Alternate take on Elves (or, The Things That Should Not Be)

Elves are usually the elder race of whatever world you read about. It’s a holdover from Tolkien, I guess.

But in Lamentations, they struck me as a bit different. For one reason. They are Chaotic. And in LotFP, Chaotic generally means otherworldly, from outside the world, unnatural.

Picture this: Once the world was pure and unspoiled. There were gods and mortals. Clerics had magic, but this is of course a natural part of the world. Dwarves probably came first, being the stone-like architects of the world. Humans came later. Halflings are probably just an offshoot of humans.

Then, one day, a few thousand years ago, a cleric decided he wanted to be immortal. So he meditated and prayed to his goddess, asking to let him stay in the world forever, so that he may have thousands of years to serve his goddess’s will.
The goddess laughed of course. She wasn’t stupid, after all, and she knew selfishness disguised as piety when she heard it. So she laid an embarrassing curse on the cleric and got on with her day.
But the seed had been planted. The goddess was a minor deity associated with art, music, love and beauty. (You know. Elfy things.) She was kindly, if a bit shallow, and was always disappointed to see her favorite worshipers get old and feeble. In her quiet moments, she started to wonder what it would be like to be the patron deity of an immortal race. A race of beautiful, ageless beings who could wander through history, untouched by the ravages of time.

Over the next few centuries, this idle daydream became an obsession. Never much of an intellectual or philosopher before, the goddess began studying the nature of the universe, and more importantly, the nature of things outside the universe.
Immortality wasn’t part of the way of things, after all. When the gods created the world back in the long, long ago, they thought it was important to have a whole cycle of birth and death. Death gods were the ones who shepherded you to the afterlife, their clerics took care of burials and funerals, and “undead” wasn’t even a thing yet. Maybe, a god could bend the rules and restore an individual’s youth, or give them an extra decade or two, but in the end, everyone died.

So, in order to get around that, you needed to break the rules. You needed to punch a hole between this reality and the chaos outside and let the new rules in.
She sent some dreams to her clerics, let them know the plan, and eventually gathered as many of them together in one spot as possible. She had to turn a few away, in fact. But she eventually had exactly one thousand.

Let’s cut to the chase. The ritual worked, and broke the world in the process. The thousand humans changed. They became something new. Their youth was restored, their senses sharpened. But the clerics could no longer tap into the natural magic granted by gods. At first this was a serious blow, but they quickly discovered that they had a natural affinity for something... new. A type of spellcasting that warped the world, instead of working within its natural laws.
They also discovered something else. The chaotic force that gave them eternal life and new magic wasn’t going away. It was working itself into the fabric of the world and... well... fucking it up. There were monsters appearing. Creatures that were considered part of legend were becoming all too real. The “troll under the bridge” that kids thought would eat them actually appeared and starting eating them. Living acidic oozes, snake-haired women who petrified with a glance, corpses who get up and walk, or drink blood. The world was no longer pure.

In addition, the magic that the new immortals had could be taught. Their human friends wanted in on this, and it turns out they were able to use it.

Basically, “Chaotic” had been introduced to the world. Before, “Lawful” didn’t exist. Or rather it did, but no one noticed, because there was nothing else to compare it to. Now there are three alignments. Elves are “Chaotic” of course, and can be affected by things that affect “evil.”

There are one thousand elves. They can only die by violence, and another can’t be born until one dies. Then the dead elf is reborn. As he or she matures, he begins to have memories of his past life, but not the experience or skills. The memories are there, but seem like a biography of someone else’s life. So, for an elf who is sick of life and experience can seriously consider suicide as an option, allowing himself to be reborn, and experience life anew.
After the ritual, the new elves looked very much like their human selves, but became “elfier” as the centuries passed. They also gained about an inch in height every century or so. The few elves that have survived since their creation are very tall, willowy creatures indeed.
A newly reborn elf who has just reached physical maturity (i.e. most 1st level PCs) is usually just under 5 feet in height, so it will be a long time before they reach even normal human size. They do gain more inhuman features with each rebirth. So an elf who has died several times will have very long pointy ears, and likely very inhuman colorful hair and eyes.

And the goddess who created them? Well, she has been strangely silent since the Chaos Incursion. Most humans have never heard of her. Many elves believe she was destroyed in the ritual. The elves that still have faith in her existence tend to be in two camps. One camp believes that having seen the damage the ritual did to the world, she has repented, and the best way to serve her is to fight the monsters and corruption created by it. The other camp is a bit more disturbing. They tend to be.. well... crazy. They think that their goddess meant to do everything that happened. Ravenous monsters? Cool! Undead plagues? Cool! They add spice to a dreary world! Many people refer to them as “dark elves” but maybe we shouldn’t go there.

Most people don’t know the connection between elves and all the magical horrors of the world, and the elves aren’t about to tell them. It happened a long time ago, after all. Though some scholars of other races have come close to guessing.

Anyway, just an idea. Feel free to shower it with unqualified praise.

Brian