My Life As A Gamer: Elfkind As A Faction

Elves. The Wizard Race.

Yet, in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition, only those Elves of genius (INT 18+) Intelligence can reach the pinnacle of prowess as Magic-Users: 11th level. (PHB p.14)

That means no spell-casting above 5th level MU spells for Elves. (p. 26) The necessary spell to create magic items other than potions and scrolls, Enchant An Item, is a 6th level spell! (p.42, DMG p. 118)

As I said when I wrote the Elf post, this suggests that Elves are a race in parallel with Gnomes (who have a similar reputation as Illusionists that their ability cannot support), in that they are a race in decline- a decline accelerated by the fact that they have no souls and thus cannot be raised from the dead (Raise Dead, PHB p. 50).

(Side Note: Deites & Demigods would later tack on an explanation regarding Elves, Orcs, and a few other races in the game that endless reincarnate instead of going on to some eternal reward.)

We have Pointy-Earned Wizard Kings that can't enchant a damned thing and must rely on Men instead (as no, Half-Elves can't do it either), that stay dead if they die despite a potential lifespan of millenia, and are forced to rely on synergies between allowed classes to make up for the lack. Ordinarily, that would be cause for complaint; instead, it should be taken as a compelling reason to go forth and adventure- especially united into a faction.

Elfkind As A Faction

Elves are the longest-lived playable race in the game, topping out just shy of 2000 years. Some Elf born the same year as Jesus would live to see Ronald Reagan elected as President of the United States.

That's a long time, and even if most Elves don't get about two millenia to live that's still over one thousand years barring violent or unnatural death. Even with a long time perspective, such a people would see this as a threat and do something useful about it. Being that Elves default to Chaotic Good in Alignment, that solution will likely involve bands agreeing to pursue seperate solutions and see what happens. The way Elves are depicted in the game facilitates this concept.

The Big Question driving Elfkind--the solution to, and remedy from, their fading--is what ought to define an Elf faction.

Elves should be seeking out what they left behind from former ages, seeking the lore (and treasures) of their predecessors looking for something to pursue that solves their big problem.

Some intermediate solutions should be present, things already (re)discovered and implemented; the Half-Breed post covers one such possibility. Another obvious one is that they can, and should, use their extensive life experience as leverage in the form of being Sages in very niche subjects; they can trade information in return for assistance in their own operations.

The consequences for making significant breakthroughs on their racial limits (including that no returning from the dead thing) should be rendered in faction-specific changes to what is or is not allowed. (e.g. finding some way to solve the permanent death thing means the limits on Raise Dead are removed for these Elves, finding some way to either reduce the needed INT score to hit the MU level cap or to raise the cap should be faction-wide, etc.)

We see this in the game with how Drow are addressed in the Fiend Folio, and all sub-races Unearthed Arcana, so there is precedent for this approach.

Elfkind Factions In The Campaign

If a Referee feels so bold, he may allow for two or more Elf factions in the campaign each seeking their own solutions to the aforementioned Big Question.

The Referee should keep the Elf faction's attention focused on this objective; all else is in service to it, as it is an existential threat that drives the faction's actions.

The player leading the faction should also keep this in mind, and should not shy away from stopgap measures to buy time or preserve personnel- be it in short-term or long-term time frames.

For example, if the faction does get an Elf Magic-User to 11th level, that Elf needs to learn Magic Jar as soon as possible. As often as is practical, that same Elf should be arranging for himself first and as many others thereafter as possible to be preserved via this spell. An Elf faction stronghold could have an entire room that, to outsiders, looks like a massive mosaic inlayed with brilliant coruscating jewels. It is actually their sepulchur, and those gems are the holding cells of Elf spirits awaiting a new body.

Another is the research of spells whose effect is to enable multi-class synergy, such as a spell that allowed the caster to use a specific weapon as a single-classed Fighter of his combined class levels for the duration.

Another is seeking out items that produce desired effects, then using them during spell research to reverse-engineer the spells that went into their creation.

By incremental progress, the Elf faction chips away at the problem. This will define the specific boundaries of the problem as well as its nature, and once you know what is wrong you can devise an answer that fixes it. This is the end goal of the Elf Faction's quest: to define the problems of fading and death down to a single-action remedy.

That is a campaign worthy of waging, and it is one that I would welcome seeing played out as a Referee. It beats every seen to date.