Oil on troubled waters. Is it olive, or petroleum? Let's find out.
I can't definitively prove that any Elorii were at all aware of the nature of their creation despite being present in enormous numbers. Yes, this is true. In a campaign who's even public events of great consequence are rarely clearly understood I doubt it's possible to ever really know. That said I made logical inferences from existing data, however speculative, and they were undermined without actually being addressed on the basis of what...? That something else could have happened?
It might be hard to believe, but I am being restrained.
Also, how is humility any part of this? Is it
arrogant to claim that the immortal inhuman
constructs should have a significantly different perspective on their existence than the standard sapient ape tribalism?
Consider this from a different angle: that this isn't fantasy fiction but instead it's science fantasy. The Elorii are aliens. They have 5 distinct "subraces" that have specific and recurring metaphysical, physical and mental characteristics. They apparently reproduce as mammals do, but don't exchange DNA during conception. They have unique metaphysical traditions as they hold sacred a being who they claim is, relative to your culture's knowledge, as powerful as any of your patrons and is effectively present among you
and of whom you've never heard of or noticed but who's worshippers demonstrate boons unique to it as well as a thaumaturgical tradition (Elder) almost as unique except in your most distant lore is attributed to an apparently completely separate non-mammalian race from what would be the other side of the galaxy. They also have a presence in your societies that amounts to "we walked into the room one day and started working as military-industrial contractors* but we don't actually do formal trade."
Oh, And death and rebirth for them works completely different and may have a surprisingly mechanical (albeit magically so) component with no parallels in your own civilization.
They don't get sick, they don't get old, and by their own sincerely held admission didn't
evolve because (exercising restraint) they were
created by beings who they met, lived among, committed horrific war crimes for, and eventually rebelled against.
Let me re-emphasize that last paragraph in reminding everyone that the period of Elorii service to the Ssetherics last ~800 years
to a people who biologically measure generations in a single decade.
Even given the destruction and desecration of their history by humans it's logical to guess that some record, living or otherwise, has gone the distance on the major enough points of their existence to give them this information.
And every claim I make here stands up to research. It's virtually all common knowledge; 90% of this is from the original Codex Arcanis.
Forget
Elves think
Aliens, and how is it
arrogant to -using existent and not at all speculative data (however wrong as it might end up being it's
not player guesswork)- to argue that they would have some profound cultural differences? Especially given how little we still know about them?
So yeah. Being called out to "slow my roll" on the basis of something else totally unaccounted for that might have happened while ignoring the underpinning of that roll inspires no tender consideration in me.
I have a tendency to the paranoid and that might be what's driving my reactions, but in the originating thread I'm the only one who made any kind of call for increased Elorii lore.
I'm the only one who made an extrapolation from the existing lore as to what might be different that's not present right now and that not doing so might plausibly invoke a negative reaction from new players who aren't so "reasonable" about accepting why they should buy something that chooses to be so vague about one of it's factions!
If that's illogical, I'm waiting to hear it. If it wasn't for the Elorii I'd be about half as invested as I am in the setting; I don't think my experience is likely to be particularly unique^.
(And we both know about Airia. Aira Windniw is the Osalikene hero of the newest regular player in Portland and however kind and appreciated her player is she's also so completely disengaged from Arcanis' active politics that it hurts to watch. What interests her? Elorii lore. My
is infinite at how perfectly her perspective is ignored -except that she's
also Seremasi. Welcome to the campaign, Airia! Don't forget to notice the jibes and hectoring about how "deserved" what happened was because the Seremasi created a foreign quarter!)
I'm the only one being reminded of the need for
humility in my speculations while my otherwise respected detractor
defends the right of someone else to speculate from their position of even less demonstrable knowledge.
I'm probably over reacting, but I'm over reacting to a thread created to undermine my musings without addressing their content.
I might be in the wrong, but one thing I damn sure am not is incorrect.
...while also needing to expand my definition of civil. Mea culpa.
*spend a second on that. Putting aside the necessary mental convenience of an "Age of Adventure" this would be like having an entirely separate alien presence of whom 90% carry guns for a living. Seriously. We've seen maybe a dozen Elorii who are traders or healers -so they'd run a few small stores and work in clinics- but otherwise it's plate carriers, Ray-Ban shades, firearms and "Operator Tacticool" for nine out of ten other aliens walking around in public -including every one of them you know. It's mind boggling.
^And let's not forget how the Seremasi-Altherian protectorate was
one of the biggest singly player driven events in Arcanis history and who's fate was to be discarded because... really we don't know why, do we?
Why does this matter? Because it's "
one of the biggest singly player driven events in Arcanis history!" This was one of the most ignored, least included major factions in the setting banding together to suddenly
shove one of the levers of history in a way with zero parallels and done entirely fairly ...which was promptly discarded and now routinely features as a vector of attack on the identity and actions of the Elorii.
Whether I trust PCI's deeper reasons, however unknowable, it is undeniable that from an outside perspective that looks
shockingly dismissive. And I promise you nobody you're trying to sell a book to is interested in hearing, "our Elves don't matter and really shouldn't matter."
They're likely to ask "so why are they playable?" And I suspect there is no answer that reconciles those two issues. And if there is one, having to preface it with "well after a decade we finally got around to it -but it'll involve telling the story from the perspective of
a group of humans" hardly bolsters the case.