[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Puck

I thought I would begin by taking Soltakss' ideas posted in the Peoples of the Green wiki entry. I believe that this is a good starting place for races, but as they are, I find they are a just a little too cookie cutter d+d (for a while I was not sure whether the whole thing was a bit of a lampoon. I was not to sure about sun mountain either until I read the myths and saw what Soltakks really had in mind). Anyway,

Lampoon? Me? Never!

But, you have to have a balance between what people are familiar with and what people are tired of.

To my mind, elves live in forests (and mountains) and it would be a shame not to use them. However, if people don't like elves then fair enough, no elves. But, I wouldn't use "elves under a different name" instead - you either have elves or you don't.

Originally Posted by Puck

I had originally planned on keeping elves conspicuously absent from the Green; maybe because everyone expects them to be there and partly because they have been so overdone. Evidence that they were once there is all around particularly in the bough-roads. I also planned on having a mysterious, incredibly powerful and old sorcerer (or perhaps a couple) at certain places in the Green kind of like Shelba. One may be the wise man of a village or temple who is always veiled, sniffing wacky tabacee, and occasionally acts as an advisor or oracle. There would be non-to-subtle hints that these are actually surviving elves.

Hidden away, very shy, never seen, very rare and a dying race. I'd also make them pretty nasty to outsiders - killing anyone who encounters them.

Originally Posted by Puck

To fill the traditional elf-role, I planned on using the Karee, which are goblins but have sort of elven features. Goblins would not always be bad-guys, just a little different and distrustful (lots can be done with the Trogod races).

Elves under a different name? You could also have bad, violent ones, orcs under a different name.

Originally Posted by Puck

I would also use a race of men who like soltakss' elves were driven here (through the gate) years ago (only a couple hundred) and had to learn to survive the dangers of the green. I was thinking of calling these men the Freelings, but that is just a placeholder. The Freelings would be the basic tree people of the upper green (kind of elf or ranger like).

I'd think that new settlers would be found on the ground, unless there was a good reason for them to be up in the trees. If you want people living up in the trees then fair enough, but they'd have to have a good reason to live there. Perhaps the ground is too marshy for them to live on and the rivers flood to often for even stilt houses to be effective. Perhaps they were driven to the trees by predators.

Originally Posted by Puck

If we are going to use elves as a basic race, I would like to see something unique and very different.

Don't worry, they would have been.