so what are some good !elves and !dwarves? when have you used them or seen them in play (or even just in some other media) where it worked out good and didn't just seem like an ego thing?
i want to get away from cheap tolkien knock offs but whats too far? whats not far enough?
>>47675033
>>47675033
Personally I feel the biggest thing Tolkien got wrong was simply balancing other races. They all ended up being "Humans but better". Elves are fine if they better at magic than humans, for example, but they need flaws like a physical frailty or a lack of strength to make up for it. In Tolkien's world they were basically superhumans in every single way except their "culture", which is hardly a good balance in a roleplaying game where players can somewhat ignore that part (and even their culture, as the author presented it, was meant to be better than humanity's in every way, sooo). With long-lived races in particular, I find it helps to cut their lifespans down from thousands of years to something like 200-300 to help eliminate some of the Mary Sue factor.
The other major thing to avoid is to avoid making fantasy races a stand-in for real-world cultures. Dwarves all speaking with an accent and drinking alot is funny and classic... but it's not very interesting or different, and there's no reason not to just use a race of human in their place.
I've seen elves and dwarves used well in some homebrew stuff... rarely ever in any mainstream media. A few videogames do it well, Dragon Age, Mass Effect if you ignore the Asari (I know that's not elves and dwarves, but same idea), Elder Scrolls, ect.
>>47675317
Reading the silmarillion should be a requirement to talk about elves on this board. Actually, in general. Because then you would know that Tolkiens elves had massive flaws as well.
>>47675395
Yeah sure.
>>47675412
It's easy to be an asshat, but difficult to admit that you don't read books. Protip: Even mediocre writers make better elves and dwarfs than what you imagine in your headcanon.
If you are trying to subvert the collection of tropes that is "dwarf" or "elf" and still call them that, you're missing the point of the default fantasy setting.
>>47675455
Basically this.
While familiarity and originality are opposing each other, both have value.
Except you can't really do much fuckup with familiarity, and when originality is concerned... well, lets say that out of 20 "lololo subversions" (I mean total subversions, not changing/adding a quirk, two or three) 19 suck ass.
>>47675317
Tolkien didn't write fucking RPG. It didn't exist at the time. He wrote novels. There is no need far "balance" in a fucking novel.
>>47675395
>Flaws
You mean living forever?
You mean being stronger than men?
You mean being beautiful and part god?
Man, unless the Simarillion pulled some major retcons, I'm gonna have to call bullshit on this. Their flaws are societal at best, and societal customs are easy as fuck to change.
>>47675922
Humans were as strong as elves in the first ages. Which is the silmarillion about. Read a book, nigger. And read the tale of Fëanor to learn what kind of fucktard an elf can be.
>>47675922
One of the major plot points of the book is when one the greatest elf lords, Faenor, murders his kin (committing the first act of murder in the world) for his ships as he tried to stand in the way as Faenor decided he was going to chase after Morgoth (Satan, basically) to retrieve the Simarils, a pair of priceless magical jewels, though he also did it simply because he wanted to conqueror and colonize Middle-Earth with his sons.
Faenor is driven by his wrath and his pride, and though the gods literally told him not to go after Morgoth he straight up told them to fuck off because he was doing it anyway.
The elves of the Simirillion are immortal but still a very young species (remember that Creationism is definitely what happened in Tolkien's world and they did not "evolve" from anything) android they're prideful, angry, wrathful, impulsive, make mistakes, and basically for all that their triumphs and capacity for incredible things seem magnified compared to humans their failures and Hubrises are equally writ large.
By Lord of the Rings you are literally seeing the last remnants of their species and every remaining elf is old enough to have personally witnessesd the decline their entire civilization and the slow inevitably erosion of their great works and how so much of it amounted to nothing it in the end.
Basically imagine an entire species of VERY old men in younger bodies who now are tired and emotionally exhausted after literal millenia of accomplishing shit that always fell apart in the end anyway. They are wiser and more learned then Man in modern Middle-Earth simply because they've learned life's lessons the hard way a long time ago and almost universally battle deep depression as a species.
>>47675990
I love how arguably the greatest warrior in the entire setting ever is the human champion Hurin and Morgoth only managed to captured him because he'd killed so many fucking guys that the weight of their corpses physically held him down and no other force Morgoth could muster otherwise stopped him
Jesus did he ever make him pay for it though.
>>47676020
Don't forget the part where even your children and grandchildren (those who are still alive anyway) aren't even remotely young either and no new children have been born to your species in ages.
>>47676109
That's bs actually, together with all that "Legolas/Arwen is the youngest elf in middle earth" shit. Nothing like that was ever stated. It's someones headcanon that got stuck in the fandom.
>>47675033
Dwarves
Life Expectancy : 2000 years
Height : 3’-4’
Weight : 200-400
Dwarves are proof that the Arcane Lock is not beyond mortal hands, for each dwarf holds his soul in a miniature Arcane Lock, crafted by the eons in the hearts of mountains. The device slowly accumulated energy during the One Eyed Age, hidden from the Mother and the Father by the embrace of their mountain body. When the Age of Man finally began, their stout, fleshy bodies sprang from the side of their mountain, and the dwarves lived.
Since their soul is contained in a large diamond in each dwarf’s mountain, you cannot permanently kill one without destroying their Heart Stone. You can smash their body, but a new one will form as though born anew. A wonderful power, but if someone should get their hands on a dwarf’s Heart Stone, they would have complete dominion over the dwarf, for they hold his eternal life.
To prevent this, many dwarves dedicate their time, and they have all the time of a mountain, to finding their Heart Stone and layering protection upon protection on it to insure that no one can claim it. After some time, they inevitably master the craft of blacksmithing, in one life or another, and have become the world’s finest. This has led to the perception that dwarves are solitary creatures, as they spend centuries mining alone, but in fact, they link their mountain ranges together to form united keeps with one another. If you do see a dwarf out on the town however, he’s likely to be trying to catch up on five hundred years of socializing and gossiping and drinking.
>>47676020
>Different Anon
I don't get what you are getting at here, Anon.
Elves USE to make mistakes, humans still make mistakes.
Elves are dying due to the mistakes of the past, sure, but currently are wiser and more skilled at everything than humans and even their dwarf counter parts.
Their eventually species death means nothing unless that is the specific point the Write/GM/Media-Owner is trying to focus on.
So, did OP intend for this to happen? Is my b8dar rusty?
>>47675922
Gods don't exist in Tolkien except for Eru. The Ainur are angels at most. The only elf that's part Ainur is Luthien and you may notice she's a legendary hero. Elves are not stronger than Men. Some Elves are stronger than some Third Age men, that's all. In the First it's literally stated the only differences are on skill and wisdom, mostly because Elves had been around for several millenia by the time Men appeared.
Boromir and Aragorn are both described as stronger than Legolas, and Turin is literally stated to be agile as any elf and much stronger. And logically that'd mean his father was too. This was on the FIRST AGE, when "any elf" includes "stronger than any of the High Elves fresh out of Valinor who still haven't forgot the light of the Two Trees, possibly even the one who fought Satan and left him a limp".
Tolkien elves hate being immortal and eventually WILL diminish to spirits once they become too weak and weary of living. They'll just stay in Mandos until the end of the world.
>>47676291
Elves no longer have time or the relevance to make mistakes because most of their population already took a fucking boat to the Undying Lands long ago by the time of LotR
>>47675033
I have a thing for having the majority of elves be a brown skinned slave race, with a very tiny minority that serve as the whiter-than-chalk-heading-into-purple skinned master race. The latter are considered as the highest culture, which humans try to emulate, while the former are treated as simpleminded savages who are enslaved or treated as second-class citizens.
Dwarves are just too good as Jews, so I don't mix them up too much, though I do play down the whole funnily accented heavy drinker thing.
>>47677362
>So, did OP intend for this to happen? Is my b8dar rusty?
no i actually wanted to discuss what i said in the OP, but life had other plans i guess.
>>47679964
Meta discussions about elves are prone to turning into Tolkien shitstorms
I'd know because I join whenever I see one
>>47679964
I tried man. No one gave a shit about my dwarves
>>47676181
How many dwarves are there?
>>47680211
sorry. i do give a shit i just got discouraged.
the thing about your dwarves is that you made a really deep background gimmick, and i don't think it changes "who dwarves are" to the extent that our modern fantasy trope dwarves are basically still short dudes who live in the mountains and build keeps and live a long time and are antisocial except when drunk.
weirdly enough the simarillion elf discussion had moments that were more in line with what i wanted to discuss. now i feel like i am trolling...
but for example >>47676020
>almost universally battle deep depression as a species.
this is interesting. most people don't play elves this way or explore the actual ramifications of this in whatever your favorite fantasy rpg is.
maybe thats because there is no way to explore that.
but if your dwarves for example are magical/biological machines, what are the ramifications of that? are they all built in a keep? actually that reminds me of a blog post i read about redoing dwarves.
peep this: http://gameswithothers.blogspot.com/2014/09/dwarf-in-machine-5e-d-racedwarvessome.html
but for your dwarves, what do they have? a weakness to magic? or have they over time developed a strength to it? and what does that mean for them?
>>47680275
Couple thousand. There isnt a 1 to 1 correlation between dwarves and peaks, mountain ranges become communal holds for all the dwarves born there. Hopefully they don't hate each other.
>>47675922
>You mean living forever?
Most die before then
>You mean being stronger than men?
Only if you live far longer than any human had & not counting the Númenóreans.
>You mean being beautiful and part god?
Elves age like wine. The prettier ones are thousands of years old.
>>47680539
The isolation is whats odd about them. They go for hundreds of years seeing no other living creature. As well as the paranoia of their heart stone being stolen. They'll only see someone once in that persons lifetime, so they make snap judgements on them, they dont have much choice in the matter.
As for magic, they view it as tampering with their own souls, one of the few things they can do to actually kill themselves, nutjobs do it. Real dwarves use science.
Also, they were intended to still recognizably be dwarves.
>>47675922
You're a fucking idiot.
Aren't Tolkien Elves basically doomed to play to their pre-destined fates (even if they don't realize it), whereas Men are truly free to do what they want, unpredictable and able to wholly make their own choices? I remember reading that a long time ago but after recently reading The Silmarillion I only saw immortality vs death as Illuvatar's gifts to his children. Did this only apply to Feanor's sons or others doomed by prophecy (like Huan)?
Also pretty fucked up how dwarves are his adopted children and their gift is just being allowed to live in irrelevance.
>>47681045
Men are explicitly referred as having the "gift of freedom" at some point, if I recall correctly. The "strange gifts" Eru gave to Men are the reason the Ainur don't trust them, and it's even mentioned they think Men resemble Melkor the most out of all the Valar
>>47680917
prove it
>>47681086
No capitalization, no punctuation.
>>47681045
>Now all is said concerning the manner of the Earth and its rulers in the beginning of days, and ere the world became such as the Children of Ilúvatar have known it. For Elves and Men are the Children of Ilúvatar; and since they understood not fully that theme by which the Children entered into the Music, none of the Ainur dared to add anything to their fashion. For which reason the Valar are to these kindreds rather their elders and their chieftains than their masters; and if ever in their dealings with Elves and Men the Ainur have endeavoured to force them when they would not be guided, seldom has this turned to good, howsoever good the intent. The dealings of the Ainur have indeed been mostly with the Elves, for Ilúvatar made them more like in nature to the Ainur, though less in might and stature; whereas to Men he gave strange gifts.
>For it is said that after the departure of the Valar there was silence, and for an age Ilúvatar sat alone in thought. Then he spoke and said: 'Behold I love the Earth, which shall be a mansion for the Quendi and the Atani! But the Quendi shall be the fairest of all earthly creatures, and they shall have and shall conceive and bring forth more beauty than all my Children; and they shall have the greater bliss in this world. But to the Atani I will give a new gift.'
cont
>>47681213
>Therefore to willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else; and of their operation everything should be, in form and deed, completed, and the world fulfilled unto the last and smallest.
>But Ilúvatar knew that Men, being set amid the turmoils of the powers of the world, would stray often, and would not use their gifts in harmony; and he said: ''These too in their time shall find that all that they do redounds at the end only to the glory of my work.'
>Yet the Elves believe that Men are often a grief to Manwë, who knows most of the mind of Ilúvatar; for it seems to the Elves that Men resemble Melkor most of all the Ainur, although he has ever feared and hated them, even those that served him.
>It is one with this gift of freedom that the children of Men dwell only a short space in the world alive, and are not bound to it, and depart soon whither the Elves know not.
>>47681085
One thing I didn't understand is, why come the Valar never came to help Men the same as Elves even if they didn't immediately trust them? Was that really it?
>>47681255
It was less that they didn't want to help Men specifically and more than whenever they did a direct divine intervention the results were disastrous. So they didn't want to fuck up with the Aftercomers as well
>>47681305
I don't know man, the Vanyar and Teleri turned out pretty well but Numenor fucked itself over because the Valar wouldn't just straight up say why they couldn't come to the undying land.
>>47681341
The Noldor on the other hand fucked up more than enough for all 3 of the Eldar
If Feanor had been less of a mong pretty much all of the problems in the First Age would have been fixed before they began
>>47680564
>The Not!Alps become a massive fortress nation
That sounds cool as hell, to be honest.
>>47675033
Okay, OP, I find this an interesting topic. But what do you mean when you say !elves and !dwarves? Just the same basic concept with the serial numbers filed off? Because personally speaking, I wouldn't consider those "good" and still cheap Tolkien knockoffs.
The thing is, Tolkien was really into old myths, legends, and epics. He knew that stuff back to front. His elves and dwarves are mostly his own take on that material, with some elements stressed and others subdued or omitted to fit his own creative desires and interests.
So I would say the good !elves and !dwarves would not be an attempt to modify the Tolkien formula, but to do what he did: go back to the older folklore and myths and then reinterpret or piece something together out of them that's distinct. The best modern example I can think of are GRRM's Children of the Forest and the Others, which are clearly his take on old concepts of the Sidhe and the mound-folk of myth. They have some certain thematic similarities to Tolkien's elves, but that's because both writers are drawing on similar source material, less because GRRM was taking Tolkien's concepts and modifying them.
>>47675455
>missing the point of the default fantasy setting.
The problem is that there is a default fantasy setting at all.
>>47681557
Thanks Anon.
