Re: Forests and wildlands in Heortland, Sartar, Tarsh

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_9WocBITz7PciEqItexYnlvRssSz6dRaVFC9vUjxqdHInOegS1iKRLbIZIwyXG2Vuyrk>
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 16:54:13 +1200


At 02:30 p.m. 29/05/2007, you wrote:

>The way I remember it from David's game, there weren't "fire-hating
>elves" in our corner of Umathela, not as such. The elves in our
>homeland were associated with fire-loving tree species, survivors of
>the God Learners' massive burning campaign.

There's really no such thing as a fire-loving tree species and the hatred of fire is pretty much engrained in the Aldryami consciousness. For example, Pamalt is cited in the HeroQuest Voices as being the child of Kitapah the Flame. A fire-loving elf is the equivalent of a chaos-loving Uroxi, a demon-loving Yelmite, a horse-loving Praxian or a Sea-loving Ramalian. That a fire-loving elf may exist is not in doubt but to suggest that a major elf forest is tolerant of fire is too much of a stretch. Instead an elf would view a forest fire as a natural calamity such as humans would view a plague or a drought.

>I'm not sure which species of tree we were dealing with -- we called
>them fire pine and mountain ash. Up here in the Seattle area, I
>suppose the corresponding species would be Garry Oak, a tree that
>occupied "prairies" that the local natives maintained by burning.

If they are "maintained" by burning then they are not really fire-loving but controlled by firestick farming - which would be better suited to the Agimori rather than the Elf-dominated Umathelans.

--Peter Metcalfe            

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