While I like the new Realms and all, I have a question about the lifespans of elves. It seems they now only live to about 200 years (for Elves and Drow) or 300 (for Eladrin). All well and good, but wasn't much of the history of the elves based on elves living to almost 1000 years? Are there any official explanation on why the fey/elves now have so much shorter lifespans?
Eirik
I personally prefer the new lifespans in PoL. It impresses upon you their long lives, without being totally absurd. Imagine a 300 year old person today. They'd have been around before the American Revolution. That's just about old enough.
It impresses upon you their long lives, without being totally absurd.
A lifespan that's just under a millenium (or even more than that) might be absurd, but the absurdity of the concept is exactly what some people find attractive.
That said, the new core lifespans for fey don't bother me, and for me they would be "long enough".
And in any case, it's the kind of change that doesn't really affect the mechanics of the game (as far as I recall), so you can use it or ignore it as you will.
-I don't know about 4e, but in 3e, there were "aging rules" that you could use to modify your stats depending on age. Your strength decreased, and your constitution decreased as well, I believe, and your wisdom increased. Intelligence also, I think. I never used those, so...
Eirik
"In general, dark elves have life spans somewhat
longer than those of their surface-dwelling cousins.
Drow who manage to avoid dying a violent death can
live for well over 200 years, and exceptional members
of the race measure their ages in centuries."
I don't know, although it says some Drow live for centuries, it also says that surface dwelling elves live for shorter lifespans. Why did they change this? To make it the same as in the Player's Handbook, I guess...
E.
Yes your immortal when u take the epic destiny and yes in game terms its possible but through the lore u have to be taught to be a high mage BEFORE u become immortal which doesnt happen b4 300 vicious circle no? Yet another example of poor planning.Also before someone throws the Elandrin can live to be 300 rule at me consider this: when your at the end of your lifespan you think your going to be learning still? I think not.
An image of a geriatric elf with a walker comes to mind.
Another Spellplague effect?
-Spellplague.
-Spellplague.
Had I not been around as (not so) needed, I would say that's my line.
Besides. Shouldn't this thread be moved, Mr. Man Guy Dude?
Lets not make a list.
Halflings don't reach 4 feet. Elves live to 1000 years+. That's all there is to it.
There is a new-ish article in Dragon called, "Epic Destinies in Faerun." One is the "Elf High Wizard." The fluff in the article states that elves and eladrin do not train to become high wizards until they are at least 300 years old. That suggests that either the core setting age fluff and FR-realms fluff are still considered different, or that the author of the article isn't knowledgeable about the changes.
The author of the article was also the one who said that the elves lifespans in the realms were no different than they were in Races of Faerun.
I can't tell you what the official stance is on this, but Rich Baker's stance seems to be obviously that he thinks that they should age the same as they used to in 3rd edition.
Eirik
This does not feel like a limit to me, just a generalization. The lifespans from previous editions can easily still apply and do not violate cannon in any way.
4e Players handbook clearly states, "Most elves live to be well over 200 years old and remain vigorous almost to the end." (Emphasis mine). Eladrin live to over 300 years. I could easily say that most humans live over 30 years, and not be factually incorrect.
This does not feel like a limit to me, just a generalization. The lifespans from previous editions can easily still apply and do not violate cannon in any way.
That's actually a very good point, although I suspect that the writers meant that they don't live as long as, say a century longer than that again. But I can see your point.
Eirik
The author of the article was also the one who said that the elves lifespans in the realms were no different than they were in Races of Faerun.
I can't tell you what the official stance is on this, but Rich Baker's stance seems to be obviously that he thinks that they should age the same as they used to in 3rd edition.
considering he was the one that originally set the "300 year old thing" in his Last Mythal series... yeah.
this shortened lifespan definitely falls under the "not in my Realms" category... right next to Hanali Celanil being Sune, Aedria Faenya being Akadi and eaten by Auril, and Sehanine Moonbow being Selune. Or primordials being "mortals that happen to be worshiped."
Had I not been around as (not so) needed, I would say that's my line.
-Sorry for intruding, then.
That's actually a very good point, although I suspect that the writers meant that they don't live as long as, say a century longer than that again. But I can see your point.
Eirik
Also bear in mind this applies to Elves in every world, and IIRC, the Kagonesti in DL had much shorter spans than the Green elves of Faerun, even though both would be elves by the 4e rules. So they may have set a bare minimum and then allowed each setting to get more specific.
-Sorry for intruding, then.
Eh. I wasn't around and you picked up the slack. I'm almost proud of you.
Now have a biscuit and be quiet.
Also bear in mind this applies to Elves in every world, and IIRC, the Kagonesti in DL had much shorter spans than the Green elves of Faerun, even though both would be elves by the 4e rules. So they may have set a bare minimum and then allowed each setting to get more specific.
Specifically, Eldarin/elves in FR age to 600 to 1000 years. Plus a few in some cases.
This is just stupid.
The original scales were attempts to match Tolkien lore, but really the numbers were so large to the point of absurd abstraction. If you look at the Elf timeline, either we're talking about only a handful of generations or Elves would have a severe overpopulation problem.
Whatever the case, you can keep your old ages. The new ones were designed for the Points of Light setting (which is at its core one of the best settings out there and just needs some high quality novels to really flesh it out). Even the FRPG makes the Drow and Genasi stat blocks generic (for the most part) so they're available to PoL players.
Seriously though, I agree, the change does mess up quite a bit of the previous lore, so... given the 'make it your own' approach, I say do whatever you feel most comfortable with.
I prefer the new ages. The old ones were absurd. Living for a millenia? Nothing would ever change in that society.
-Hence why Elves and Elven society are/is the way they/it are/is.
Apparently, 4E doesn't use aging rules either.
If it has no effect in a combat encounter, it got tossed out.
This is the reason for the 1000+ year of life span.
Unfortunately, the elf intended is not what PC’s, DM’s, or authors ended up recreating them to be. Elves are currently very much the same as every human character. Complacency is lost and we find the elf striving for every bit of the same thing their short-lived cousins would. No elf I have ever seen played has ever fallen behind in levels with the rest of its party.
Which is why we now have the shorter lifespan. As Stigger pointed out, they would be the most dominant race on the planet by these terms. Over the cap of level 30 by at least 30.
I don’t agree with it, but I also don’t agree with the way they are played.
So yeah, I'm all for the 1000 year lifespan, it really brings home what monsters those supposedly peace and nature loving little bastards actually are. ;)
So peaceful they usurped the proper place of Dragons in the world, unleashed the horrors of the Crown Wars after wrecking their old home, destroyed burgeoning civilizations with a whoops from magic gone terribly wrong, started a virtual state of civil war over racial purity with themselves, and callously used the 'not people' as fodder against a threat they caused by clinging to racist beliefs that a red dragon could never become pure of heart... yeah, sure.
So yeah, I'm all for the 1000 year lifespan, it really brings home what monsters those supposedly peace and nature loving little bastards actually are. ;)
Well, I mean, what do you do when people start steppin' on your turf? Like, as righteous as you are, Stig, wouldn't you get righteously retaliating when it came down to it?
Just think of that idiot neighbor that joined your BBQ without being invited.
That is what happens when peasants think they can rule. Now with the return of the Feywild, and the Eladrin nobility, a new age is dawning. ;)
Bears kick ass again...interesting. :whatsthis
So peaceful they usurped the proper place of Dragons in the world, unleashed the horrors of the Crown Wars after wrecking their old home, destroyed burgeoning civilizations with a whoops from magic gone terribly wrong, started a virtual state of civil war over racial purity with themselves, and callously used the 'not people' as fodder against a threat they caused by clinging to racist beliefs that a red dragon could never become pure of heart... yeah, sure.
-Hey, every other race out there, pretty much, has done the same.
Yeah, but we're not talking about them... though I defy you to come up with instances of gnomes and hin doing it on anywhere near the same scale. Goodly elves indeed... poppycock! :P
-They are able to cover things up much better. I recall either Rich Baker, or perhaps Ed Greenwood saying that just because Gnomes and Halflings, the Forgotten Folk, haven't showed up too much in sourcebooks and such, doesn't mean that they haven't done much.
I took that as accomplishment without notice or recognition, not committed atrocity. I seem to recall a 2e reference to the effect that both races were relatively free of that sort of behaviour compared to other races, and that gnomes pretty much were, unless it was their cousins, the spriggans doing the atrocities.
-Hey, if they can do good things without people noticing much, surely, they can do bad things without people noticing much, as well.
Yeah, but we're not talking about them... though I defy you to come up with instances of gnomes and hin doing it on anywhere near the same scale. Goodly elves indeed... poppycock! :P
Which is why I play my elves (eladrin, w/e) as Fair Folk. "Good" to them is not "good" to humans.
Which is why I play my elves (eladrin, w/e) as Fair Folk. "Good" to them is not "good" to humans.
Too boring... besides, its so much more fun to make them out as the evil bastards they really are. They just aren't magical enough to qualify as true fae in my book anyway.
1000 years is the distance between us and 1008, the end of the Dark Ages.
Oh, man, as a Medieval Historian I just have to say DON'T go there!
But seriously, everything I have seen about 4e has been a gimp to fans.
You like elves? Here, lets screw them over and see if you still like them.
ELVES. ARE. ALMOST. IMMORTAL.
DEAL.
Too boring... besides, its so much more fun to make them out as the evil bastards they really are. They just aren't magical enough to qualify as true fae in my book anyway.
The Fair Folk are "evil bastards" in many ways.
Ask Rip Van Winkle. That was the fey being nice. They thought they were inviting a human to a cool party (i.e. being good). They were really making him lose years of his life (what humans would consider evil).
See, but the whole Fair Folk bit gives them an out, morally speaking, that I don't wish to accord them. ;)
...not really.
The only reason they're called Fair Folk is because they're visit unspeakable horrors upon anyone with the temerity to insult them.
I suspect you're missing the point of refusing the Fair Folk thing... :P
enlighten me, then....not really.
The only reason they're called Fair Folk is because they're visit unspeakable horrors upon anyone with the temerity to insult them.
Or, more accurately, they would if they actually existed.:P
As you wish oh seeker of knowledge. :P
By not having them be Fair Folk or Fae, who do that sort of thing to people as a matter of course, since their version of logic and morality, while I'm sure it exists, is alien enough to be incomprehendable to a mortal mind, the elves are subject to being judged from a human perspective, which I prefer. Judging them from that human perspective allows us to spin their history into one set of atrocity after another, while conveniently ignoring the gaps in time mind you, painting them as a monstrous race, little better than the orcs, only more organized and capable of greater acts of atrocity.
The evil and hypocrisy of the species is far more apparent from a human scale, than from say a fae one. Were we to judge from that Fae scale, then the criteria of judgment would alter into one more favorable to the elves as a whole, and undermine the agenda of painting them as monsters, particularly the gold elves, since it would be a matter of course that Fae and human morality tend to coincide only rarely. Much better from the agenda's point of view to make elves out as just humans with pointy ears and longevity.
Makes glorifying the Hin and Gnomes much easier with the Elves being ebil, the humans just being themselves (hardly even need to make that case), and goblinoids and orcs being essentially the same as humans in most respects, with even fewer bright points. While the Hin have that whole Ghost Wars thing (and we're going to ignore those scurrilous lies of thievery and cultural misunderstanding), it was a minor aberration that hasn't since been repeated... and well, Gnomes do have a history filled with atrocity, but thankfully its always been directed towards them, rather than from them. Hence, the Hin and the Gnomes are the two most civilized and trustworthy races out there, that the rest should be bowing before, awed by their wisdom and altruism.
As you wish oh seeker of knowledge. :P
By not having them be Fair Folk or Fae, who do that sort of thing to people as a matter of course, since their version of logic and morality, while I'm sure it exists, is alien enough to be incomprehendable to a mortal mind, the elves are subject to being judged from a human perspective, which I prefer. Judging them from that human perspective allows us to spin their history into one set of atrocity after another, while conveniently ignoring the gaps in time mind you, painting them as a monstrous race, little better than the orcs, only more organized and capable of greater acts of atrocity.
The evil and hypocrisy of the species is far more apparent from a human scale, than from say a fae one. Were we to judge from that Fae scale, then the criteria of judgment would alter into one more favorable to the elves as a whole, and undermine the agenda of painting them as monsters, particularly the gold elves, since it would be a matter of course that Fae and human morality tend to coincide only rarely. Much better from the agenda's point of view to make elves out as just humans with pointy ears and longevity.
Makes glorifying the Hin and Gnomes much easier with the Elves being ebil, the humans just being themselves (hardly even need to make that case), and goblinoids and orcs being essentially the same as humans in most respects, with even fewer bright points. While the Hin have that whole Ghost Wars thing (and we're going to ignore those scurrilous lies of thievery and cultural misunderstanding), it was a minor aberration that hasn't since been repeated... and well, Gnomes do have a history filled with atrocity, but thankfully its always been directed towards them, rather than from them. Hence, the Hin and the Gnomes are the two most civilized and trustworthy races out there, that the rest should be bowing before, awed by their wisdom and altruism.
so, basically you're cheating by changing the basic premise of the argument.
roger that
Except that those ebil elves were doing most of the stepping.... first with the dragons, then with each other, wiping out a bunch of humans whose only major crime thus far was to settle on the wrong coastline... the list goes on and on.
How in Bejebuz’s an*l cavity do you step on a dragon?
And that human settlement was cutting down their forest. You retaliate by cutting down humans, you big boob!!
Too boring... besides, its so much more fun to make them out as the evil bastards they really are. They just aren't magical enough to qualify as true fae in my book anyway.
You’re just racist. You’d hate bunnies if their ears were pointed.
Wait…!
As you wish oh seeker of knowledge. :P
By not having them be Fair Folk or Fae, who do that sort of thing to people as a matter of course, since their version of logic and morality, while I'm sure it exists, is alien enough to be incomprehendable to a mortal mind, the elves are subject to being judged from a human perspective, which I prefer. Judging them from that human perspective allows us to spin their history into one set of atrocity after another, while conveniently ignoring the gaps in time mind you, painting them as a monstrous race, little better than the orcs, only more organized and capable of greater acts of atrocity.
The evil and hypocrisy of the species is far more apparent from a human scale, than from say a fae one. Were we to judge from that Fae scale, then the criteria of judgment would alter into one more favorable to the elves as a whole, and undermine the agenda of painting them as monsters, particularly the gold elves, since it would be a matter of course that Fae and human morality tend to coincide only rarely. Much better from the agenda's point of view to make elves out as just humans with pointy ears and longevity.
Makes glorifying the Hin and Gnomes much easier with the Elves being ebil, the humans just being themselves (hardly even need to make that case), and goblinoids and orcs being essentially the same as humans in most respects, with even fewer bright points. While the Hin have that whole Ghost Wars thing (and we're going to ignore those scurrilous lies of thievery and cultural misunderstanding), it was a minor aberration that hasn't since been repeated... and well, Gnomes do have a history filled with atrocity, but thankfully its always been directed towards them, rather than from them. Hence, the Hin and the Gnomes are the two most civilized and trustworthy races out there, that the rest should be bowing before, awed by their wisdom and altruism.
You argue my point then validate yourself by using the point I made as a foundation?
That’s it!! Hand me the sausage, Tommy. I’m smackin’ this guy retarded.
so, basically you're cheating by changing the basic premise of the argument.
roger that
Stigger would never do that.
As to how to step on a dragon: Dracorage Mythal
I was referring to the tidal wave that wiped out numerous human territories actually, not their actions in Cormyr or Chondath or Sembia or Wherever Else They Predated on Lesser Species.
And I'm not racist, you'll note I proudly champion the causes of the Hin and Gnomes, despite being cursed with human birth. And I love bunnies enough to eat a whole one, quite tasty really, in a single sitting, so :P
You had a point somewhere? I've yet to see one from you...
And you're right, I wouldn't ever do that. I'd just redefine the argument in more favorable terms, a classic debating tactic if there ever was one. Besides, they're elves, unworthy of anything other than base contempt and derision. :D
Its hardly cheating, its redefining the issue. Especially if its making the elves look bad, which makes all things fair game.
As to how to step on a dragon: Dracorage Mythal
I was referring to the tidal wave that wiped out numerous human territories actually, not their actions in Cormyr or Chondath or Sembia or Wherever Else They Predated on Lesser Species.
And I'm not racist, you'll note I proudly champion the causes of the Hin and Gnomes, despite being cursed with human birth. And I love bunnies enough to eat a whole one, quite tasty really, in a single sitting, so :P
You had a point somewhere? I've yet to see one from you...
And you're right, I wouldn't ever do that. I'd just redefine the argument in more favorable terms, a classic debating tactic if there ever was one. Besides, they're elves, unworthy of anything other than base contempt and derision. :D
Sounds like a Nosferatu trying to **** on a Ventrue.
Well: deal, you're still ugly and they still own the world.
Its hardly cheating, its redefining the issue. Especially if its making the elves look bad, which makes all things fair game.
Um...no.
As to how to step on a dragon: Dracorage Mythal
Um...no
I was referring to the tidal wave that wiped out numerous human territories actually, not their actions in Cormyr or Chondath or Sembia or Wherever Else They Predated on Lesser Species.
Um...no. No you weren't.
And I'm not racist, you'll note I proudly champion the causes of the Hin and Gnomes, despite being cursed with human birth. And I love bunnies enough to eat a whole one, quite tasty really, in a single sitting, so :P
Just...um....
You had a point somewhere? I've yet to see one from you...
Funny, 'cause my point backed up yours, which you then denounced, then chose to use for your effort in "redefining the issue."
I must ask: Are you John McCain?
Sounds like a Nosferatu trying to **** on a Ventrue.
Well: deal, you're still ugly and they still own the world.
Be nice. Stig isn't ugly...he's just...different...and some such stuff.
Um...no.
Er... yes.
Um...no
Er... yes.
Um...no. No you weren't.
Er... yes. Yes I was. The High Magic that created/raised Evermeet was what I was referring to there when I mentioned wiping out a bunch of humans.
Just...um....
Er...
Funny, 'cause my point backed up yours, which you then denounced, then chose to use for your effort in "redefining the issue."
I must ask: Are you John McCain?
I wasn't referring to the 'turf-stepping' thing you were. Those were generally limited to wiping out individual settlements, rather than regional genocides, and were more understandable in most circumstances. You're point was far too quasi-elf-friendly for my liking anyway, so it was to be disregarded.
Be nice. Stig isn't ugly...he's just...different...and some such stuff.
And its true, I'm not ugly. My wife told me so... ;)