ELFS AND ELVES

[BJ Swabb]

Hey everyone. I just thought I would come here and ask about your versions of elven folk. See I try to stay somewhat traditional but with a twist of creating branches of the elven race. As of now I have Woodland elves. Autumn eleves, ranger elves, Smith elves, glistening elves, sky elves (angels), dark elves, high elder elves, sprite elfs, house elfs and British elfs.

What elves do u have and what makes them different from each other?

 

[pmmg]

By traditional, you mean, kind of like the Tolkien version of elves? cause you know, prior to his rendition, they were more of the small sprite like creatures then the taller woodland based warrior types.

Anyway....One of my regrets is that when I started my story way back when, I did not just stick to a human only world. I dont have elves, but I do have a race similar to them (if those at home were to go...hey, these are just elves, I'd not say they were wrong). I dont have varieties of them, though...those came more from my D&D days.

While I have liked many different versions of elves in the past, I have no particular desire to see them included in any particular work.

In my own world, there have been periods of great magic, and weak magic, and the races born and bred in them carried more affinity to it depending on the age. The earliest races were very attuned, and the later races not so much. My Elf like creatures would have come from an in between stage when magic was still high, but not sufficient to become greater beings themselves.

 

[ThinkerX]

Well... the Elves in my worlds originated with the schemes of the 'ancient aliens.'

Multiple tens of thousands of years ago, the ancient aliens selected an unknown number of near-lifeless worlds and terraformed them. Thousands of years later they began importing other races, notably goblins and humans as pets, test subjects, and servitors. Now, the ancient aliens are naturally powerful psychics - indeed much of their technology requires psionic ability to operate. They used this mix of technology and psionics to explore the hidden realms, making contact with their bodiless denizens. One of these spiritual races was greatly taken with the physical realm. And then... something happened. Somehow, a large percentage of that spiritual race became trapped in the physical realm, incarnated in human bodies. Those possessed humans became a new race - elves.

The non-human spirits changed their human host bodies. They live longer = as much as three centuries - and possess keener senses. The spirits were able to bring a fraction of their magic with them - enough to the point where all elves are capable of casting a spell or five. Yet, apart from the pointed ears and devastating good looks, they appear very human - though their thought processes are not the same - because they are aliens, and because they remember their homeland. Seeking a means to permanently return to that 'home' is a preoccupation with many elves. Others are...resigned.

Half-elves are a thing. Like their elfin parent, they have an innate knack for magic.

Elves are regarded by most humans as a mentally unstable race of sorcerers. In the Solarian Empire (the major nation of the main world) elves in the empire are confined to designated enclaves, with unpleasant penalties for being outside them without authorization. Past clashes between Solaria and the elven realm of Sinaliel spooked both peoples so badly that they agreed to a sort of neutral buffer zone between those countries, the Faerie March, a narrow strip of land ruled by the lascivious Fairie Queens and an assortment of renegade knights and rogues.

 

[Finchbearer]

What’s a British elf?

No elves in my stories actually. I prefer working with fairies because their folklore is very deep rooted in British culture. They include lots of fun sub-types too such as hobgoblins, sprites and wil-o-the-wisps.

 

[BJ Swabb]

What’s a British elf?

No elves in my stories actually. I prefer working with fairies because their folklore is very deep rooted in British culture. They include lots of fun sub-types too such as hobgoblins, sprites and wil-o-the-wisps.

In my mythical creature Bible by Brenda Rosen it reads: British elves are human sized supernatural beings who are likely to harm the humans that cross their paths. Many Ballard's describe Elphame the home of elves as an eerie and frightening place. In Scotland prehistoric arrowheads are called "elfshot" because they are believed to have been used by malicious elves to injure livestock. They also torment sleepers by tangling their hair into "elf-locks". It is said they were believed to steal children as Faries did. To avertthis danger people along the coast of Scotland would cut branches of oak and ivy under a waxing March Moon and weave them into a wreath. Passing children through the wreath three times was thought to protect them from elves.

Anyways that's the description they gave, but I made mine in to preteen sized elves who cause alot of mischief playing tricks and causing chaos. But still keep to who they are as far as what the description says above.

 

[pmmg]

Imma keep that word 'elfshot' and use it somewhere.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Mmmmm, sorta elves, but I don't use the word. There are 3 distinct species humans call Woodkin, and they can't interbreed. One version in particular is closer to human than Woodkin/Elven. The Edan have more in common with the Eldar and almost never leave their homeland, while the Trelelunin are more human-like and are the eyes and ears of the Edan outside of their Mother Wood. The third species is far more mortal in appearance and behavior but distorted by their lifespans. The third lives long enough to seem immortal to humans, but they aren't. Going into it would take too much time.

 

[ThinkerX]

Mmmmm, sorta elves, but I don't use the word. There are 3 distinct species humans call Woodkin, and they can't interbreed. One version in particular is closer to human than Woodkin/Elven. The Edan have more in common with the Eldar and almost never leave their homeland, while the Trelelunin are more human-like and are the eyes and ears of the Edan outside of their Mother Wood. The third species is far more mortal in appearance and behavior but distorted by their lifespans. The third lives long enough to seem immortal to humans, but they aren't. Going into it would take too much time.

And my suspicion is that at least one of those groups played a major role in the Great Memory Wipeout.

 

[skip.knox]

Yeah, I have elves. They are all the same folk in terms of species, but the people of Altearth tend to have different terms. Mostly it's some sort of modifier, such as fisher elves. The one group that has a distinctive name are the wagoneers, so called by elves, non-elves, and the wagoneers themselves.

Names are slippery things. They slide around over time and place, and across cultures and peoples. I like to keep things vague, leaving me free to create specific usages for specific stories. I even make variations on elfs versus elves, especially with the adjective. There's elvish, elvic, elfic. elfish, and probably couple others I've yet to use. Same goes for orcs, trolls, dwarves. Human seems to be pretty constant. So does ogre, though I've seen both ogrish and ogric.

 

[Finchbearer]

To my knowledge, elves / elfs have more connection to Norse mythology than British folklore. Certainly there may have been crossover with the two cultures mixing, though I’d have thought that in essence those age old folktales of the British Isles are very much more so about fairies and their kin.

 

[pmmg]

I suspect there were not Elf's in Brittish Folklore until after they connected with the Norse. They may have had similar creatures. They have since all kind of blended together.

I would attribute the taller Elves to something Tolkien brought to life.

This stuff by Mrs. Rosen is possibly a more recent interpretation of older things. I doubt the Scots were calling prehistoric arrow heads, 'elfshot' before they encountered the Vikings.

In my mythical creature Bible by Brenda Rosen it reads: British elves are human sized supernatural beings who are likely to harm the humans that cross their paths. Many Ballard's describe Elphame the home of elves as an eerie and frightening place. In Scotland prehistoric arrowheads are called "elfshot" because they are believed to have been used by malicious elves to injure livestock. They also torment sleepers by tangling their hair into "elf-locks". It is said they were believed to steal children as Faries did. To avertthis danger people along the coast of Scotland would cut branches of oak and ivy under a waxing March Moon and weave them into a wreath. Passing children through the wreath three times was thought to protect them from elves.

 

[LittleOwlbear]

Well, those are DnD elves. They were accidentally created by Corellon and banned from their original plane Arvandor for reasons, then lived in the Feywild for long before stepping into the material plane. Their ancestry from the God of elves gave them keen senses and a natural talent for magic and live in a circle of reincarnation, where they remember their former lives when they become old.

They go into a trance every night where they relive the memories of Arvandor and after the first 80-100 years their own memories every night. Although they could sleep, but dreams are confusing for them.
They all have access to magic, it's interwoven with their soul and cold iron poisons them. There is an old myth that cold iron steals the fey folk lifeforce.

Elves are described with ethereal / otherworldly beauty, lot ot of them are pansexual by the nature of their longlivity of 750 years (theoretically, only a few elves become older than 500, because a lot happens in a half a millenia) and they either live in serial monogamy or polyamorous relationships. They also easy to accept genderfluidity or agender people among them, since Corellon is described as a fluid being (not only in a genderfluid sense, he could turn into anything).

Lot of them look down on half-elves, since they believe half-elves are excluded from the reincarnation circle and their soul is damned. Also they reproduce so slowly, because there is only a relatively low amount of souls in that circle.
Oh and Corellon and the elves damned the Drow into the underdark.
In general lot of them are very elitist against other races.


That's the short about the "canon".
In my homebrew world, five big clans of high elves and some smaller ones formed, when they stepped into the material world from the Feywild.
Two of these clans wandered in the South and got a darker skin complexion.

That's where my main character is from and to me it's important that being an elf of course does have a huge influence on them. Cultural, biological and spiritual since they need to go in trance, their strong senses and their magic is incredibly important to them. Losing their access to it is literally the same as losing their soul, or part of.

But it's as important to me that they are an individual. I don't want a big twist in my elves to make them different. It's more important to me to that elfen characters feel real to me as a person. Apart from what makes them elves, their feelings and thought processes do function a lot like humans, and their basic morals of empathy and not causing someone harm without a reason to for example, align for lot of humans and elves.

 

[pmmg]

Well, those are DnD elves.

Which ones?

 

[LittleOwlbear]

Which ones?

What do you mean? The "classic ones" or the ones I use?
I refered to mine (and mainly the ones of 5th edition), because the first post asked "what elves do you have?"

 

[HaydenCreed]

Honestly i am still adjusting the races of my world to perfect them and i haven’t finished up elves/elfs. Although in want them to keep their appearence as humanoid figures with pointy ears, but in still have to decide what kind of life do they lead. If they are either woodland people living in the lifestyle of druids or if they would be highborne magic attuned nobilty.