common role playing situations- Neri and Feldon

I’m writing a kind of overview of some role playing situations that your characters are likely to encounter based on your race, alignment and class.

Elves are pretty much considered friendly by humans in Aversill—mainly by human authority who’ve had their bacon saved many a time by nice elf armies who’ve shown up with powerful magic and well trained archers. Essentially tha’s when humans like elves best…when they show up to help and then, afterwards, leave. When they stay behind and move in, human reactions towards elves changes a bit.

First of all, elves are stand-offish and foreign. They worship different gods, they don’t sleep, and most of them can do magic. What elves reside in human society never really feel welcome or at home. The reaction isn’t the prejudice that half-orcs face, it’s more like suspicion and superstition. Most humans believe that elves are naturally wizards and that the presence of elves alone can cause arcane problems that the elves, themselves, cannot help but attract. Storms, draughts, strange occurrences—all will be blamed on elves by some portion of the human population. But this same portion is likely to commit any real acts against the elves—they’re afraid of retaliation by cosmic forces to which they see elves belonging (or at least attracting).

Human government sees elves as indicative of problems or concerns that they know nothing about. This ignorance puts them at risk of not knowing how to solve the problems that arise—thus making them look like they are not in control. No Baron wants to consult the elvish community to find out what’s going on.

So, Neri, you all by yourself will probably be treated by humans with awe and respect, but also fear and suspicion. Civil authority may question elves for their opinion on some difficulties and then think them secretive for not saying all that they know (or all that the human authorities assume they should know). People think elves know secrets about nature, magic, the universe, etc., especially elves that actually are wizards. They may ask. They may be afraid to ask.

As far as lawless elves go, there is nothing scarier to humans. If elves represent arcane power that humans cannot comprehend and against which only elves can protect, then a lawless invites danger from unknown sources and offers no guarantee of protection when that danger manifests. Whatever stories humans have heard about “dark elves” they associate with chaotic and evil elves they’ve met. A chaotic elf can expect to be under some kind of surveillance there entire stay within a lawful human society (and afforded a great deal of respect in the more lawless areas of human society).