The Aldryami believe that the only "sane" humans are the Hsunchen. They regard these humans as being the stewards of the animal life, just as they are stewards of the plant life. All other humans are, of course, insane and are dwelt with very carefully. These non-Hsunchen humans build cities, farm, cut down trees and use their dead bodies for dwellings and otherwise generally mess up the environment. It is said that all humans were originally Hsunchen and lived in a perfectly natural state, fulfilling there niches alongside the Aldryami. Everything existed in harmony until the Mostali came. The Mostali told both the Aldryami and the Hsunchen that they could attain great wealth and power if they abandoned their ties to the natural world. None of the Aldryami listened, but many of the Hsunchen did. These Hsunchen lost contact with their animal natures and became the ancestors of most modern humans. Variants of this story blame the Brithini, the devil, or some other villain instead of the Mostali.
Aldryami script. In fact Aldryami do not really write. Instead they project messages into certain kinds of plants, fruits, seed pods, etc. by means of their elfsense. This message is telepathic in nature, characters do not appear on the surface of the plant/seedpod\fruit. The writing of other races is considered incredibly crude by comparision. But that's the best they can manage without elfsense.
Aldryami cults. The human-name cults given in ESoG are actually rough analogs
of the Aldryami cults. For example, the Aldryami equivalent of Babeestor Gor
takes both male and female worshipers (how else do we explain that Green
Elves worship her?), their equivalent of Yelmalio does not train his
worshipers to be hoplites, and their equivalent to Ernalda does encourage the
practice of farming.
The Aldryami claim that the humans learned to worship these gods from
themselves. Some claim that these cults have had a "civilizing" (not quit the
right word) effect on the humans. Others claim that the humans perverted the
cults and that they no longer worship the original deities.
Aldryami sex. Sorry, you'll have to wait for that one. Although maybe Gorakiki Bee replaces Uleria for Brown Elves.
All of this is IMHO. Also in my IMHO, David Dunham is wrong in his belief that elves should not be PCs. Gloranthan elves are the strangest interpretation of this fantasy race around, and it would be a shame if we canfined ourselves to playing elves of the watered-down Tolkien variety.
Mark
Mohrfield
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