Dark Elves: Origins

Cafe Society
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Wherein Dopers[sup]tm[/sup] construct and discuss the origins of the Dark Elves.

All resemblances to pre-existing mythologies should be purely coincidental, with a few exceptions…

I’ll start:

Ogre and I were discussing that we were fascinated by the Dark Elves of Dungeons and Dragons lore. We began talking about their origins, since all the world knows that Elves are Good People. It must have been a dark tragedy indeed to corrupt and twist such Children of Light.

I’ve always pictured Dark Elves as having the physique of Tolkien’s elves, with dark grey skin and silver white hair. This is stereotypical, I know, but perhaps we can figure out an original explanation for these traits in our story.

Contrary to traditional opinion, I never think of Dark Elves as being patently evil. Sure, they have their bad points like anyone else, but they shouldn’t be victims of an over-arching character trait.

So how did Dark Elves come to be? An easy answer would be to say they were created at the same time as every other type of elf (which raises the entire theology question…). Or that all elves who preferred to live underground eventually evolved into this physique. I’m leaning towards more of a specific event that “turned” the elves, an action that causes a series of more or less dramatic changes in the lives of all involved.

Let us say it started with a regular elf who finds a puzzle one day. And as it turns out, someone, or something, was very interested in seeing who would be the one to finally solve the puzzle…

[sub]Remember that we’re creating a mythology here. We hope we won’t see interpretations of Tolkien’s mythos or recycled Dungeons and Dragons material. That’s too easy and formulaic. We want a legend, complete with shadowy figures, struggles, hubris, heroic deeds, and finally, tragedy. One should feel free to refer to the “High Priest of the Shifting Worlds” or “the eleven lost gems of Balance” or other such constructs with impunity. Let’s have an entertaining and intriguing story here, not an analysis.[/sub]

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C’mon, everybody knows Innoruuk made 'em.

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I always thought that dark elves would be fat, besequined, and have ridiculous sideburns and red, glowing eyes…

Oh, whoops…I was thinking of dark Elvis.

Are dark elves like Velvet Elves?

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Gah. More drow obsessed munchkins! Tymora’s teats, I thought I had escaped them…

I’m sorry, you won’t see me deride someone very often here. I have a lot of tolerance and seldom rant about things, but I used to co-operate a MUD set in Forgotten Realms and it seemed like every other newbie wanted to run a Drizzt Do’urden clone Paladin of Tempus or some other completely illegal deity, with twin scimtars +5 and mithril chain +4 and would whine and complain about how we didn’t allow this in the rules, and then get pissed at us and storm off pouting when we held our ground. It caused us to from a bitter and long lasting distaste for anyone who is fascinated by drow, but doesn’t seem to have the first clue as how to roleplay one.

Look, there’s a reason they published [url+“http://www.wizards.com/catalog/product.asp?TSR09326”]The Drow of the Underdark: to establish canon. Ed Greenwood already went to the trouble of detailing aeons of history for the Dark Elven race. If you don’t like what he invented, then don’t steal his elves and make up your own sociology and history for them, invent a new race. The more original it is, the more points you get.

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I rather liked the ‘dark elves’ from Elizabeth Moon’s books. The Unsingers were much like the Singers, looked beautiful, had a lilting voice and if you didn’t know anything about elves, you’d easily mistake one for the other. They were just twisted and evil. No black skin and ultravision though; just a bunch of nasty elves who followed dark gods.

I will admit though, that next to Raistlin clones, Drizzt clones get a prize for most annoying. Or maybe they tie.

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I knew those would cause trouble, but I just couldn’t remember where I left them…

bughunter, I had dark elves–which looked nothing like Drizzt, BTW–long before I ever saw any of Greenwood’s work. I’ll get into their attitudes and origins later if I have the time. I understand your grudge against the munchkins, but if we want dark elves, we’ll make dark elves–you don’t have to read it.

But you know you will. :wink:

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In Tolken’s Lord Of the Rings books, Dark Elves are just regular elves, excpet that they follow the evil one, Sauron.

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Dark elves are 10 per cent alcohol, brewed from pale, amber and black malts, with a touch of Pilsner malt, and around 24 pounds of Target hops per barrel – that’s four times as many hops as are used in a conventional elf.

Light elves, of course, taste great. And are less filling.

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Look, I couldn’t give a rat’s flying posterior what’s been written before. It’s hardly possible for me to be a “drow obsessed munchkin,” as I haven’t played D&D in 15 years and I’m 6’1" and 220 pounds.

I don’t care about established canon. It matters not a bit to this thread. Pucette and I were talking about how we were interested in the so-called Dark Elves and how they got that way. We quickly decided to use D&D Dark Elves as a fast baseline, but to strike out on our own from there.

I couldn’t care less about +5 Armor of Felching or +4 Ugly Sticks. If we wanted numbers, we’d have gone to the RPG. We were primarily interested in LEGEND. Mythology. An entertaining story, with deep mysteries and half-explained truths.

Finally, this has got not one thing in the world to do with RPG’s. I don’t game. Haven’t in years. I just thought this would be a fun mental exercise.

So join in and have some fun, or lurk derisively. Suits me either way.

Thanks, Balance. I do believe you get it. I’ll post my own thoughts later to get started. Right now, a Murphy’s Stout calleth my name. :slight_smile:

Just put your world-changing toys up when you finish with them, OK?

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Ok, now someone MUST invent a mixed drink called the Dark Elf. Assuming someone hasn’t already.

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That actually sounds a lot like the Seelie and Unseelie Sidhe… both very much alike and hardly any differences except that the Seelie generally are good sorts while Unseelie are more dark and evil.

As seen in Mercedes Lackey (The Chrome Born etc) and LK Hamilton (Kiss of Shadows) books btw.

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I consider the concept of Dark Elves to be quite racist (black=evil oh please!). I told my DM that as well.

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You know, capacitor, the concept of “black = evil” is hardly racist. Think about humans… we’re primarily daylight creatures. We are more active in the daytime, we live most of our lives in the day, etc. It stands to reason that if we spend most of our time in the light, we’re going to be most happy in the light.

Night, on the other hand, is more “scary” (look at young children, for example). While “dark” may not mean the same thing as “black,” it’s close enough to mean the same thing to nearly all people. Bad things happen in the night – you can’t see where you are going and trip, you get lost in the forest, and the tigers come out to eat you (well, maybe not the last one). Have you ever heard of the giant sasquatch coming to eat you at 2 PM in the afternoon? I certainly haven’t. The giant sasquatch usually comes to eat you at midnight.

Skin color aside, humans as a whole prefer the lighter day as opposed to the darker night. THAT is why we associate black with evil… the sasquatch comes when it is black (dark). It has nothing to do with one’s skin.

As for the original post, I like to think of dark elves not being a seperate “race” as such… rather, I prefer to think of a dark elf as one that has left the path of “light.” One that has been exiled by his own people because of his deeds. Drizzt Do’Urden is a perfect example of a renegade from his people… though he chose to leave, they clearly do not accept him as part of their people anymore. Making him, in essence, a “true” dark elf in my eyes. Or maybe, since he was a dark elf originally, he’s now a “light elf.”

-Psi Cop

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No, not really – the Dark Elves are the ones who refused to return to Valinor in the First Age, or started out but didn’t make it there, and hence hadn’t seen the light of the Two Trees, Laurelin and Telperion. They certainly weren’t followers of Sauron or Morgoth, though. In fact, Legolas may have been a Dark Elf, though I’m not entirely clear on that point…

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For an interesting variant, check out the Blood Elves of the underrated RPG Earthdawn.

The world had fairly typical Tolkienesque elves, but then it was invaded by the Horrors - extradimensional nasties that crossed over whenever cyclical magic levels got high enough to sustain them. Most of the races built heavily trapped and tightly sealed redoubts, usually underground, to wait out the few hundred years it would take for magic levels to go down. The elven court decided their magic was strong enough to keep the Horrors out of the forest with walls of thorns and various magical wards. They were wrong, and it wasn’t long before the Horrors got in. Some of their mages figured out that the Horrors fed on pain and suffering, but it had to be suffering they inflicted themselves, they ignored people who were in constant torment for other reasons. They cast a spell on all the elves who were still in the forest that caused thorns that drew on blood magic for sustenance to grow from under their skin, which kept them in constant excruciating pain. It worked, the Horrors left them alone and went to find better prey. By the time the game takes place the Horrors are mostly gone, but the elves that stayed in their forest still have the thorns. They aren’t particularly EVIL, but now they have an even lower regard for other races than is usual for elves, and a strong sado-masochistic streak.

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I happen to really really like the Drow, and I’m definitely not what you would call a Munchkin.

I’ve never even read the Drizzt Do’urden novels. Nor would I want to play a character like him. Too much milti-classing for my tastes.

I just happen to think the Drow are neat (and quite beautiful).

And, BTW, the D&D Canon on the Dark Elves’ origins is quite good enough for me, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel in this case.

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Lord, how they don’t get it.

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Beer gives a -5 to any saving throw against acting snippy.

But come on, people, we have a mystery. There are former Children of Light who have been twisted into followers of the darkness. What happened?

Let’s not talk about the Moriquendi. I understand their situation.

Let’s not have any blather about the Drow and Lolth and driders. Forget that junk.

Tell me a STORY. Invent for me a mythology. Tell me why the Elf Lord succumbed to the temptations that the Midnight Raven whispered into his ear. Tell me why the Jewel of Eternal Starlight cracked that fateful night. Tell me why the Scrying Pool in the the Center Glade dried up and filled with sand.

I’m interested in hearing about your imagination. Forget all that other stuff. There’s a tale of heroism and tragedy to be told.

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Look, I’ve got a dragon to paint, a lair to populate with treasure, a talking lute to flesh out, and a mountain range to map.

Then I’ve gotta come up with all the changes the war has brought to the Burin Hills, and design the capital of Burin. I have to wrap up the first branch of the campaign, originally slated for three weeks of game time, in one short session, and unite that with the current branch of the campaign, and weed out the excess characters for overlapping players.

I have to come up with the royalty of the lands surrounding Burin, and their escorts to the treaty conference. I have to paint figures for all of them, too. Then I have to plan out, in detail, a political assassination, and frame a party member.

And that’s all before the stand at the pass, against the invading Kedullan army.

I’m swamped.

Besides, Dark Elves? Bo-ring. Evil is boring. I’m more interested in what happens when you mix elves and gnomes. Or elves and dwarves. Dwarves and orcs! (Dworcs?)

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Hah! Being a munchkin has nothing to do with physical size, Ogre. It’s got everything to do with being a complete weenie obsessed with +5 Girdles of Misguided Studliness… :slight_smile:

As for dark=black=evil, that’s a holdover from Tolkien. Everything bad in Middle Earth was ugly, dark-skinned, and talked a twisted version of the nice-guy languages. Read into that what you will.

But Ogre wants a reason for light fluffy scions of goodness elves to go bad. So I’ll tell you what’s up in my gameworld of Phylogenia.

To make a long story short, all elves on Phylogenia are semi-magical beings. They know all the secret words to make vermin vamoose, slip through the forests without being seen, and live much, much longer than other humanoids.

Except for the retards. Some elves are clumsier than a sthondat in heat. Some elves can’t master the easiest cantrip. Some elves get wrinkles by the time they’re 50. And that totally repulses standard elven society. Sure, elves can appreciate that dwarves and humans and orcs and goblins and gnomes and whatever may not be as graceful, intelligent, and as tune with the wonderful oneness of being as they are, but it’s unacceptable for an elf to be that way.

So the retards are exiled.

[sub]I recognize that some of you make take offense to the word ‘retard’. To those who do, please take into account that this is an imaginary world and an imaginary society I’m talking about here. We’re also talking about a reason for people to get all twisted, evil, and obsessed with revenge. I think being exiled and called a retard qualifies. If you don’t like this, take it to the Pit.[/sub]