If you HAD to be an Elf...

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Mmn, well, there's the rub, isn't it? It seems to me this concept only really works if you're prepared to use "it's magic" as an all-purpose hand-wave.

Now, I agree Tolkien himself clearly wasn't a bit interested in Elven economics, food-production, etc. That was never the point. However when attempting to fill in the gaps, as one often is in a fan-fiction or role-playing setting, my own feeling is that it's usually better to err somewhat on the side of practicality and plausibility. Still more so when you're taking part in a general discussion.

I say "usually", mind– I certainly wouldn't want to go to the other extreme of ignoring the fantasy aspect completely, and insisting on a level and detail of realism that would be out of place in an historical novel– which I've seen people do.

So, maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective, but I must say I personally have great trouble seeing, say, Rivendell as a society sustained purely on hunting and gathering. It seems so different from any real-world equivalent that frankly it never even occurred to me that it was meant to work that way.

I don't see Tolkien's elven culture as so well defined that one person's interpretation should be held to over ride another's. I have problems seeing elves harnessing their horses for a plow, putting up fences, or killing for meat an animal that they have known. I'm not one to tell other players how to run their character, but Goldie is a hunter gatherer.

Whether a hunter gatherer society can be maintained would be a question of population density. How many elves per square mile? How big is the biggest 'city'? Is Rivendell an oversized inn, or a city? For a hunter gatherer pattern to work, I'd expect widely spread villages or mansions, and perhaps migratory patterns as small groups move from one harvest point to another, perhaps with stops in between at their winter quarters to stow things away.

I am also more ready than most to accept the magic. The gap between elven craftsmanship and other race's might be benchmarked by the difference between cram and lembas. This difference is in part the Art. There is an place in elven culture for the creation and manifestation of beauty. Hobbits might improve their crop yield using plows and manure. The elves might sing to Yavanna. I'm ready to think that the Elven technique might be superior. The strength of the magic of Middle Earth should not be measured only through the frequency, size and heat level of the fireballs. Elven magic might not be suitable for dominion and conquest, but that doesn't mean it isn't present and powerful.

Still, my interpretation seems uncommon here. I'm involved in an off line table top Middle Earth game played with reasonably hard firmly defined magic rules. There, my objective is to use the magic rules without anyone else much noticing. The magic is supposed to be subtle to invisible. Sure, the elf is singing, but she's always singing.

In the Barrow Downs game forum, I'm kind of leaning the same way. In my head there might be a little magic going on, but not so anyone would notice. The Barrow Downs version of Goldie is also too young to be doing a heck of a lot with magic.

Still, she looks at the world through a hunter gather's eyes. She is part of nature, a wander, who does not fence in a plot of land to subjugate it to her will. She understands that such is the way of halfling and human. She isn't going to condemn them for following their nature. Still, to her eye, there would be more beauty in a woods than a farm.

This isn't to say that every elf should be played that way. I can also see an argument that there are elven cities, centers of population that are too large for its inhabitants to reasonably go out and catch supper every night. Such places require some sort of food infrastructure. Gardens might easily be a part of it.

[Folwren]

I think I would like to be a woodelf from Mirkwood. I don't know much about elves, and for me, it would be a 'HAVE to', as they're not my favorite race from ME.

I rather like the style of living the Mirkwood elves seem to have described in The Hobbit. Sounds like it is fairly fun, but also somewhat serious, an just near enough to danger not to be boring.

-- Folwren