Great video! Really appreciated the note, quick as it was, about the potential eco-fascism vibes that often come with the traditional wood elf flavour. Also the note on how the evil crazy "barbaric" elves just so happen to be matriarchal (not even addressing the racial aspect of dark elves, at least in earl D&D). I personally love having the different kin in my settings being as different as possible, one of my biggest pet peeves is all the option being "human, human with pointy ears, human with beard, and small human." So making elves "alien" instead of just perfect has been my go to. They are perfect but to an entirely inhuman lens. This does mean I rarely have them as a playable option but pfff oh well
Gotta save some content for a dark elf video :p And yeah-- I'm a huge sucker for "traditional fantasy species now featuring Unique Alien Traits™". I've had an opportunity lately to try some games where the elves are pretty mechanically unique, and at least mostly avoid the old "barbaric dark elves" tropes; it's been really fun and I'm really excited to find more down the road!
Great video! Really appreciated the note, quick as it was, about the potential eco-fascism vibes that often come with the traditional wood elf flavour. Also the note on how the evil crazy "barbaric" elves just so happen to be matriarchal (not even addressing the racial aspect of dark elves, at least in earl D&D).
I personally love having the different kin in my settings being as different as possible, one of my biggest pet peeves is all the option being "human, human with pointy ears, human with beard, and small human." So making elves "alien" instead of just perfect has been my go to. They are perfect but to an entirely inhuman lens. This does mean I rarely have them as a playable option but pfff oh well
Gotta save some content for a dark elf video :p
And yeah-- I'm a huge sucker for "traditional fantasy species now featuring Unique Alien Traits™". I've had an opportunity lately to try some games where the elves are pretty mechanically unique, and at least mostly avoid the old "barbaric dark elves" tropes; it's been really fun and I'm really excited to find more down the road!