I find elves straight up interesting and feel that they're even almost kinda underused in modern fantasy literature, weird as that might seem. They're in every game, but in actual books? Not so much.
The problem with elves, half the time, is that people write elves and not characters. Which sucks.
And the other half, they write radically different elves and we do this that's different and cool and woah and... not characters.
I've kicked around various ideas for elves, not all of which are radically different to what's out there. Such as elves that are only immortal because they're all practising serious life extending magic, taking it from the trees and giving it to themselves. Most elves take just a little, but there's all sorts of things that you can do with life magic, so some live in groves of withered trees...
Or elves where all the males are short and stout and serious, craftsmen and warriors, and all the females are tall and ethereal - so basically dwarves and elves as one race.
I like GW's Eldar - the idea of Elves as terrifyingly passionate and fighting to find ways to keep their soul from going to the Great Enemy, and the many ways the race found to confront that. Heavily ritualised roles and all that.
What I'd like to see from someone's elves - mine if they get there first - is a return to them as semi-divine beings. The more human flavour of elf is all well and good but it doesn't interest me as much, I don't feel like there's as much scope for something interest. Being semi-divine doesn't make you flawless (so much evidence for that in mythology) or unbeatable; but it does make you very different.
Do you get a race that tries to puppet master all the others in the belief they have the divine plan?
Or are they nomads, finding the worthy and secretly answering their prayers?
Or maybe they are jealous of the gods they nearly are but are so far from, and plot war with heaven?
Or maybe, like Tolkien's, they rebelled in their pride and are now diminishing echoes... but there's got to be plenty of things you can do with that other than what Tolkien did.
Maybe if you go down this route the easiest thing is to not call them elves. They do come with a lot of connotations after all.
Ah! Maybe they're a new race, created to replace humanity on account of them being a bunch of dicks...
The world is a mollusc of your choice. Just remember all that culture, all that alienness... it has to make good characters and stories.
The problem with elves, half the time, is that people write elves and not characters. Which sucks.
And the other half, they write radically different elves and we do this that's different and cool and woah and... not characters.
I've kicked around various ideas for elves, not all of which are radically different to what's out there. Such as elves that are only immortal because they're all practising serious life extending magic, taking it from the trees and giving it to themselves. Most elves take just a little, but there's all sorts of things that you can do with life magic, so some live in groves of withered trees...
Or elves where all the males are short and stout and serious, craftsmen and warriors, and all the females are tall and ethereal - so basically dwarves and elves as one race.
I like GW's Eldar - the idea of Elves as terrifyingly passionate and fighting to find ways to keep their soul from going to the Great Enemy, and the many ways the race found to confront that. Heavily ritualised roles and all that.
What I'd like to see from someone's elves - mine if they get there first - is a return to them as semi-divine beings. The more human flavour of elf is all well and good but it doesn't interest me as much, I don't feel like there's as much scope for something interest. Being semi-divine doesn't make you flawless (so much evidence for that in mythology) or unbeatable; but it does make you very different.
Do you get a race that tries to puppet master all the others in the belief they have the divine plan?
Or are they nomads, finding the worthy and secretly answering their prayers?
Or maybe they are jealous of the gods they nearly are but are so far from, and plot war with heaven?
Or maybe, like Tolkien's, they rebelled in their pride and are now diminishing echoes... but there's got to be plenty of things you can do with that other than what Tolkien did.
Maybe if you go down this route the easiest thing is to not call them elves. They do come with a lot of connotations after all.
Ah! Maybe they're a new race, created to replace humanity on account of them being a bunch of dicks...
The world is a mollusc of your choice. Just remember all that culture, all that alienness... it has to make good characters and stories.