But some are REALLY old. Can you really distinguish between immortality and things that live for a thousand years and still consider themselves young, as some redwood elves do?
>As a matter of fact, all plants that can reproduce asexually are
>virtually immortal when they do so.
I think all red and green elves are sexual only. Probably some are capable of parthenogenesis, though.
For interest, the oldest living thing is apparently a hundred meters or so of shrub, a shrub that is sterile and reproduces by budding, and thus is all effectively the one individual, somewhere in Tasmania. Its location is a secret. Its 45, 000 years old IIRC. Runners of that vintage, anyone?
I don't think elves are that old, but I think there might be some elves of stone pine vintage, certainly elves that remember the Great Darkness. There might even be extra big redwood elves, that are both larger and longer lived - the Aldryami answer to the Mistress Race.
>Has any of you ever carried a spear on his back? I figure it is a very
>clumsy thing to have with you. I think it should be easier to climb a
>tree with a sword hanging from your belt that a spear fastened to your
>back!
>My opinion is that common elves never carry melee weapons
I agree - all elves carry bows, but only warriors regularly carry any kind of melee weapon.
An alternative to flexy spears, or worrying about how elves carry their spears, is simple.
If the elves use primarily wooden spears, then perhaps they simply
plant
spear plants all over the elven forests, and they simply grab one
when they want it? Carrying one around the waist may be used by some elves, but
it just doesn't seem the sort of thing thats likely to be a universal custom to
me - I think many grab one when they need it.
> An axe would be more
>appropriate to earth-friend cultists, but for some unexplained reasons
>aldryami do not like axes.
Aldryami don't like axes for quite understandable reasons! In addition to the obvious dislike of axes that would be felt by any race with an intimate connection with trees, an axe was used to slay Flamal, and they know of axes as a troll weapon (trolls using Tree Chopping Song).
Most earth worshippers use axes because they are the tool that you use to harvest the Earths bounty of trees - which you understandably feel less happy about when you are the trees in question.
Though I'm not sure if Aldryami should disdain axes entirely. There are times when Aldryami would use axes for precisely the same reason they avoid them most of the time - they are a weapon designed for use against plants, including Aldryami. So axes might be especially feared by elves, and used mostly for killing other elves, either in elf wars, or for hunting down renegades/ criminals. Where there are Aldryami Babeestor Gor worshippers, I'm sure they specialise in axes.
BTW why are there elven BGs? I doubt it was originally an elven cult. Are we going to yet again assume its a similar cult that gets confused, that has yet another variant name? I would prefer to think that some elves simply adopted the BG cult as some point, possibly in contact with First Council earth worshippers - and then the cult spread with the fighting between Aldryami in the first age.
> My take on this is that no individual
>elf is immortal, but elves as a whole are. Elves are VERY
>different from most other races. They have what is just
>about a hive mind and very little individuality and think
>in terms of the forest rather than the trees.
I don't think there is a lot of evidence to support the elven hive
mind. Elves in fact, value old age and experience highly (ie Gardener
status). What they are able to do with elf-touch is quite powerful, and no
doubt changes their
culture significantly, but its not a hive mind. I do think elves are MUCH more
altruistic than other races, and are much more willing to sacrifice themselves
for the good of the whole - but nonetheless, their minds are their own.
Paolo's comments on botany very much appreciated. I have only one
thing to add - the Northern Hemisphere bias of Glorantha is obvious in that
it seems to be assumed that there are no elves (and by extension, no trees)
that are not
deciduous and not conifers. This is rather strange to me, as most trees in
Australia are neither.
Aldryami Defenses - perhaps many of their defensive plants are capable of
being
turned on and off by simply talking to them with elf-touch? The only problem is
that this would render them useless against other elves, so I don't think all
elf plants work this way, unless there is some sort of authentification, which
I would assume most plants aren't sophisticated enough for.
So, for example, the guardian plants of the poisonthorn and hellwoods (bloodthorn etc) would not be controlled by elf sense, because they are for killing other elves.
Cheers
David
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #309
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