If there’s one thing that irks me about the D&D game systems, it’s 4.5 foot tall Elves. I got into fantasy by reading Tolkien, so I think of Elves as standing taller than humans. In any case, I asked my DM for tall Elves, but he wants some justification for it. Basically, if I can show him non-Tolkien examples (he says only Tolkien had tall elves) of settings (mostly in literature, I’m assuming) with Elves taller than humans, I can have tall Elves in our upcoming campaign.
Some of them are pretty close, though of course it all depends on the interpretation.
In some they’re immortal children, in some they’re midgets with pointy ears, in others regular sized people with pointy ears.
And anyway, Santa’s Elves bear little resemblance to the elves of Tolkien-esque fantasy, which brings up an interesting point, since Tolkien is such a huge influence of modern fantasy, then if Tolkien’s elves are tall, why are most other elves is modern fantasy, such as the ones in D&D, shorter than humans?
I guess in some areas, Santa’s influence is stronger than Tolkien’s.
Whole-hearted agreement on his git-ness in this case, especially since I’m not the only one in the group who thinks that these miniature Keebler Elf goobers are utterly silly. I’d just demand tall Elves outright, but he’s a stickler for the whole “DM’s word is law” thing, so it wouldn’t get me very far.
Nancy Springer’s fantasy series set in Isle has tall elves. The Silver Sun and The Sable Moon are the two books in that series that have the most elves in them.
I think that there are a fair number of fantasy novels out there that feature tall elves. I’d say it’s a safe bet that they all cribbed the idea from Tolkien, but they should still count. Joel Rosenberg’s **Guardians of the Flame **series and Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar books are other examples.
However, it’s worth pointing out that Tolkien himself took the idea of tall elves from Norse mythology. The elves of Scandinavian folklore are basically identical to humans, except more noble in appearance.
Well, I guess I was lucky in my D&D experiences that our DM wasn’t such a hard-ass stickler for rules. We had great fun, and I’ve occasionally thought of chronicling our adventures as a novel or series of novels.
The adventures of the greedy, horny buddhist monk, the Austin Powers of elves, the lesbian half-ogre, the escapred mental patient dwarf who keeps trying to eat his companions’ faces and the cynical druid who hates animals . . . and trees . . . and flowers pretty much suck too. Why did I become a druid again? Oh yeah, to get laid. Then there’s the unfortunate halfling thief. Famous last words: “Trust me, I could disarm this trap with my eyes closed. In fact, that’s exactly what I’ll do!”
The oldest written mention of elves, the Poetic Edda (compiled circa the mid 1200s and based on older oral traditions) describes elves that are of the same height as humans. The idea that elves should be short seems to be a Victorian concept, one which Tolkien railed against in his essay "On Fairy-Stories.
The elves in Rick Cook’s “Wizardry” series are taller than humans. They also live in big holes in the ground (well, no, there’s more to it than that), so you may want to pick and choose there.
Weren’t Pratchett’s elves tall also? I’d have to read Lords and Ladies again to tell you.