Elves of Fethlon

From: a2230798_at_athena.rrz.uni-koeln.de
Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 17:03:47 +0200 (MET DST)


Howdy folks !

This is Ralf Engels typing,

        caused by a casual reference of Nils about the elves of Fethlon:

> I have always wondered why the elves of Fethlon are friends with the
> Teshnans but enemies of the Kralorelans. Could it be because the Teshnans
> are the lethargic sloths they are and thus won't protest when the elves
> start planting jungle on their land, turning their cities into haunted
> ruins like the ancient city in the Jungle Book, while the Kralorelans
> are a vigorous civilization who would never put up to something like
> that? I mean if the elves tried expanding into Kralorela they would
> just be incorporated in the Kralorelan way and appointed as imperial
> gardeners with pompous titles and absolutely no power to implement their
> plan.

Well, my unimportant theory for the hatred the elves bear with regard to the Kraloreli concerns the draconic bits of kralori culture and philosophy. In the Golden Age of Yelm's Court, Kralori and Elves lived happily together. The Golden Age passes away (quite literally), and in the aftermath kralori and elves seek different forms of survival, the kralori eventu- ally hitting upon the draconic way. Also some deep running conviction of treachery committed by the ones against the others during difficult times might be involved.
Anyway, kralori mysticism and draconicism give the elves a headache if they venture for too long in kralori lands, and vice versa the kralori usually get the message that they're not welcome in the elf forest after being insistently showered with blowgun darts, strange creepers and bad dreams.
So why do the elves get along so well with the Teshni? Maybe because, as indicated, the Teshni are incompetent slots. Other reasons I can think of are: they are free of the damnable cancer of draconic and illuminative thinking; they follow the older tradition of Zitro Argon, whereby the elves get some useful benefit out of their dealings with the humans; humans and elves live in a kind of symbiotic relationship, where the humans and their semi-nomadic slash & burn agriculture (at least in inland Teshnos away from the river basins) provide an important part of the elven life/death-philosophy/-cycle.

This last bit IMO explains the comparative scarcity of (permanent) urban settlements idicated in the G:CotHW-book, as every few decades or generation of local rulers the Teshni go out building a new and pompously decorated city in the jungle, while abandoning the old one, just because of mythological reasons (I think, tentatively, that I remember some book saying that the Mayas did this in their jungles on Yucatan), inaugurating "a new era".

IMO the Teshni are keen on and good at trying out new things or giving everything a fresh start, but they always fail on finishing things, loosing interest and motivation along the way (as epitomized by Solf, source of life and all things good, yet as well the despised and willful glutton and provider of all things of distraction).

All right, that's all for now, take it or leave it,

                                                        Ralf


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