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Where do “Forlorn” elves come from?
The idea, as defined in in Merisiel’s background, leads to several problems that I am have real difficulties comprehending.
First has to do with Elves themselves:
… and …
So, why would not every elven baby be seen as precious? How would enough elves be allowed to grow up outside of the elven community to form a separate category? One would think that even most elven “orphans” would be found and brought back “home” among their own people.
The other problem that I run into with the “Forlorn” has to do with the physicality of growing up without parents.
In other words, it would take almost seven years for an Elf to be able to walk or talk, let alone survive on its own.
So where “do” the Forlorn actually come from?
Where do “Forlorn” elves come from?
The idea, as defined in in Merisiel’s background, leads to several problems that I am have real difficulties comprehending.
First has to do with Elves themselves:
From the Pathfinder Core Rulebook [p. 22], We know that Elves have strong Chaotic Good tendencies.
We also have reason to believe that, because their long lifespans, Elves will take more of a long term view of things. Their long lifespans would also imply a fairly low birthrate.
… and …
Elves are smart, with a racial bonus to intelligence.
So, why would not every elven baby be seen as precious? How would enough elves be allowed to grow up outside of the elven community to form a separate category? One would think that even most elven “orphans” would be found and brought back “home” among their own people.The other problem that I run into with the “Forlorn” has to do with the physicality of growing up without parents.
The elven life span is about seven times as long as a human lifespan.
This would imply that it takes seven times as long for an elf to reach physical maturity.
In other words, it would take almost seven years for an Elf to be able to walk or talk, let alone survive on its own.So where “do” the Forlorn actually come from?
My understanding was that they were elves that grew up in non-elven lands. So any of the elves that stayed when the elves fled Golarion, for example. I would expect that if their parents were killed in this situation they would be no other elves for them to grow up with.
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So where “do” the Forlorn actually come from?
A Forlorn is an elf raised "outside elf society". Several ideas spring to my mind:
* Forlorn parents. Obvious.
* Cast-away mother. Due to adultery, rape or incest, the mother is forced to leave town.
* Orphanage. Travelling elven caravan is killed, child survives, gets raised in an orphanage (or adopted family) for a couple of years.
* Child refusal. The mother refuses the child for whatever reason (adventuring mom, bad omens during pregnancy - now that sounds cool)
* Kidnapping. Where the elven children actually outlive the non-elven kidnappers.
* Recessive half-elf genes. I'm no master of Golarion genetics, but I guess that I'd be possible for a female half-elf to do a one-night stand with a male elf and have a 100% elf child.
If you're really for this "every elven child is sacred" thing, I suggest you take on the task of building a Elven Witch taking the Child-Scent Hex, and sniff your way towards finding the lost & forlorn elven children.
Dammit, now I feel compelled to build such a NPC and a "find the forlorn" adventure.
"Outside elven society" doesn't need to mean orphaned, or that they never see any other elves. You could potentially have a small family of Forlorn. The idea is that they're raised away from societies where elves are the norm (such as Kyonin), and thus are surrounded by shorter-lived races, creating a weird disconnect. Even if your mom and dad are still alive, the fact that all your other friends and acquaintances get old and die in an eyeblink has to get to you eventually. Hence the title "Forlorn."
If you want to see another interesting example of a Forlorn elf, check out Elyana, the protagonist in Plague of Shadows.
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We also have reason to believe that, because their long lifespans, Elves will take more of a long term view of things. Their long lifespans would also imply a fairly low birthrate.
This would imply that it takes seven times as long for an elf to reach physical maturity.
In other words, it would take almost seven years for an Elf to be able to walk or talk, let alone survive on its own.
- a long lifespan don't imply a low birthrate. The long lifespan already reduce the reproduction rate of the specie as they mature later. Adding a low birthrate mean that it is a non viable specie.
- the age progression of elves is totally skewed. They start adventuring at 110+modifier years against 15+modifier of a human (minimum 16 vs 114) but while a human enter middle age at 35 years a elf enter middle age at 175 years.
Proportionally to their lifespan elves have the shortest span of adulthood of all races. The pass most of their lifetime in the last age bracket, venerable (they enter it at 350 years and live another 4d100 years, 202 years on average).
As strange as it can seem the half-elves are the race that spend the highest percentage of their lifespan in the adulthood bracket, followed closely by dwarves and humans, the elves are the race that spend the lowest percentage of their lifespan there, followed by gnomes and halflings.
So the forever young elves are a myth. They are forever old.
to give some percentage:
- elves spend 52% of their lifespan in the old and venerable age brackets.
- gnomes are even worse as they spend 57% of they lifespan there.
- humans get to live 65% of their lifespan in the middle age or lower brackets.
- half-elves spend 26% of their lifespan as adults, but then they dwindle relatively fast.
- elves spend 21% of their lifespan to become adults, dwarves only 12% and half-elves only 13%.
The worse part is the age of the parents when the child reach adulthood.
When their children become adults human are still adult with a few years before becoming middle aged.
Dwarves can see the third generation reaching adulthood while they are still adults.
Elves will be in the middle of middle age before they sons become adults.
With those number and the age modifiers there are good chances that a elf will lose one or both of his parents before reaching adulthood if they don't live in a protected elven community.
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+1 to the above.
My House-Setting Interpretations: while "maturity" may take a long time for elves, I don't imagine that it takes seven years for an elf child to walk and talk. Rather, I always imagine that the period of frivolity and unsophisticated thinking is longer. Physically, I tend to describe elves as maturing at about 3/4 the rate of humans. Mentally, even 30 to 40 year old elves often think and act like teenagers. It is only after the first century that the rest of organized elven society begins to encourage thinking about taking up responsibility, and by the second century it is expected that the elf settle down to start a family. Given that the elves return to Golarion in 2632 AR and the present year is 4711 AR, that gives us approximately ten generations measured in 200 year increments. Long enough for a degree of normalcy to hold sway, certainly.
And so, I imagine that there are some among a race inclined toward chaotic alignment, who simply run or flee from their obligations. Never come back from their "wild younger days". Or who become convinced that they are "in love and this is the only one I will ever love this way you just won't accept that because you don't feel like I do". And these elves split away from the holy canon of elven life on Golarion and may even be so brash as to try and integrate with other communities. Becoming forlorn.
In other words, if there isn't a concerted effort from all of elfdom to bring their forlorn children back into the fold, it is likely because
a) they try to respect the choices of others, and
b) the forlorn are more useful to the elders of elven society as a fable, a cautionary tale of why their kids should listen to them now again. "I'm telling you you should really come back to a real elven community ... you don't want your children to end up forlorn, do you? Think of how awful that is, how you felt the first time one of your halfling friends died of old age. Do you really want to do that to a child?" Like ethnic parents encouraging their children to keep the old culture and raise their children in the right neighborhood and right church, the same arguments are hauled out.
The tragedy is that the elven parents aren't just self-serving and trying to keep their culture alive and vibrant. No, they have real magic in a lot of their traditions (chaotic means those traditions that are kept must be important) and there is a real sense of doom that comes from growing up around so much death. But kids will be kids ...
First has to do with Elves themselves:
From the Pathfinder Core Rulebook [p. 22], We know that Elves have strong Chaotic Good tendencies. [...]
So, why would not every elven baby be seen as precious? How would enough elves be allowed to grow up outside of the elven community to form a separate category?
You provided your own answer. They're CG. They won't tell other people "The over-ruler has spoken, you're not allowed to leave the collective. Raise your child here or DIE!"
That's dwarves.
They (the elves, not the dwarves) do consider their babies precious, but note that not everyone who is born and raised outside of elven culture will go completely nuts.
They won't force anyone to live where they don't want to simply because there is a chance that the child might suffer from the whole experience. I don't think the chance of an elf being raised by his parents outside of an elven community is that high. It might be there - especially if there are no other elves around, but in of itself it is small.
Only when tragedy occurs and they find themselves bereft of any elven guidance and the longer-term outlook elves usually have will chances of them becoming Forlorn really rise.
And further note that the Forlorn condition doesn't have to be severe. Often it's just a bit of melancholia or a slight twist to the psyche (not much more than most humans, maybe even less). Of course, it's the utter nut-cases that tend to be noticed...
Elves are smart, with a racial bonus to intelligence.
One would think that even most elven “orphans” would be found and brought back “home” among their own people.
Elven leaders are not spying on their "subjects". There is no Elven Patriot Act or hordes of elven diviners who scry on every elf all the time.
So they won't know that Elfor McElf and his Wife Elfella have died and Elfy the Elfling McElf is now an orphan.
The elven life span is about seven times as long as a human lifespan.
This would imply that it takes seven times as long for an elf to reach physical maturity.
Not really. I think they reach what humans call maturity after 20 or maybe 25 years. Elven society simply doesn't mean they should call those youngsters "grown-ups" because of that, yet. For one, they want them to study, learn and gather experiences for another century or so, to be closer to what elves consider to be mature. Also, they don't think it necessary to plunge them into the responsibilities of adulthood yet.
Elves don't have the same relentless drives humans have. They can take the long view, thinking that if it's another 100 years before the young elf starts to "pull his own weight", then that will be soon enough. No hurry.
So where “do” the Forlorn actually come from?
From outside of elven communities.
It would be an error to assume that the Forlorn condition is precisely defined, just as it doesn't have a single set of symptoms. It's all a very gradual thing.
It's probably possible to be Forlorn just by not living in an all-elf community. It's more likely to be Forlorn for living in an integrated community, and more likely still to live where elves are a minority, then where only your family are elves, then where your parents are the only other elves you meet, and most likely to become forlorn by becoming an orphan growing up in a community that has little or no elves in it.
And similarly, the more severe the "elf deprivation", the more extreme the symptoms. So the elf kid whose parents died before he learned his first word has a much larger chance of becoming a full-blown Forlorn case than the guy who had this human friend once until he died - that guy might not carry any emotional scars from it, or only minor ones.
But just like the orphan might actually survive the whole thing without becoming a Forlorn, the guy with the one friend might get the idea that because humans have so little time, it's totally okay to kill them. It's just a lot less likely.