Re: Elves from Paolo Guccione on 1997-03-26 (Glorantha Digest Vol 04)

From: Paolo Guccione <teigupa_at_tss.tei.ericsson.se>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 19:08:28 +0100

Chris Lemens

> I am thinking about writing up a bunch of stuff about the Elf Sea area.

Yes, PLEASE! DO IT! We have wagons of Troll tribes / NPCs / scenarios / lineages / spirit cults / jokes / whatever but not one filthy sample of one elven clan with its cult peculiarities. And all those of you who own the wonderful, colorful, detailed, playable, enjoyable, OUT-OF-PRINT supplement of Griffin Mountain please keep it locked in your drawers (it could be spoiled by Yelm's light) and let Chris produce something useful we all need, BY ORLANTH THUNDEROUS!

> Elvish Babester Gor initiates have a couple of interesting divine spells.
> One reincarnates the spirits of slaughtered plants (e.g. crops of wheat) as
> weeds, which is a handy weapon against encroaching farmers. The other
> permits an elf to create a "blank" seed, to which an elf ghost can be bound
> and incarnated, memories intact. (Most such ghosts would then join the Babs
> and go for revenge.)
>

Super! But I think that would rather be the domain of a fertility deity rather than Babs. If they can do that (reincarnate a dead being), why should they do it only for revenge purposes? Should they lose the wisdom a Gardener has accumulated in centuries when the individual dies?

You made me think about one fact. Elves are the only race without an undying ancestry. Dwarfs are still immortal, Dragonewts reincarnate, Mistress Trolls do not age, ancestral Men (Brithini) live forever, why should all elves have been mortal from the beginning of Glorantha?

As a matter of fact, all plants that can reproduce asexually are virtually immortal when they do so. When the new individual stems from the main trunk, it is genetically the same as the old one - more perfect than any genetically engineered clone may ever be. We may assume that upon gaining self-consciousness elves lost this capability - one individual is defined by its memories rather than its genes, and unlike Voralans, elves are individuals. But why should the stemming power have gone lost? Surely Flamal can grant this to walking aldryami, it is just that they need to transfer the memories and soul of the old individual into the new body. Why can't they do this? Some possible explanations.

They do this and they do not tell the humans. Are the Great Trees of elve forests _exactly_ the same ones that were alive before the Dawning? IMG, I have introduced a very secret ritual that moves a dryad's tree from a grove to another if one part of the old tree is grafted on a new, specially made tree.
They can do this and refuse to in order to allow the growing of new individuals and new ideas. The immortal Brithini and Dwarfs live colorless lives: the Aldryami know this and refuse immortality. But some individuals may have been living since the Dawning or even before...

Comments?

			http://www.geco.it/~guccione

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