It's tricky. I find the full immortals, like outsiders, much easier to play than long lived mortals. When you have no cessation point, it's easy to extrapolate what that means. But when you barely age even as the world races by, that's harder.

laugh at all the whippersnappers.

>>3005220
She actually died the next day.

Look at that mongoloid that's last in line.

You can see the panties of the fourth child in the line.

>>3005233
So, it's vaguely like us watching a very young child die? Cursed to never be more then what they are, dead long before they had time to make a difference in anything?

>>3005233

>>3005246
Nope, I'm just refuting the idea that she lived until she was old... She died the next day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45pZyomwsns

>>3005241 You can see the panties of the fourth child in the line.

Aaaaah. And now I remember that I am on 4chan after all. Good job.

>>3005246
yeah, I guess.

>>3005256
>if she's even alive

This is a picture from over seventy years ago, several generations in the past. It's a picture of young American children lining up and saying the pledge of allegiance, in order to assert their loyalty to America. Look at that cute girl that's second in line. As all the other children look in different directions, she seems to be honestly focused on staring straight at the flag.

Suddenly, you remember. It's 2008. That young girl is now over seventy years old, if she's even alive. In that moment of realization, she has transformed from a cute little girl into a pile of bones, with only the fates deciding if it's above or below ground.

>>3005220

op is a weeaboo

Playing longer lived races is fun. The way I play Elves depends on the age of the elf in question -- before they've reached 50 they act like teenagers, but once they reach their first century they start noticing that their human friends are starting to get old and die around them while they remain young and healthy. After spending a few years adjusting to the idea that the humans you meet are ultimately temporary compared to you, they start to treat humans and other shorter lived races like we treat dogs. They may like us, or even love us, but there's always this slight undercurrent of "Well, if John dies I'll have to get another one."

>>3005285
>several generations in the past
a generation is about 30 years.
so...
2.
maybe 3.
not several.

I love that old home movie made by the guy who invented motion picture; it's his baby being fed dinner circa 1902. Weird as hell to watch, because that baby is almost certainly dead by now.

>>3005291
You're obviously not a nigger. A nigger generation is 11-16 years.

>>3005289

Really old elves (about 400 or more) are especially weird characters to play. In earth terms, this is a guy who may have seen and participated in the Revolutionary war who is still alive. The older they get the more deranged from the human perspective they start to seem -- they start taking up odd hobbies like gardening with trees, or subtly manipulating the humans they live around to see if they can breed up an entire family of redheads. Their relationships with humans could get incredibly twisted -- imagine meeting a guy at a barbecue who's been a friend of the family for over a century, and who tells stories about drinking with your great-great grandfather during the Civil War.

>>3005308
It gets really weird when he gets drunk and starts telling you how he's fucked your grandmother. Then he tells you he's also fucked your mother.

And now he's eying your sister.

Imagine that you're an elven ranger who ran out of Elfland to join the Halfling resistance against Haytler's Human Reich. So you eat with these Halflings, you drink with them, you tell dirty jokes, you fight beside them, you stand with them when they die in hails of gunfire and you curse Haytler with every fiber of your being. For the entire course of the war. You even work with the Red Ogre military as it liberates the death camp at Osenwatch, a horrible place where two and a half million halflings were tortured and worked to death with more than a million more readied for the fires. One of those halflings is the brother of a halfling you served with, he has no home and no family any more. Looking at an old photograph, you can't help but remember those days. You think about calling on that halfling, to reminisce about Samwise, or talk about how things today compare.

But you can't. Because you remember that he died of old age five years ago. All that work, all that pain, all that suffering and endurance and evil, you met every challenge the world faced in those days and all for what? For a tombstone in Hobbitton instead of a dirt pit in Oswatch. That's all that fighting for the mortals gained them, a different set of graves.

It has got to suck being an elf with a human friend. He dies of old age and leaves a son behind. You are still alive.
You train the son, watch him grow up, watch him become a hero and he eventually dies of old age. And you are still alive.

>>3005333

ELDRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD! DAMN HIM! WHAT A DICK!

>>3005369
Elves didn't originally believe themselves superior.

They didn't want their children to be traumatized by this constant.

>>3005369
what about being married to a human? Elves usually feel emotions more intensely then humans so imagine how you would feel if the person you love is going to die before you've even lived to your equivalent of 20? Or even worse if you two have children.

>>3005406
Other way around Elves' candles burn longer, humans' burn brigher.

>>3005344

That tombstone in Hobbitton will be worn down and destroyed by rain and the passage of time, and you will still remember.
That family line will die out, and you will still remember.
Every life that you ever touched will fade to dust and you will still remember.
You will see the next bunch of mortals fighting the next "ultimate evil," facing the next round of atrocities, and maybe you will even work in the same capacity, but you will still remember.
And the next time.
And the next.
The passage of time alone will grind out every altruistic or optimistic impulse you might ever have. You will simply get TIRED of fighting evil, tired of the endless opposition of a few mass-graves instead of a bunch of smaller ones marked by tombstones that will crumble and fade leaving you and you alone to recall the names they were intended to commemorate. You will outlast the graveyards, and all the myriad ways people enter those graves will just stop mattering.

so, being weeaboo here, being an elf is sorta like being Lordgenome from Gurren Lagann?

"Oh, my princess died again. Time to get a new one."

>>3005285

Why the strange salute in this picture?

>>3005453
I...
that...
okay, you got me. good one. 7/10.

>>3005434

When you begin to realize that you aren't any better than your fellow sentient beings, but that their existence is tragically short compared to yours it's probably some sort of defense mechanism to stop caring about them as equals.

Thus the path to breeding red-heads or midgets begins.

>>3005406
Arwen/Aragorn.

Doesn't quite apply here since Tolkien's elves can just decide to stop living (as Arwen did shortly after Aragorn's death), but it's the same principle.

>>3005459

No honestly, why that salute to an American flag, especially if the picture is around 1940. Background behind it anyone?

Me? I forget how long I've lived. I mean, I could probably figure it out with the internet if I wanted to. I mean that fad you guys had with the big white wigs was kinda hard to miss. That and the lack of toiletries. You asses don't know how good it is to have toilet paper with lotion. I know some guys, some of the guys who hang around, like me. They've kind of gone nuts. But the thing is, they get rooted in. They stop, they try and make a home. Me, I keep wandering around. I live in the now. I've seen thousands of generations go by. But I don't think that way. Right now, you're as real as the girl I slept with back when Togas were popular. And in a day or two when I'm gone and I never see you again, its not that big a deal.

Anyone play Arcanum, and talk to the Elf that just starts a new life every like 80 years when all his human friends die?

Takes a new name, gets a new house, just starts the fuck over like migration periods for birds.

>>3005485
I'm stealing this for my next Vampire character, thank you.

>>3005482
The pledge of allegiance was made to shore up support for America during the Second World War. it didn't exist before then.

>>3005453

That salute was actually pretty widespread through American schools before World War II.

It's because it's the Roman salute, and our Founding Fathers were pretentious as FUCK.

Initially the Pledge of Allegiance called for a standard, hand-to-head military salute which would "gracefully extend outward" into a palm-down Roman salute, because of how great Classical culture was supposed to be.

An immortal would see that and see a thousand different, conflicting cultural meanings that have been stripped of their origins time and again. The Roman Salute has been turned from "something every Western nation does, to recognize their roots in Classical societies" to "something the Nazis did that douchebags do in imitation of them." An immortal would probably have a lot more cultural and social baggage that they just couldn't get rid of just because certain things haven't been popular in a mere hundred years.

>>3005496
Is their name some bastardization of Lazarus Long? Because jesus christ, could you all learn a thing or two from that man.

>>3005496
Does he give a reason why he does that? I can probably guess it being to depressing trying to remember them all.

>>3005523

I can't remember anymore really, haven't played that game in years.

And I could see that being the reason why he does it.

Now, what is sad is all these immortals who claimed they hung out with major figures in history. The world is a big place, and in most of it nothing interesting is happening. Like me? I missed the renissance because I was lost in russia. Shut up it's a big place.

>>3005571
No biggie. Once I missed the French revolution and the Napoleonic wars because I fell off a boat in the middle of the Atlantic and swam for several years. Turns out I was actually swimming in circles. Literally. God, shit was so weird when I got back.

>>3005590
Fuuuuck I hate boats. It only takes getting locked in the brig then having the boat sink once to get you to never go near 'em again.

>>3005590
I know what you mean. I missed the turn of the 20th century and all of it up to the 1980s because I was stuck at the bottom of the ocean.

You guys have NO idea how bad it is to be stuck at the bottom of ocean when you can't die from starvation but still need to fucking eat.

I'm going to ground that kid until he's fifty when I get home.

>>3005618
Kinda lol'd.

I really want to write a short story about an elf hundreds of years old now. Thank you all for the wonderful ideas.

The other thing about longer-lived races is their idea of what constitutes a 'long time' is skewed.

"So I went on a little expedition to the southern continent, and by the time I got back the humans had gone through three kings, two revolutions, established democracy and then been conquered by barbarians."

>>3005711
and then on the other end are the Thri-Kreen, who live for like 35 years and don't sleep, and consider species that do "lazy."

adhd must be a terrible affliction for an elf in the longterm.

>>3005743

Even worse: OCD. Can you imagine what would happen if it got progressively worse? At least people would be limited by time and their lifespans. Can you imagine how bad an immortal could get?

What if an Elf lived hundreds of years but could not remember events from a week past?

>>3005508
Yeah, and all he's going to teach you is math, how to cook, and to never sit with your back to the door.
Oh, and how to fight IF you are a girl, otherwise he's just going to toss you out the moment you hit 18.

>>3005795
That's what ADD is to elves. =P

>>3005248
He already won diagonally, why's he still playing

>>3005571
Could be worse, you know. You might have had a hand in something. I was on a walking tour of Germany, and needed a postcard to send a message to a friend, so I bought one from this guy who painted them near this river. They were rubbish, but I could write on them. I told him 'You're a shit artist. You should try public speaking.'.

Seventy years and millions of jews later....

>>3005909

Heh, remember way back when the most powerful Western nations were run by mentally deficient aristocratic Christian extremists who squandered their elite war machine on pointless invasions of the Middle East because they were terrified of unrelated attacks by various Muslim groups? And how they succeeded territorially and on a kill-to-kill level but inevitably lost because they couldn't manage to convert the population to their culture and way of life?

Man, I really started missing those days.

A few strings pulled in British and American intelligence agencies later...

>>3005909
I fucking lol'd heartily.

I like to play Dwarves that have been around a while, and so I tend to call people by their father's names, refer to the white-haired king as 'The Upstart', refer to the incumbent government as 'the revolutionaries', and occasionally speak in a dead tongue.

My last one also had a hard time telling elves, women, or anything beardless apart, because as a dwarf the main facial feature is the beard. When the rogue figured this out, she started re-braiding my beard in my sleep, and I ended up getting in a fight with a mirror once.

I imagine they wouldn't really view themselves as long-lived.

Case in point, humans like to be all "life is short" and "memento mori" even though we outlive most of the other animals on this planet.

This reminds me of The Game of Blood and Dust by Roger Zelazny. I just wish I could find my Last Defender of Camelot so I could read it again.

I hate elves. Oh sure, they're nice to look at, which is part of the problem. We're always be comparing ourselves to them and losing. I think we have enough eating disorders going around without our kids comparing themselves to willowy sylvanfolk with pointy ears.

They have a show on the History Channel called 'What Really Happened' where elves who lived in various historical eras would tell everyone what horrible people our founding fathers were, and that Aristotle and Plato were frauds who stole thier ideas from far wiser men who didn't know how to write. And what could we do about it? Nothing! They were really there!

Elves would probably heckle churchgoers. "Nyer nyer, if God loves you so much why didn't he make you immortal the first time around?" The smug jerks.

And speaking of being immortal, they'd probably all have a ton of letters behind their names from going to college so much just so they could be smarter than the rest of us. They'd kick ass on all the game shows. And be jerks about it.

Regis Philbin: "Welcome back to 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, we're here with our latest contestant... Silvermoon, was it?"

Elf: "I'm Silvermoon Appleleaf, PhD. RN, OB/GYN, LMT, PD, PI, RSVP. I've graduated Harvard fifty-two times."

Regis: "That's great Mr. Appleleaf. I understand you met George Washington?"

Elf: "That's right, Regis. I was at a party with some friends and he came in slobbering drunk and kept goosing people before he passed out in a puddle of his own vomit. Can we hurry this up? I'm on Jeopardy in an hour and I want to tell them about the time Ben Franklin spit on a beggar."

I typically don't play elves, simply because I don't have the brain to comprehend the age of one, nor the wherewithal to brag about how much better I am. I did play one elf, though. Fagen Fairheart was his name: He was an Ancient, going senile elf.

THAT was fun.

>>3005285

son of a BITCH, I just blew fucking soda out of my nose.

WHY WAS THAT SO FUNNY?

/tg/, please tell me more about how to convincingly roleplay immortal humanoids.

>>3006034
My Urban Arcana campaign is going to be even more fuckwin.

>>3006034
i fucking lol'd

>>3006034

Man, considering what we did to the Neanderthals, I don't think Elves would survive. Not to mention, for "immortal" beings they're pretty fragile. Since we're assuming they live a long time, I'm guessing this isn't 4e, ergo they have -2 Con. Plagues, strong winds, muscular thugs...Elves are gonna get fucked up, most probably won't even reach three hundred.

Could you imagine living with one? As a room-mate? It'd be terrible. They'd hog the bathroom, clogging the drains with thier long silky hair, and then expect you to pay for the plumber! And forget about having them as friends. If they got to know you they'd be those pushy friends who always want you to improve yourself.

You: "Hey, Legolas. What's up?"

Legolas: "What's up is you you havn't learned kinesiobiology yet! Hit those books, you've only got another sixty years or so to cure cancer! At this rate the only way you'll be in a medical journal is if you're the first victim of something."

You: "What, like you ever cured a fatal illness?"

Legolas: "Of course I have. About fifty years ago I contracted Wahooni Fever while on safari in the Amazon. I spent the next twenty years studying pharmacology and botany until I discovered a cure AND a vaccine."

You: "I've never heard of Wahooni Fever."

Legolas: "And now you know why. Won me my second Nobel, that nasty virus did. Did I mention I met Sigmund Freud shortly after? He was SO gay."

And the worst part about it is we couldn't get rid of them! They're sentient beings! So it would be murder! And they'd probably work it out with the courts that killing elves would have a more severe punishment, since elves live so much longer. And they'd literally get away with murder.

Judge: "This court finds you Guilty of Murder in the First, Second, and Fifth Degree. I sentence you to twenty-five years imprisonment."

Elf: "Wait a minute, I kill a guy because I was tired of him begging me to make him a mithril shirt... and you're going to clothe, feed, and shelter me for twenty-five years? That's friggin' GREAT! I was just thinking I could use a nap!"

>>3005434

This is more being undead than being an elf. Elves have all kinds of religious and cultural stuff to deal with this. That's why they're so chaotic and "liberated" seeming, to avoid the sheer, mind-crushing weight of memories.

>>3006108

And that is why California kept the death penalty.

We have too many of those elvish types to get rid of something like that, and all the appeals in the world won't keep our executioners at bay forever.

>>3006108

Considering the enforced faggotry that goes on in prisons, I don't think elves would view them as getting scott free.

>>3006117
Undead don't often survive weathering and such longer than graveyards do.

>>3006128
Do you REALLY think that elves would deign to be put in the same prisons as humans?

>>3005440

This would actually be fuckawesome, and makes a good idea for an Eladrin BBEG. Collects human girls, throws them out when bored.

>>3006128
Considering the innate faggotry of being an elf, I don't think it would be a problem.

This is why the Cullers of the Elan are so very careful of whom they turn into honest to psionics immortals.

The main key is zest for life. Alignment is a far distant cry for why they give someone immortality. The elan choose for verve, curiosity, and adventuresome instincts. The spark of life must be strong or they do not offer the chance at immortality. and since they can spend as long as they like observing someone they want to change, they rarely make mistakes.

Elan are the one race that can outlive elves with regularity, and some of the older elan treat elves just like elves treat humans, remembering things that happened three or four generations back....among elves.

Basically, elan are to elves what twilight vampires are to vampires.

>>3006184
Elf: Humans. How dirty and lowly they are.
Elan:.....
Elf: I remember when they were just beginning to create what they called a civilization. it was actually funny.
Elan:....
Elf: I mean why can't they see how great elves are?
Elan: Your grandmother never told you this, but every one of your ancestors were nothing but thieves and whores, and I should know, they tried to steel from me and I would beat them with metal stick. and they were dirty whores too.

>>3006198

Pillory would like to discuss that with you at length.

A lawful evil immortal is going to be a threat to all races if she suddenly decides it might be amusing to take over a small country for a while....and a chaotic evil elan can REALLY create a major disaster; I could see thrallherd chaotic evil elan inciting something like the rapine storm in some far off countryside and turning it into a devastating mass of crawling chaos, consuming all sanity and.....

So that's what Nyarlahotep is.

An elf that still wakes up in night sweats, traumatized by scenes from a war not even human historians remember-and he's still basically late twenties.

Mommy, what happened to daddy? and what happened to that nice old man that lived with us?

>>3006223
So you're saying the analogy doesn't hold true because... what, elans are more eviller? Twilight vampires have nasty acidic venom for saliva and no fangs (OW), fuck human partners into bruised unconsciousness, and engage in child grooming...

>>3006246

Awww. ;_;

>>3006256

X's Storyteller has an irrational and intense dislike of vampires in general.

>>3006269
Oh well, trollian unsuccessful. But I do have an irrational and intense dislike of Xiombargh's ST in general. I think I am less able to enjoy yuri after reading her stuff.

My next elven character is going to be a harlequin monk with ranks in perform (comedy), lots of tumbling skills, and versatile unarmed strike. He'll be flamboyant, might be gay, and will slice your weapons in half with his fingernails.

>>3006138

Liches and Vampires do.

>>3006329

This is badass, sir.

This all assumes that immortals have a perfect memory; maybe elves do, but I don't see why undead would. (After all, humans don't.)

You could have a lich who has even forgotten how he ever became a lich.

>>3006540
Vampires who forget who they once were, eh?

>>3006540
"You know, when I was human... Wait... Was I human, or did I live among humans. Well, anyway, I decided to prolong my life by becoming a lich. I made a phylactus. Phylacterum? Phylactery? Whatever it was, I made on. Don't recall where I put it down..."

>>3007105

Prophylactic?

>>3007105

senile lihc

>>3006108
That's why we have the ability to give someone multiple life sentences with no possibility of parole. 400 year lifespan doesn't seem so exciting now does it?

>>3006096

Nobody really knows "what we did" with the Neanderthals.

>>3008030
One theory is that the Neanderthals required more calories then humans did, because of that they had to hunt for meat much more often, as well as include female neanderthals in the hunt. Because of this, they didn't have much gathering supplies to rely on, so humans just plain out-performed them. We were more efficient.

>>3006540
If anything it'd make more sense for undead to have perfect memory, after all they have no brain to limit it (though they might have something else).

>>3008157
You're assuming the brain holds memories. Oh dear, horrible flashbacks to MSG1..

>>3005308
Thanks to the medieval stasis, they're not that dramatically different

>>3008152

i thought humans evolved from cavemen. wait, what? I shouldve paid attention in grade school

>>3008337
No, I think some fa/tg/uys are living proof than Neanderthals still live.

>>3008337
B. Cave men never existed.
A. Cave men were human already.

>>3008152
Neanderthals also went extinct around the same time humans invented bows and arrows.

>>How to roleplay longer-lived races more convincingly

Just don't use them.

/thread

Archive this thread?

>>3005220

I have a boner.Loli-skeleton fetish !!!!

The theory currently in fashion regarding neanderthal is that they never got exterminated but were just assimiltaed in the genepool of Europeans.

>>3005289
If I were in a situation like that, I'd hate elves.

Most worlds just assume that an immortal being has an unlimited capacity for memory. This I think is bullshit. If an Elf, Vampire or whatever the hell is basically psychologically human their ability to recall information would be similar.

...Forgetting, after all, is necessary for learning new things. I see two options here 1.) The mind of the immortal being becomes progressively worse at leaning new stuff, like that of a very old human. A vampire from the 11th century would have a vivid memory of the world of his own time, but it would take him the best part of the 20th century to get his head around the concept of the telephone, and would frequently forget that they even exist. I once ran a campaign set in the 40k universe, and one of the characters was a senile Space Marine dreadnought, with vivid memories of the Horus Heresy, but increasingly fragmentary knowledge of later centuries. A kind of Don Quiote, if you will, with profound difficulties learning the names of the other party members, and had to be constantly reminded what they were doing and why.

....Option 2.) The ability of the creature to learn and forget remains the same through out their life. Example; I once ran an anime-horror style campaign set in the 19th century. One of the characters was an extremely old Vampire. She remained mentally alert and capable of learning and adapting to her surroundings, but no longer recalled her origins. The oldest memory she had was of being a queen of a Sarmatian tribe some time during the roman empire, but was pretty sure she was a vampire then, and had already been for a while. All old vampires were like this and many of them vaguely remembered having known each other for a long time but had no real recollection what their relationship had been or how they had met. The character in question had no idea that she was in fact born a vampire and was the "mother" of all vampires.

I remember reading a sci-fi story by Steven Baxter, where a particularly ancient woman has been alive for a number of centuries through rejuvenative therapies and drugs. Oldest living human.

He had an interesting thing going on -- it was suggested that she would do audits of her own memory every so many decades, culling out the recollection of things she no longer found important. The human brain can only hold so much, in his interpretation. So her memories of herself are very fragmentary, limited in large swaths of time.

...The third option, I suppose, would be a creature capable of retaining and recalling huge amounts of memories and information. This may however result in a lowered capacity for cognitive flexibility, or "creative thinking". In any case such a mind would be structurally quite different from a human, and thus very difficult to play in a convincing and meaningful way.

>>3005981
win

>>3010397
>>3010412
>>3010451
Different poster, but new idea: What if the person in question was able to store memories outside of their own mind. This kind of stems from Harry Potter (if anyone read and remembers it, now don't get all butthurt on me) where Dumbledore has that whatever it is that he stores important memories that aren't (as) important to the current timeframe. Human memory (and likely extending into demi-humans and/or humanoids) has a limit. It is large, yes, but there is a limit. So what if there was some form of a spell, similar to creating a phylactery, that stored one's memories inside the object. They can store memories that they don't deem relevant to the time period they're currently in inside this object, and access them at a later time, like for storytelling or such.

Read "Dark Communion" about a Thousand Sons sorcerer named Karlsen.

Once a Captain of the Thousand Sons, Karlsen became a Champion of Tzeentch and a veteran of the Long War, having fought against the Imperium since the Horus Heresy. A Sorcerer Karlsen took part in nearly all of his Legion's significant history, including the fall of Prospero, the Battle of Terra and countless other combat actions. His lifespan unnaturally extended by his Chaotic patron, Karlsen went completely insane on more than one occasion due to the burden of his experiences, before he invented a ritual to 'partition' his mind and safely store his memories. Karlsen has noticeable mutations: one of his hands is fused to his bolter and he operates the weapon by mental control, whilst the fingers of his other hand have lengthened to become almost tentacle-like.

>>3011661

"Could any mind remain intact after ten thousand years. Would it not splinter under the impact of all that accumulated experience? Would not the years bring madness? Instinctively Karlsen knew that he had gone mad many times. There had been centuries when he had gibbered insanely, years when he had reiterated a single crazed chant. He knew that he had lost so much. No mind could hold all his memories. They overflowed like amasec from an overfilled cup. It was part of the gift and the curse of his immortality."

>>3011661
Wait, what/where is this story, exactly?

>>3011678

"That was why... he and his men celebrated the Dark Communion. They preserved what was important. They stayed themselves and did not devolve into howling Chaos Spawn."

>>3011693

"Karlsen cleared his mind as he had learned so long ago. He turned his gaze inward. He needed no drugs, no chants, none of the aids and adjuncts that lesser sorcerers used. He had ten millenia of practice and his powers were strong. He envisioned a vast cavern, the walls of which were lined with pigeon-holes. In each pigeon-hole was a memory. One that he had chosen to preserve. It would remain in this protected space within his mind for as long as he would live. Karlsen had achieved the first level of the Ritual."

>>3011691

I'm writing down fluff from my 2nd Ed. Wargear Codex.

It's called "Dark Communion". IIRC, it's also appeared on White Dwarf and other publications.

>>3011691
I know it was in the 2e Codex Imperialis, not sure other than that 'though.

>>3011746
>>3011737

OLDMIND

Go read Jolee Bindo's dialogue from KotOR. The guy is a perfect example of how age brings perspective. He knows that no matter how evil the current superbad is that whether or not it gets killed won't be relevant in a thousand years, but still fights it because you have to believe in something.

>>3011730

That's that memory-crystal thing from the second edition rulebook, isn't it?

Elves don't live that long in D&D; only like 500 years and change. They still have to worry about dying eventually, but their culture pushes them towards a certain caution and pace.

Warforged, on the other hand, live forever, but seem to be going a million miles a minute.

>>3011481

Idea: a race of long-living humanoids store centuries of memories and experience and emotions in some vast, extra-dimensional magic vault, with only a few more shelves of space left--the party must discover the secret of this vault and what will happen when it is filled.

>>3011849

>what will happen when it is filled.

My take: The ancient race has planned its archives after a prophecy that predicted that the universe will end after a certain time has passed. Well, that time is now, and the world doesn't seem keen on ending, so rather than enlarge their archive the ancients decide to take matters into their own hands and end the world themselves...

>>3009184
But that only deals with European neanderthals. Is the theory now that all neanderthals everywhere were assimilated? I would actually find it more believable in the case of non-European neanderthals. They all looked stranged, but the European ones were just fugly.

>>3008152
This theory makes more sense, particularly in the case of European neanderthals, who continued to live in caves even as H. sapiens moved into the area and settled hilltops. From hilltops, H. sapiens had a natural advantage in hunting and foraging. The neanderthals were just out-competed.

>>3008362
Ah, but the neanderthals had much more effective tools in general at that point and, if I recall correctly (I might not), had much improved spear technology by that point. They were at a disadvantage living in caves, but in some ways they were advanced.

Still, bows are a lot more useful in hunting small game than spears.

Nonetheless, stone age history is all conjecture with far too little to really work with.

Back on topic: It took me several years of roleplaying before I really stopped and thought about the way a long-lived or immortal creature's perspective would differ from a humans. I don't know why. I suppose it was because I mostly played Human or Halfling Rogues and Fighters throughout high school. I mean, I was aware that there would be a different outlook, but I never really gave it any thought. When I did, the appeal of it struck me very suddenly. My next character was a 300 year old Necropolitan historian. Then, when he got his head blown off 3 or 4 sessions into the game, I saw why this doesn't actually work so well for the adventurin' types.

Once I played a game where a female elf and male human got around the whole age difference by simply have the elf remarry whatever body the humans soul reincarnated into. things stayed fresh for the elf and the human didn't have to worry about going insane from boredom if he ever got immortality. This continued until the elf died.

>>3011831
That's from exposure to House Cannith. And the fact that none of them have been around long enough for all their friends to start dieing off (age not war).

OT, but I can't help but imagine what it might have been like when Hss and Hsn coexisted. The closest thing there ever was to not being alone in the universe.

I had a thought about Elves fighting many long forgetton wars and it taking grand emotional toll on him until the point of apathy of what was going on.

What if the elf was retarded/dumb or at least retarded by elf standards? Like he has about the intelligence of a standard human with little means of advance thought. Would he keep fighting those pointless fights and long wars forever? Would he find himself on different sides of the conflict as eras progressed?

Im not talking amnesic either just simple minded and things are hard to remember. Basically a elf without a care in the world.

>>3011678
>They overflowed like amasec from an overfilled cup. It was part of the gift and the curse of his immortality."

UGH