>These worthies start breeding bark beetles and summon bark beetle
>spirits. These then attack the forest. It may take a year or five, but
>eventually trees start to die and now the Aldryami have to start
>worrying.
Plus, when the trees die in large numbers, you've got a better shot at starting a forest fire with all the dead wood. So you spend that year or five sacrificing for salamanders, lots of salamanders...
Another tactic being to mess about with the insects the elves _need_ in their forest. The Gorakiki shamans can try to kill off (or influence) beneficial insects, or breed in a nastier breed with 'em (like 'Africanizing' honeybees in North and South America). With any luck, you can screw up the forest ecology badly enough that the Elves' defenses fall apart.
Those sneaky elves are probably up on it, though. No doubt the minute the insects arrive to liberate the forest, the Elves sic insect-eating birds and animals after them. The woodpecker, bulwark of Elven defense...
>This kind of war can be all but invisible to onlooking
>humans, but still rage for decades.
Which may help to explain why some elves and trolls can seemingly live in
peace with each other: it's a cold war, with the trolls and elves battling
each other in non-obvious ways since it's too unprofitable to tackle each
other head-on.
James Frusetta, UMCP History Department gerakkag_at_wam.umd.edu
The only good Aldryami is a dead Aldryami.
Let's make sure they're all very, very good.
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