Canonfire!

Tue Sep 21, 2004 11:23 pm Olven calendar

I was perusing the Greycronodex tonight and a question came to mind that I've always wondered but never put out there. Why is the olven calendar shorter than the suloise? I mean elves are ancient i thought, did they just start writing things down a 1000 years after humans?!. Heck the first item on the timeline is a dwarven event, why don't the dwarves have a timeline. (seperate matter) I know theres a logical reason, I just think it'd make a good topic of discussion.

Wed Sep 22, 2004 6:09 am

I believe the elven calender pertains to their time on the flanaess, which is rather short in comparison to the suel imperium of the Sea of Dust, as the elves came from even farther west and/or east. Perhaps Lendore and the Spindrifts, or even Hepmonaland?

I do recall reading on this, but do not remember the exact details or source.
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Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:11 am

Interesting yet the timeline quotes from Valley of the Mage Confused

indicate that Valley Elves have been around since -14,400 CY. This is an interesting gap for there isn't another concrete elven event for 10,000 years when the O.C. is finally starts. The only pre-devasation events concern the Ur-Flan conflicts with the City of Summer Stars which could easily fall between -4462 and -422. So, either the flimsy VotM reference is correct and elves were quite abundant before humans roamed the Flanaess but kept it hush or they arrived like you said in -4462 whereupon they soon met the Flan in -2150 CY.

Fri Sep 24, 2004 6:28 am Silly

Just a stab, but since they live for almost a thousand years, tracking years probably seemed pretty silly to the elves. They looked at the humans and thought, wow, what a way to waste a short life.

The Celts and certain African Cultures have lent a great deal of creedence to the idea that verbal language is actually less changing than written. The words themselves, if memorized and passed on, keep the same importance and relation to each other. However, exact dates become very sketchy, and the difference between 1000 and 10000 becomes very vague, and unimportant.

In written text, the words remain exactly the same, but the interpretation of those words change. There is no active force or agency enforcing the original interpretation, so the meaning could be completely diffrent in 1000 years.

Maybe the elves were of a similar mind. Why date it, it did not matter. Then, later, they fell victim to peer pressure.

Fri Sep 24, 2004 3:10 pm

I think it was a deliberate attempt by Gygax to distance/distinguish his elves from Middle Earth elves. He didn't intend for Greyhawk elves to be the ancient 'first born' Tolkien lot. He had a more humanocentric vision.
Scott

Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:36 am

I think so too. As has been observed, Gygaxian/Greyhawk/D&D elves are really not very like Tolkien's but are drawn from other sources.

Sat Sep 25, 2004 12:15 pm

Some GHers have speculated that the Olven Calendar followed another means of recording time. Others have opined that the O.C. is a grey olven fabrication. Prior to their hegemony, the olves tended not to track time with a calendar. Instead sylvan olves attended to the growth of trees while high olves sang beneath the stars.

Considering the matter from another point of view, what kind of time-recording is necessary when a society is not agricultural? While olven bands may husband the Oerth, prior to (and following) the founding of kingdoms, many olves live semi-nomadic lives, following herds and moving to places where gathering is relatively easy.

Sat Sep 25, 2004 1:06 pm

My in-game reasoning is that it is just the current 'age' of Elven reckoning. I've never tried to explain what event initiated the end of the last age, or how many ages their have been.
I don't like the idea that it is just the time that the elves have dwelt in the Flanaess. I don't think it gives them enough time there. Maybe it was the end of a great, ancient elven kingdom.
Scott

Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:46 am

Yet another two cents of mine:

I agree that the Olven reckoning likely doesn't reflect the beginning of their history, but rather some culturally significant event (first Rhalta named, who knows?).

Part of my response to GH's humano-centricity is to detail very little history or culture of non-humans. I thought lack of info on the subject helped to marginalize the races, and offered PCs some freedom if they wanted to develop a little character background. The wealth of info on human cultures and ethnic groups seemed to attract RP-intensive players a bit more (which may have been just my imagination).

BTW I actually had no problem with the severe limits on levels for non-humans. Otherwise 600-year-old elves (and other demihumans could be old too, except half-orcs) would be running around with extravagant lelvels and be scoffing at human competition. The limits also helped to discourage non-human characters and keep the human-dominated flavor.

Of course, I've never played a human in GH -- go figure :/

Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:05 am

How could a place like the Timeless Tree in the Vesve and it's keepers, worshippers of the elven deity of time, not be interested in recorded history?

Here's a possible event to start their recorded calendar by...the first instance of elves Leaving the Flanaess, the Tolkienesque counter-migration that begins in the face of humanity's growth. When the last elf is gone from the Flanaess the O.C. ends.

Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:18 pm Elven time

Mortellon,

Good question. I don't know if there is a good answer. I think the some of the insights here might be right (Gygas'x view of elves, pastoral elves, etc.) IMC I would respond with the rise of Grey/High Elves as being key here. I think that the length of elven lives, and the fact that they are more concerned with natural rhythms and less with quantifiable time units might be the reason. Why record something that happened 400 years ago when you can talk to someone that was there? This isn't to say that history isn't recorded by elves in song, paintings, sculptures, or even recorded in the growth ring of trees somehow, it just doesn't show up as a human fashioned calendar.

Just some thoughts,

Steve

Fri Oct 01, 2004 5:47 am Timeless Trees

Maybe they are so long lived that they just do not care to count. Think of sailors... they are dependent on the water, they live on it, watch it, monitor it, but they have an endless supply of it. So they only try to measure it in large arcs, i.e. Seas and Oceans.

An odd analogy, but I would think the elves do not worry about the moments so much as the broad spans of time. "Dear Diary... over the last three centuries.."

We have actually been talking of this for some time.. how elves see the world, and my party has talked of a game starting in CY 100 or before and rolling forward. If the elves in the party live to a ripe old age, they will be playing with the decendants of all the other races, maybe the grandchildren of the gnome, sons of the dwarves, but the 5th or 6th or 8th generation of the humans.

Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:15 pm Re: Timeless Trees

Tue Oct 05, 2004 5:46 am Re: Olven calendar

Tue Oct 05, 2004 6:01 am

Oh and a note on elven longevity: Elven Livespans vary greatly across the editions. The live spans of elves in 1E are ridiculously long. 1000+ years and gygax didn`t want to go for tolkien elves!?! In 2e they live a max 500-600 i believe and in 3E they are slightly more short lived IIRC.

Tue Oct 05, 2004 1:16 pm