Retrospective: The Complete Book of Elves

By the early 1990s, AD&D 2nd Edition was in full swing, and one of its defining features was the proliferation of entries in the Player's Handbook Rules Supplement (PHBR) series, commonly called the Complete books. These were player-focused supplements initially aimed at expanding the options for various classes that were eventually expanded to other topics, including races. The series is mixed bag, with most volumes following in the footsteps of The Complete Fighter’s Handbook – solid and unremarkable. However, a few stand out for how bad they were, The Complete Book of Elves, published in 1993, being my candidate for the worst (feel free to nominate your own in the comments).

Written by Colin McComb, The Complete Book of Elves is, at its core, an expansion of the already-powerful elf race in AD&D. But whereas earlier material presented elves as skilled but balanced adventurers with unique strengths and weaknesses, this book instead leans hard into the idea that elves are just better –smarter, faster, more artistic, more magical, more attuned to nature, and, of course, longer-lived – than virtually every other playable race in the game.

This emphasis is the start of where the book runs into trouble. It doesn’t just provide players with more options for elven characters; it actively reinforces an attitude of elven superiority, sometimes to an absurd degree. Take, for example, this passage:

No elf will ever simply perform a function when he can do it with flair and style. If a human forges a sword, he creates a piece of metal that cuts and slashes. If an elf forges a sword, he creates a masterpiece of balance, beauty, and power.

That's more or less the tone of the entire book. Elves are naturally superior to humans and other races in virtually every way that matters. Their weapons are better, their magic is more refined, their civilization more enlightened, their senses sharper, their emotions deeper. Even their music is better! 

If it were merely a matter of tone, The Complete Book of Elves would simply be remembered as insufferable. However, the book follows suit with its rules expansions as well and this, in my opinion, is where it reaches a new level of egregiousness. The new elven kits, which are supposed to offer distinct roleplaying options, tend to be overloaded with benefits and underweighted on drawbacks. The bladesinger, for instance, is a combat-ready spellcaster with virtually no downside beyond its limitation to one weapon. The wilderness runner is an elf so in tune with nature that he can literally run faster than a horse. Even some of the purported elven disadvantages, like the elves' reluctance to use heavy armor, are framed as virtues rather than limitations.

It’s not as if the book is poorly written. McComb has a decent grasp of language and some of the information he presents, particularly concerning elven philosophy and their approach to magic, is interesting. However, it is so unbalanced in its portrayal of elves that it feels almost like a work of in-game propaganda rather than a neutral sourcebook. I don't think that was McComb's intention, but, even if it were, I think he went a bit overboard in his approach. I distinctly recall that, during the '90s, The Complete Book of Elves was the butt of frequent jokes by all but the most dedicated elf fanboys. In my local group, we referred to it as "The Complete Book of Gods," because of its overpowered kits and supercilious prose.

Despite this, The Complete Book of Elves still holds some interest today, if only from a historical perspective. It's an artifact of a time when AD&D was leaning much more heavily into the "story" or "narrative" approach that was pioneered almost a decade earlier in Dragonlance. The book has less concern for mechanical balance than it does for presenting a nonhuman race in sufficient detail for maximum player immersion. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing – I'm a longtime fan of Roger E. Moore's "Point of View" series in Dragon, for example – but I can't help but feel as the racial Complete books, especially this one, go too far in this direction. 

Ultimately, I think The Complete Book of Elves serves as an object lesson in the dangers of overindulging a single race or concept in a game. I prefer it when a supplement expands options, not elevates one choice as obviously better than all the others. Based on my undoubtedly biased experience, this book simply exacerbated an existing problem: players already drawn to elves didn’t need more reasons to see them as superior. It's a flawed and indulgent book, worth a read only if you want a window into some of the worst tendencies of TSR and AD&D during the early to mid-1990s. 

"A Relaxation of the Rule"

There was an editor's note inserted into "Thrills and Chills: Ice Age Adventures" that I thought worthy of its own separate post. The article's author, Arthur Collins, describes the rules tweaks he recommends for each of the standard AD&D races in order to better reflect the Pleistocene Epoch. When he gets to elves, he says the following:

Elves would be +1 with spear and sling (instead of bow and sword, neither having been invented). While all races would have discovered ritual fermented or narcotic potations, to the elves would belong the specialty of making wine from wild grapes. Also, only wood elves would be around in Ice Age times.

Take special note of that last sentence: "Also, only wood elves would be around in Ice Age times." Appearing in italics immediately after it is the editor's note I mentioned above. It reads:

Since the Players Handbook says all player character elves are considered to be high elves, abiding by this stipulation would make it impossible for player-character elves to exist in this environment. If the issue must be resolved, DMs will have to either ignore the author’s recommendation or choose to allow a relaxation of the rule.

What a bizarre editor's note. Dragon was regularly filled with rules options and variants that ran counter to what was written in the Players Handbook and elsewhere and I can't recall seeing a note like this. Why here in particular? More to the point, it's a relatively minor detail in an article that is explicitly intended to alter the standard rules of AD&D to accommodate an unusual time period. I'm genuinely baffled that anyone would care that, yes, technically, by the book, wood elves are not allowed for use as player characters in 1982 (a rule that would be overturned in Unearthed Arcana just a few years later). 

There's a reason TSR and AD&D were viewed negatively in a lot of gaming circles back then. 

ElfQuest Returns

I've been an admirer of Chaosium boxed sets for a long time and consider many of them to be among the best RPG products ever released. That's why I was very quick to snap up the 40th anniversary reprint of Call of Cthulhu the company announced in 2021. Building on that success, Chaosium announced another re-release of a classic Basic Role-Playing-derived game, ElfQuest.

The remastered set will come in a 2" box and include not only the 2nd edition ElfQuest rulebook and related materials, but also The ElfQuest Companion, The Sea Elves, and Elf War supplements. Though I don't count myself a fan of ElfQuest, this announcement nevertheless makes me very happy. I love it when old RPGs are faithfully re-released for a new generation of fans to discover and appreciate. Chaosium has a very good track record when it comes to projects like this, so I think anyone who is an ElfQuest fan would do well to take a serious look at this.  

Flighty Elves and Bearded Dwarven Ladies

The astute among my readers might have noticed that the Boot Hill advertisement I shared earlier today appeared in the August 1979 issue of Dragon, the same month that the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide was released. To mark this occasion, issue #28 includes an article in which TSR employees who had even a small hand in the completion of the DMG offer their opinions on the finished product. There's a lot of interesting stuff in the article, some of which might make good fodder for a future post. For the moment, though, I want to draw your attention to the comments offered by Jean Wells:

The section to which Wells refers is actually entitled "Player Character Racial Tendencies" and begins at the bottom of page 15 and continues on to page 16. Here's the section about elves that she so disliked:

It's pretty innocuous stuff in my opinion. Gygax explicitly calls his descriptions "guidelines" Moreover, he points out that many other factors, such as alignment, will have an impact on a character's personality. For myself, this description of elves is perfectly fine, if somewhat different than the one that was probably already common in 1979. The same holds for his description of dwarves:

The question of whether female dwarves have beards in Dungeons & Dragons is much an ancient one, as evidenced by the last sentence of Wells's comments. In truth, I have no strong feelings about it myself, but I do find it fascinating the strong emotions, pro and con, that this rather esoteric dispute elicits in some corners of the hobby. 

Random Roll: DMG, p. 59

The ability of several demihuman races to see in the dark is firmly established in Dungeons & Dragons. My first encounter with the game was through the Holmes-edited Basic Set and its rulebook calls this ability "infravision" without any explanation. The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, though, goes to some length explaining the nature of infravision.

As explained in PLAYERS HANDBOOK, infravision is the ability to see light waves in the infrared spectrum.

To say that I have disliked this definition for decades is an understatement. While I am on record as not being opposed in principle to the mixing of science fiction and fantasy, Gygax's explanation of infravision leans a little too heavily, in my opinion, on real world science, with infelicitous consequences, as we shall see.

Gygax elaborates with the following:

Characters and various creatures with infravisual capability out to 60' (standard) are basically picking up radiation from their surroundings. Therefore, they note differences in thermal radiation, hot or cold. They do not "see" things which are the same temperature as their surroundings. Thus, a room in a dungeon might look completely blank, as walls, floor, ceiling, and possibly even some wooden furniture are all of the same temperature. Openings in the walls should show up rather plainly, as space anywhere else will, and if you are generous, you can allow different substances to radiate differently even if at the same temperature, i.e. the wood in the example above would be discernible if care was used in scanning the room infravisually.

Leaving aside the not insignificant matter of what this does to the "magic" of D&D, the conception of infravision Gygax advances here seems intended to limit its utility. If an elf's ability to see in the dark is akin to 1970s era IR goggles, it's a rather narrow ability, almost to the point of uselessness. I imagine that's the point, though. He continues:

Except where very warm or very cold objects are concerned, vision of this sort is roughly equivalent to human norm on a dark or cloudy night at best. Note also that monsters of a very cold or very warm sort (such as a human) can be tracked infravisually by their footprints. Such tracking must occur within two rounds of their passing, or the temperature difference where they had trodden will dissipate. 

The ability to track via infravision is certainly handy, though, as one might expect, Gygax places limitations on it, which given his explanation of how the ability works, is not unrealistic. Of course, what he gives with one hand, he takes with the other.

Light sources which give off heat also absolutely prevent infravision from functioning within their sphere of illumination. (Explain this as the effect of trying to see into the dark when the observer is in a brightly lot area.) It requires not less than two segments to accustom the eyes to infravision after use of normal vision. 

Again, this makes sense, given his conception of infravision, but it's a potentially serious drawback when one notes that it takes two segments to shift between normal and infravision. A lot can happen during those 12 seconds of temporary blindness.

The section ends by noting that creatures with infravision with a range of 90' or more – the sort possessed by "most monsters inhabiting underground areas" – see much more clearly than those with standard infravision. 

Such creatures can easily distinguish floor, ceiling, wall, and other areas, as well as furnishings within the area.

Talk about stacking the deck in the monsters favor!

This whole section makes me unhappy, or at least disappointed. I much prefer granting certain creatures, like dwarves, elves, and many monsters, the magical ability to see in the dark without restriction. This is more or less what's implied in OD&D and the way I've always handled infravision (a term I now reject, owing to the scientific associations Gygax foists on it here). Chainmail, I believe, grants magic-users the power to see in the dark too and it's something I've long considered giving player characters of that class as a basic ability. 

My point, ultimately, is that I think this whole section reeks of an attempt by Gygax to rein in an ability he thought too useful. Since I neither share his likely concern nor like his reframing of infravision as thermal vision, there's not much here I would use. 

The Lowly Fighter

When it comes to delving into history – any history, not just the history of RPGs – I tend to favor documents over memories, especially my own memories. Memories, after all, are tricky things, especially the memories of middle aged and older people. More times than I care to admit, I was sure I remembered something that was later proven, through documentary evidence, to be untrue or at least misconstrued. Documents don't tell the whole story, of course; divorced from context, they can be just as prone to being misconstrued as memories (and that's not even taking into account deliberately false documents). Nevertheless, I tend to think we're on more solid ground in examining history when we have physical evidence, which is why I have such respect for the work of people like Jon Peterson, whose careful examination of early RPG documents have revealed a great deal about the history of the hobby.

To that end, one of current activities is re-reading many of the RPG periodicals, both professional and amateur, I still have from the '70s and '80s. Though TSR's Dragon is quite useful in this regard, I'm finding that the Polyhedron is sometimes much more intriguing. Whereas the articles in Dragon tended to be both more polished and "theoretical," those in Polyhedron were (generally) rougher and more focused on "practical" considerations. In the process of re-reading those issues of Polyhedron I still have, I've come across a number of articles that seem to have arisen out of a referee's attempts to deal with some problem or other in his campaign.

A good example of what I'm talking about is Brian Leikam's "In Defense of the Lowly Fighter," which appears in issue #30 of Polyhedron (July 1986). Leikam was a RPGA tournament winner, as well as a member of the US Air Force, who ran a Dungeons & Dragons campaign at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri (or so says his author bio). It's also noted that he was "pleased with the convenience and playability" of the D&D (as opposed to AD&D) system. The article attempts to grapple with the fact that "no one seems to play fighters anymore" and that D&D campaigns are "overrun with 'rare' demihumans and spellcasters." To that end, Leikam proposes some solutions that have worked for him in his own D&D campaign.

I genuinely enjoy articles of this sort, both for what they tell us about the perception of supposed "problems" in the rules of Dungeons & Dragons and how individual referees dealt with them in their own campaigns. This is the kind of documentary evidence of which I want to see more, if only because it provides a useful counterpoint to the frequent cries of "I never saw that back in the day" or "We did it this way." Again, I don't want to discount memories entirely, but, speaking for myself, my own memories are so often hazy (or rose colored) that I think it's vital to buttress one's memories with additional testimony.

Leikam's assertion that fighters were often rare is, I think, right. That's certainly my recollection, particularly in AD&D, where rangers and paladins were much more commonplace, despite the supposed ability score restrictions. His comments about the prevalence of demihumans likewise comport with my experiences, though I mostly played AD&D rather than D&D. Regardless, Leikam proposes three solutions, only two of which interest me at the moment. Here's one of them:

This solution, as such, doesn't concern me so much as his claim that D&D and AD&D "are generally not compatible." I'm somewhat baffled by this statement. What does he mean by "not compatible?" In the context of demihumans, there might be some truth to it, inasmuch as D&D uses race-as-class and AD&D does not. On the other hand, nearly despite Gygax's regular assertions that the two games were completely different and never, ever, ever to be mixed, they not only were mixed but done so often by nearly everyone who played the games during this era – or so my memories tell me. It's a very peculiar thing to say and wonder what he meant by it.

The other suggestion that interests me is the following one:

This solution mentions that "demi-humans are supposed to be the minority in most worlds." I firmly agree that D&D (and AD&D) imply and sometimes outright state that this is supposed to be the case, but my memories tell me that very few people ever adhered to it. I certainly would have preferred it to be the case, but I think demihumans – dwarves and elves in particular – were simply too popular among players to make this work. In my recent OD&D campaigns, I set a strict limit of no more than a single instance of a demihuman race among the player characters, such that the PC elf was the elf in the campaign rather than being one of several. Most NPCs had never seen an elf before and, to hit that home, I was extremely stingy on including demihuman NPCs as well. Unlike Leikam, my concern had little to do with rules and more to do with tone: I prefer that most characters are human, in keeping with the pulp fantasy sensibilities I prefer.

I am deeply interested in how people actually played Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs in the first decade of the hobby's existence, in particular the kinds of fantasy inspirations they drew upon and how those influences shaped the shared worlds they created. Equally interesting is the interplay between the "official" intent of TSR and the desires of those who picked up the game and made it their own. That's why I'm seeking out as many documents of that era as I can find. They not only make for some excellent reading, they shed light on these and related questions.

E is for Elves

(What else?)

The term "elf" is used to describe those intelligent, humanoid beings who can claim descent from the inhabitants of Areon, the Eld. In the past, the Eld entered this world as conquerors. Their dominion was largely unchallenged for millennia, the first -- and perhaps only -- successful rebellion against their rule was led by the Hyperborean barbarians known as the Thulians. The Eldritch nobility retreated en masse back to the Red Planet in the face of the Thulian onslaught. Those Eld unable to return whence they came, in time, to be known as elves.

Though elves are, on average, shorter than Men, they display a wide diversity of sizes, which is in contrast to their Eldritch forebears, who are almost all small of stature. Physically, they are lithe and agile and tend to possess fair complexions and hair. Their faces are delicate and finely chiseled -- not unattractive by any means but nevertheless possessing an "alien" quality to them that many Men find disconcerting rather than alluring. Elven ears are slightly pointed.

The alien quality of elves is not limited to their appearance. Distant and haughty, they do not seem to possess emotions as Men do or, if they do, they are far less demonstrative about them. Because of their long lives -- immortal unless some mishap befalls them or they commit suicide out of boredom -- they are often slow to act, preferring to take weeks or even months to commit themselves to a course of action of any significance. Elves gently mock humans and even dwarves as "ephemerals," seeing them as impetuous and foolhardy children. Needless to say, this has not helped their reputation among Men, many of whom consider them little better than the Eld of old.

Like Men, Elves exist in two genders but they do not form pair bonds, let alone marry. Affection, love, and even lust appear to be unknown to them, despite tall tales and folk stories that tell of star-crossed romances between humans and elves. Consequently, there are no children among the elves, leading some to believe that they are a dying race unable to procreate. If this is so, one wonders how it is that their numbers have not dwindled to non-existence in the face of human prejudice in the years since the overthrow of the Eldritch Empire. It's popularly believed that elves kidnap human children and, through magic, make them their own, a belief that has done little to improve the lot of the race.

Elves are inherently magical. All members of the race possess the ability to cast spells, though their command of sorcery seems to be more limited than that of humans. This is true, even among the Eld, which likely explains why they have turned to demons to augment their power, a practice that, while uncommon, is not wholly unknown among the elves.

A minority of sages claim that many elven sites and structures are in fact older than those of Eldritch manufacture, arguing that it was not the elves who sprang from the Eld but the reverse. For their part, the elves have nothing to say on this matter, preferring to say as little as possible about their red-skinned relations. An even smaller minority of sages suggests that the elves may in fact be the descendants of the mysterious "Ancients" whose mighty works and artifacts predate even the Eldritch Empire, citing odd similarities between Ancient devices and those produced by the elves. Once again, the elves have little to say on the matter and few Men are willing to countenance the suggestion that the Ancients were anything but members of their own kind living in the distant past.

Tolkien's Influence in Pictures

If the Internet is to be believed, I am not only the guy who hates thieves but also the guy who believes J.R.R. Tolkien exercised no influence over the conception and development of Dungeons & Dragons. That's why I've decided to commemorate the Professor's 119th birthday by looking briefly at the ways that Tolkien's conceptions have forever altered our notions of fantasy, not just within the narrow confines of the hobby but in the world outside it. And even though I continue to hold that, thematically, Tolkien's world has very little in common with D&D, there's also no question in my mind that D&D as it exists today would have been impossible without the prior existence of Middle-earth.

Rather than blather on at length about this topic, I thought a few pictures might make my point far better than anything I could write here.

Before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, these fine fellows were probably the most popular conception of dwarves in a fantasy context. Heck, before Tolkien, the plural "dwarves" wasn't generally used in English, as witnessed by title Disney chose for his film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Opera aficionados might well have been familiar with Nordic dwarves through Wagner but they're nearly all portrayed as evil, grasping semi-monsters rather than serious and honorable (if still avaricious) craftsmen that D&D and wider fantasy have adopted as their own.

Even more dramatic a shift is clear when you look at popular conceptions of elves. Before Tolkien, elves were generally portrayed as diminutive and vaguely comical (or, more rarely, sinister). The tall, noble firstborn of the world have their roots in Norse legend, but, until Tolkien, that conception was definitely a minority one. Now, outside of Santa's workshop, it's nearly impossible to find an "elf" who doesn't look like one of Legolas's kin.

And, of course, these fellows didn't exist at all until Tolkien. They -- and their knock-offs -- are now everywhere.

Certainly, there were lots of "goblins" lurking in the popular imagination before Tolkien, but "orcs" did not. Likewise, the notion of their being a vast horde forged in service to a Dark Lord is nowadays a staple of fantasy literature (and gaming), but it's of relatively recent vintage and, once more, Tolkien is perhaps its most influential source.

I could go on and on illustrating how many fantasy tropes have their origins in Middle-earth, but I hope my point is made simply by selecting four relatively straightforward examples. It might be an exaggeration to say that J.R.R. Tolkien singlehandedly invented modern fantasy, but he is certainly one of its main progenitors, particularly when it comes to the "furniture" of the genre. Tolkien's peoples and creatures have had a profound impact on the imaginations of nearly everyone who's worked in fantasy since the 1960s. It's safe to say that, without him, fantasy would have been a very different thing than what it became. In that sense, we're all in Tolkien's debt and ought to lift a glass in his honor on this day of his birth.

A Most Overlooked Rule(s)

By me anyway:

Secret passages will be located on the roll of a 1 or a 2 (on a six-sided die) by men, dwarves or halflings. Elves will be able to locate them on a roll of 1-4. At the referee's option, Elves may be allowed the chance to sense any secret door they pass, a 1 or 2 indicating that they become aware that something is there.

As the player of Dordagdonar in my Dwimmermount campaign will happily tell you, I keep forgetting that, in OD&D, an elf's simply passing by a secret door merits a roll by the referee to determine if they sense its presence. But I'm even more forgetful of the fact that an elf, if actively looking for such a door, can find one on a roll of 1-4 on 1d6. Indeed, I'm so "forgetful" of this fact that i don't think I've ever used the rule.

I fear this is a case where my having played AD&D for some long in my younger days made me forget something I should have remembered from Holmes (which, as the Blue Book usually does, preserves a rule from LBBs). In AD&D, elven passive perception of secret doors is reduced to 1 in 6, while active perception is reduced to 1-2 in 6 (except for concealed portals, which is 3 in 6 -- can anyone explain how a "portal" differs from a "door" in this case?). Interestingly, Moldvay/Cook does not follow OD&D in its treatment of elves and secret doors, presenting instead something akin to AD&D (1-2 on 1d6 chance) but without any explicit provision for the passive perception of secret doors.

Anyway, I'm going to try very hard to keep these rules in mind in the future. It's one of those things I periodically remember and then forget again and I always feel bad about it afterward, since there is an elf in our campaign and I'm sure the party has missed more than its share of secret doors because I can't seem to get this simple rule through my head.

The Eld -- in Living Color!

Thanks to Luigi "Artikid" Castellani, I can show you the first ever illustration of an Eldritch warrior rushing into battle with his swords drawn.

Looking for Miniatures

With the Eld likely to play an increasingly big role in the Dwimmermount campaign, I find myself in need of "evil elf" miniatures. The problem seems to be that the Drow have had that niche cornered for so long that it's hard to find evil elf minis that aren't intended to be used as Drow. So does anyone else out there have any good suggestions for sinister-looking elves?

The Eld are physically pretty much your standard D&D elves: lithe, shorter than humans, and with pointed ears. They have red skin, but that's easily dealt with. They also have a slightly "science fantasy" vibe to them, with weapons and armor that could have come from Barsoom or another planetary romance locale. Are there any minis that look anything like this?

OD&D Psionic Limitations

In Eldritch Wizardry, not every character may possess psionic ability. It's started early on that "All player-characters with psionic ability ... must be of human origin." Interestingly, in the AD&D Players Handbook, it's stated that dwarves and halflings may "possibly" have psionics. In both cases, though, elves are seemingly excluded from being psionic (or "psychic," as Supplement III calls characters with psionic ability). Personally, I like the limitation of psionics to only certain races, although I'd probably vary which races can be psychic from campaign to campaign.

It's also noted (in bold text, no less) that

Monks & Druids do not have psychic potential, they are therefore prohibited from becoming psychics.

Again, I can see limiting psionics to certain classes but a universal prohibition does raise questions. For example, of all the classes available in OD&D, the monk strikes me as the one that's most compatible with the notion of psionics. Indeed, many of the class's abilities strike me as conceivably psionic in nature. So why the prohibition? And why are druids unable to be psionic while clerics can? It's an oddly specific ruling. No mention is made of paladins (who, presumably, count as fighting men) or assassins, nor of classes from The Strategic Review, even though rangers at least are referenced elsewhere in Eldritch Wizardry.

Needless to say, OD&D psionics are a lot more "quirky" than even their AD&D counterparts, which is saying something. Right now, I'm trying to figure out if there's any discernible logic behind these quirks or if they're just things that are. Regardless, I'm having a lot of fun plowing through this stuff.

Elven Oddities

Now that I've discussed how dwarves procreate, a few brief words on the question of elven reproduction.

So far as anyone knows, elves are immortal. They can be killed and certain ailments may slay them, but they never die of old age. All elves, regardless of their chronological age -- and many elves claim to be over a thousand years old -- look as if they were approximately in their late teens or early 20s from a human perspective. Interestingly, elves, unlike most other races, cannot be raised from the dead if slain.

Elves are few in number; most humans have never seen more than two or three elves their entire lives and rarely do they ever see more than one elf in the same place. However, there are communities of elves in isolated parts of the world but humans rarely see them, let alone visit them. Those few who have visited them note, among other things, that there are no children to be found among the elves.

This lack of children has led to speculation about how new elves come to be, if indeed they do at all. For their part, elves refuse to broach the subject with "ephemerals," implying only that it is an intensely personal matter that they do not discuss with non-elves. One popular belief is that elves are a dying race that will pass away forever when the last elf is slain. Another even more popular belief is that elves steal human children and raise them as their own. Others say that one can become an elf by consuming their food, a notion made more plausible by the fact that elves do not consume human foodstuffs if they can avoid it and prefer not to eat in the presence of non-elves, regardless of the menu.

In general, elves are a detached, almost emotionless people, at least by human standards. Though there are many tall tales of "half-elves" -- the result of a star-crossed romance, usually between a human hero and a beautiful elven maiden -- there's no evidence that such a thing is even possible. For their part, elves take no interest whatsoever in humans (or any other race) as objects of affection. Furthermore, though elves do have two genders that, outwardly at least, resemble those of humans, elves do not marry or form pair bonds or have any other kind of social arrangements that suggest either the formation of families or indeed any purpose to the physiological differences between the genders. It's almost as if elves were male and female in imitation of humans, a theory that seems unlikely given the antiquity of the race and the fact that they originated on another world.

Thus, how -- and if -- elves reproduce remains a mystery to all but the elves and they're not telling.

The Devil's in the Details

In issue #1 of Fight On!, Aaron Kesher wrote a terrific little article called "The Devil's in the Details," in which he presented a series of random tables for use in creating quick backgrounds/personalities for characters in his Otherness campaign. What was terrific about the initial article (and the ones that followed it) was the way that it simultaneously made it easy for referees and players alike to quickly -- and randomly -- personalize PCs and NPCs while also imparting little details to the players about the campaign setting without the need for lengthy write-ups on the matter.

The form that Kesher employed in his articles and subsequently adopted by others consists of three tables. The first uses 1D20 and is used three times to provide very "broad" details about that particular type of character -- statements that hold true for most examples of it, such as "Many dwarves abhor spontaneous displays of emotion" or "Many elves will die swiftly if imprisoned." These details have no mechanical effect (of course!) but they do an excellent job in my opinion of fleshing out a character type and giving some roleplaying "cues" to be developed further.

The second table uses 1D16 (either that funky die or by rolling 1D8 with a high/low die) and is used only once. Unlike the first table, this one provides more specific details that, while still representative of the type of character he is, are not present in all examples of that type. For example: "Some elves are haunted by murders of crows" or "Some halflings practice pugilism as a dubious hobby." Again, the table is useful because it gives us more details from which one can spin interesting characters and that tell us something about the character type.

The final table (also using 1D16) is used rolled 1D3 times. This table offers "some common traveling gear" associated with the character type. These are bonus items in addition to whatever the player or referee chooses to equip the character with.

I'm glad that others have followed Kesher's example and created their own tables of this sort. John Laviolette, over at The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms, has even suggested that the old school renaissance would be wise to offer up more examples of tables and systems in this style in order to better demonstrate the old school approach to character generation and background. I think he's absolutely right about that and I'd like to suggest that, in the coming days, my fellow bloggers and forum-ites share their own "The Devil's in the Details" tables. Here's one of my own, detailing the elves of Dwimmermount, to get us started:

MANY ELVES (Roll 1D20 three times):
1. Have never known another of their kind.
2. Have hair of white or silver.
3. Become intoxicated if they consume too much sugar.
4. Have shadows that seem "alive."
5. Sleep standing up -- and only for an hour or two each day.
6. Claim to have visited other worlds.
7. Call all non-elves "ephemerals."
8. Periodically spend all their funds on worthless baubles that they soon tire of and give away.
9. Devote themselves to a single weapon and will never even touch, let alone wield, another.
10. Can determine if a person is a magic-user simply by sight.
11. Consider silver more valuable than gold.
12. Find the concepts of aging and death endlessly fascinating.
13. Believe politeness is a form of dishonesty.
14. Disappear on the night of a full moon.
15. Refuse to accept magical healing or any other clerical spells.
16. Engage in conversations with beings others cannot see.
17. Are superb mapmakers.
18. View dwarves with strange interest.
19. Will not allow non-elves to watch them eat.
20. Refuse to sign their name to any document.

SOME ELVES (Roll 1D16 once):
1. Fear the gods of Men.
2. Actively avoid meeting other members of their kind.
3. Possess the same height, build, and countenance as Men but otherwise possess all the qualities of elves.
4. Keep small tokens of every intelligent being they slay.
5. Are zealously Neutral (Balance) in their worldview.
6. Instinctively feel the death of anyone they have ever met, regardless of the distance.
7. Become mute on the night of a new moon.
8. Feel a special affinity with cats.
9. Will speak no language but their own.
10. Refer to the Sun as "Our ancient enemy."
11. Have hair of black or gray.
12. Commit to memory every song they ever hear, even those sung by "ephemerals."
13. Show an inordinate interest in keys of all sorts.
14. Seek out knowledge about the undead.
15. Must slay at least one living creature each day or sicken.
16. Call themselves by different names with different groups of people.

SOME COMMON TRAVELING GEAR (1D16, 1D3 times):
1. A collection of keys to unknown locks.
2. A chain shirt as supple as leather.
3. A bow made of a strange, silvery metal.
4. A bag of cat nip.
5. A vial filled to the brim with sugar.
6. Silver eating utensils.
7. An odd "compass" whose cardinal points correspond to no known directions.
8. A hooded cloak that changes color to match its surroundings.
9. A silver belt buckle.
10. An ornate hair clasp.
11. A collection of hand-drawn maps.
12. A guide to etiquette.
13. A handful of small stones unlike any on earth.
14. A wide-brimmed hat.
15. Some "twine" made from a flexible, silvery metal.
16. Several small but empty leather bags that they will allow no one else to touch.

A Partial Pictorial History of Elves in D&D

So, over at the Temple of Demogorgon, Brunomac makes fun of poor Indel, the unfortunate elf who starred in those silly D&D comic book ads from the early 80s. He even goes so far as to mock him as a "Keebler elf," which is fair enough, considering his attire.

Now, I'm not here to defend Indel's honor, as he pretty much defines "hapless." I do, however, want to point out that many gamers' conception of what an "elf" is has changed considerably over the years and that Indel, while pathetic, is very much in line with the earliest depictions of elves in Dungeons & Dragons. As I have argued before, Gygax's consistent assertion that Tolkien's influence on the game was minimal is borne out if you look at the way elves have been illustrated in the game prior to the late 1e era -- case in point being this fine fellow from Volume 1 of OD&D:


He doesn't much look like an elf to me either, but he's clearly labeled as such. I'm guessing he's AWOL from Santa's workshop or something, because I can't recall ever seeing an elf portrayed with a beard outside of that context.

Then there's this lovely lady from the AD&D Players Handbook. She's standing next to a human male and it's clear if you see the original illustration that early D&D elves were (largely) much shorter than Men. Take note of her costume, with its tasseled skirt.


This guy is also from the PHB and he looks like Spock robbed Merlin's closet. Interestingly, he's roughly the same height as a human being.


I still can't make up my mind if this guy is in fact an elf or not, although I am coming round to the notion that he is probably meant to be. He looks like Indel's long-lost brother and appears to be slightly less hapless.


These are elves from the Monster Manual. Their height is difficult to make out from this illustration, but I don't get the impression of their being very tall.


I've always been very fond of this piece by Dave Trampier, which shows wood elves. Take a look at their ears and general attire. They're definitely more in line with a "fairy tale" sensibility than anything Tolkien-esque.

It's possible this guy from the cover of module D1-2 isn't an elf, but I've long assumed he was, based on the clothing he's wearing. The only guys you ever see wearing hoods like that are archers or elves and he doesn't appear to be the former.

I think it's interesting to see how the portrayal of elves has changed over the years, since I think it strongly supports the notion that elves have changed in D&D from the early days. Speaking only for myself, I vividly recall that my friends and I just assumed that all elves were short little guys with funny hats and shoes for the first couple of years we played the game. I'd place the shift in our perceptions to somewhere around 1981 or thereabouts, maybe a little later.

Nowadays, I tend to use "elf" in a situation-dependent way. It's basically a word I use to describe any inherently magical not-quite-human race, whether they look like Ernie or Elric. In my Dwimmermount game, elves, especially the red-skinned Eld, are more like Melnibonéans than repairers of shoes, but, in a different campaign setting, who knows? I prefer a lot of malleability in what constitutes demihuman X or Y, as that approach gives me more freedom to do with them what I want.

Level Limits

In pre-Greyhawk OD&D, dwarves were limited to 6th level as fighting men, halflings were limited to 4th as the same, and elves could progress no higher than 4th level as fighters and 8th level as magic-users. Supplement I loosened things up a bit if a demihuman character had exceptional ability scores. Dwarves with 18 Strength, for example, could reach 8th level as fighters, while Elves with 18 Intelligence could reach 9th level as magic-users. In general, though, the trend was to limit demihumans to 9th level and below (with thieves being a notable exception to this rule).

It's my belief that level limits were intended to serve two purposes. First, since demihumans got a number of abilities that humans lacked (infravision, improved saving throws, etc.), level limits were an early attempt at "balancing" their advantages against humans' lack of same. Now, as I think I've made clear over many months, I'm not a big fan of the balance über Alles school of game design and find it almost always makes a RPG less fun rather than more fun. Moreover, OD&D already possesses a means of balancing the varying abilities of characters -- variable XP charts. If one believes that the abilities of elves, dwarves, and halflings are good enough that they ought to exact some kind of "penalty," why not use XP as a means of representing this?

This is the approach that Moldvay Basic opted for in its particular interpretation of race-as-class. Elves and dwarves -- though not halflings -- require more XP to gain a particular level than do their human counterparts. It's a decent solution, I think, although the treatment of halflings undermines the logic behind it somewhat. Halflings get a number of advantages, most notably excellent saves, and yet their XP charts are identical to those of human fighters. Their main drawback is that their advancement is capped at 8th level, the lowest level limit of all the demihuman races. The halfling thus throws a wrench in the notion that there was any kind of consistent philosophy behind the demihuman XP charts.

The second purpose behind level limits, I believe, was genre emulation. Most of the pulp fantasies that influenced Gygax and Arneson didn't include lots -- or any -- non-humans as major protagonists. Non-humans were rare, exotic beings, far more likely to be talked about but never seen. The idea of a largely demihuman adventuring party (Tolkien's works to the contrary) was likely seem as peculiar. By making demihumans more limited in their progression, I suspect it was hoped that they'd prove less attractive and thus less numerous. The limit of halflings to 4th level, for example, has always struck me as the authors' way of saying, "Well, sure, you could play one of those hobbit guys, if you really want, but they're not really cut out for adventuring."

As I've played OD&D more extensively, I've come to some conclusions about all of this. Firstly, I like race-as-class a great deal and see it as a good way not only to keep non-humans strongly archetypal but also as a way to more implement the variable XP idea that Moldvay didn't seem to have followed through with. Secondly, I don't think level limits are a good way to discourage people from playing elves or dwarves or whatever. If the referee wants to limit the number of demihumans in his campaign, then he should simply do that: limit them. That's what I've done in my home Dwimmermount campaign. Dordagdonar, for example, is the only elf the characters have ever encountered. Even in a large city like Adamas, elves are exceedingly rare and he often raises eyebrows when he meets people who've heard of the existence of elves but never had the occasion to actually meet one.

Of course, Dordagdonar's uniqueness cuts both ways. Elves in my game are generally reclusive and stay out of worldly affairs. For whatever reason, Dordagdonar is different; he breaks a lot of the stereotypes about elven behavior, spending all his time with "ephemerals," as he does. Consequently, I don't plan to limit his level. Like his human companions, he can continue to progress indefinitely, although I do use a different XP chart to represent his abilities. Mind you, in OD&D, level advancement is slow and I doubt the characters in the campaign will ever see much beyond 9th or 10th level anyway, so it's largely a moot point.

In the end, I can't say level limits do a lot for me. I don't hate them or think them an abomination against "good" game design, but I also don't see their elimination as necessarily problematic. Far worse in my opinion is the ubiquity of demihumans, which destroys a lot of the flavor I associate with OD&D's literary influences. Having a party consisting largely of, say, elves bugs me more than the possibility that the single elf allowed in a campaign might one day reach higher than 8th level. But then I'm weird that way.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shadow People

When one looks at the list of authors Gary Gygax assembled in Appendix N, chances are good that most of the names at least are familiar, even if one hasn't read the particular stories associated with them. They're a veritable who's who of pre-1970s fantasy and science fiction, writers whose works formed the canon of these genres. A notable exception is Margaret St. Clair, one of only two women on the list -- the other being Leigh Brackett -- and one whose name was utterly unknown to me, never mind her novels.

When I was a younger man, I had no trouble getting hold of books by Howard or Merritt or Leiber, so I devoured those and promptly forgot about St. Clair and her 1969 novel The Shadow People. It wasn't until years later that I actually came across a copy of it in a used book store and picked it up on a whim. I dimly recalled the name and figured it might be worth reading if Gary considered it an inspiration on AD&D.

I'm glad I did so, because, whatever its shortcomings as a novel, it's one that (I think) gives some insight into the origin of everyone's favorite dark elves, the drow. The Shadow People is about human beings stumbling upon the dark fairy world that exist just behind the walls of certain places in the world, where twisted, emaciated elves lay in wait, plotting the downfall of the world above. Addicted to hallucinogenic fungi, their plots often go awry thanks to their penchant for treachery against their own kind, a trait that has probably saved humanity far more than outright heroics against the dark elves.

It's hard not to see the drow in St. Clair's dark elves, but perhaps I'm simply projecting them backward in time. After all, part of the drow's appeal is how archetypal they are. They draw so brilliantly on centuries of myths and legends about dark elves while having their own unique spin that they seem exactly as our subconscious would imagine them to be. St. Clair's dark elves have similar qualities, though they are a bit more explicitly mythical than are the drow, right down to their use of the hallucinogenic fungi to lure human beings into their own surreal kingdom.

I can certainly see why Gygax found the book so attractive. He had a great love for creepy fairy realms, something that reached its fullest flower in his post-D&D games, Mythus and Lejendary Adventure. The Shadow People is well written and enjoyable as a story in its own right, but I found it particularly useful for its presentation of another take on dark elves. I found myself with plenty of great ideas to swipe for my Dwimmermount campaign and I suspect I won't be the only referee mining St. Clair's novel in this way.

Moldvay's Elves

Here's what Volume I of OD&D has to say about elves as player characters:

Elves can begin as either Fighting-Men or Magic-Users and freely switch class whenever they choose, from adventure to adventure, but not during the course of a single game. Thus, they gain the benefits of both classes and may use both weaponry and spells. They may use magic armor and still act as Magic-Users.

Gamers are still debating exactly what this means. Greyhawk didn't make the situation any clearer, as it now enabled elves to "work in all three categories at once (fighter, magic-user, and thief) unless they opt to never be anything other than in the thief category." In retrospect, I see this as an early statement of what would become AD&D's multiclassing rules, which are quite different than the way OD&D describes elves' ability to function as either a Fighting-Man or Magic-User on an adventure-by-adventure basis.

By contrast, Tom Moldvay's Basic Rulebook is quite clear on the topic:

[Elves] can be dangerous opponents, able to fight with any weapon and use magic spells as well, but prefer to spend their time feasting and frollicking in wooded glades ... Elves have the advantages of both fighters and magic-users. They may use shields and can wear any type of armor, and may fight with any kind of weapon. They can also cast spells like a magic-user, and use the same spell list.

As a balancing factor, they generally require about twice the amount of experience to gain levels as does a fighter of the same level. It's really an elegant solution to the problems in understanding the text of OD&D on the topic.

Of course, once I was exposed to AD&D, I felt D&D's race-as-class solution was anything but elegant. In fact, I recall finding it downright ludicrous: "All elves are fighter/magic-users. That's silly," I would say. I had no problem with elven fighter/magic-users, of course. What I objected to was what I perceived to be a lack of meaningful options when it came to playing an elf (or a dwarf or a halfling, for that matter). Back then, race-as-classs was evidence that "Basic D&D," as I called all non-Advanced versions of the game, was "a kid's game," lacking in the sophistication and depth I associated with AD&D.

I don't think that anymore. In my Dwimmermount game, there's a single elf character, Dordagdonar. Initially, I used the Swords & Wizardry version of the "elven adventurer," which is one interpretation of the OD&D rules. We quickly found the switching back and forth between fighting-man and magic-user to be unwieldy in play and so opted for an interpretation that's actually pretty close to Moldvay's, although I retained OD&D's strictures about spellcasting in armor, which is why Dordagdonar still wears leather +1 rather than heavier armor.

Aside from mechanical simplicity, what I really like about race-as-class, at least in the case of elves, is that it helps emphasize their differences from humanity. Moldvay elves are much more strongly archetypal and feel more folkloric to me than do AD&D's elves. Indeed, they remind me of Poul Anderson's elves and that's never a bad thing in my book. Moldvay's dwarves and halflings somehow don't quite generate the same degree of fascination for me, perhaps because I don't have a solid conception of what their archetype is. As I've said before, I'm ambivalent about halflings in D&D generally and dwarves generally seem to be treated as caricatures rather than archetypes.

Still, none of this has any real impact on the notion of class-as-race so much as the specific implementation of them in Moldvay's rulebook. I like the elf more and more as I use it. I find it very effective at conveying a difference between elves and humans, something that's important to me when portraying elves. They shouldn't just feel like short humans with pointy ears; they should follow their own rules.

Of Rangers (and Elves)

As another piece of the puzzle regarding rangers and their place in D&D, I offer up a lengthy quote from issue #66 of Dragon (October 1982). The quote comes from the "Sage Advice" column. As many know, I was never actually a big fan of the column, which I felt contributed in various ways to the notion that the surest way to resolve any rules questions was to contact TSR rather than just make up a solution for oneself. The quote does nothing to dispel that concern of mine, but it nevertheless does shed further light on how, even as late as 1982, the guys at TSR saw the class.

Rangers developed among humanity as a response to the presence of the giant-class humanoids as direct competitors for food, living space, and power within the worlds governed by the laws of the AD&D game. The deities of humanity saw fit to encourage certain persons to take up roles of guardianship, in essence entrusted with the safety and security of the human race. Rangers are intended to be self-reliant, strong, hardy, and possessed of the wisdom and intelligence to fully appreciate their roles as guardians. They operate in outdoor environments by and large, thus being familiar with normal woodcrafts like tracking, hunting, and camping. Rangers develop skills related to stealthy movement, spying, and so forth, so they may better serve as scouts, keeping tabs on local humanoid groups in the wilderness and in so doing, keeping their home communities and allied settlements informed of all happenings.

Tracking, however, does not a ranger make. One of the facts of life about being a ranger is that rangers are going to be on the hot spot, in the middle of some very savage fighting, on a fairly frequent basis. Humanoids don't like having humans around them, much less having humans spy on them; furthermore, rangers, in their roles as scouts, are somewhat more vulnerable since they prefer travelling in smaller groups. It is forbidden for more than three rangers to travel together, because when this happens rangers interpret this as meaning that they are leaving some other place undefended, and they will immediately try to spread out and cover the widest area possible. On top of this, rangers have (from their upbringing and studies) an intense dislike (to put it mildly) of all evil humanoids. Rangers are not just taught how to live off the land; they are taught to kill, and kill efficiently and quickly. They learn the vulnerable spots giant-class humanoids have, the ways in which they fight and wear their armor, and the best way to do battle with them so that the ranger, and not the humanoid, is still standing afterwards.

No bones are made about this; some rangers are fond of describing their jobs as going to exotic places, meeting interesting creatures, and killing them. However, it is understood that the purpose of combat is not to make oneself rich, famous, or fearsome. Combat is fought only if it cannot be avoided; humanoids, though, offer all sorts of opportunities for combat with their distinctly aggressive and often sadistic policies toward humanity. Rangers are therefore on call at all times in the defense of their homes, communities, and nations.

Elves, regardless of how they feel about humanoids, do not make good rangers because their empathy for life and living things runs counter to many of the teachings that rangers must absorb and learn to use. Elves put a lot of emphasis in combat on style, and cannot rid themselves of their distaste for killing any creature, even evil ones and even when its necessary for ones own protection (though they are still perfectly capable of fighting and killing, too). Rangers, whether lawful good, neutral good, or chaotic good, all share a high degree of dedication to their cause (from their loyalty to humanity as a whole, if lawful good, or from their personal standards, if chaotic good); elves see such intense commitment as grievous to a carefree and cheerful spirit. But elves appreciate rangers, because rangers regard them as allies and will usually try to help elves just as they help humanity.

Half-elves may become rangers since they usually inherit at least part of their human parents viewpoint on life, watering down their elven attitudes considerably. They don't gain the high levels humans do as rangers because they are slightly smaller and less effective in hand-to-hand fighting, and because they still have some of their innate elven distaste for bloodshed in them.

There doesnt seem to be any particular reason why elves, especially sylvan elves, shouldn't have a knowledge of how to track wild game. Human or elven player characters with secondary skills of Forester, Hunter, and possibly Trapper might reasonably be allowed a limited skill in tracking animals or persons, around 20-50% in accuracy, in outdoor (and maybe indoor) environments. But the other skills rangers have would not necessarily apply.

Demihuman Oddities

One of the things I really love about my Dwimmermount campaign is how readily my five players have all, to varying degrees, contributed to the development of the still-vague game world in which the megadungeon exists. This is particularly in evidence when it comes to the portrayal of the demihuman races.

In our latest session, we discovered a few things about the nature of dwarves, since Vladimir rejoined the party after a long absence. (As an aside, I am gratified that Dwimmermount's dwarves seem to be vaguely Slavic in conception rather than the Germanic or Scottish stereotypes that typically afflict the race). When asked where Vladimir had been while the party was off in Dwimmermount, his player explained that he'd been "making my baby." What he meant, of course, was that Vladimir had been using his time and treasure to carve a son for himself.

As I believe I mentioned once before, my dwarves are free-willed earth elementals who usually don't venture out from their subterranean strongholds. They're thus rather alien in nature, at least by human standards. I decided to sidestep the whole question about what dwarf women look like by establishing outright that there are no female dwarves at all. Dwarves reproduce (slowly) through a long and expensive process of crafting their descendants from living rock. Consequently, most dwarves don't really get the idea of gender or sexual reproduction, leading to all manner of misunderstandings when dealing with non-dwarves.

We also concluded that, because the process of crafting a descendant was so expensive, the newly-born dwarf -- who enters the world a fully functional adult -- is expected to repay his father and his clan, preferably in raw materials like precious metals and jewels. Most dwarven adventurers are in fact on quests either to repay their fathers for the expense of making them or trying to acquire enough valuables to be able to craft their own child. Thus, dwarves aren't really greedy so much as needy; they wish to acquire wealth to ensure the perpetuation of their elemental race and the cultural practices that have grown up around it.

As for elves, it was interesting how many later accretions to the OD&D conception of the race we just accepted without any thought. For example, we never once considered that sleep or charm spells might affect Dordagdonar, because we all knew elves were immune to both. They are in AD&D true, but no such immunity is noted in the three little brown books. Accepting this led Dordagdonar's player to assume that elves are immune to sleep because elves never sleep. They are always awake, which is why some elves, particularly younger ones, quickly grow bored and seek out excitement, even if it is among "ephemerals" like humans. Elven adventurers are thus elves with really short attention spans. We had also previously established that elves have quite the sweet tooth, with sugar acting as a mild narcotic, thus leading to jokes about "Pixie Stix addicts."

And these are all details that evolved through play, springing from tiny germs I'd planted early on in the campaign. I absolutely love this kind of stuff and see it as part of why I love this hobby so much.