here's what's best to forage right now, here's what's going out of season, here's what's been a little bit fragile lately so try and go easy on it, here's something that seems useless but is actually incredibly important to the system so make sure to leave it in place, here's an invasive we've been trying to stamp out so take as much as you like
every single one of them has been personally up to their elbows in the careful management of this ecosystem for the past thousand+ years so they're all very invested in it and very excited to share what they know
anyway yeah I've just been thinking a lot about the ~beautiful perfect untouched paradise~ the first European colonists described America as, and how it was like that because the Native tribes had been engaged in collaborative land management for basically forever
and then
moontouched
's plurk activated some neurons to connect those concepts to "what if elves that didn't suck" and I didn't want to just take over that plurk with a braindump
but yeah imagine elves that are slightly but benignly alien and instead of it being because they're all so weirdly superior and snooty, it's because they're all the most autistic park rangers you could possibly imagine
you just can't understand the elvish mindset if you've never spent two centuries painstakingly nurturing a single keystone species back from the brink of extinction after the bulk of its habitat was destroyed in a magical war
the elf in question cannot tell you even the most basic information about said war, but they know absolutely everything about this species of tree frog
yeah whenever elves find time for art and personal expression - which feels like not very often to them, but frankly in a well-managed ecosystem they may have entire decades basically free assuming nothing weird happens - they draw Deeply on their own personal areas of natural expertise
very highly regarded events because elves recognize their own tendencies to fixate and overspecialize and they appreciate the opportunities to expand their knowledge and readjust their perspective of the greater whole that they all contribute to
and now I'm thinking these elves probably don't farm but they definitely still like. work with dirt. get their hands dirty. will dig holes and plow land and plant trees.
and high elves are the super pissy ones that just assume mortals are too stupid to understand the rules, and instead of taking time to explain it, they just chase them out
they were apparently genuinely trying for "more enlightened and in tune with nature" and landed on, uhhhh, "racists who consider orcs and humans basically vermin"
There's a whole thing from FR's creator about how the elves (which, all elves? just gold elves? moon elves? wood elves? all of them?) have a derogatory name for humans and call them 'the manyhanded curse' because there are lots of them and they can cause sooo much damage to the environment and even if you kill them there's still more!!
and even if they disagree on how to handle the environment their collateral damage might end up damaging it anyway if they fight!! so they're the manyhanded curse!!!
And 1) this is really funny if you know anything about wider FR lore because surface elves have the most devastating clusterfuck of incredibly bloody elf on elf violence in their history and it's a tossup as to whether anyone acknowledges that or not
2) it's double funny because there are so many different types of elf and they adapt to anything, there is like a fucking elf subtype for basically any environment that's been around long enough to get lore
4) the creator then went on to be like "actually, the TRUE manyhanded curse is the orcs, who if they weren't KEPT IN CHECK BY VIOLENCE they would OVERBREED and OVERRUN THE CONTINENT and become the rulers" and that's the point where you spray him in the face repeatedly while shouting NO, ED, NO!
but it shouldn't be the same across the board, and it should be something culturally-ingrained in like the high elves as opposed to being ~racial flavor~ for all elves
moontouched
: I think the derogatory terms toward humans MIGHT be limited to sun/gold elf usage, since lore specifically states that moon elves in particular are fond of humans, and often live easily in human cultures, and likely are responsible for siring the majority of half-elves iirc
I def think it's mostly gold elves? But also there was a big tendency to write elves in general as the world's most xenophobic minority because there was a huge armwrestle between "2e dnd's vision of STOP FUCKING PLAYING ELVES THEY'RE ALL GOING EXTINCT SHUT UP ABOUT ELVES" and "BUT PEOPLE REALLY LIKE ELVES SO WE NEED TO CATER TO THEM" and it's a mess
It's kinda developed over time of course, I think the present-day lore trimming back on. All that. Is a lot better. But boy there's a lot of terrible elf lore to go through.
but it always strikes me as SUCH LAZY WRITING to make an entire race a cultural monolith DESPITE acknowledging there exists distinct cultures and subraces
I could get my PhD entirely on the history of drow lore and half of it will just be massive fifty point size rants about "stop blaming dogshit sourcebooks on the drizzt novels you assholes"
"i've read all of them and i want you to know that every time you conflate dogshit sourcebook or dragon magazine bullshit with the internally consistent worldbuilding from the novels, i'm fantasizing about crawling through your screen with a megaphone to shout at you about how if you're going to position yourself as an expert, at least be correct"
But yeah also it's super lazy writing because they really do a lot of stuff like "thisi s what all elves are like, and then here are all the elven subcultures, no we're not going to go into them, just assume the stuff we started with is true to all elves i guess???"
skerple
: i do know of Ruka from Tumblr and Hollow Knight fandom, and I've commissioned art from them in the past, but thank you for further introductions!
but yes, I would absolutely be that filthy elf liker in AD&D era, and I will defend elves as a playable race with my dying breath, but I will not excuse lazy dogshit writing
the thing is like, i don't oppose elves being interestingly flawed, i love it when there's some clear like, flaws and hypocrisy going on? And characterse have to dismantle it?
and now, I'm gonna shill PointyHat's channel on YouTube because I think both of you would appreciate his D&D With a Twist series, and he's already covered elves and the Feywild
Which has this really deeply unfortunate side-effect of like, when they released indepth sourcebooks about like, Cormanthyr and Myth Drannor, it was like "oh yeah everyone who lives here is just a huge fucking pissbaby about outsiders. Why? Um, reasons?"
I wouldn't even be mad if most of their ire was specifically directed at Powerful Human Wizards Fucking Around And Finding Out due to bad history with Karsus and the Netherese Empire
like "oh you're fucking with the weave!" "OH THE PEOPLE WHO CAUSED THE FIRST SPELLPLAGUE TO SUMMON THEIR SPECIAL LITTLE GOD ISLAND ESCAPE POD ARE GOING TO PREACH TO US?"
yeah it's very like, it suffers a lot from a lot of the writers having a bit of that specific "woooow lotr elves are sooo cool" and sort of misguided hippie "bro have you ever thought that like....nature is so cool...and amazing...and humans are like..just totally bummers, brah"
Ul'dah has had major political shifts both dramatic and subtle as Nanamo has gradually come to grips with what power she does and does not have and how she can and can not effectively wield it for the good of her people
Limsa is finally making a turnaround from being perpetually locked in a war of colonization against the kobolds and sahagin as Merlwyb has completed a beautiful slowburn arc from not believing it was possible, to refusing to believe it's not possible
the "elementals" make me GRAAAAH because it's so obviously - either the Hearers are mostly lying/letting their racism inform their opinions, or no writer understands how a forest elemental would work
there is evidence to suggest in the newest raid that the elementals were created to "love everyone" and we should listen to them, which seems to indicate that yes, the hearers are lying
all of themand i want you to know that every time you conflate dogshit sourcebook or dragon magazine bullshit with the internally consistent worldbuilding from the novels, i'm fantasizing about crawling through your screen with a megaphone to shout at you about how if you're going to position yourself as an expert, at least be correct"- elves, probably
LEATHERWORKER????????????
That's like the elvish equivalent of naming your capital "gonesville"