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Baltas
Senior Scribe
Poland
955 Posts |
 Posted - 04 Sep 2014 : 18:26:45
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| Well, it's a bit ambigous what exacly the LeShay are. In 3.0/3.5, they elven racial traits, and in 4rth edition they are counted as Eladrin(Sun, Moon, Grey, High and Faerie Elves), or as at least an related, but greater beings. At least one, they had been described as Noble Eladrin. A discussion on Planewalker compared them to Sie, the ancestors of faeries and elves on Cerilia. Elves of Faerun fan project also theorized about their connections and relaionship with elves. |
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Barastir
Master of Realmslore
Brazil
1600 Posts |
Posted - 05 Sep 2014 : 03:26:04
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quote:
Originally posted by LordofBones
quote:
Originally posted by Barastir
People usually complain about the perfectness on Tolkien's elves. In fact, most of them are too good to be true, because Tolkien drank on the mythical elves, inspiring himself also in angels...
Let's be fair, whoever said that Elves were perfect have never really read the books. Legolas all but wets himself when Durin's Bane showed up, and Sauron played the Noldor like a fiddle when he was mucking around as Annatar.
That's why I said "most" seem too good, and mentioned the cursed ones earlier in the thread. And thinking of angels, one third of them were corrupted by Lucifer. But yes, many complain without having read the books.  |
"Goodness is not a natural state, but must be
fought for to be attained and maintained.
Lead by example.
Let your deeds speak your intentions.
Goodness radiated from the heart."
The Paladin's Virtues, excerpt from the "Quentin's Monograph"
(by Ed Greenwood) |
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 05 Sep 2014 : 11:20:04
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quote:
Originally posted by sfdragon
as for jhaamdath, I asked Ed in his scroll about jhaamdath, he said that it would likely have fallen in on itself or to its neighbors on all sides.
so if jhaamdath wiped out the elves, Jhaamdath would still have fallen.
blaming the elves over it when self preservation became dire is hardly genocide .....
and I doubt there was a lot of innocent in jhaamdath anyway. They likely had the my ruler lord and king has ordered me to go out and kill, S.assualt and pillage the elven kingdom, following the duty of a soldier and failing to remember the responsibility of a solider... which would be to justify the orders and his own conduct on carrying out those orders.
If I understand you correctly, you're making the following arguments.
1. Jhaamdath was doomed to fall no matter what, and so the Elves were justified in creating a massive tsunami which wiped them out to preserve their lands.
2. That because Jhaamdath was teetering on collapse either from within or from it's other neighbors, that the entire discussion is a moot point.
3. There were no innocents in Jhaamdath because they likely had compulsory military service.
If I am understanding you correctly, I am not seeing how you draw your conclusions.
First, while there is no evidence that I'm aware of that they had compulsory military service, even if they did it would be irrelevant. Not every citizen of the nation was a criminal. It's a bit like Hamas saying that there are no civilians in modern Israel, because in Israel there is compulsory military service upon turning eighteen.
That's just silly, if nothing else the children and those incapable of serving for whatever reason still count as innocent, even if you don't count anyone who would ever conceivably fight.
Second, your first two points that I outlined above actually support the counter argument - the case against the Elves. After all, if Jhaamdath was so close to falling, then it means the threat to the Elves would have ended on it's own. Therefore, the act of genocide in which they engaged was unnecessary. This actively diminishes the threat Jhaamdath posed to the Elves.
Furthermore, the fact that Jhaamdath was going to fall anyway doesn't somehow erase the innocent people slaughtered by the Elves. Had the nation fallen, it's not like those that were left behind would have magically disappeared with it. They would have continued to exist.
There really is no escaping the fact that committing an act of genocide is an evil aligned act in D&D. If for no other reason than they wiped out scores of innocent children. The only time genocide becomes acceptable in D&D is when ALL who are being slain are innately evil by their nature (such as devils or demons). |
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kysus
Learned Scribe
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 09:04:15
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Sfdragon, I feel you on this topic as I do hate this thread as well. The entire title of this thread is a loaded question that I feel does a disservice to candlekeep. This thread should have been in the running the realms section as it is more inline with someone needing help with their particular game, as well as have a slightly different title to show that instead of a statement that makes it sound like this is the official stance of one entire race in cannon having its finer points discussed. I shouldn't have to have new players come on here looking for information on elves come across this only to think this is the legitimate stance of cannon of how all elves act in forgottem realms and I have to spend time going through all the books to on this campaign setting to show them what is right and wrong with this topic and thats not counting what i would have to teach them on real world history alone.
Now with that being said it seems there are still some stuff that needs clarification.
@Aldrick
First Jhaamdath is described as a "militaristic land of xenophobic humans", so yeah its probally a safe bet that they had some sort of compulsory service and your probally right as well that means little in the plot, but your wrong in using the Hamas analogy, determining the civilian populations innocence would be more inline with Nazi Germany doing world war 2 in how the German population just went about their business knowing full well what was being doing to the Jewish people and that is what Sfdragon is trying to get across( if a population is in the know of what their government is doing to another population that is a horrible act and does nothing about it are their innocent?)
Second, now this is just ridiculous, that is taking what ed has said out of context. Ed was showing a what if down the road Jhaamdath was not going to collapse what ed was showing is what would happen to them if they kept up with their current foreign policy of being aggressive bullies, I.E they would eventually make it to the point of picking on countries that just happen to as the saying goes "keep it more real" and get themselves wiped out(pretty much what happened with both the roman empire and the Nazi when they went to far). The elves also did not have the luxury of time to wait them out, was made clear that Jhaamdath was after the forests resources and the elves were in the way of that. So with that in hand it was either Jhaamdath or Nikerymath, which btw it is stated that FULLY 90% of the elves were wiped out( here let me repeat that 90% since everyone seems to ignore that fact) in the war where no elf except the coranal was older that 200. So can you imagine being the coronal of a realm and having 90% of your people slaughtered and im talking whole generations, thats alot of culture lost for greed and then have to find a way to stop the enemy before the rest are dead, so yeah those 4 high mages may not have been doing a noble thing but they had their backs to a wall as well as being emotionally unstable at the time of making that decision, and one cant just say well we just wont fight cause then you just end up like myth Ondath a giant hole in the ground.
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 14:25:01
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quote:
Originally posted by kysus
...those 4 high mages may not have been doing a noble thing but they had their backs to a wall as well as being emotionally unstable at the time of making that decision...
And right there gets to the crux of the issue. It's not really a question of whether or not it was a smart strategic decision. I think most rational people, if placed in the position of the Elves would have said, "I F***ing hate humans! Die! All of you F***ing hairless monkeys, die!"
It's not an argument that Jhaamdath was a place of rainbows, sunshine, and happy go-lucky butterflies. It's an argument over whether or not an act of genocide can be considered a good aligned act in D&D.
The answer to that question is clear, and that answer is no. It doesn't matter if their backs were against the wall. It doesn't matter if their entire race faced extinction if they didn't do it. All that matters in D&D morality terms is that they were wiping out -some- innocent people, if nothing else - the human children who had no say in what the adults were doing. That in and of itself makes it an evil act.
The only way genocide could ever be justified in D&D is if the entire race or ethnic group were innately evil. If that were the case, then that would allow you to kill their children with impunity. Killing evil things in D&D is generally a good aligned act, especially things that are innately evil and thus are not likely to ever be redeemed.
You can try and look at things from a real world point of view, but in the D&D universe these Elves committed a horrific crime. Alignment in D&D is black and white. Knowingly killing innocent people, especially children, is always an evil act. It doesn't matter how emotional you are when you do it, as that is not a justifiable excuse. |
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Bladewind
Master of Realmslore
Netherlands
1280 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 15:48:59
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Wars are neutral in the current faerunian pantheon because of Tempus hold over its portfolio. So certain acts that are done in times of war can be seen as a neutral. I think Tempus would see the destructiveness of epic siege magic as evil. But loads of local war gods (Garagos, Gruumsh, Horus-Re, Hoar, Valkur) have quite different views on war, Corellon included.
To Corellon, war is an art in itself, and epic war magic is a beautiful thing of terrible power. Its the epitome of magics destructive side, and all the preparations to cast it, the sounds and colors involved in the admicture of the weaves energy, the shine of its powerful unleashing, are a thing of art to Corellons eyes. A good thing he learns his elves restraint in its usage. Corellons fey side probably relishes a chance to witness such acts, but his ties, oaths and views on life accumulated over eons make him (and his clergy) abhor its consequences. But most elves on Faerun know that when the time comes, sometimes destruction of the scale of epic proportions is needed to ensure survival, so best work hard and ensure that those times never will come to pass.
To most modern faerunians with knowledge on this subject elves would be considered to have performed a horribly evil act, but I think some could see it with a more neutral stance and consider the casting a retaliation in an attempt to end a war that had seen terrible evils commited for years on end. |
My campaign sketches
Druidic Groves
Creature Feature: Giant Spiders |
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 20:04:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Bladewind
Wars are neutral in the current faerunian pantheon because of Tempus hold over its portfolio. So certain acts that are done in times of war can be seen as a neutral. I think Tempus would see the destructiveness of epic siege magic as evil. But loads of local war gods (Garagos, Gruumsh, Horus-Re, Hoar, Valkur) have quite different views on war, Corellon included.
To Corellon, war is an art in itself, and epic war magic is a beautiful thing of terrible power. Its the epitome of magics destructive side, and all the preparations to cast it, the sounds and colors involved in the admicture of the weaves energy, the shine of its powerful unleashing, are a thing of art to Corellons eyes. A good thing he learns his elves restraint in its usage. Corellons fey side probably relishes a chance to witness such acts, but his ties, oaths and views on life accumulated over eons make him (and his clergy) abhor its consequences. But most elves on Faerun know that when the time comes, sometimes destruction of the scale of epic proportions is needed to ensure survival, so best work hard and ensure that those times never will come to pass.
To most modern faerunians with knowledge on this subject elves would be considered to have performed a horribly evil act, but I think some could see it with a more neutral stance and consider the casting a retaliation in an attempt to end a war that had seen terrible evils commited for years on end.
That is an interesting way of viewing it, but I would say that the gods themselves do not shape what is good or evil. In fact, much like mortals, they themselves are defined by those things. Good, evil, law, and chaos in D&D are not subjective things. They are a fundamental part of the cosmos, as much as gravity is part of ours. They are fundamental laws simply built into how the universe works, and even the gods themselves cannot escape those laws.
This is what makes Tempus Chaotic Neutral, Anhur Chaotic Good, and Corellon Chaotic Good. It's the way that each of these deities approach their portfolios, and the way they encourage their followers to act. There are going to be some acts of war that Tempus will approve of that Anhur and Corellon will disapprove of simply by virtue of them being good aligned.
In the end, though, it doesn't really matter what any of these deities think. It only matters what is true for the alignment in the cosmos. Killing innocent people - even if it is to save your own life - is always going to be an evil act. Especially if you're killing children who happen to be innocent.
It doesn't matter how bad things are, whether your entire race faced complete and total extinction. It doesn't matter how angry you were, and it doesn't matter how evil the actions of another side. There is no such thing as evil justifying evil in D&D - actions are very black and white.
There were other options available to the Elves. For example, they could have fled. If they have the power to create a giant tsunami we have to believe that they also had the power to create portals that would have allowed them to evacuate the remaining Elves to safety. There were places for them to go, just to name one: Evermeet.
Another example, they could have used their magic to erect a magical barrier around their lands that made it difficult or near impossible for humans to enter. Say, a permanent magical fog that causes any non-elf walking through it to get lost and eventually stumble back out of their lands (or alternatively find their way into traps and die or starve to death). That pretty much eliminates the fear of an army attacking them.
Those are just two potential alternatives to genocide. They didn't take any of them or any other. As Kysus said, they were emotional unstable when they made the decision, because they were angry at being the targets of genocide themselves by Jhaamdath.
Being the target of genocide does have a tendency to leave a chip on your shoulder, doesn't it? It tends to make you angry and mad. I think anyone who is reasonable could put themselves in the shoes of the Elves and understand WHY they did it. The problem is, as I told Kysus, the problem isn't their reasoning or their emotions at the time, the problem is over their actions and how it reflects on them in terms of D&D.
In the grand scheme of things, in D&D, even if EVERY SINGLE ADULT in Jhaamdath was evil to the very bone and absolutely 100% deserved to die, their children were still innocent. The Elves engaged in mass murder literally massacred tens of thousands of innocent children of all ages. Children who had committed no crime aside from being born humans of a nation known as Jhaamdath. This makes killing them an evil act.
Understand, this is how evil really wins in the D&D universe. It takes people who might otherwise do good, and it manipulates them through anger, hatred, and greed and encourages them to see their actions as justified. I have no doubt that the Elves felt completely justified in their actions. I have no doubt that if they had to do it again, they'd probably do the same thing, just probably sooner.
It's like Gandhi said: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
It's like one of Friedrich Nietzsche's famous aphorisms: "He who fights with monsters should take care that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for too long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."
The Elves were fighting monsters with human faces, and in the process of doing so they lost their own humanity and chose to engage with them using the same tactics: Genocide. Out of hatred and grief over all that they had lost, they became no better than those they fought against. Thus, in the end, from the cosmological perspective in the D&D universe evil is what really won. The Elves were already doomed due to what had been done to them by Jhaamdath. Now they've doomed an entire nation and ethnic group of humans similarly. Score one for team evil. |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 23:33:46
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you still miss the point, Jhaamdath lost its humanity when it started it. Jhaamdath is where Lord Tyr made his appearance slaying the demi god of chaos of the time.
Jhaamdath did some crimes elsewhere in the realms, over flexing its own might and spending its own resources. It would have fallen either on its own sword or by the sword of another. To kill another in order to save your own life is not an evil act, nor is it lawful or chaos, nor is it good. Self preservation is a unalignable act and it always will be.
Wooly, Sage can this thread be locked now??? please |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2014 : 23:40:39
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oh yeah, just so that you know, I keep trying to go find links of Japan's WWII war crimes list as well as Germany's WWI and its WWII war crimes as well as its hitler's youth programs
and still I manage to hold from doing so. |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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kysus
Learned Scribe
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2014 : 01:24:48
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What the term for genocide is is not in doubt here, what is in doubt is what those high mages did considered genocide. You seem to be going with just black and white here and unfortunetly even in a game world where good and evil are very real nothing is ever that simple there is also a neutral in that alignment system, which btw most humans are. And if we went that route that you suggest then there could be no neutral alignment in faerun everyone would gravitate toward good or evil. First off for it to be an evil act you would have to show that the high mages did that with the intention of killing all of those innocents, and again not the case it was more likely that they were taking a crap shot at trying to stop an seemingly unstopable enemy and it didnt quite work out how they thought it would but you know what thats called causuelties of war( it happens sometimes doesnt make it good or bad it just is).
Now the 2 examples you use dont fly first we dont know what those high mages knew of high magic, they may not even had the ability to create fogs or mythals both of which is much more complicated than a super tidal wave. Those guys could have just been the last high mages standing at the end and at the bottom of the pole as high mages go, we can only assume they didnt have the ability to do that as they did not. Second running away is a cop out telling someone to just roll over and die or flee is riduculus, any kingdom has a right to defend themselves and their homes and that doesnt make them evil, is there going to be casualties of people innocent or not of course thats the sad nature of war it doesnt make either side evil unless it was their intent to cause those casualties in the first place.
Now my maine point that I keep getting side tracked from on this thread, lets say for the sake of argument that these high mages were evil and did all that on purpose cause they are sad sick elves, in what way shape of form does that correlate to all elves in that kingdom or for that matter all elves in general being evil genocidal maniacs that deserve death and treated as monsters. There are plenty of cases where that can be mentioned of humans and even dwarves. lets take the shoon emperium and all the horrible acts they did or the imaskayr with enslaving the mulharandi, or when the mulharandi wiped out the imaskayr to free themselves, or netheril even, should we consider all humans to be evil genocidal maniacs that deserve to be treated as monsters and given death.
It seems the only true victims here are the gnomes, everyone enslaves them and theyve done nothing to anyone. |
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2014 : 01:35:20
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quote:
Originally posted by sfdragon
you still miss the point, Jhaamdath lost its humanity when it started it. Jhaamdath is where Lord Tyr made his appearance slaying the demi god of chaos of the time.
Jhaamdath did some crimes elsewhere in the realms, over flexing its own might and spending its own resources. It would have fallen either on its own sword or by the sword of another. To kill another in order to save your own life is not an evil act, nor is it lawful or chaos, nor is it good. Self preservation is a unalignable act and it always will be.
Yes, fighting back against someone attacking you, and even killing them in the process is not an evil act in D&D. It's an unaligned act. However, if someone tries to stab you with a sword, and you not only kill them but also kill their husband/wife, their children, their other relatives, and everyone in their village... well... that's not really a good aligned act in D&D. And that's what the Elves did.
You're essentially saying that because the ruling powers that be (and those that followed them) chose to do horrible things, that every single sentient being that existed in Jhaamdath was equally guilty of those crimes and those crimes were worthy of death. Including children who had literally just been born.
That just doesn't make sense, unless you believe that the crimes of the parents transfer over to the children. In which case it still wouldn't make sense because in the D&D universe such a thing isn't recognized. People can believe that, just as some do in real life, but the D&D universe as a whole does not represent that as it's reality. Thus, people executing children because their parents are also murderers would become evil in the D&D universe.
Good, evil, law, and chaos are real and tangible things in the D&D universe. They are not abstract concepts that can be debated. Something is either a good or an evil act or it is not, and killing innocent people - even if it's to get rid of really bad people - is an evil act.
quote:
Originally posted by sfdragon
Wooly, Sage can this thread be locked now??? please
I don't see a reason to lock a thread simply because you don't like the fact that it points out that Elves have committed atrocities in the Realms. This is just a fact of Realms canon. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31774 Posts |
Posted - 07 Sep 2014 : 02:22:01
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I'm not going to permantently lock this scroll, but I am going to temporarily seal it.
The truth is, we've had a number of complaints from both resident and visiting scribes. And I'm currently just a little uncomfortable with how the direction of this discussion is prompting these kinds of concerns among some members of our community.
So, I'll simply note that until this scroll's future use here has been reviewed, I'm going to seal it up for the time being.
*Casts Temporary Seal Scroll* |
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How many genocides were committed by Elves in FR?
Topic Locked
