Elves in the BR Campaign

[Sepsis]

At 03:01 PM 2/5/98 EST, Raze(RazeDaemon@aol.com)wrote:
>
>For any of you who own the Complete Book of Elves, you know that a few things
>about the Cerilian Elves don't mix... The Sidhe do not worship the
Seldarine,
>don't have infravison as other elves, etc.
>
>In the Complete Book of Elves, it says that all elves are related and
migrated
>to other worlds via Spelljamming or plane travel. This obviously isnt so for
>the elves of Cerilia.
>

First off you have to bear the fact that BR Elves are not like those found
on any other AD&D world. With that in mind, chuck the CBE. It has little to
no value in BR. Cerilian Elves originated on Cerilia, no where else. They
are living embodiments of nature, and immortal, in these and many other
ways they are totally unique to this setting (as is many things). If you
want your BR Elves to have a "spiritual" side, I suggest picking up the
Shaman supplement and give the Elves the Shaman class as an option. It
works very well in this setting. I hope that helps out, and I'm sure others
will be putting in their 2 GBs as well.


Sepsis, richt@metrolink.net (ICQ:3777956)

"War is a matter of vital importance to the State;
the province of life or death;
the road to survival or ruin.
It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied."
-Sun Tzu,(The Art of War)-

BR Netbook: http://webpages.metrolink.net/~veleda/birth.html

[c558382@showme.missouri.]

My solution, taken from my cosmology, follows:

Creation:

In the great before, Chronos and Cosmos begat many children. First
born were the twins Anduiras and Cyril. Anduiras was made the sovereign
ruler of the universe and Cyril was his servant, who was given powers of
creation. Next born was Magic, and she was granted powers of renewal of
life and was made to assist Cyril in the creation. Then Matter was
born, who completed the creation and gave it substance.

Matter created the inner cosmos to provide materials for the creation.

Anduiras and Cyril created the other gods with assistance from the forces.
Magic determined to create a perfect wife for her brother and they created
Basaïa. Basaïa did love magic but was too devoted to her husband Andurias,
and too much like him to satisfy Magic's creative spirit, and so they
created Vorynn. Chaos helped create Brenna. Matter assisted in the
creation of Reynir in the image of Cyril, and Masela in the image of
Anduiras. Evil disguised herself as Anduiras and with Cyril created Azrai,
the whole circumstance of which was not understood until Azrai fled after
his creation. Cyril created the world, and in so doing, became the world.

Chaos seduced Magic and during their brief affair, they created the Elves,
after which Chaos passed into the form of the force by which we now call
him.
- -snip-

Chaos and Evil hated the creation and fought Cosmos and Chronos and their
children. Their battle created the outer universe where the gods dwell.
Chaos was an unreliable ally and betrayed Evil, though was never an ally of
the others.
- -snip-

Azrai hid himself in the shadow of the creation, where the gods did not
find him. From there he watched their activities.
- -snip-

Thus the gods had all gained mastery over some part of the world and its
opperations. Except for Azrai, who lusted after the whole of it.

Moradin and Anduiras saw the elves upon creation and called upon them to
worship them, but the elves did not. Wishing neither to offend Magic or
Chaos, both gods determined to create their own races to whorship them,
and in this way make themselves more powerful. Moradin created his race
in his forge and tempered them in the center of the world. From there they
struggled to the surface, and the weak among them perished. Andurias
decided not to fashion his race alone, as Moradin was doing, but to seek
the advice of his servants. Because he took some part of all of their
advice, the race he created was very versitile. When Magic, saw what was
happening, she protested. Anduiras resolved to placate his sister by
promising to place his race in only half the world. This she accepted, as
she knew Moradin's race would not venture far from his mountains. The place
where Anduiras placed his race was then known as Andu, after him. The
other land was called Cerilia, after his twin brother. At least one other
place existed, but its name has been lost.

Azrai cursed the creation as his makers Evil and Chaos had done before him.
Now he commanded his servants, Kartathok, Torazon, and Yeenoghu to form
servants of their own and then to make races to rival those of elves,
dwarves and humans. This they did do. Kartathok's goblins made emnity
with the elves, Torazon's orogs warred with the dwarves, and Yeenoghu's
gnolls, fought with humans.
- -snip- (lots on dwarves cut out)

The races of Kartathok, Torazon, and Yeenoghu were inferior to the elves,
dwarves, and humans. As they proved superior to the evil races, Azrai's
plan failed. So Azrai turned to another scheme. He corrupted some of the
humans and used them to attack themselves. Then as some fled the corruption
and escaped to Cerilia, Azrai turned humans and elves against each other.
When ever peace would grow between humans and elves, Azrai would use weak
humans and elves to violate the agreements. In their wars with the
elves, the humans were able to call upon their gods in battle and were
able to learn the secrets of magic as well through the aid of Vorynn and
Basaïa. Magic, seeing what Azrai was doing, declared she would not take
sides to protect her elves, and permited Basaïa, to bring her tribe, the
Basarji to Cerilia to aid the humans, so that Azrai might not succede in
his plan to destroy the races.

The elves were nearly extinguished, and the humans dominated Cerilia. This
angered Chaos, who hated the creation of everything except his elves.
Indifferent in the beginning, the success of the humans put Chaos in an
ackward situation. Either Choas could abandon his neutrality and and join
Anduiras, or he could return to his old ally Evil. For reasons known only
to Chaos, he returned to Evil and broght with him a plan. He would give the
elves over to Evil and to Azrai, if a final and climactic battle could be
fought to steal creation away from Anduiras and Moradin and grant it to
Azrai. They conspired.

First, Azrai presented himself to those races created by his servants, the
goblins, orogs, and gnolls. Next, Azrai visited the Vos, the humans living
in the most northern regions. Never realizing that Azrai was the Shadow
from whom they had fled generations ago, they succumbed to his offers of
stength and power. Vorynn, seeing his people become corrupted as the
Empires of Andu had become, he withdrew from them powers of divination and
illusion. This did not sway the Vos as their neighbors, the humanoids knew
the mace and sword and they fell to Azrai. Then Azrai went among the elves
and Dwarves. Chaos brought the elves to Azrai, but the dwarves remained
true to Moradin's way of cooperation with humans. Only Laduguer was willing
to join Azrai with his dwarves. The elves burned with revenge and prepared
for a great war.

The forces of the Shadow generally proved superior to the human and dwarven
force. In a deperate moment the moment of decision came at Mount Deismaar.
The clash on the slopes of the mountain was truly epic. Man and monster
battled in vain to attempt triumph. Despite the skill and bravery of many
Cerilain warriors, it seemed sunset would see the defeat of the army of
Anuiras and Moradin. However, within the army of Azrai, the elven
queen of the Aelvinwode, Tuar realized they were fighing on the wrong side
of this battle. Through stirring oratory she convinced most of her army to
follow her across the lines to join the humans agains the Shadow. Rhuobhe
was unswayed and his followers stayed to fight the elves of Tuar.

- -snip- details of Diesmaar and the developemnt of the dwarven pantheon
after Diesmaar cut

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@showme.missouri.edu

[James Ruhland]

>
> For any of you who own the Complete Book of Elves, you know that a few
things
> about the Cerilian Elves don't mix... The Sidhe do not worship the
Seldarine,
> don't have infravison as other elves, etc.
>
> In the Complete Book of Elves, it says that all elves are related and
migrated
> to other worlds via Spelljamming or plane travel. This obviously isnt so
for
> the elves of Cerilia.
>
> Is there an official explanation out there?
>
Donno; our TSR mavens will no doubt give us one if there is. I, myself,
feel that the Elves of Cerilia are not an offshoot of the "main" elven race
(I.E. the Spelljamming monolith), but a separate one; I.E. not
crash-landers or others somehow "cut off" from the main body of elvish
culture, but a totally different development. Just my opinion, though.

[mg26]

Do elves in Cerilia get Blade song?
And are the answleight considered already weapon masters in
their weapons or they can be evenm more sick?

Thank you

Giovanni Garzelli

[Ludovic LIEVRE]

c558382@showme.missouri.edu wrote:
>
> My solution, taken from my cosmology, follows:
Very interesting, what about posting the complet post to the list
(without snipping)

- --
Ludovic LIEVRE
Laboratoire LGC / Equipe API
50, Chemin des Maraichers
31077 TOULOUSE Cedex 4 - FRANCE
Tel : (+33) 05 62 25 88 86 ou (+33) 05 61 50 40 37
http://www.etud.insa-tlse.fr/~llievre

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 RazeDaemon@aol.com wrote:

> Is there an official explanation out there? I came to the conclusion that the
> Sidhe are crash-landed Sylvan and Gray elves who mixed together and forgot
> their culture over time... Or perhaps they felt betrayed by the Seldarine for
> forsaking them there on Cerilia and came to value the nature spirits more...
> It's a stretch for the unchanging, stubborn elves, but that is all I can come
> up with... If there is an official explanation, or if someone has come up
> with something better, I would really like to know... We love the BR Campaign
> but we are all hard-core elf fans...

How about this explanation: The Cerillian elves are the First Elves
created in the primal beginnings of the universe. All other AD&D elves
sprang from them, but because they had left Cerillia they lost their
intimate connection to the land. It took them long ages to cross the gulf
between the spheres (since they no longer had connection to the primal
meghbheil) and they lost their former abilities, but gained their
infravision in that dark sea of stars. Finally, they came to a place where
they could go no farther. They had found another sphere, but the gods of
that sphere would not let them in, and they had no more strenght to go
further. So they hit upon a plan: as a people, they chose to give up their
immortality, and to invest that power in their leaders (known as the
Seldarine) who became gods and tricked the other gods into granting them a
place on that sphere. On this new sphere, although they were not immortal,
they were still long-lived, and they discovered that magic was easier to
use on this sphere, for the meghbheil here was in a more refined, less
primal form than on their former home, which was in the primal center of
the universe. They used their long lives to build up their knowledge and
power and to build a new civilization, in which the different races of the
elves were formed.
Although in later ages, the elves once again took to the stars,
the story of the lost first home of the elves had long been lost to all
but the most wise, and that world remained forever hidden within the
primal mists and stirrings at the center of the universe.

How does that work?

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[gandalf]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Mark A Vandermeulen
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Date: Friday, February 06, 1998 23:35
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Elves in the BR Campaign


>
>
>On Thu, 5 Feb 1998 RazeDaemon@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Is there an official explanation out there? I came to the conclusion
that the
>> Sidhe are crash-landed Sylvan and Gray elves who mixed together and
forgot
>> their culture over time... Or perhaps they felt betrayed by the
Seldarine for
>> forsaking them there on Cerilia and came to value the nature spirits
more...
>> It's a stretch for the unchanging, stubborn elves, but that is all I can
come
>> up with... If there is an official explanation, or if someone has come
up
>> with something better, I would really like to know... We love the BR
Campaign
>> but we are all hard-core elf fans...
>
>How about this explanation: The Cerillian elves are the First Elves
>created in the primal beginnings of the universe. All other AD&D elves
>sprang from them, but because they had left Cerillia they lost their
>intimate connection to the land. It took them long ages to cross the gulf
>between the spheres (since they no longer had connection to the primal
>meghbheil) and they lost their former abilities, but gained their
>infravision in that dark sea of stars. Finally, they came to a place where
>they could go no farther. They had found another sphere, but the gods of
>that sphere would not let them in, and they had no more strenght to go
>further. So they hit upon a plan: as a people, they chose to give up their
>immortality, and to invest that power in their leaders (known as the
>Seldarine) who became gods and tricked the other gods into granting them a
>place on that sphere. On this new sphere, although they were not immortal,
>they were still long-lived, and they discovered that magic was easier to
>use on this sphere, for the meghbheil here was in a more refined, less
>primal form than on their former home, which was in the primal center of
>the universe. They used their long lives to build up their knowledge and
>power and to build a new civilization, in which the different races of the
>elves were formed.
> Although in later ages, the elves once again took to the stars,
>the story of the lost first home of the elves had long been lost to all
>but the most wise, and that world remained forever hidden within the
>primal mists and stirrings at the center of the universe.
>
>How does that work?
>
>Mark VanderMeulen
>vander+@pitt.edu


A bit 'birthright-centric', don't you think ;-)

[Tim Nutting]

> Do elves in Cerilia get Blade song?

Do you want them to? Nothing really against it, and the bladesinger, as a
defender of the elven lands, could make a very good hunt leader for the
Ghallie Sidhe.

[Tim Nutting]

> A bit 'birthright-centric', don't you think ;-)

Isn't that the best way to be!? ;-)

Tim Nutting