Those Wacky Elves

Hello again from Lightfinger. Well, yet another week went by with Digger’s work being a pain. So, here I am again, this time with a little game master advice, and the voicing of a pet peeve of Digger’s and mine. The subject matter is laced throughout the entire Shadowrun line. I am talking about, of course, the Immortal Elves.

Now, for those of you who do not have a clue on what I am talking about, or those who have not been following the box score, here is a little summary. Back in ye old Fourth Age (known by its RPG name, Earthdawn), there existed a few elves that cannot age. These elves got into a little argument the first time the Horrors came, and split apart. One group of elves was in control of the Theran Empire. The other group controlled Wyrm Wood, later called Bloodwood. A third elven nation was Sosaria. All three of these nations are feuding in Earthdawn.

Warp ourselves forward in time to Shadowrun (Kaptin, I tink we are in trouble). Lo and behold, we discover through the Shadowrun literature and sourcebooks that the rulers of these nations survived. Matter of fact, the Theran elves are the leaders of Tir Tairngire, the Bloodwood elves are the leaders of Tir Nan Og, and though FASA has yet to confirm it, I expect the Sosarian Elves are in that rarely mentioned African elven nation.

Not only this, but FASA claims that the elves have manipulated us through the Fifth Age, by being such notables as Leonardo DaVinci and Eva Braun (Queen Alachia of Bloodwood/Tir Nan Og). That’s where the situation stands at this moment, with another book about to come out about Leo in the next couple of months. Books which included all of this information include the Dragonheart Saga series, Worlds without End, Black Madonna, and others.

Game masters are faced with a dilemma at this point. Do they run with this story line, or not? Deciding just this simple answer can make the course of a full campaign direction. The way FASA portrays the elves, a game master has to decide how to handle this.

Option 1: FASA’s Version Rules

Under this option, the Immortal Elves (called IE from here on out), are the most powerful beings in the world, except their mortal enemies the Dragons. They have done nearly every major accomplishment on the planet, in human disguise, and thus see themselves as the world’s caretakers.

Consequentially, they will have a major impact on the lives of the players as any mover or shaker in the game should be, and probably is, either an IE or a Dragon. Any sort of campaign can adapt to this method, a pure combat campaign or one more subtle. For GMs who want this style of campaign, reading the Vampire: the Masquerade books will get you an idea of how the IE internal politics works.

Option 2: Go Away Little Elves

The option Digger exercises in his games. IE do not exist. Period. Instead, these are just elves who have taken to mimicking all the older elves and are really no better than any common human. Again, this is an easy option to implement—focus on humanity and other races more and most antagonists in the campaign are not limited to the IE and the Dragons.

Option 3: Amalgamated Elven

Simple answer here is a toned-down version of the IE.

I have to explain this one a bit more, as this is the option I use for my campaign. Here is what I have done with the IE:

The IE exist, but they are not the know-all, see-all that FASA claims they are. They have been hibernating/in seclusion until mana levels rose high enough for them to come out of their hiding places. Humanity was not manipulated by IE, and in fact IE are completely mystified how humanity could get so advanced WITHOUT their help. Now, also in my version are two other factors. First, besides IE, there exists ID—Immortal Dwarves. They are the ones who created Halferville, and are actually the old rulers of Throal from Earthdawn. They hate the IE with a passion, and the feeling is mutual. Now, with each cycle of magic, races die but another race gains members who learn the secret of immortality. Small, selected groups of Humans, Orks, and Trolls are working for this goal, to become the next race with Immortal members. The ID are encouraging this, while the IE are fighting this. Thus, the major conflicts in my world.

Now, my pet peeve: Harlequin. Harley is one of the IE, and is in fact older than the lot of them. But game masters abuse the use of Harley in their campaigns. He should only be used sparingly—having big, powerful NPCs is okay, but when they end up doing all the work for the party or constantly rescuing the party from certain doom, something is inherently wrong with the campaign setting. Yet, I have seen Harley take this role more than once in a campaign. If your party cannot solve the problem after a reasonable amount of time, you made the problem too hard. If you have to use Harley to rescue your party from doom all the time, your encounters are too tough. If the party is just along for the ride, while Harley does his thing, take up writing a novel on Harley (or any other powerful NPC) and stop running games as you obviously are not letting the players have a say in the direction of your campaign.