Elfquest, Civilization, and D&D - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Elfquest, Civilization, and D&D

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
Shiftkitty
May 06, 2009 22:04:20 I'm crafting a setting based on Wendy Pini's "Elfquest" series. It's a sort of neolithic setting, for those not familiar, so the classes will be limited to the primal source and martial source (I think), although I will be open to negotiation by my players. Meh, I haven't really settled on that part yet. If you've read the stories, I'm remaking the trolls by reflavoring the duergar, whose metal-working skills would fit the trolls of Elfquest far better than the normal 4e trolls. I'm still working on the Preservers. If you haven't read the story, I recommend it. (Note: I won't be using any characters from the original story.)

The Civilization part comes in because that's kind of how I intend to do the map. The party will be younger members of an elf tribe who are going on their first hunt to prove their worth. It's a coming-of-age deal to start off the campaign. (They've all agreed to play elves from the tribe, wlthough one, quite enamored by the drow, wants to play a drow foundling, which is fine. I can work a backstory later, although there were no drow in Elfquest.) I'll present them with a hexmap and one hex, about 24 miles, filled in with their forest. From there we'll use smaller maps, but when they move to another area, we'll fill in the next hex and use smaller maps for adventures there. In that way they can fill out an entire world. I just thought it was neat and wanted to give it a shout out.

My puzzle is this. In Elfquest, the elves are quite small, maybe halfling sized. Only the Gliders are tall. The Wolfriders, the Sunfolk, the Gobacks, even the later Wavedancers, are all depicted as small. Only one member of the Sunfolk was tall, Savah, the Mother of Memory. She was from the first generation of elves born on the World of Two Moons. The others were survivors of an alien spaceship crash maybe a thousand years prior. Humans were still kind of neanderthal at the time of the crash. At the time of the story, they're more like modern homosapiens, but very primitive still. Maybe a little further up from cro-magnon?

The ship crashed when their mental powers, their 'magic', failed to protect them during an uprising of the creatures that became the trolls. Further, their magic flowed poorly on the planet, and all kinds of strangeness happened, including magically mutated beasts. The ship, shaped like a castle because the elves had intended to land in a medieval period, not a neolithic one, continues to radiate a magical aura. The survivors of the crash were scattered far and wide in an attempt to survive, and have suffered diminished magical abilities. One of the results is that they are pretty much stick in the traditional elf form.

The quest behind Elfquest is a great read, at least for the first four volumes and a few of the stories after the quest. I wasn't impressed by much that followed, so I want to set things back a bit. It is remarked in the story that the elves, whose original forms were quite tall, had reduced in size as "a sensible change, easy to live on scarce meat..."

1)If I keep the elves in Elfquest form, what are my considerations for turning the 4e elves from Medium to Small?

2)If I keep the 4e elves' stature, how might I explain that they remained Medium?
#2
silent_stone
May 06, 2009 23:02:33 I'm not too familiar with Elfquest, but if the majority of the races of the world are Small, then in that world "Small" is medium-sized. Keep the elves Medium-sized, just define "Medium-sized" in your setting as "oh, about three or four feet tall." Then you really wouldn't have to change much of anything mechanics-wise.
#3
Shiftkitty
May 07, 2009 12:22:31 It's the elves that are smaller. All of the elf tribes I mentioned except for the Gliders, and the individual, Savah, are small. In the stories, the Wolfrider elves traded meat and hides for weapons and metal goods (no body armor) with the trolls, who were almost completely subterranean, but were master metalsmiths. The trolls were on scale with the elves hence the substituting of the duergar. (Also, duergar attitudes seemed to jive closely with Lord Greymung and his trolls, although the more warlike trolls from the frozen north, led by Lord Guttlekraw, are even closer.)
#4
silent_stone
May 07, 2009 12:40:54 I fear either I misunderstood you, or I am explaining myself poorly. Allow me to try again:

In the standard 4E setting, the majority of player character races are 4 feet to 7 feet tall, with most between 5 ft 6 in and 6 ft 2 or so. Thus, the term "medium-sized" in the standard 4E setting is defined as "between 4 feet and 7 feet tall". Halflings are distinctly smaller (3 to 4 feet tall, if I recall correctly), and so they are "small". The term "small" is purely relative to the majority, who are taller.

Now, if I understand correctly, in your Elfquest setting, the majority of the player character races are 3 to 4 feet tall. Thus, the term "medium-sized" in your setting would be defined as "3 to 4 feet tall." The Gliders are distinctly taller than average, and so they would be "Large" in your setting.

What I suggest is to simply shift the scale of the game so that the most common sized creature is "Medium-sized" (this being a fairly arbitrary term, just change the definition of the term from "5 to 6 feet" to "3 to 4 feet" and then you wouldn't need to change much in the way of mechanics.

Just as an example illustrating this idea, in a nonstandard game-setting where everyone played giants, who were mechanically identical to, say, the Goliath race, except they were 12 to 15 feet tall, then in that setting, "12 to 15 feet tall" would be Medium. A creature that was only 7 feet tall would be "small."

I hope this makes better sense.
#5
Shiftkitty
May 07, 2009 14:13:45 Ah! Now I gotcha! So I wouldn't have to sweat too much about mechanics. Humans would be Large as well, and I hope to keep the number of other intelligent races from the MM (such as orcs, bugbears, kobolds, goblins) to minimum or less, with the primary conflict being between the elves and humans, and secondary conflict coming from the Gliders (whom I could run as reflavored eladrin, given that the gliders were arrogant and aloof at best, xenophobic and genocidal at worst).

Cool! Thanks!

I went through my PHBs last night, and it seems that the only non-primal class that would fit would be the Ranger. Do you think the Fighter and Rogue would be much of a stretch to fit into a primitive setting? Martial fighting is a pretty basic skill, and the acrobatics of the Aerialist Rogue or maneuverability of the Artful Dodger rogue may fit with forest-born people who are used to taking to the trees and narrow paths through the underbrush to avoid various dangers, but I'm not sure.
#6
silent_stone
May 07, 2009 14:29:27 I don't see why a minorly reflavored rogues wouldn't work: just change their class skills list to include Nature and leave out Streetwise. And, as you say, martial fighting is pretty basic, so keep it in; maybe prune out some of the paragon paths like Kensei.
#7
Shiftkitty
May 07, 2009 18:47:51 Ah, I always forget about tweaking skill lists! Great suggestion. I know my players will try to keep things in synch with the setting, such as a reflavored nature rogue not knowing squat about anything so high-tech as picking locks, but he'd probably be pretty good at spotting the humans' hunting traps and sneaking into human camps for a bit of raiding!

Thanks a bunch!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Shiftkitty May 06, 2009 22:04:20	I'm crafting a setting based on Wendy Pini's "Elfquest" series. It's a sort of neolithic setting, for those not familiar, so the classes will be limited to the primal source and martial source (I think), although I will be open to negotiation by my players. Meh, I haven't really settled on that part yet. If you've read the stories, I'm remaking the trolls by reflavoring the duergar, whose metal-working skills would fit the trolls of Elfquest far better than the normal 4e trolls. I'm still working on the Preservers. If you haven't read the story, I recommend it. (Note: I won't be using any characters from the original story.) The Civilization part comes in because that's kind of how I intend to do the map. The party will be younger members of an elf tribe who are going on their first hunt to prove their worth. It's a coming-of-age deal to start off the campaign. (They've all agreed to play elves from the tribe, wlthough one, quite enamored by the drow, wants to play a drow foundling, which is fine. I can work a backstory later, although there were no drow in Elfquest.) I'll present them with a hexmap and one hex, about 24 miles, filled in with their forest. From there we'll use smaller maps, but when they move to another area, we'll fill in the next hex and use smaller maps for adventures there. In that way they can fill out an entire world. I just thought it was neat and wanted to give it a shout out. My puzzle is this. In Elfquest, the elves are quite small, maybe halfling sized. Only the Gliders are tall. The Wolfriders, the Sunfolk, the Gobacks, even the later Wavedancers, are all depicted as small. Only one member of the Sunfolk was tall, Savah, the Mother of Memory. She was from the first generation of elves born on the World of Two Moons. The others were survivors of an alien spaceship crash maybe a thousand years prior. Humans were still kind of neanderthal at the time of the crash. At the time of the story, they're more like modern homosapiens, but very primitive still. Maybe a little further up from cro-magnon? The ship crashed when their mental powers, their 'magic', failed to protect them during an uprising of the creatures that became the trolls. Further, their magic flowed poorly on the planet, and all kinds of strangeness happened, including magically mutated beasts. The ship, shaped like a castle because the elves had intended to land in a medieval period, not a neolithic one, continues to radiate a magical aura. The survivors of the crash were scattered far and wide in an attempt to survive, and have suffered diminished magical abilities. One of the results is that they are pretty much stick in the traditional elf form. The quest behind Elfquest is a great read, at least for the first four volumes and a few of the stories after the quest. I wasn't impressed by much that followed, so I want to set things back a bit. It is remarked in the story that the elves, whose original forms were quite tall, had reduced in size as "a sensible change, easy to live on scarce meat..." 1)If I keep the elves in Elfquest form, what are my considerations for turning the 4e elves from Medium to Small? 2)If I keep the 4e elves' stature, how might I explain that they remained Medium?
#2 silent_stone May 06, 2009 23:02:33	I'm not too familiar with Elfquest, but if the majority of the races of the world are Small, then in that world "Small" is medium-sized. Keep the elves Medium-sized, just define "Medium-sized" in your setting as "oh, about three or four feet tall." Then you really wouldn't have to change much of anything mechanics-wise.
#3 Shiftkitty May 07, 2009 12:22:31	It's the elves that are smaller. All of the elf tribes I mentioned except for the Gliders, and the individual, Savah, are small. In the stories, the Wolfrider elves traded meat and hides for weapons and metal goods (no body armor) with the trolls, who were almost completely subterranean, but were master metalsmiths. The trolls were on scale with the elves hence the substituting of the duergar. (Also, duergar attitudes seemed to jive closely with Lord Greymung and his trolls, although the more warlike trolls from the frozen north, led by Lord Guttlekraw, are even closer.)
#4 silent_stone May 07, 2009 12:40:54	I fear either I misunderstood you, or I am explaining myself poorly. Allow me to try again: In the standard 4E setting, the majority of player character races are 4 feet to 7 feet tall, with most between 5 ft 6 in and 6 ft 2 or so. Thus, the term "medium-sized" in the standard 4E setting is defined as "between 4 feet and 7 feet tall". Halflings are distinctly smaller (3 to 4 feet tall, if I recall correctly), and so they are "small". The term "small" is purely relative to the majority, who are taller. Now, if I understand correctly, in your Elfquest setting, the majority of the player character races are 3 to 4 feet tall. Thus, the term "medium-sized" in your setting would be defined as "3 to 4 feet tall." The Gliders are distinctly taller than average, and so they would be "Large" in your setting. What I suggest is to simply shift the scale of the game so that the most common sized creature is "Medium-sized" (this being a fairly arbitrary term, just change the definition of the term from "5 to 6 feet" to "3 to 4 feet" and then you wouldn't need to change much in the way of mechanics. Just as an example illustrating this idea, in a nonstandard game-setting where everyone played giants, who were mechanically identical to, say, the Goliath race, except they were 12 to 15 feet tall, then in that setting, "12 to 15 feet tall" would be Medium. A creature that was only 7 feet tall would be "small." I hope this makes better sense.
#5 Shiftkitty May 07, 2009 14:13:45	Ah! Now I gotcha! So I wouldn't have to sweat too much about mechanics. Humans would be Large as well, and I hope to keep the number of other intelligent races from the MM (such as orcs, bugbears, kobolds, goblins) to minimum or less, with the primary conflict being between the elves and humans, and secondary conflict coming from the Gliders (whom I could run as reflavored eladrin, given that the gliders were arrogant and aloof at best, xenophobic and genocidal at worst). Cool! Thanks! I went through my PHBs last night, and it seems that the only non-primal class that would fit would be the Ranger. Do you think the Fighter and Rogue would be much of a stretch to fit into a primitive setting? Martial fighting is a pretty basic skill, and the acrobatics of the Aerialist Rogue or maneuverability of the Artful Dodger rogue may fit with forest-born people who are used to taking to the trees and narrow paths through the underbrush to avoid various dangers, but I'm not sure.
#6 silent_stone May 07, 2009 14:29:27	I don't see why a minorly reflavored rogues wouldn't work: just change their class skills list to include Nature and leave out Streetwise. And, as you say, martial fighting is pretty basic, so keep it in; maybe prune out some of the paragon paths like Kensei.
#7 Shiftkitty May 07, 2009 18:47:51	Ah, I always forget about tweaking skill lists! Great suggestion. I know my players will try to keep things in synch with the setting, such as a reflavored nature rogue not knowing squat about anything so high-tech as picking locks, but he'd probably be pretty good at spotting the humans' hunting traps and sneaking into human camps for a bit of raiding! Thanks a bunch!