Were Elven Clerics a big historical mistake?

[Nicomos]

I always thought they where based on what Gygax and his friends decided they were,,,,

I just got the impression they drew more from J.R.R then Anderson . In the end, they are neither Tolkien or Anderson Elves, they are the Elves of D&D.

As far as Mr. Moorcocks opinion is concerned-if every elf in every fantasy tale or game were the same, it'd be boring.

[cthulhudarren]

I always thought they where based on what Gygax and his friends decided they were,,,,

I just got the impression they drew more from J.R.R then Anderson . In the end, they are neither Tolkien or Anderson Elves, they are the Elves of D&D.

As far as Mr. Moorcocks opinion is concerned-if every elf in every fantasy tale or game were the same, it'd be boring.

Drow seem to have come mainly from Anderson. God I hope he is MUCH better at them than that Drizzt Author.

[Nicomos]

Drow seem to have come mainly from Anderson. God I hope he is MUCH better at them than that Drizzt Author.

Yeah, I got the same "vibe" from Drow.
It's been a long time since I read Anderson, never read any "Drizzt" stuff. No appeal there for me.
Of Andersons books my favorite was Three Hearts, You can see a how lot of the stuff was "Borrowed" by Gary G (Paladins and Trolls to be exact).

[dark cauliflower]

He mentions drow once in the book but I never really saw what I would consider a dark elf. And when he mentioned drow he didn't give a description of what it was. It was like "Skafloc wondered if that was a drow sitting in the darkness". Don't know if Gygax said, "oh drow! I can use these" when he read it but you never know.

[KnightErrantJR]

To defend RA Salvatore just a bit, while I haven't been a huge fan of any recent offerings, Drizzt kind of exists has he is today because TSR and WOTC after them mandated that he keep writing the character. If you go back and read The Crystal Shard or even the other drow characters in the Dark Elf trilogy, you get a pretty evil, twisted view of drow, which is as it should be.

[Rythwold]

yeah!!! That essay is in Wizardry and Wild Romance by Moorcock as well. That book has Epic Pooh in it too.

Excellent - its going on the list!

I'm anti elven clerics purely on the basis that I think multi-classing is too fiddly and a distraction in my games. I also like the idea of elves being as magical and as non human as possible, which is yet another reason I love the description of this in the DCC RPG. Also, if you layer on a clerical class then that seems a bit too feudal.

[Nicomos]

He mentions drow once in the book but I never really saw what I would consider a dark elf. And when he mentioned drow he didn't give a description of what it was. It was like "Skafloc wondered if that was a drow sitting in the darkness". Don't know if Gygax said, "oh drow! I can use these" when he read it but you never know.

It seems Mr. Gygax liked to attach names from folklore and myth to his own inventions some times, so it's entirely possible. There is a fellow over on RPG.net, calls him self "Old Geezer" who was one of first D&D players. If yer really interested in how D&D became what it was, he's probably as good a source as any. Although he seems to answer questions with "We made up some @#%! because we thought it was fun" as often as not.

[dark cauliflower]

I have to wonder if Anderson when he wrote drow in The Broken Sword was using an alternative name for Troll. After reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drow_%28Du ... Dragons%29
The word "drow" is from the Orcadian and Shetlandic dialects of Scots,[5] an alternative form of "trow" (both of which come from the Nordic dökkálfar),[6] which is a cognate for "troll". The Oxford English Dictionary gives no entry for "drow", but two of the citations under "trow" name it as an alternative form of the word. Trow/drow was used to refer to a wide variety of evil sprites. Except for the basic concept of "dark elves", everything else about the Dungeons & Dragon drow was invented by Gary Gygax.[7]

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax stated that "Drow are mentioned in Keightley's The Fairy Mythology, as I recall (it might have been The Secret Commonwealth--neither book is before me, and it is not all that important anyway), and as Dark Elves of evil nature, they served as an ideal basis for the creation of a unique new mythos designed especially for the AD&D game."[8] The form "drow" can be found in neither work.[9] Gygax later stated that he took the term from a "listing in the Funk & Wagnall's Unexpurgated Dictionary, and no other source at all. I wanted a most unusual race as the main power in the Underdark, so used the reference to "dark elves" from the dictionary to create the Drow."[10] There seems to be no work with this title. However, the following entry can be found in abridged editions of Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language, such as The Desk Standard Dictionary of the English Language: "[Scot.] In folk-lore, one of a race of underground elves represented as skilful workers in metal. Compare TROLL. [Variant of TROLL.] trow"
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kinda illuminating.

[cthulhudarren]

To defend RA Salvatore just a bit, while I haven't been a huge fan of any recent offerings, Drizzt kind of exists has he is today because TSR and WOTC after them mandated that he keep writing the character. If you go back and read The Crystal Shard or even the other drow characters in the Dark Elf trilogy, you get a pretty evil, twisted view of drow, which is as it should be.

I read them. His writing style is just so.... blah.