Why elves are not genetic engineers

From: James Wadsley <wadsley_at_cita.utoronto.ca>
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 1997 21:49:58 -0400


> > Pam Carlsson:
> > plants like wheat and barley were incredibly successful because they had
> manipulated their environment (us!) into ensuring their survival and
> propagation over vast areas of the world (eg the midwestern US).
> Erik Sieurin
> Indeed. And the same goes for our domestic animals. In fact, modern
> humans could not survive well without our domestic plants and animals.
> Our plants and animals have domesticated us as much as we have
> domesticated them.

This is a very humanocentric, guilt alleviating view: "It is not us - the wheat made us do it. The cows wanted to be big breasted and stupid. The dogs wanted to have absurdly short legs and live in our lap. Etc..". If humans decide they dislike wheat, they can replace it with barley - so much for wheat. If human decide cows are bad, they kill them all (e.g. Mad cow disease in England). The only animals to do well out of humans are sparrows, pigeons and garbage liking critters. Humans almost never live in harmony with nature. They tend to use up one resource after another. For example, Australian Aboriginals ate all the mega-fauna and burned the forests to make roo hunting lands.

Elves respect the forest and the forest respects them. They do not waste plants on human-like trifles like clothing or writing. Plants do not waste Elves by mulching them arbitrarily when the soil is poor. They do not warp healthy plants to eternally grow beer mugs or some other use. This is why I advocate special magical rituals that politely request plants to divert some of their energies to growing something of special importance to the Elves and the forest too.

To my way of thinking, the Elves serve the forest more than vice-versa which implies the Elves are more likely to be engineered NOT the trees. Some myths of Elvish origins place them entirely as a somewhat artificial or deliberate forest creation.

> Erik Sieurin, on Elves enchanting wood
> Spells, yes. I have no mythical explanation for these, which is Bad,
> but maybe you can come up with some.
I think that enchanting and rituals are a good game mechanic to capture a slow process whereby an Elf and tree cooperate to grow something useful to the forest

> Enchant Wood: Oak, Ash, Pine

I like these but I still think the tree, whether enchanted from a seed or not, must willingly give parts of itself and be recompensed with magic points or POW and special attention. It would be terrible if the carefully grown tree was then murdered outright and dissected to provide goods for the Elves.

> Body of Bronze

I can't mythically explain this spell. I don't like the idea of conversion between basically very different things. This is why I like the idea of pure metal trees and possibly elves. Wood doesn't grow metal - it is simpler and more elegant to have living metal trees.

> Mask of the Meaties

I suppose a desperate forest might try this one.

> Philip Hibbs, on metal elves and trees
> What a scary thought! This is the first mention I've ever seen of them -
> did you just make it up? It makes sense to me.
I just made it up, but I was thinking about the Elf use of metal. To fit in their Mythos or Worldspin it would have to be living metal trees. All living trees engender Elves and dryads, thus... This actually fits into the picture of metal are the bones of gods too and not just tree and plant gods. Plants recycle organic material to provide nutrients for themselves. Why shouldn't magical metal plants partake of the remains of gods to build themselves. This might imply something about the nature of areas where metal trees may grow. This would also imply gem trees fertillized with God blood and bone.

I must confess to largely ignoring Elder Secrets, but I thought the take on Elves put there was too close to Tolkien (society wise) and not very interesting. To summarise, I don't think it really absorbed the fundamental fact that Elves are plants, IAG (In All Gloranthas).


End of Glorantha Digest V4 #325


WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html

Powered by hypermail