E is for Elves

I missed the April A-Z Blog Challenge this year, so I'm doing my own...in June. This year, I will be posting one post per day discussing my AD&D campaign, for the curious. Since 2020, this is the ONLY campaign I run. Enjoy!

E is for Elves...duh.

How short should I make this? I mean I can be pretty short: in my campaign, elves = Melniboneans (as per Michael Moorcock's Elric stories). Derivative? You bet. But I've confessed many times before that I'm hack. I may be the Anne Burrell of adventure critique, but when it comes to adventure design, I'm definitely the Joe Cocker. 

It is what it is. No need to be dishonest.

So, for those who haven't read Moorcock's books (and why haven't you? You play D&D don't you?), Melniboneans are a "pre-human" people...similar to humans, but not the same. By "human standards" they're fairly amoral: their wealth and sorcery has made them decadent and prone to excess, apathetic to the anything outside their own whimsy and desire, hedonistic and (mostly) unambitious...this last explaining (in AD&D terms) the reason for their level cap.

Now, the elves of my campaign are NOT the slave owners of Moorcock's island kingdom but (similarly) they hold nothing like "Christian values" or organized religion. Their life expectancy isn't much more than humans (about 120 at the max)...they simply have an older civilization with a longer history, more ingrained traditions, and a (somewhat) more sophisticated society of protocol and etiquette. In many ways, they are a post-anarch (in the 'rational anarchy sense) society...they are, more or less, self-governed as individuals (the extensive magic-use/sorcery facilitates this) with every wizard a noble and every individual a 'prince' of their own castle.

However, there is no island of Melnibone in my setting; instead, high elves rule the city-state of and Port Townsend, AKA "The City of Dreams" (an actual moniker for Port Townsend in our real world, and close enough to Moorcock's "Dreaming City" of Melnibone to be downright eerie). I don't speak any (Tolkien) elvish, by the way, but to distinguish my elves further as a separate culture, they all speak Spanish, and "Port Townsend" is thought to be a human corruption of the city's "elvish" name of Puerto Sueño. There are many parts of Western Washington that carry Spanish names (the San Juan Islands, for example) from Spanish explorers; in my campaign world, these are areas that have seen elvish influence.

Aside from the Pac Northwest-isms, most of my inspiration for elves in my campaign can be traced back to the original origins of the campaign (when I still wanted to set it in South America), as I wrote about in 2020. Bob Pepper's artwork, specifically the old Dragonmaster card game, is a major source of inspiration for the look and feel of my high elves (get it? Dragon Lords? Melniboneans? See how that fits?). Elegant, decadent, and a little strange...they are very human-like, just not quite human.

Yes, half-elves are a thing in my campaign, unlike "half-orcs."

Elf longevity is more-or-less the same as humans...they have a slightly longer average life expectancy, but perhaps this is due to better drugs/pharmaceuticals.

Tolkien-wise, elvish stuff is just crafted better than humans stuff...but usually it can only be purchased in Port Townsend, and then only at exorbitant rates. The elves (being elves) shun gold and instead base their economy on a "silvery metal" system, trading mostly in silver, electrum, and platinum. Because of the AD&D exchange rate, this gives their economy an almost Metric flavor:

100 silver pieces = 10 electrum pieces = 1 platinum piece

...which is the BTB exchange rate found in the PHB, if you ignore copper and gold pieces. My high elves also have a fourth "silvery metal" coin they use: the mithril piece (or m.p.) worth 10 platinum pieces (or 1,000 silver pieces) each. An m.p. is a silver/sea-green color (silver streaked or flecked with sea-green) is non-corrosive and (like gold and platinum) does not oxidize. It is not minted or exchanged in other kingdoms, and is only rarely found outside of the Peninsula region. Visitors to Puerto Sueño can exchange their gold for m.p.s (for a pretty steep fee), which is useful when you're trying to buy high-quality elvish goods.

Of course, that assumes you can even get into the Port...unless you have elvish blood (or traveling with an elf who vouches for you) outsiders typically aren't allowed into the City of Dreams, and their defenses are quite a bit more formidable than our real world Port Townsend...more like a cross between Melnibone and Gondolin (which also serves as an inspiration). Fees for entry are steep for foreigners, just by the way...elves be making money hand-over-fist and any apparent apathy they exhibit towards money and material wealth is due more to how passé they find the whole money-making exercise (they mastered the art of the merchant years ago).

Mm, let's see, what else can I tell you? Lot of elvish and half-elvish assassins have popped up in my campaign world (all player characters), which certainly colors the feel of the species. "Commodifying murder" is an ancient elvish tradition, apparently, helping them approach revenge as a cold business proposition, rather than one of hot blood and high emotion. That elvish assassins cannot reach a great level of experience makes no nevermind to me: remember these are a CHAOTIC people, and they don't need no guilds and guild masters...leave that stuff for the humans. They're still really good at killing people...just one example of how player actions/choices impacts a campaign.

My campaign, at this point, only makes use of the elves listed in the Monster Manual: high elves, grey elves, aquatic elves, wood elves, and dark elves. Except with regard to longevity, they are pretty much exactly as described. 

Grey elves are a secretive offshoot of the high elves with no real city, living in the wild's of peninsula, in what is Grays Harbor county (south and west of Port Townsend). In my campaign, Grays Harbor is named for the grey elves (duh), but Aberdeen is no elf-town and any elvish communities that might have once been found on the water were long ago abandoned and/or destroyed. They are rumored to be great sorcerers, yet twisted and insane.

Aquatic (sea) elves are mutated elves who long ago chose (or were forced) to become an aquatic species through the application of sorcery. They live in the ocean but are sometimes seen in the Puget Sound, where they are hunted (and eaten) by Orca. Very little is known about their culture.

Wood elves are the name given to the elves of Colville Forest in eastern Washington. They do not refer to themselves as "Colville;" that name and the name of the forest is derived from the human city of Colville, a fortress town founded on the edge of the woods, some ten miles east of the Columbia River. The wood elves are far less organized and far more scattered than their coastal brethren, but they still do a brisk trade with the humans and, if not exactly hospitable and welcoming, are at least on amicable terms with their neighbors. They mainly keep to their woods, but...in Eastern Washington...are the most likely type of elf to be encountered aside from high elf adventurers. In terms of Bob Pepper artwork, their look is best represented by the Nomad cards.

Dark Elves (or "Drow" as they are called by their elven brethren) are a legend. They have never yet seen an appearance in my campaign. My players don't know a thing about them. Some day, perhaps.

There are no other elves.

All PC elves are considered to be of high elf stock (the most likely type of elf to be wandering adventurers)...this includes half-elves (people of human and elf blood). With regard to half-elves: these people are assumed to have been raised in an elvish fashion, most likely on the Peninsula if not specifically in Port Townsend. All multi-class magic-users are definitely assumed to have been schooled in Port Townsend, where such cross-training is common. As a player character option, the choice to play a half-elf assumes a character who is either the child of an elf-human couple or (possibly) two half-elf parents. Any player may choose to have had a distant ancestor (a single grandparent or great-grandparent, for example) of human or elf species without it affecting their "racial type" (elf or human). A half-elf is a child of two worlds.

Okay, that's enough for now. Well, maybe one more "wood elf:"