I like my elves woodsy. After seeing books like this, I started getting really inspired as to what elven homes should look like. Elves should, I think, be very community oriented and attached to the idea of living in the woods in such gorgeous, magnificently engineered treehouses. Thing is, this is a magitech setting, with trains and mass communication and easy food availability and good medical care and all that, and elves are a race with an average lifespan of around 90 years and a birth rate similar to humans. Elven population be expanding pretty fast because of this. Problem is, the treehouse style of building relies on relatively small populations. Every house takes a lot of caution and careful selection of a tree to build, and bicycles and cable cars, which dominate urban transit, are extremely impractical in the middle of the woods. Even horse carriages and trains are difficult. The issues of how to efficiently provide sanitary services, power, water, jobs (manufacturing and service are the big employers, and most companies have no desire to operate out of a treehouse) and the like also crop up, too. You just can't build a city like this, but urbanization is the rule of the day. End result? Elven settlements just can't support their populations anymore. They are facing major crowding issues, and having to resort to building new treehouses rapidly, which basically means slums that aren't necessarily built in the best trees. Commodity prices are exploding as the manufacturing and agricultural capacities of these settlements are outstripped, as bringing in necessities from outside elven lands is expensive. The worst effects of this fall upon the poor slum dwellers. A lot of elves are straight up abandoning the whole tree living tradition as impractical and making for human cities, leading to a large diaspora of the younger generation of elves and the rise of an elven subculture in human cities. These elves aren't particularly wealthy, though.
So, there's the basics. Not enough information, though. I need ideas for what elves should look like as a culture, aside from just "community oriented" and "naturey". I don't really like the idea of them being totally arrogant all the time, so I need to figure out how they treat other races. I need to give them something that feels more sympathetic, while also feeling attractive to a player. Any ideas?
I like my elves woodsy. After seeing books like this, I started getting really inspired as to what elven homes should look like. Elves should, I think, be very community oriented and attached to the idea of living in the woods in such gorgeous, magnificently engineered treehouses. Thing is, this is a magitech setting, with trains and mass communication and easy food availability and good medical care and all that, and elves are a race with an average lifespan of around 90 years and a birth rate similar to humans. Elven population be expanding pretty fast because of this. Problem is, the treehouse style of building relies on relatively small populations. Every house takes a lot of caution and careful selection of a tree to build, and bicycles and cable cars, which dominate urban transit, are extremely impractical in the middle of the woods. Even horse carriages and trains are difficult. The issues of how to efficiently provide sanitary services, power, water, jobs (manufacturing and service are the big employers, and most companies have no desire to operate out of a treehouse) and the like also crop up, too. You just can't build a city like this, but urbanization is the rule of the day. End result? Elven settlements just can't support their populations anymore. They are facing major crowding issues, and having to resort to building new treehouses rapidly, which basically means slums that aren't necessarily built in the best trees. Commodity prices are exploding as the manufacturing and agricultural capacities of these settlements are outstripped, as bringing in necessities from outside elven lands is expensive. The worst effects of this fall upon the poor slum dwellers. A lot of elves are straight up abandoning the whole tree living tradition as impractical and making for human cities, leading to a large diaspora of the younger generation of elves and the rise of an elven subculture...
Elves, because of their long life span and naturally high intelligence indicates that their society would be advanced.
Intellectually, Philosophically and Technologically advanced.
Living in tree houses could be considered advanced.
Spoiler: Age of Enlightenment reference to provide context. People of Christian faith be advised no offense is intended.
There is a proposal in Age of Enlightenment philosophy: The more advanced a society is the closer it becomes to nature. Nature can't be corrupted and without corruption, society advances at a faster rate (Enlightenment theorists lived in the age of church authoritarianism, Codex of Forbidden Books etc. and nature provided liberty and freedom).
Since you want your elves to live in the forest, yet due to modern aspects urbanization doesn't fit forest living, I would suggest going verticle. Imagine an extensive forest areas with so many trees, finding the right tree to make into a treehouse is not that big of an issue. Then in various open glens distributed throughout your forest you place skyscrapers or some other kind of tower structure that can encompass your urbanesque requirements. All manufacturing and commercialization occurs in the skyscrapers with elevators as the means of transportation from one floor to another or as cable cars connecting towers slung high above the tree line. Residency still happens in the trees down below, between the skyscraper towers. The farm needs for food sources could also exist on various floors of the skyscraper or be located in towers dedicated to just food production.
You could alternatively place your urban areas underground, instead of in skyscrapers and essentially accomplishing the same result, though underground living might be condusive to other races than elves.
Or have floating cities that fly above your forests where your urbanization occurs.
As long as you have enough extensive forested wilderness, any of these solutions would prevent the problem your encountering (at least it seems to me). I don't see your problem rearing its head in any of these scenarios.
