Thursday, December 20, 2012

Character Group Rules - Elves

It's me, again, Hannah.
Trinity has been writing things about how her story works. I thought I'd take a page out of her book and write a bit on the rules concerning Elves, Dragons, and other creatures in my world.

Okay, first of all, to fully understand what I'm going to be writing, you have to have read this post here: http://quillinherquiver.blogspot.com/2012/12/location-post-seventh-dimension-aka.html

Just a little run-through before we start: the elves live in a different dimension than we do. This is a bit hard to explain. It's hard to work out in my own mind, but they don't live in this universe. They don't have the same planets, sun or moon... I haven't quite worked out what the sun and moon are like. I've given their dimension about the same properties as ours, as it's easier without having to worry about the amount of gravity and oxygen and so on.

Now, about the elves, elaborating on the dimension-thing.

One remarkable thing that I've "noticed" is that eye problems are practically non-existent in that dimension, such as near-sightedness, far-sightedness, etc. So if you wear glasses in this dimension, you won't need them in the Seventh Dimension. There are instances, of course, in which someone loses their eye from a stab wound or something. In that case, they can't see on that side. And there is a single example of an elf who was born blind. In fact, she's pretty famous, being the Princess Sundeep. The elves don't really understand what caused her blindness, and she seems to be the only one naturally afflicted by it.

Okay. I'm going to try to make a list of how elves are different from humans.

The most obvious point is that elves have pointed ears. And, as in common legend, they age more slowly, time-wise and appearance-wise.
In my... what do I call it? In my elves' world, they normally live up to 100, maybe 120 years.
Also, their physical appearance bears mentioning. Six feet tall is an average height for elves. Elves are also naturally slender and have, shall we say, pleasing facial features. They can have all type of skin and hair color, and their appearances do differ, but for the most part, they are rather attractive.
Elves are quite agile. Some of them (especially main characters) have seriously Olympic-level skills. It's pretty hard to tell you using words, so let me give you an example:



 Trinity came across this movie today, and we were both very impressed. I kept telling my younger sister, "This is how elves are!"
Then, we went on to imagine, what would happen if there were a giant battle with hundreds of elves? And what if the elves could all do this type of thing? We could imagine them bouncing off each other, knives or swords in hand... they would be incredibly destructive. My sister, Sarah, recalled one of the antagonist groups in my series, a giant breed of snake. She told me that the snakes would definitely be dead within the first few minutes of the battle, and went on to describe the flipping and bouncing and stabbing that the elves would be doing on the snakes from head to tail.
Also, for those of you who have seen Princess Bride, imagine the Man in Black vs. Inigo Montoya dueling scene, but fast-forwarded, and if possible, even more awesome.

Now, do the elves have any special powers?

Besides the extreme agility, elves naturally have super-strength. An average elf can probably lift or move up to three times the weight a human can. They can also move a bit faster, see a bit farther, and their endurance is remarkable.

As for their language, elves' communication primarily uses the languages Elvish and Engling. Engling is the trading language - literally, as eng means 'trade' and ling means 'language'. Engling is basically English, but with a slight Elvish twist. Elvish, in the current time, is almost a lost language. Engling has mostly taken over, though some people still choose to speak the old tongue, and scholars are trying to revive it in Elvish schools.

What else can I say? My elves have a lot of human characteristics. They aren't quite as aloof as other versions, and they're all a bit different. Actually, few have remarkable accents in Eyra. They sound a bit like Americans, for the most part, though they don't use quite as much slang, and some colloquialisms are foreign to them.
There are also big differences between the typical elvish community and the typical human community, not only because of the time difference. The elves live in medieval times, which means no computers, phones, ipods, CDs, movies, guns, etc. No texting teenagers. No movie quotes. No Sherlock or Doctor Who either. Sorry, guys. But have you noticed what a difference modern books and movies have on our society? Elves don't sarcastically call others 'Sherlock' or 'Einstein'. There are no Lord of the Rings quotes, and they have no idea who Harry Potter is.
I have to be conscious of these things while I'm writing. Sometimes it gets kind of difficult, and I find myself referencing when words were invented to make sure that I'm in approximately the right time period.
Also, I think I'm going to have to make my elves invent clocks.

There is probably a lot of other things I could say, but nothing comes to mind at the moment.

It has recently occurred to me that it might be better to post actual pieces of my story instead of talking about it. Or maybe just write. Yes or no? (Not about whether I should write or not. I know the answer to that. Sigh....)

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I (Trinity) turned off the captcha test and comment moderation, so you can now comment instantly. (Not that I won't still be moderating comments. I still have the power to delete a comment so fast it'll make your head spin.)