The Gaming Den

The problem, you see, is due to a failure in communication passed down through the decades. You see, it all has to do with those cookie makers ...

But in fact the Keebler Elves are really gnomes.
And it's not even magic
So sad.

Desdan_Mervolam at [unixtime wrote:1189765028[/unixtime]]

shirak at [unixtime wrote:1189761113[/unixtime]] Elves died off because they told a bunch of Titans to get their Great Cloud out of the way of the sun and the Titans seriously buried them under tons of giant garbage. There's even a monument and everything called Lamentation of the Forest's Guardians (Garbage Mountain out of earshot of the Last Elf).

Dude, maybe it's been too long since I've been to the WotC boards*, but that is seriously one of the most RETARDED things I've ever heard. It's so implausable that I'm half expecting you sat around with your friends over a case of cheap beer trying to decide the most humiliating racial extinction you could find. "Hur Hur, let's have titans make them their landfill. It's ironic cuz elves are trash". Couldn't you at least, yanno, put some effort into it?

Desdan

*No it hasn't.

Yes. I can think of at least 10 things right now that the high level Elf casters could to do not only prevent such a disaster, but to exact revenge, and quickly at that.
Although it is still funny.
Those Elves must have sucked big time. What, full classed fighters? Every single one of them?
They couldn't even just run away from the region???
That's just unbelievable...

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189798116[/unixtime]]Yes. I can think of at least 10 things right now that the high level Elf casters could to do not only prevent such a disaster, but to exact revenge, and quickly at that.
Although it is still funny.
Those Elves must have sucked big time. What, full classed fighters? Every single one of them?
They couldn't even just run away from the region???
That's just unbelievable...

Several hundred Elves of various levels and classes plus a few hundred Awakened animals and trees. Against several dozen Titans, each with his own thousand strong army of Giants, all flying on a continent sized cloud kilometers up. It wasn't exactly a fair battle. And yes, there was a long and bloody war as an aftermath until the only remaining Elf was the Last One of the race and basically unkillable.

Elves take forever to gain their first level because you can't have a first level 'till you reach the adult stage. We know that...
Perhaps elves take so long to reach adulthood because they are engineered to be teenagers for hundreds of years. If elves are close to humans then a teenager has just as much intelligence as an adult, but doesn't have a some intellectual properties that make adult hood that only appear when a certain hormone level is reached. So they stay pre-adult and essential dependent on adult intellect for 90+ years after the first 10 as babies.
They're engineered to be young sexy teens for near a century by design.

Elves take forever to gain their first level because you can't have a first level 'till you reach the adult stage. We know that...

Perhaps elves take so long to reach adulthood because they are engineered to be teenagers for hundreds of years. If elves are close to humans then a teenager has just as much intelligence as an adult, but doesn't have a some intellectual properties that make adult hood that only appear when a certain hormone level is reached. So they stay pre-adult and essential dependent on adult intellect for 90+ years after the first 10 as babies.

Kids are generally viewed as stupid compared to adults not because there's some sudden hormonal change that magically makes them smart, it's because kids:

1) Don't have the same experience adults do, having lived for less time.

2) Have had less time to learn things.

Seriously, the reason why 12th graders are so much smarter than kindergarteners isn't because they have pubic hair and pimples, it's because they've lived on Earth three to four times as long as the little kids.

So why does it take the supposedly 'l33t wizarding race' so long to learn enough stuff to become a wizard?

Because elves are retards, clearly.

/thread

shirak at [unixtime wrote:1189803053[/unixtime]]And yes, there was a long and bloody war as an aftermath until the only remaining Elf was the Last One of the race and basically unkillable.

So the last one was a ninja?

clikml at [unixtime wrote:1189809671[/unixtime]]So the last one was a ninja?

Not quite. Basically, every race carries it's own magic and when a race dies the magic is concentrated in an individual, the last living representative of the race. This makes them hardcore and almost unkillable. But almost all of them are hell-bent on revenge on the guys who committed genocide. They tend to lie low for a few decades and then get out of their hideout and go on rampage. So far, only one has succeeded in their goal and two Last Ones are locked in battle in the middle of the Astral Planes, in the ruins that are all that is left of the great Githyanki civilization.

Interesting note: the Tarrasque is the Last One of one of the three races of the First Age of the Great War. Unfortunately, that race was into body-modding and mutations. So despite there being a member of the race right there no one has any clue what they looked like.

I understand now. The entire extinction wasn't because the elves were elves, but that they existed in a very specific campaign setting...

The same could happen to any standard race then. Elves would simply have the worst time recovering from the disaster for reasons we mentioned above.

Goblins, however...

Shirak, what role do goblins play in all this for your setting? Have they produced hundreds of epic mages yet?

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189842314[/unixtime]]Shirak, what role do goblins play in all this for your setting? Have they produced hundreds of epic mages yet?

I haven't done goblins yet . What do you think should happen? Goblins are latecomers in the game so most of the magical disciplines were already there by the time they showed up. They are a race engineered to grow fast and have good relations to Worgs. Not exactly conducive to magical research, their environment. Maybe they died off Calling Demons. I mean, I haven't decided who brought the Red Moon in the world yet but someone must have been the first Summoner. Though I do like goblins.

Anyway, I'll wait to see how this thread goes and then go grab a cheap beer and decide what to with them

Nice link...

My concept for Goblins is like those in the Labyrinth movie; their culture is cluttered with junk.
And it's the junk of other races, namely anything and anyone that produces anything is bound to recognize something in Goblin collections.
There's a bird that does this too... collects shiny things.. can't remember name...

But these Goblins then have racial abilities that support this role. Things like gain UMD and Disable Device as class skills just for being Goblins, but no Appraise. They just need the ability to get more stuff.

This habit leads to a way of life that becomes surprizingly successful (and maybe a little like greedy Kender?) since they, by probability, sometimes collect rare and powerful artifacts that other races strive for generations to acquire.
The Goblins then use this stuff to advance their race, which brings them up to the technological level of humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves.

And I don't just mean Goblin Rogues, I mean every class would have those skills. Plus, not just the little Goblins, but all the subtypes, working together...
There was an idea by Frank somewhere in this forum about 'cultural focus' on a topic similar to this (Goblin culture), but I've forgotten where it is...
Maybe Races of War?

Elves are magical because the word originally means "magical". The Alfar, the Sidhe, the Lutin, the Svartalf, the Pixie, the Kobokuru, the Menehune, the Leprechaun - these are not people, they are magic. In Iceland you don't spit in the dark because you might hit an elf and it would curse you.

The weird part about D&D is not the part where the elves are magical, it's the part where elves are flesh and blood.

-Username17

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189843629[/unixtime]]
There's a bird that does this too... collects shiny things.. can't remember name...

Magpies. They're annoying little bastards, too. The magpie that you feed in your back yard is the same magpie that swoops you in your front yard.

I'm pretty sure that in Races of the Wild they specify that an elf reaches physical adulthood at around 25 years old, and that they are simply expected to stay around their hometown or whatever until they reach the PHB's adulthood age. So I believe by that you could technically have a 30yr old elf wizard or whatever.

Ah, so they're just lazy bums for the first 100 years.

Not that I see any reason not to be if you have so much time.

Is there a special name we have for "Races of the Wild"?

Is there a special name we have for "Races of the Wild"?

Chickens and Otherkin? Feathers and Fanboys? I dunno.

Races of Rabbitfucking.

-Username17

Dammit, Frank, that's perfect.

As usual.

This is getting kind of old.

*laughs* Cheers, Frank

sigma999 at [unixtime wrote:1189843629[/unixtime]]My concept for Goblins is like those in the Labyrinth movie; their culture is cluttered with junk.
And it's the junk of other races, namely anything and anyone that produces anything is bound to recognize something in Goblin collections.

Racer Knights of Falconia

Koumei at [unixtime wrote:1189871170[/unixtime]]Is there a special name we have for "Races of the Wild"?

Commonly accepted Gaming Den book names:

• "It's Hot Outside" = Sandstorm
  
• "It's Cold Outside" = Frostburn
  
• "It's Wet Outside" = Stormwrack
  
• "D&D Joke Book" = Epic Level Handbook
  
• "Races of Rabbit Fucking" = Races of the Wild.
  
• "Races of Short" = Races of Stone
  
• "Tome of Wet Tissues: Book of Nine Papercuts" = Tome of Battle: Book of 9 Swords
  
• "Calamari Cooking!" = Lords of Madness
  
• "Skip Hates Sorcerors" = Tome & Blood
  
• "Sticks & Stones" = Masters of the Wild
  
• "Lute and Loot" = Song and Silence
  
• "It's Not Outside" = Dungeonscape
  
• "It's Crowded Outside" = Cityscape

Ecureuil_Diabolique at [unixtime wrote:1189869184[/unixtime]]I'm pretty sure that in Races of the Wild they specify that an elf reaches physical adulthood at around 25 years old, and that they are simply expected to stay around their hometown or whatever until they reach the PHB's adulthood age. So I believe by that you could technically have a 30yr old elf wizard or whatever.

Indeed, in page 12 we learn that Elves reach "physical maturity" at age 25. For some reason, this important information that makes stories like Rurouni Kenshin possible at all is hidden in the chapter about marriage. Whatever.

Out of curiosity, whats Tome of Magic?
I can't think of anything wittier than
'At least a third of this is almost workable'

Yep, I knew of the others. There's also:

"D&D Joke Book Volume 2" = Psionics Handbook, IIRC
"Complete Crap" = Complete Mage (also: Complete Arcane 2)
"Complete Shit" = Complete Psionic (also: Complete Nerf)
"Book of Exalted Furries" = Book of Exalted Deeds

I think of Book of Vile Darkness as "Book of Vile Body Piercings." though you could substitute "Vile Fetishes" or "Generic Darkness" or whatever.

I think most of the other Races and Completes get off scot-free, for now. Though the newer Completes (Scoundrel and... Champion?) are just other books (Complete Adventurer/Divine) part 2.

Welcome back Frank. Your jokes were much needed.

Yes Magpies that's the ones.. now imagine them as short ugly humanoids.

As for elf lifespans, I recall that for years the elves did indeed age slowly, and one little splatbook declaring that they (now) mature like humans (at first) is bound to be ignored by D&D populous at large unless such info becomes official errata to the core game (which it just might should be!)

Koumei at [unixtime wrote:1189900413[/unixtime]]"D&D Joke Book Volume 2" = Psionics Handbook, IIRC
"Complete Crap" = Complete Mage (also: Complete Arcane 2)
"Complete Shit" = Complete Psionic (also: Complete Nerf)
"Book of Exalted Furries" = Book of Exalted Deeds

Book of Exalted Furries was Lago's and I've seen it used by others. If it keeps I'll add it to the list. The others are not clear, for example Complete Mage is also referred to as Complete Garbage. If we ever have a clear consensus I'll add the term.

I like Book of Vile Body Piercings, despite it being a mouthful