From: Loren J. Miller (MILLERL@wharton.upenn.edu)
Date: Mon 01 Nov 1993 - 07:51:18 EET
America On-line RuneQuest Chat
June 9, 1993
Logged by Loren Miller (Ekron)
Part 4: Written Aldryami, Elf Culture, Misc questions
WRITTEN ALDRYAMI AND GENERAL ELF CULTURE P Michaels: Aldryami?
Gray: Carving in bark <heh>
Gray: That's the Saw Tooth Korvan dialect...
Ekron: I bet the aldryami have papyrus or something
similar
PRHarmaty: Carving??? Nay, never. The bark would form itself
into ridges without harming itself.
Ekron: They probably write in an ornate copperplate style
of script and everyone signs their name like John
Hancock. Elves illuminate their shopping lists with
gold leaf
PRHarmaty: Re; Knot writng... couldn't elves use weaving of
vines to transcribe their language?
P Michaels: Perhaps Aldryami is grown onto a special leaf with
various pigments?
Gray: Pigements sounds good for written Aldryami
Ekron: Elfs probably have a complex language formed from
turning leaves, etc. That way they can leave
dissertations in the woods
Gray: Might be a living written language. I can't see
them killing plants to write on them.
Ekron: Elves probably can write notes too. Maybe they
adapted somebody else's script to their own needs
G Bailey: they could use dead wood, or maybe reeds that are
about to die?
P Michaels: Not killing, but maybe pigments plus other
biochemicals.
Gray: Maybe, not sure. Need an Elfpak desperately. I'd
center it around the Pamaltelan jungle elves -
they're quite bizzare...
Ekron: You still need to describe the genertelan elves,
since most people will only encounter them
PRHarmaty: Why should they communicate in the same fashion as
other races? Why write?
Ekron: When you need to communicate with someone a long
way away, writing helps. Also writing was
originally used to keep accounting records.
Unless elves have perfect, racial memory they'd
want to write once they heard of the idea
G Bailey: What do the elves account? Except by storytelling.
Ekron: Even elves have to account for things: How many
bows are in our forest? How about the next one
over?
PRHarmaty: You seem 'hung up' on the word write. I'm just
saying that elf writing doesn't have to look like
writing to anyone else. A pile of leaves in the
forst could speak volumes to an elf.
OGF Azhrei: maybe not writing, but symbolism....
Ekron: Boy was that a confused metaphor (Paul) <g>
Gray: I'm impressed too...
PRHarmaty: Troll books should look like Braille. elf 'books'
should look like part of the landscape.
Gray: I think the elves can communicate from forest to
forest in some magical fashion.
G Bailey: the "grapevine"
Gray: An elven testament might be a tree grown by a
'scribe'
P Michaels: I agree with the non-verbal communication. Perhaps
special pheromones or pollen carried by wind
PRHarmaty: Gray... exactly. Touching the bark could convey a
word of info to an elf.
Gray: I think that makes them a bit more interesting.
PRHarmaty: The same applies to Trolls or Dragonewts. Humans
just don't see the value in the stuff these other
races treasure. What is it we miss?
Gray: Ok, how about spoken languages. Some have heavy
nonverbal components.
Draconic (scent), Darktongue (sonar)
Those should be very difficult for humans to learn
or master.
Ekron: I think Draconic should have a psionic component
too. Maybe a Mindspeech spell could pick up on it,
just a little
Gray: Spoken Aldryami should have such a component as
well. Elfsense? Can sense emotions somehow, I
believe
P Michaels: Since we're on elves, has anyone thought much about
their physiology?
PRHarmaty: No. It kind of makes me uneasy to think about.
P Michaels: I know about the flower/genital thing, but what
about digestion, musculature, etc...
Gray: Well, at least with trolls you have animal and
human models. Elves are much harder to make sense
of.
P Michaels: true
Ekron: Walking venus flytraps. Like something out of Ren &
Stimpy: Marooned
Gray: Digestion - they eat vegetation. How do they digest
it?
Gray: Symbiotic fungus lining their insides?
G Bailey: can they get nourishment from the sun?
Gray: No, they're not really green.
OGF Azhrei: who says they digest it.... why not ( to borrow a
BORG term) assimilate it?
P Michaels: Maybe they don't break cellular structures down.
but absorb other plant cells directly into their
bodies.
Gray: Well, even a fungus, which absorbs material, still
breaks it down first.
OGF Azhrei: hense different elf reaces for different types of
flora in the area... :)
G Bailey: doesn't the venus flytrap have fluids to digest an
insect?
Gray: Yes.
Gray: Also, if they have man form, presumably they eat in
a similar way.
G Bailey: do elves eat insects? or stricly veggies?
Gray: They are normally vegetarians strictly, but
Gray: renagades have been known to eat meat.
Gray: Fungus can do both, thus the suggestion.
P Michaels: I'd say they can eat meat, but it affects their
motabolism negatively and they still need plants
for nourishment
Gray: Right.
Ekron: It's hard to reconcile the Tolkien image with the
walking plant one
Gray: They're not even close to Tolkein elves.
G Bailey: what color is their blood? green, white?
Gray: Sap. Whitish, I guess
G Bailey: or could vary according to the species.
Ekron: Which predominates? Tolkien or plant? In other
words, could elves be perceived as variant humans
or are they walking plants? If they have the human
rune it isn't as cut and dried as we seem to be
saying. Maybe they're humans with cultural ties to
plants?
Gray: There is some variation by species - the fern elves
are pretty far from human.
G Bailey: "cut and dried" to an elf is fightin words!
P Michaels: Perhaps the human form rune means more about the
form of the mind than the form of the body.
Gray: Or both. With wood bones and sap for blood, there
will be some drastic differences. Also brown elves
hibernate for the winter.
Gray: Any general questions?
G Bailey: what color is a troll's skin?
Gray: Gray to black.
G Bailey: ah, good. I did paint my minis correctly.
P Michaels: Don't forget to proudly show off any streatch marks
on those Uz! They're marks of beauty, and signs
of the "darkness within"
Ekron: Do dwarves have stone bones and salt for blood?
Gray: Only the original mostali. Most of the ones alive
now are cheapo flesh knockoffs. I'll bet they have
a lot of calcium in their bones nonetheless <g>
G Bailey: so they're also part of the problem of the World
Machine?
Gray: Yes, I think that's one of the ironies. Another is
that they may be fixing the machine that no longer
runs the world...
G Bailey: but then, all "good" dwarves will stop existing as
the last fix of the WM.
Gray: My favorite Mostali legend is that they were behind
the rising of the Red Moon - they now plan to cause
it to roll across the sky and fall to plug the hole
in the oceans that drains all the water out.
(Magasta's Whirlpool)
Gray: And if you buy that, I have a Kralori bridge to
sell you...
Ekron: I like the other one that says that when the white
moon is reformed the world will be fixed.
Presumably the blue and red moons would be combined
with the (green) unknown moon full of elves and
together they'd add up to white.
G Bailey: or would it be made when seven cheesemakers got
together?
Ekron: The seven mothers are seven cheesemakers in
wisconsin
P Michaels: Perhas the green moon was existant in the Green
Age, but was eaten by the Blue Moon.
Ekron: I think the green moon is hidden somewhere. maybe
the trolls ate it?
Gray: Good theory. Urp.
G Bailey: hehehehe..
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