Re: Runedarspace-New Sphere

Greetings all,

	What follows is a possible view of the world.  It is not meant
to go against what Toby has, just present ideas to anybody who's listening.
Oh yeah, almost forgot the :).

In our last episode, Toby Mekelburg said:
>At 10:50 AM 5/30/97 -0400, Static wrote:
>>	Population debate aside, I don't think that dwarves are very
>>imperial.  Generic dwarves live in mountains, which are far apart, and
>>each with it's own king.  That lends itself more to a confederacy, or
>>something like one.  At least that's the way space (and groundling)
>>dwarves are in my world... :)
>
>I decideded that there would be local Kings, Thanes, Dukes, barons, etc,
>but they would be subservient to a central figure, the High Thane. They
>mainly pledge fealty to the High Thane, and are pretty much left alone
>until there is a need for troops to be levied, taxes raised, etc.

	What about comunication?  Dwarves aren't known as a magical race,
so they probably talk through "conventional" means (i.e. messangers).
How do you handle it?

>>	I'm not saying that imperial dwarves are wrong, just that they
>>sound to much like "short and bearded imperial elves".  At least that
>>was the impresion I got from reading the descriptions.
>
>I always thought that the idea of the EIN was a departure from the
>stereotype of AD&D elves. You know, the flighty, insular and arrogant
>elves. The spacefaring elves in SJ are arrogant, but to me they don't fit
>the general elven view presented in AD&D material. Perhaps becoming
>spelljamming-aware does this to normal groundlings, as you are forced to
>realize that there are others out there who are just as powerful or moreso.

	That's because everybody's got it all wrong. :)  The term "Imperial
Elven Navy" was coined by some humans after the First Unhuman War.  The
common tongue simply doesn't have words for the elven translation.

	The purpose of the IEN (or EIN, whatever) is to make contact with
"lost" elven colonies.  "Defending the space lanes" is a fairly new (in
elven terms) idea that some megalomaniac elf got after being rejected as
a painter one too many times.  (The elves have their [insert your favorite
charismatic tyrant]s, just like everybody else.)  The IEN is just a "phase",
but due to elven lifespans, this phase is measured in centuries.

	Comments? :)

-Static

--
                         "Read more, kill less."

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