a few, heavily robed and masked, life sized chassis pretending to be live dwarves who themselves work through intermediaries. No, you don't get to play a dwarf either. Or meet one until late in the campaign. Campaign's resident "little people" are combination of Halfling and gnome stereotypes - being both yeoman farmers, colourful gypsies and skilled craftsman/capitalists (oh yes, I did play Arcanum as well...). These, you can play. They are actually the descendants of those dwarves that were left out of the great uplift, but even they don't know that. Last edited by The Colonel; 04-03-2018 at 09:47 AM. |
04-03-2018, 10:56 AM | #39 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
Truth to tell I'm not familiar with either.
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"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
04-03-2018, 11:30 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: Stretching the bounds of typical fantasy races -OR- What makes an elf?
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He was basically just rejecting Victorian fairies. All the other stuff was already there; he just gave them background context. |
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