My Life As A Gamer: The Elves As They Are

(Second in a series; the first is here.)

Elves in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition (AD&D1e) are not the tall and angelic figures of Tolkien's Middle-Earth. They hew far closer to Lord Dunseney and the Fae than they do Tolkien's legendarium, and their presentation in the game supports it.

The Monster Manual describes the default Elves as different from Acquatic, Dark (Drow), Grey, and Wood Elves. The Dungeon Master's Guide dubs the default type "High Elves"; they are the norm of Elfkind against which others are measured.

This is a people of highly intelligent, long-lived (but hardly immortal), highly individualistic civilized people who--like their Wood Elf kin--prefer the forest canopy over all other environs. Like Dwarves, they are a Good culture; unlike Dwarves, they favor Chaos over Law and their entire civilization reflects this.

The Elf

Racial Benefits:

• Ability Score Modifiers: +1 Dexterity/-1 Constitution
• Ability Score Limits:
  • Male: Strength (3/18), Intelligence (8/18), Wisdom (3/18), Dexterity (7/19), Constitution (6/18), Charisma (8/18)
  • Female: Strength (3/18), Intelligence (8/18), Wisdom (3/18), Dexterity (7/19), Constitution (6/18), Charisma (8/18)
• Class Limits:
  • Cleric: 7th (NPC Only)
  • Druid: Not Allowed
  • Fighter: 5th (STR 16-)/6th (STR 17)/7th (STR 18+)
  • Paladin: Not Allowed
  • Ranger: Not Allowed
  • Magic-User: 9th (INT 16-)/10th (INT 17)/11th (INT 18+)
  • Illusionist: Not Allowed
  • Thief: Unlimited
  • Assassin: 10th
  • Monk: Not Allowed
  • Multi-Class Combinations: Fighter/Magic-User, Fighter/Thief, Magic-User/Thief, Fighter/Magic-User/Thief.

  Racial Abilities:

  • 90% Resistance to Charm and Sleep spells.
  • +1 to attack rolls with a short or longbow, or with a short or longsword.
  • Infravision: 60 feet.
  • Detect Secret Doors: (Passive) 1 in 6 when within 10 feet to find a door; (Active) 2 in 6 for a door and 3 in 6 for a portal.
  • When alone and not in metal armor, in a party of Elves and/or Halflings, or 90+ feet in advance of an otherwise-disqualifying party, an Elf gains Surprise on 2 in 6 if he must open a door or portal to do so and 4 in 6 if he does not.
• Aging: (Young Adult) 100-175 , (Mature) 176-550, (Middle Age) 551-875, (Old) 876-1200, (Venerable) 1201-1600, (Upper Limit) 1980 years.

Elf Culture

What do you see when you have a Chaotic Good race of forest-dwellers who live, on average, 20 times the lifespan of a Man? What of a race of such people who have significant potency as Magic-Users, enough merit as Fighters to be accounted in songs of glory for martial prowess, but--like Dwarves--are actually lacking in divine presence in their lives and are actually dominated by Thieves (and in their shadows Assassins lurk, making themselves as valuable--too much so--to Elf rulers as they are to Dwarf rulers).

Despite living in the woods, they lack woodcraft acumen--no Druids or Rangers--and if not for their innate stealth capacity (which I speculate is a vestige of a greater fey inheritance) they would be no better at ambushing enemies than anyone else. Their masters of stealth are those given to criminality, both of the light-fingers and the murderous sort. Their institutional acumen in terms of magic is impressive, and their most notable rulers will certainly be such people, but Men always eclipse them and learn to command the greatest of magics.

In short, despite living up to about two millenia in length--some Elf born the same year as Jesus would only have died, at last, of old age in 1981, the year Ronald Reagan took office as President of the United States--they lack the mastery that even the most passive pursuit of a profession should have generated. Their greatest heroes, their venerated icons of Elfkind, can boast only that they achieved competency and/or (near-)mastery in two or three professions simultaneously at best.

Their priests call upon no miracles. They know not how to make wishes come true. They, like Dwarves, rely on guile and deception as much (if not moreso) than anything else to compenstate for a lack of either raw numbers or raw power. They, like Dwarves, rely on unconventional warfare to negate enemies strengths and take advantage of their own to best effect- and their capacity to ambush is core to Elf warcraft.

However, Elves have a glaring weakness: they cannot be raised from the dead short of raw cosmic power (alter reality, miracle, wish, reincarnate) being employed, and that power is beyond their reach. (PHB p. 50) When the enemies of the Elves slay one of them, they stay dead. This, coupled with their up-to-two-millenia lifespans, make Elves highly reluctant to engage in any combat situation where victory is not already guaranteed.

Therefore Elves, like Dwarves, seek out allies and--once found--do what they can to maintain good relations with them. If nothing else, having a buffer between themselves and those who wish to make them a pile of fossils (which also functions as extension of their intelligence network, which the Assassins in particular value) is sufficient reason to pursue diplomacy when possible.

Being a Good people, they do treat those allies as well as can be had; one can argue that not only the Half-Elf race, but the Bard, Druid, and Ranger classes are results of this policy.

Being a Chaotic people, this is done primarily through individuals collaborating in a loose and ad-hoc manner of personal relationships instead of any form of formal structure and certainly not a literal institution. This is a pattern that defines Elf civilization in general.

One does not find Elf Wizard School, but rather Elf Magic Societies and so on. Governance in total follows this pattern; the ruler is the Elf with the strongest network of friends and allies, and his word commands. (One can imagine what this means for Elf Assassin society.) The Elf family is likewise focuses on direct relationships over formal institutions and the mechanistic operation of procedure, and if not for their long lifespans this would result in a highly unstable political and economic culture as what was allowed today could be banned tomorrow.

Of course this will be seen in what passes for Elf religion. There are few Clerics because there is little need for a formal priesthood; what exists, far more likely than the Dwarves, is a family practice or specific society or association that handles ritual observance and tends to spiritual matters (such as what Elves have). Elf mythology will also reflect this individualistic personal relationship structure to how things are done.

With this in mind, it is no surprise that Elf civilization does what it can to exploit useful synergies between different competencies- often in the form of spells and items kept secret by Elves even from their allies. This is the other way that they attempt to compensate for a lack of numbers or power; to make what they do have go farther, and the heroes of Elf civilization will often feature this practice in their legendarium by one or more euphemisms.

Now, if only they could do something about their (lack of?) souls being too weak to permit being raised from the dead. That fear of death, despite long lifespans (and, as it clear, the inability to fix it), is going to be prominent in all parts of Elf civilization from the whole to its parts- Good and Evil alike. It would not surprise me to find that undeath originated not from Man's fear of mortality, but Elf fears of the same (Elf-specific undead do exist), and no doubt that there are some Elf heroes seeking temporary or permanent remedies to this issue as a driving force for their efforts.

So no, these are not the Professor's Elves. These are something else. You might want to reconsider how to run and play them accordingly. This a slowly-dying race resorting to guile at all levels to endure while their loremasters and wizards work without end to resolve their existential problem. While, on the whole, they mean well their resorting to flat-out murder (Assassins) as a trump card (as Dwarves do) and the dominance of Thieves in leadership (as Dwarves do) points to some possible reasons for their crisis that they may be avoiding.

Not that the Gnomes or Halflings are better off- and the Half-Elf issue is enough for its own post.