James M. at Grognardia lamented in a recent post his choice of including elves and dwarves in his ongoing Dwimmermount campaign. I can commiserate with his feelings. I've been giving a lot of thought to cultures in my Wilderlands campaign (the subject of a future post or posts), and I've come up with all kinds of (to me at least) interesting twists and ideas for all sorts of human and demihuman races. Yet when I come to elves and dwarves, there's just not a whole lot of inspiration there. They're too hidebound by Tolkien and four decades of D&D. There seems very little fresh ground there.
After reading some entertaining discussion on the subject of female dwarves, I had a thought that I could take a page from Castle Falkenstein and make all dwarves male and all elves female. The two species would be cross-fertile, and all male babies would be born dwarves, all female babies elves. This, of course, has obvious applications as a sort of jokey "battle of the sexes" comparison of dwarfish and elfish archetypes, and seems like a fun tack to take. One problem with that is that a PC in my current campaign is a male elf, and I'm not sure how he'd feel about a mandatory sex change.
Beyond such radical changes, I'm kind of at a loss for how to make dwarves and elves more unique while keeping them playable (i.e. not making elves into xenophobic fae or dwarves into reclusive earth sprites with crow feet, as cool as all that is). In my next D&D campaign, I'll probably ditch dwarves and elves entirely unless it's a setting that does something cool or interesting with them (like Dark Sun or Uresia).
I took a somewhat similar approach. Perhaps you'd find this helpful:
ReplyDeletehttp://elvesatemyhomework.blogspot.com/2009/11/those-strange-elves.html
Male dwarves, female elves, has a very "Fey Folk" kind of feel to it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the male elf is the only male elf - or at the very least, a genetic anomaly like XXY chromosome-having people.
My goodness, what are half elves, in that case? Thirdsies?
ReplyDeletesquidman: Thanks for the link. Somehow it had escaped my attention you had a blog. ::follows::
ReplyDeleteRoger: The last male elf, eh? That is indeed an interesting wrinkle. I'll have to give it some thought.
panzerleader: You know, I hadn't thought of the half-elf issue, but now that I do I don't see an inherent conflict. Elves are cross-fertile with humans as well, but instead of producing a "pure strain" species they produce "mongrel" half-elves (who, like mules, would be born sterile).
Well my recent thinking on this issue for a future campaign was to borrow Dwimmermount's Dwarf creation, but in personality make them more like frat-boys (drink a lot, make friends easily & ready to party). Unless you betray them; they do hold a grudge. All male.
ReplyDeleteThe Elves are going to be grim and dour; after all, they used to be in charge, now they're not. Bitter much. Both genders.
But I do agree with Roger that the gender split does have a certain "Faery" feel. Thinking will ensue.
It's posts like this that really do it for me in the OSR blogosphere, Thanks!
I've always liked James M's version of dwarves, ironically enough. He has them as beings constructed from rare minerals and gems and the like, almost like golems, and the way they reproduce is to build their own children out of such materials. Which of course means adventuring, so there's the reason for a dwarf to go dungeoneering. Elegant and clever, I thought.
ReplyDeleteI want my next fantasy setting to be very much inspired by the material in the BX edition of D&D, all I plan on changing is to make halflings and gnomes the same species, and eliminate elves as a PC race...
ReplyDeleteI've been returning to the 1e Fiend Folio's entries on Gith and Drow over and over again and I have some ideas for mashing all those up to make a mysterious "lost race."
That said, I think a setting dominated by D&D's humans, dwarves, and halfgnomelings sounds pretty cool. But, that's just me I suppose.
Half-elves are excellent player characters as they are extremely diverse, capable of melding many contra-intuitive concepts, skills, attributes, and personality traits.
ReplyDeleteTo humans, half-elves are viewed as eccentric or flamboyant; true elves consider them unrefined and overly ambitious. Accepted more by human society than by their elvish ancestors; half-elves frequently are employed as artisans, brokers, educators,merchants and sailors.
The blend of the two races leads to physical attractiveness. Half-elves have their elven parent’s passion for autonomy, creativity and freedom; but also possess their human parent’s impulsivity and jealously.
Many half-elves are conflicted, mercurial souls never quite fitting into the urban world of humanity or the capricious woodland realms of elves. Never sure what to say or who to trust, half-elves frequently find solace in the open seas, abandoned outposts and the non-judgmental companionship of animals.
May 13th 2010 edition of
flamingtales blogspot
provides an excellent discussion regarding the use of mixed race characters in your campaign.