While there is no real culture documentation for half-elves due to them being so widespread perhaps something else could be put in its place with a couple examples/tales of half-elven heroes and villains throughout the course of Elanthia's time line.

-James-
player of Fremie

Mirayam says, "You are not a rogue, sir."

Mirayam exclaims, "You are noble!"

I am teh evils?

-James-
player of Fremie

Mirayam says, "You are not a rogue, sir."

Mirayam exclaims, "You are noble!"

I think two very obvious ones have to be noted.

Baron Malwind is a half-elf, and he's the Baron of Vornavis. Personal bias would say he's a hero.

And then the late Baron Hochstib, considered by many to be a scourge upon many? Also half-elven.

Also, there's old legends that Selantha Anodheles herself, while probably not completely half-elven, had enough elven blood to make the heritage noticeable. And she built an empire.

While those three may not equate to what some would call 'heroes' and 'villains' (well, Hochstib probably fit the bill for many), they're still important enough figures that I would think significant enough to warrant emulation, or vilification.

-A

http://azuresun.net
http://www.twitter.com/SolhavenGS for Solhaven updates and other happenings around town.

On Selantha, I don't believe she was actually visibly not fully human, as that doesn't fit with the history. There were rumors that there was some elven blood mixed in the family line at some point. But they were only ever rumors. They could have been based on fact. Or they could have been made up and spread by detractors as a means to attempt to undermine her authority. In terms of official documentation it's a rumor only and won't ever be confirmed or denied. Meaning, individual characters can believe the rumors or not, but as far as game canon goes it's not a fact that she was mixed-race.

I thought I'd also add, in regards to my invitation to people to send me stuff if they have specific ideas for more historical figures, that you have to pay really close attention to timelines. When I was creating my story for Melantha I ran into a HUGE headache of having to decide how long each generation lived, and how that fit into history, etc. You should have seen my notes!

I had tons of notes for each person in the family because I had to decide how old the mother was when the child was born, how old the child was when the mother died (or if the child died first), how long each person lived. I had to decide what years were probably fertile years of each individual's lifespan. Which generation knew members of previous generations, etc. etc. My numbers changed at least five times before I thought I got it all to work out correctly. I had to be sure that Zedlantha's age worked with the number of generations and who she would have known and so on.

Obviously all those little details don't end up in the final result of what is presented to players. But you have to make sure it all works on paper and looks logical and realistic before you can call it good. There's quite a bit of latitude in how long half-elves live, and it will depend on whether they actually are exactly half, or if they are more like a quarter or less. There's randomness and how much influence their human heritage has on them genetically. So one mixed race individual could die of old age at 240 and another one might end up being really ancient at 500+ years.

When creating a history for an individual and not a family all the above detail isn't really needed. But you do have to pay attention to when and where the individual lived, what historical events were taking place during their lifetime and so on. You have to make sure you don't end up having your story conflict because you say they did something when they were 197 years old, but that something doesn't make sense for their location that long after they were born. Or doesn't make sense for the status of half-elves because things had changed 50 years prior to that.

It's fun stuff to work with though!

Zyllah

<<Ysandra Endrenor has always been my half-elven hero. I always hoped we'd learn more about her, as well as the half-elven town of Feagh.

I've never had any plans or ideas to expand on that. I've always imagined it as the sort of situation where you had a group of people partly made up of idealists, and partly made up of malcontent rabble rousers. The two didn't mix well in the short run, which partly affected their long run. Factor in political games, along with a poor choice of location and lack of skilled people, and it was pretty much doomed to failure. :) On the political/cultural stuff part of the intent was to point out there was a clash between those who were heavily influenced by Nalfein culture, and those who had remained outside of elven culture and were more influenced by human customs.

From all that you can take away pretty much anything you want to for your character, including bemoaning that your hero couldn't seem to get the idiots to cooperate with her enough to make it a success!

Zyllah

Miss Nixandrea "Nixxi" Peyroux Dagon Nalfein has long been acknowledged a hero by some sailors & sea captains, a villain by others.

Stance on the subject generally depends on the current amount of favor they have with Charl.