Races #10. Elves

Elves were #10 on my favorite races list, but that still means they are one of my favorites. Elves are my default as a player race, where most others would default to human. I love the mysterious mystical nature of elves, as well as their beautiful and unique appearance. One of the few elves I have actually made was Leorin Treant. He was a rugged rouge who, driven by his religion, hunted down magical artifacts and hunted magic users for a living. He embodied by favored archetype of the magical rouge/fighter, something I think elves do very well.  

In Basic DnD, Elves were given the ability to fight as well as cast spells. This is also true of some retroclones like S+W as well as DCC RPG. The idea that elves can be a decent mix of fighter and magic user must have been very interesting in the years before multiclassing was more viable. Elves also possess valuable and interesting equipment for a party. For example, Elven Bread or Mithral Weapons. I used Elven Bread in my Dungeon World game that ended recently, and one of the elves in my DCC game is packing a valuable (Masterwork) Mithral Sword. The downside of elves is that they are very fragile, so the Level-0 swordsman in my DCC game also has to make due with 2 HP.

I love the racial variety that comes with elves. Drow (Dark Elves) are a common favorite, and my friends have played a fair share of Drow Assassins or vicious thieves. There are almost too many variants, I admit, but sometimes it's interesting to consider the possibilities. There are magic-focused Grey Elves, and the woodland stalking Wood Elves. There are also different versions of High-Elves like the Eladrin. One of the good things from 4e in my opinion were the races. My first character was a dragonborn, and the Eladin's Fey Step just made my younger self giggle with glee as I imagined teleporting around like Nightcrawler from the X-men! One of my friends even asked to play a sea-elf once and it was fairly interesting.

Overall, elves in DnD for me tackle two very important factors. Variety or flexibility, in the case of both the multiple races and the old-school tendency to be a magical fighter. The other factor is the mystical quality of elves. I enjoy playing tricky casters, and I remember playing an Elven Fortune Teller named Cyrus who would use his enchanted cards as weapons as well as do things like open up cartoon-like holes underneath people to trap a group of guards.

I also would like to point out that Link from the Legend of Zelda at least looks like an elf. As a video-game fan it would be strange to leave that out. I've also been watching No Game No Life [right image], and the way the elves look in that anime are just really beautiful and colorful...as elves should be. I don't think I'd say the same for every anime depiction though, since I've heard pretty strange things about this guy from Sword Art Online [left image] (even though I haven't watched it yet).

DCC Play Report: Heroes of Dundraville Part 1

An interesting game of DCC that I played this week with some of my friends.

The Cast:
Valentine the Cursed Burglar
Cortez the Sailor
Maximus the King's Squire
Gale, Briz, and Blake the traveling elves
Darius the escaped Slave
Aina the "older sister" and younger Elyza, female con-artists
John the chaotic Heretic Farmer
Siddarma the batty Fortune Teller
Pimptruchio the well-spoken, pig-riding dwarf
Georgia the Drunken Scribe
Roric the Jolly Fruit Salesman
Thumble the Yellow, Halfling glovemaker
Jace Ty, the depressive ropemaker

The session this time mostly focused on setting up the parties and preparing for the start of the adventure.
Characters featured were Cortez, Maximus, Blake, Darius, John, Elyza, Pimptruchio, and Roric with the others in background roles. The characters were controlled by four different players and we were running through the DCC #0 module to start out our funnel (spoilers ahead).

Darius, the slave, jumped off of the slave ship (off camera, something I regret not fleshing out) and Cortez was sent after him.
Maximus is a squire sent from a foreign kingdom to assist with the current Ogre problem.
The two con artists steal a few silver coins (using the performance rules from Pathfinder as a distraction) and manage to make out with a meal as well as profit.
Along with the two women, Valentine and the elves enter the bar. John is already present, but it is not wildly obvious until later.
Pimptruchio, the wild boar riding dwarf smashes into the bar, accidently impaling the elven lawyer named Blake (he had 6 intelligence and failed out of law school, so he was not missed.)
Things heated up when the irritated John used his mug of beer to ignite the lowly elf, dooming his soul to oblivion and earning John a point of luck from the forces of Chaos.
The Merry Riot Inn worked to extinguish the fire as the guests piled out.

Meanwhile, as Cortez exits the inn, he catches a glimpse of the tan-skinned Darius running shirtless toward the farmland. A dramatic foot chase erupted and one Dex contest later the slave managed to outrun his captor. I used a simple contest rather than complex chase rules since they were mostly running in an open field with no obstacles or time limit, and this is actually how it is meant to be resolved based on D20SRD (under movement). After Darius manages to fight off Cortez, pushing him to the ground with a grapple check and a fumble by the sailor he retreats back to town.

Thumble hides inside the brewery after the commotion with the wild pig. He finds a secret stash of drugs hidden by the brewers and snatches a bag for himself. I've hinted that it is probably some form of Halfling cocaine or opium, and will totally take the chance to use some drug rules from PF and 3.5.

The last highlight in town was Roric visiting the old man Tarik outside of town. Roric heard about a strange rat who fled towards the Ogre's cave and decided to hunt it down. The old man who battled the ogre before hands Roric (who does not use a bow) his lucky black hefted arrow and wishes him good luck.

Roric also met with Darius and provided him clothes and support. The charity earned him a point of luck from the forces of Good (I'm using the nine-alignments). Darius now owes a debt to the man and follows him on his quest.

Two parties formed:
Max, Valentine (a friend of Max), John, Siddarama, Georgia, the Dwarf Pig-Rider, the remaining elves, and the two thieving girls (hoping to loot the dead bodies of the adventurers) head for the Ogre.

Jace, Thumble, and Roric (controlled by the same player), join with Darius to locate the mysterious rat who was described as killing a dog much bigger than it.

Cortez remained in town to search for Darius after getting up, effectively deciding it was safer to stay in town and at least make sure one character would be alive by the end. Plus a sailor would be no use inside of a dry cave anyway.

Next week the adventure continues, and we have a running theme of placing bets on characters.
The thief party basically bet that the entire ogre party will die and the rat hunters will lose characters as well.
I bet that Aina would be the next one to die, since she is among the weakest characters currently, but looking over the roster it could easily be anyone's game.

My Favorite Races in Fantasy

Here is a quick list of my favorite fantasy races. I might expand on each race in further posts.
10.Elves
9.Gnolls
8.Trolls
7.Minotaurs
6.Gelatinous Cube and other Oozes
5.Werewolves
4.Vampires
3.Lizardmen
2.Doppelgangers
1.Demons

Also, I am recently chasing further leads when it comes to my online games:
I am planning on running Island of the Drow once I wrap up my semester on Sunday, and am still trying to prepare an online DCC game. Hopefully the players I've asked will respond by this weekend.

The prologue for Ravenloft has been prepared and I am eagerly exited to begin making characters within the next month.

Once Ravenloft is finished (It could be a few months long if everything goes right and there is no TPK), I'm planning on playing a game of Dark Sun or running Murder in Baldur's Gate, depending on how my players feel. The Dark Sun Pdfs will be released soon, so I am very interested in trying it out in whatever system we end up playing it in.
As for Baldur's Gate, I will decide that system at some other point, though I'll probably use pathfinder or DCC rules instead of DND Next (mostly because I don't like learning TOO many different rules at once.)

I also forgot to note that I will be playing in my Hobby Game Club in a Club-Wide Pathfinder game as the daemon-blooded fey changeling spy named Sin Sille. Hopefully her crazy genealogy will be enough to make her interesting!
My original plan was to play a shapechanger of some kind before we moved towards golarion. Changelings in pathfinder are the children of hags, though I recently used my google-fu to find this interesting page:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Daemonfey
I might have to ask my DM if this could be allowed instead of just being a daemonblood sorcerer. With a level adjustment of 2, it would still work with the level 3 start.