Am I missing something? With an exception for specific groups in specific areas like Snow Elves, Mordant Spire elves, Ayindilar "Dark Elves", Aquatic Eleves, ect; Are ALL elves either Aiudeen or Forlorn?
Either your ancestors fled Earthfall and recently, within the last 2,000 years, returned to Golarion....Aiudeen. Or your ancestors stayed and somehow survived among the shorter lived races....Forlorn.
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Some elves that stayed after Earthfall very much did not just live among the shorter lived ancestries. Most didn't, actually, which is why for so long they were basically legends. Forlorn are individual elves that live among the shorter lived and experience various losses.
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Let's see...
The aiudeen/gate elves returned something like 2000 years ago after having fled almost 8000 years before that. They make up the bulk of Avistani elves.
The ilverani/snowcaster elves sheltered in place, and live in the farthest reaches of the north
The mualijae (alijae, ekujae, and kallijae) continue to defend the Mwangi Expanse each in their own way from an unknown evil. I think they make up most Garundi elves collectively?
The vourinoi/desert elves are supposed to be cousins of the mualijae, so they probably remained during impact, although maybe not as close to Osirion as they do now, considering the impact crater is just next door.
The ayindilar/dark elves went deep underground and adapted to life in the dark caverns below
The Jininese, followers of the oracle Jininsiel, embarked on a journey through the Darklands to bring them to the roots of the silver tree Tian Xia
It's unknown yet if any elves happen to live in Casmaron, but we may yet hear of another type of elf who chose not to leave Golarion. Even so, I suspect that the aiudeen still make up the highest population overall, whether that's as simply a plurality or actually a majority.
Of those groups, any individual elf may be a Forlorn, which is not a distinct grouping of elves so much as a condition. Any elf which lives primarily among humans or similarly short-lived peoples are likely to become Forlorn as the slow tempo of their life is dramatically outpaced by all their friends and family, with few or no elven attachments to ground themselves with.
And of course, the Sovyrian elves live on Castrovel, and so didn't concern themselves with Earthfall at all, unless perhaps their families were among the refugees.
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Of those groups, any individual elf may be a Forlorn, which is not a distinct grouping of elves so much as a condition. Any elf which lives primarily among humans or similarly short-lived peoples are likely to become Forlorn as the slow tempo of their life is dramatically outpaced by all their friends and family, with few or no elven attachments to ground themselves with.
This makes more sense to me. Thank you
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It's unknown yet if any elves happen to live in Casmaron, but we may yet hear of another type of elf who chose not to leave Golarion. Even so, I suspect that the aiudeen still make up the highest population overall, whether that's as simply a plurality or actually a majority.
We do actually know that elves live in Casmaron:
Elves: Elves are one of the few species of nonhuman citizens in Kelesh, according to a decree from Empress Ashtirat II, known as the Morning Star. Ashtirat II’s favorite consort, an elf named Hedessa with whom Ashtirat II was said to have a permanent telepathic bond, uncovered a plot to assassinate the empress, devised by the empress’s own husband. Though Hedessa was killed because of her discovery, she had time to notify the visiting delegation from Kyonin. The elven ambassadors saved Ashtirat’s life. To repay them and honor her fallen lover, the empress declared that elves within Kelesh were to have all the privileges and protections that humans enjoyed. While uncommon in Kelesh, elves are admired for their beauty and longevity. Though not quite as revered as their elven forebears, half-elves have the same citizenship rights in Qadira.
We don't know what ethnicity the elves of Kelesh are, whether most of them are native Wild Elves or immigrant Aiudeen, and they don't sound like they're common, but they do live there. It's something that a hypothetical Casmaron 2e setting guide could really expand on.
Creative Director
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A great summary, but ayindilar elves are also known as cavern elves, not dark elves. We haven't said much at all about the ayindilars yet, but some day we will; same for aquatic elves.
(Dark elves, AKA drow are no longer part of the setting as a result of our move away from OGL content with the remastered rules.)
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same for aquatic elves.Perhaps they'll even get a name other than "aquatic elf" at some point.
This is something I've been hoping to get for them for many, many years. In hindsight I should have mentioned one in Hell's Rebels (and kinda thought I did; if not, that's an oversight.)
In my homebrew, they're called "delvari" so that's my current favorite name to pitch for them, since that follows along with other elf word naming conventions I've exported from my homebrew (such as Mierani for a forest, Sillvari for Merisiel's last name, and Viournoi as the desert elf name).
Aquatic/oceanic content is a tricky thing overall to get into in significant ways in products anyway, since the game isn't really built to support that environment as robustly.
ANYway... I'll try to get the delvari elves in there somewhere along the way by chatting with Luis at some point, but can make no promises about where and wen this'll happen. (Spore War has a LOT of elf stuff, but it's not really the place to talk about sea elves.)
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(Dark elves, AKA drow are no longer part of the setting as a result of our move away from OGL content with the remastered rules.)
Thank you for the reminder. Been Playing since D&D 1E. Going to take a minute to change some names in my head. Long live the ORC!! : )
Should I replace the drow in the darklands city shown in Extinction Curse Black Sand book with Serpentfolk if I want to be "current" for a homebrew set on Golarion? Or would they just be undead elves now?
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Should I replace the drow in the darklands city shown in Extinction Curse Black Sand book with Serpentfolk if I want to be "current" for a homebrew set on Golarion? Or would they just be undead elves now?
That's up to you. You're not doing an official update or reprinting of the adventure so you don't have to adhere to the OGL or the ORC license or anything like that for your home game. The easiest solution is to run it as-is.
If I had to update this today to a remastered adventure, I'd probably go with having those elves be evil undead ayindilar elves... but before that came about I'd make sure to put out context about these elves and their society so THAT look would be folks' first look at them rather than something like this.
But for a home game, it's up to you. Since we haven't yet officially made a "current" version of so much of the Darklands and are unlikely to do so anytime soon, my advice would be to just run it as is rather than put the campaign on hold until we eventually (and HOPEFULLY) get around to updating that content more robustly.
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same for aquatic elves.Perhaps they'll even get a name other than "aquatic elf" at some point.This is something I've been hoping to get for them for many, many years. In hindsight I should have mentioned one in Hell's Rebels (and kinda thought I did; if not, that's an oversight.)
In my homebrew, they're called "delvari" so that's my current favorite name to pitch for them, since that follows along with other elf word naming conventions I've exported from my homebrew (such as Mierani for a forest, Sillvari for Merisiel's last name, and Viournoi as the desert elf name).
Aquatic/oceanic content is a tricky thing overall to get into in significant ways in products anyway, since the game isn't really built to support that environment as robustly.
ANYway... I'll try to get the delvari elves in there somewhere along the way by chatting with Luis at some point, but can make no promises about where and wen this'll happen. (Spore War has a LOT of elf stuff, but it's not really the place to talk about sea elves.)
Thanks for this, James!
Is there any sort of internal/Elven label for the Mordant Spire folks? I know they're mostly speaking Azlanti, but I wonder how they self-identify and/or what the other elves call them.
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Is there any sort of internal/Elven label for the Mordant Spire folks? I know they're mostly speaking Azlanti, but I wonder how they self-identify and/or what the other elves call them.
Not that I'm aware of. I've always assumed they, the elves of Kyonin, and the elves of Mierani were all the same ethnicity but different cultures.
Thank you!
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I can't wait to learn more about the new interpretations of elves and elf culture, especially the ayindilar!
The only thing that irritates me somewhat is that Second Darkness no longer really has any narrative ground to stand on. In all honesty, given the tropes it indulged in thats probably for the best, but it kind of leaves a gap in that part of the canon that I don't know how to fill. I emphatically stress, this is a ME problem, and not the fault of any of the writers or devs, and solely one of minor annoyance, nowhere near a dealbreaker of any kind.
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I didn't post a link?
The post in question has since been deleted. It included a link to pathfinderwiki, but in the same line of text also included a different link you might have accidentally clicked on if you weren't paying enough attention. Also RB probably means AI, but I wouldn't be surprised if IA is the French acronym.
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Also RB probably means AI, but I wouldn't be surprised if IA is the French acronym.
Yeah, French and English have the opposite order for "Adjective Noun" (or "Noun Adjective".) Like "haricot vert" vs. "green bean". This is why the acronym is "CERN" (they're in Geneva) for "Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire" whereas in English we'd say European Council for Nuclear Research" whereas in French they call NATO "OTAN" for the same reason.
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I didn't post a link?
My apologies. The other posters are exactly right, including me using the french word for AI.
I was talking about a now deleted post and did not want to quote it.
Next time, I will make sure to clarify that I do not mean the post above the spam one (yours in this here case).
Your posts are definitely not spam.