Expanding Elves

So, a few weeks ago, I posted something on Elves. Here's a lot more. Why? Because I stupidly decided there'd be a small elf community a bit north of where the campaign begins. Which means people might decide to go there. Which means I need some vague ideas on what elves are like. Again, I am not claiming I'm redefining elves or making some amazingly original creations here. I begin with the core D&D tropes and then try to detail them in a way which I think breeds plots or the potential for interesting characters. To me, the essence of the D&D (i.e, Tolkein ripoff) elf is alienness. Living for centuries makes you different, and a bit weird. Being chaotic by nature just magnifies it. Elves understand the world differently. They don't see in four dimensions, but maybe they see in three and a half. They're just a little bit out there, and you know everything they do and say makes perfect sense to them, but they're still tilted just a couple of degrees outside our reality. They're playing by rules you not only don't know, but can't learn.

As is usually the case, this essay is bass-ackwards, in the sense that first I wrote up an elvish community, making up some names and roles and concepts, then, from the community, I back-engineered elvish culture. (This isn't all that odd -- for example, Gene Roddenberry created Spock with pointy ears and greenish skin, then reverse-engineered this to establish an arid, thin-aired Vulcan and copper-based blood.) I'll bet an awful lot of creative types do "Concept first, justification after".

Anyway, elves -- Revised&Expanded.

Elves
The elves of Arith are among the oldest of the Free Peoples, though certainly not the oldest sapient species. They are long-lived beings who dwell in environments which carefully blend natural beauty and civilized comfort. They once ruled over vast empires, long before the first Magewar, but now are a somewhat diminished race, gathered into a few large woodland cities and countless small settlements and villages. The elves produce many skilled individuals, but few great heroes -- but those who do exist are great indeed.

The Long Sleep
Elves live for centuries, but very few spend all, or even most, of that time in a single pursuit. After a few decades of life, an Elf will grow weary, and develop a deep sense of ennui and indifference. All joy flees from existence; food is bland, lovemaking tiring, even life-and-death struggles begin to pall. At this time, the elf enters what is known as the Long Sleep, where they enter into a coma-like state, needing nothing but air to survive. (Obviously, they do this in safe surroundings -- usually a sacred hall in a larger Elvish community). The Long Sleep lasts for 6-10 years. When the elf awakes, he is reborn in spirit. While he retains, in part, all of his old memories, he has lost much of his learning. In essence, he emerges with no class levels, and begins life anew, studying different arts than he did before. The dreams of the Long Sleep serve to show him new paths in life, and he might emerge with a different alignment. While still technically the same person, he thinks of himself as one reborn, and often ignores old friendships and commitments, as if they belonged to another. (Elf law dictates this is so -- marriages end when one spouse enters the Long Sleep, and debts are forgiven as if the debtor had died. Laws of other cultures are not so understanding.)

Government
Elvish government is summarized by lalithilianilis, or 'Agreement reached by consensus which transcends speech'. Elves simply understand how things are supposed to happen. They are bound by few rules, and most of those rules are based on complex webs of understanding and cultural assumptions. To an outsider, everyone simply seems to do as they please, but to the elves, their society is perfectly sane and controlled. Even a simple request such as "Who is in charge here?" is meaningless to elves, since the answer could change based on the situation, the time of year, or even the phase of the moon. Long dealings with other races have taught them to have a few spokesmen, but those are not the true 'leaders' -- rather, their job is to appear to humans, etc, to give them a person to consider as a leader so that their needs are met. Elves have little concept of hierarchy and 'leader' and 'follower' can shift and change with each passing moment.

Names
Elf names are long and complicated. Unlike their place names, which are usually descriptive and poetic, an elf's name seems to others -- even those who speak Elvish - to be merely a long collection of syllables, usually five or six words in length. To the elf, though, the name is summation of their essence, and speaking it will produce, in the listener, a resonance which tells them all they need to know of the person. As such, the name changes as the person does, and one elf can tell another all that they have gone through over a decade merely by giving their new name, which might differ by as little as a syllable from their old one.

Personality
Elves are constantly torn between the Now and the Never. An elf can become suddenly focused, sometimes frighteningly so, when an event occurs which demands immediate attention -- such as an attack. However, anything which doesn't need to be done now might as well need to be done never -- if an elf loses focus, he/she might well forget about the undone job for a month, a year, or more, unless suddenly reminded.

Religion
Elves worship a large pantheon of gods. All of their deities blend humanoid and natural traits, either plant or animal, and tend to shift in the degree to which these traits balance over time. Jalillianili, Goddess of the Hunt, for example, sometimes appears as an elf with a few slightly lupine features, other times as an elvish werewolf, and other times as a wolf which a few hints of elven blood. An artist might portray her anywhere along the spectrum in accordance with what aspect of her he was trying to convey or invoke.

Elvish worship is not predicated on specific rites and rituals, but on a 'sense of properness' -- they will sometimes stop and pray at seemingly random moments, or ignore the gods for years and then volunteer for a holy quest. Elvish clerics are simply those more attuned to the moment than the lay populace. Religion is one thread of the entire tapestry of life; a blade might contain symbols of the Goddess of the Hunt, the God of Ironworking, or even the Goddess of Family, depending on the whim of the crafter or the inspiration of the customer. (It might contain no religious iconography at all, too)

Language
The elvish language is lyrical and complex. While most people can learn the basics, truly mastering the language is amazingly difficult for non-elves. The individual words are not exceptionally complex, though the elves pride themselves on single words which encompass multiple aspects of a single concept. Rather, the true complexity is in the tenses, as the Elvish frame of reference is so long that conjugation includes span of time in the past of the future. Further, both nouns and verbs must be conjugated in this fashion, so that "I walked to the store" must be said, in Elvish, as "I(From the point in the past where I was born to the point in the future where I will cease to be) walked (seven days ago) to the store (as it existed in that point in the past)" To elves, this is intuitive; to others, it is nightmarish. Further, as befits their nature, elvish "rules" of grammar are more polite suggestions; poetic phrasings and metaphors are more important than sticking to the rules.

Art And Culture
Some non-elvish sociologists have commented on the 'beautiful simplicity' of Elvish arts, from woodcarving to cooking. They miss the point. Elves have remarkably complex arts, but the complexity is hidden by an obsessive drive to perfection. An elf cook might make a thousand variants on a single dish, constantly experimenting by varying ingredients by the tiniest degree, until he has achieved absolutely the flavor he desires. An arrowsmith might make ten arrowheads a day, year after year, and only the most keen of observers would note that each one has a slightly different pattern carefully hammered into it, making them as unique as snowflakes. The smith, though, could look at anyone and then tell you the day, and even the hour, it was made, simply by studying the pattern she implanted.

After The Crush
The elves found themselves "trapped in a world they never made", but then again, so did everyone else. Their centers of civilization in the region of the Pacific Northwest were wiped out, and their ancient foes, the bugbears, emerged in force to ravage what remained. As with most of the other races, it was the small outposts and isolated villages which survived more-or-less intact.

Elves had earned great respect from the humans of Arith for their wisdom and power, but the humans of Earth at first saw them as one more set of invaders. Early battles between the two races still leave bitter memories, even though hesitant truces have been forged in many regions. Older Earthborn refer to the elves as "Spocks" or "Keeblers", or greets any passing elf with "Yo, Legolas!", though a certain segment of the populace finds their unearthly beauty and aloof intellectualism compellingly attractive, so it is hardly surprising that half-elves are becoming common anywhere that the two peoples live together in any kind of peace. (Some elves find humans' energy and enthusiasm sufficiently appealing that their other flaws can be overlooked, at least for a night's pleasure...and what is one night out of many tens of thousands?)

The elves thought the humans of Arith were living life at a full gallop with no ability to slow down and appreciate things, as well as dying so fast you hardly got to know one before you were meeting his great-great-grandchildren. Thus, they see the humans of Earth as little more than mad blurs of motion, and what they've learned of pre-Crush Earth society fascinates and repels them. The walls that Earthborn humans erected between themselves and their world -- both physical and metaphysical -- terrify them. Many have found a new appreciation for the humans of Arith, suddenly aware of how far they might have gone. "Skallidane across the entire world" is a typical Elvish phrase for Earth human culture.

They are also fascinated, and intensely curious, with the fact that a race very similair to their own features so prominently in human art and literature -- along with dwarves, gnomes, and other such beings. Those philosophers who have survived have begun to formulate theories, but it will be decades, or longer, before any of them feels they know enough to voice their hypotheses.

Most elvish communities are more isolationist than ever. Few in number and slow breeding, they wish to preserve all they can. When it is prudent to deal regularly with other societies, they usually have an outpost a few miles from their main population center, which serves as a place to meet and trade. They often prefer to be helpful, within certain limits, as long exposure to human psychology has taught them humans hate most that which they do not understand. Thus, no matter how odd or distasteful they might find it, many elves regularly leave their communities to work in cooperative ventures with humans, often in the form of shared patrols, teaching of history or art, or running messages back and forth. "To the humans, the mysterious is the dangerous, and that which is dangerous must be killed out of hand."