Remember my teaser from way back with the chipmunk saying "mouth"? Well, that's not this part. Or the next one. I changed my mind. :P
I have never played in a Dark Sun game, so what I can say about the creatures from it is fairly limited. The source material -- John Carter of Mars x Dune x Mad Max -- does not interest me much. The premise of a post-apocalyptic wasteland where everything is really fucking brutal (Mad Max) is not my cuppa. However, everyone's psychic, which is a plus. So maybe I can give you some okay commentary. Maybe?
Well, let's see.
The Forest Sloth, Rampager, and Spirit of the Land are not psionic in either edition (though the last has telepathy). All of the rest were originally psionic, but only the Braxat, Psurlon, and Thri-Kreen retained Psychic typing. While the Thri-Kreen is most closely associated with Athas, it predates Dark Sun by a full edition and was probably created to replace the Green Martians that were present in OD&D.
Braxat: Half-ogre, half-rhinoceros, half-beetle, and eats people. Like ManBearPig. Except it has Int 15, psionics, and cold breath (acid in 2nd ed.). The Creature Codex covered it last month and noted that the 3.0 version is "softer" (with a clan structure) instead of rampagingly Chaotic Neutral Evil.
Cloud Ray: Instead of being plankton feeders, they eat anything that flies, from Pterrans to Rocs. Because they're Colossal.
Forest Sloth: I thought this was a stab at a giant ground sloth, but no, it's Athasian. The only hint that that's what it is is that it eats Halflings.
Megapede: A giant centipede, roughly equivalent to a Dune Sandworm. (Not sure why that's not done with a Purple Worm, but whatever.)
Moonbeast: How best to describe this briefly? Two entries, I guess. Commonalities: it's a tentacled horror that moves about invisibly, has all-around vision, and has a fear aura and (arcane) spell-like abilities similar to those of the Nightmare Beast.
Moonbeast (Stalking Horror): The 2nd ed. monster is a creature summoned from somewhere else that does not like being here and so will murder people who possess objects related to its summoning. It also eats bones.
Moonbeast (3.0): This version chases down people who come across its "moonstone," which isn't a moonstone (the gem), but instead a magic item that works like The Precious by making its possessor become possessive of it. That makes the Moonbeast the creature Gollum, except it doesn't actually care about The Precious its moonstone at all; it just doesn't want anyone else to have it. It is also one of three unrelated monsters named "Moon-something" in this book for no goddamn reason.
Nightmare Beast: To say this thing is toned down is an understatement. It's Huge with an augmented critical, an ability that causes nightmares in those sleeping within a wide area, and some spells. The original was Gargantuan, had a lot of psionic powers, and drained levels -- "life energy" -- with its attacks; it was supposed to be second only maybe to dragons in power.
Psurlon: Highly intelligent, wormlike "humanoids" (Aberrations here) with psionics. Weird in a weird way.
Rampager: The Rampager, or So-Ut, is a big, nocturnal beast that becomes murderously insane if it notices metal (not really an issue on Athas) or artificial structures (always an issue), going after the largest of such objects first and not stopping until everything around it is dead. It doesn't look like a Rust Monster, but it's essentially a scarier version of that.
Spirit of the Land: I thought this was a 3.0 take on the genius loci, but it's really a 2nd ed. take! It's nominally Fey (Incorporeal), but it manifests as an elemental, with four distinct forms. The AD&D version is indestructible while incorporeal; this version can be killed. YAY GOD MURDER! Wait...
Thri-Kreen: Ah, Green Martians District 9 Prawns mantis folk that can leap tall buildings and wield psychic powers. What's not to love? I guess that they eat elves... Well, this version doesn't mention that.
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By popular demand (well, singular demand), I'm filling in some of the gaps from my previous Pride Month post. Because why not? Anyway, this is also kinda long.
What's probably most important here is not what it says about attitudes towards elves and sexuality but rather what these treatments say about then-current sexual and romantic norms.
To my knowledge and from my research, within Ds and/or Ds there are a few articles and sections of books that deal with elf psychology, sociology and similar, but of those, only three have had anything to do with elven sexuality, romance, courtship, and associated norms. Those are The Complete Book of Elves (1992, 2nd ed.), "Leaf and Thorn: The Secret Life of Elves" in Dragon #279 (Jan 2001, 3.0), and Races of the Wild (2005, 3.5). Neither "The Elven Point of View" (Dragon #60, April 1982) nor The Quintessential Elf (I or II, 3.0, Mongoose Publishing) nor Elves of Golarion (PF 1e) covered such topics, at least that I saw. There might be other articles or sections of books elsewhere that I'm unaware of. However, this suits my purposes just fine: because I have one source per numbered edition/version, I will be labeling them as such instead of by title.
D&D has had three distinct treatments of elf "love": a direct transfer of lore from Tolkien with some details changed to fit restrictions on D&D (2nd ed.), one that gets hung up on the elven lifespan so much that it has to change it again (3.5), and a fairly sex positive attitude (3.0) that is best summed up by a friend's allusion to Austin Powers: elves shag like minxes.¹
2nd. Ed.: Tolkienian Catholicism, but...
2nd ed.'s treatment of elves is basically that they're Catholic: they form an incredibly deep bond (i.e., marry) one individual and are reticent to remarry after their bondmate (spouse) has died (divorce is not discussed); those that might only do so once. This is not terribly out of step for the period: the Women's Liberation Movement had only recently ended (not that feminism had, just that particular brand/wave of it) and divorce, while a thing, was still frowned upon. (We're talking only 18 years after the Equal Credit Opportunity Act had passed, which allowed women in the US to take out credit cards in their own names.) Attitudes were changing, but we hadn't hit the point where media was starting to offer treatments of the impact of divorce on children (which was a big thing for the rest of the '90s and into the early oughts).
However, the biggest cultural milestones around an American company putting out a book discussing a fictional race engaging in very white, Anglo-Saxon, 20th Century Anglosphere norms of sex and romance were the Satanic Panic and the Murphy Brown controversy.
For those unaware, Murphy Brown was a TV work sitcom that ran from '88 to '98 (though I don't remember it lasting past the Bush Sr. administration). Brown (the role for which Candice Bergen is best known) was a middle-aged investigative political journalist, but also a single working woman and recovering alcoholic -- stati which were already pushing cultural normative boundaries. As you'd expect, the character was extremely competent and tough as nails. With a character like that, you know the show was going to deal with topical, controversial matters. In the 1991-92 season, Murphy became pregnant and brought the baby to term -- again, as a single mother. VPOTUS and noted imbecile (no exaggeration) Dan Quayle tried turning this into a culture war talking point, but his statements made it seem like he didn't understand that Brown was fictional, showing his windmill tilting for what it was.
Aside: Quayle isn't the only person who has embodied the caricature of conservatives that Democrats et al. like to imagine, but he was absolutely the main one prior to Dubya's 2000 campaign. I cannot overemphasize how much that stereotype is modeled after him.
The Complete Book of Elves came out in the middle of that season at a time when D&D was still dealing with a moral panic. The AIDS epidemic had destroyed the gay community and given the religious right extra ammunition against them; in the wake of that, radical feminism had spawned and was already targeting trans people, who were a very long way away from receiving any popular sensitivity or even recognition. The LGBTQ+ movement had not made it to a point where many people were willing to come out and those who did faced rampant discrimination at a minimum. There was no major social impetus to cater to queerness and plenty to go against that. So it makes sense that this book would take a very traditional approach to sex and love.
And yet, there is the elf communion ceremony. Elves in this book retain some of the vague telepathy from Tolkien, so they can do certain things which don't really impact the game but which allude to abilities which absolutely should. This act in particular is a form of mind-melding very much akin to that in Stranger in a Strange Land for which Heinlein coined the word "grok." The elf communion ceremony can take a fortnight of preparation, only works with other full elves, and requires complete trust (including being under the influence of no mind affecting spells) and serenity to perform. So, y'know, the sort of mystical descriptions people frequently give to lovemaking.
This is where we get into the queerness. You'll be happy to note that this can be done with up to four participants and gender is not mentioned at all in this section or in that about the marriage-like bond. So yes, even in the hidebound days of the first Bush administration and the continuation (though gradual disintegration) of the norms that got Reagan elected, elves had some queerness attached to them -- but with enough plausible deniability not to offend.
3.0: Slutty Elves
"Leaf and Thorn" is only five pages long and has sidebars, enlarged quotes, and illustrations to shorten that length (in typical magazine fashion). Even so, it does more in its discussion of the elven perspective and way of life than basically any other source I've read within D&D. This is because it better understands the implications of an extremely long lifespan and a chaotic good alignment than the other sources I've looked at do and does so without feeling the need to cater to human sensibilities. It is a better attempt at xenofiction, however grounded in American cultural perspectives it may be.
The section on sexual experimentation takes up nearly a full column (>1/12 of the article) and treats elven sexual behavior as shockingly lurid to other races, specifically in how prone elves are to having casual sex and fuckbuddies. There is a bit about elven fertility rates being extremely low and that resulting in little to no worry on the part of female elves (and a following sentence that says elf communities don't give a fuck about children being "illegitimate" -- the community will raise the child communally and that child will be loved), but nothing about venereal disease (N.B.: in 1st-3rd eds., PF included, elves have a Con penalty, so that's worth discussing).
Another section on courtship and marriage is a full column. While a lot of this is more mysticism (soulmates at first sight) and other aesthetic bits you'd expect of elves, the penultimate paragraph ends with "The wild debauchery that begins after the husband and wife have retired to the nuptial bed might surprise them." Again, elves shag like minxes. Divorce is given a sidebar two columns wide and roughly a third of the page tall (with an accompanying illustration that spans all three columns but isn't quite as tall) and is treated as something sorrowful but done in a mostly amicable way (which is hilarious to me: I've read enough divorce transcripts and heard enough about others to know that no legal action is as fueled by spite as divorce -- and spite is a quintessentially elven emotion).
For all of this, there is no mention of queerness. At all. There is plenty of room for there to be queerness, but there's no direct mention of it nor anything that lends itself to a queer interpretation of sexuality beyond elves having a culture of sex-positive promiscuity. This is also true for gender: it does describe some gender roles as not rigid, but in no way does it try to dwell upon gender nonconformity of any kind, be it transitioning, cross-dressing, marrying a same sex partner, or any kind of identity or physicality.
Why? Well, a few reasons.
By 2001, USese had gone through moral panics in the wake of countercultural trends for about 20 years. The Satanic Panic was just one of them. I mean, for context, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone would release in theatres later that year and it was already the subject of moral outrage. Those who were not seized by the outrage were getting tired of a new controversy every few years. Meanwhile, treatments of sex and sexuality were becoming more accepting, though not dramatically so. Like, the Austin Powers installment I mentioned earlier and in the footnote focuses on the contrast of late '60s hippie culture sex with late '90s "responsibility" culture. Having an explicitly sex positive elf culture would somewhat shocking for the period, but not so controversial as to draw the ire of anyone within the gaming/D&D communities.
But for all that, the LGBTQ+ movement was still recovering. Ellen had come out. There had been a few movies that dealt with LGBTQ people and themes (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; The Birdcage; Mrs. Doubtfire; To Wong Fu) and Nathan Lane had come into the spotlight. But queer people weren't accepted and queerness was not acceptable.
3.5: And Then Came Some Regression
The Races of series was 3.5's answer to The Complete Book of and The Quintessential series (2nd ed. and 3.0, respectively) when it came to races because 3rd edition did not release supplements on individual races (or classes) but groups of them. This one, Races of the Wild, covers Elves, Halflings, and Raptorans (a race made for this book that could fly, which was a big deal at the time).²
3.5 tries to strike a balance between 2nd ed.'s Catholic monogamy and 3.0's free love. Elves once again tend to marry once and only once, but only when it comes to other elves. They'll be happy to have serial monogamous relationships with humans because the prospect of centuries of commitment is a lot (enough that the book goes on to say that they take frequent, years-long vacations from their partners), but a fling lasting about as long as typical elven courtship with a spouse who will grow old and die in that time is nothing. Elf maturation has shortened to twenty five years (that's entirely from this book: beforehand, elves reached adulthood at roughly age 110), elf parenthood typically lasts from ages 100 to 200, the fertility rate is still low, and children born out of wedlock face no social stigma, so you've got more than 75 years of sexual appetite without any consequences. There's otherwise a sentence given to elves being "flirtatious" and having "long-term dalliances."
There's not a whole lot I can say about the historical context of this book that I didn't say in the post about Corellon. Probably the biggest bit left unsaid is that this book was coming out in the wake of numerous state legislatures (my own included) adding bans on gay marriage to state constitutions. That was for no real reason: the gay rights movement was still working on recognition at this point and the big push for gay marriage wouldn't really start up again until closer to 2008. Brokeback Mountain had not been released to act as a watershed moment and the murder of Matthew Shepherd years prior did not yet have a major impact on popular culture or popular discourse. It wasn't that queerness was as widely closeted as it had been, but it was still mostly the object of ridicule.
What about Hanali Celanil and Legolas?
Ho boy.
For those unfamiliar, the Seldarine is the elven pantheon in D&D. Hanali Celanil is its goddess of love. Her first appearance ("The Gods of the Elves" in Dragon #60 [April 1982, 1st ed.])³ is about the earliest tidbit we have about elf sexuality and presents it as thoroughly heterosexual, even as it says that she almost always appears as a female but sometimes will appear as a male. The same rare genderfluidity is in Demihuman Deities (1998, 2nd ed.) but not Monster Mythology (1992, same ed.), which is fairly terse, or Faiths and Pantheons (2002, 3.0), which has very little to say about the goddess apart from her cult. Races of the Wild also discusses her, but it's the same but more so of Faiths and Pantheons. Almost none of these have much of anything to say about elf romance or sexuality.
The one bit that could be construed as queer is that Hanali's priests are called to shelter and provide "succor" to young lovers, who are seen as guides to the true paths in life. This suggests that elf society will sometimes ostracize or otherwise persecute people over romantic entanglements, contrary to what other sources have suggested, and implies queerness mainly in that gender isn't brought up here. However, one of the goddess's blessings and the only one dealing with love instead of beauty is a two-point Charisma boost on occasion for the purposes to stoking heterosexual love -- with the heterosexuality enforced by the rules.
If you were looking for a canonical treatment of queerness, sorry.
Legolas was the subject of much fan attention in the early oughts because The Lord of the Rings was current and he was young and attractive. Fanfic had a field day with him; yaoi was popular. But this was yaoi written by women for women (or at least girls for girls). While it is true that many authors and readers came to grips with queer identities through such stories, it's also true that yaoi was used to provide heterosexual women an outlet. There's been a lot written on this topic, so I won't belabor it. Suffice it to say that Legolas was the image of queer elfdom for several years.
Footnotes
¹ I had forgotten about the original quote, so I thought my friend was alluding to minks and just accidentally Smeogol-pluralized them. The original quote is "I bet she shags like a minx" from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. It's a strained simile even then.
² Counting the setting-specific books (of which Races of Faerûn is one in name only), there are six installments: Destiny, the Dragon, Faerûn, Stone, and the Wild. 5e players will be interested to know that these were the origins of Dragonborn and Goliaths. Athasian (Dark Sun) Half-Giants and Krynnish (Dragonlance) Draconians had already made it into 3rd edition and plenty of dragon-people races already existed in and before the edition.
³ This is the first appearance of the Seldarine and includes all of the recurring members who aren't setting-specific except Fenmarel Mestarine, god of the wild elves, because wild elves didn't debut until later that year; Rillifane Rallathil, god of wood elves, because he was already in Deities & Demigods; and, of all gods, Sehanine Moonbow -- I'm not certain yet, but I think she's from 2nd ed.
Part Something or Another: What, They Supported Those Settings?
One of the big complaints about 3rd edition was that it didn't try hard enough to support the plethora of settings it inherited from 1st and 2nd editions. Most of this is due to awareness; some of that is due to outsourcing and some due to poor labeling, advertising, and distribution.
Officially, D&D has had 14+in-house settings. However, only five -- Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Eberron in that order chronologically, plus Ravenloft at the very end of 3.5 -- got named coverage by WotC. This was by no means equal: while the Realms got 49 books (compared to the nearly 120 non-setting works in 3rd edition, not counting magazine issues and web articles) and Eberron got 35 (13 books, two character sheets, and 20 overlooked adventures [as most modules were]), Dragonlance got 22 works but with such bad advertising and distribution that more people knew of Rokugan's support than Dragonlance's at the time (blame Margaret Weis?), Greyhawk got two outside of whatever was exclusive to the RPGA Living Greyhawk organized play, and Ravenloft had one book published by WotC and a crapton by White Wolf imprint Sword & Sorcery (which I have never seen physical copies of).
Because Planescape ties into several settings and Dark Sun is built off of the psionics rules, which are otherwise universal, they got some fluff mentioned hither and yon in books that dealt primarily with the planes or psionics, but nothing named "Planescape" or "Dark Sun." The same rule but with less material is true for the other big settings -- Birthright (no support whatsoever), Blackmoor (no support due to issues with setting/D&D creator Dave Arneson, who owns the rights), Mystara, and Spelljammer.
Guess which book does a lot of lifting for those? Yup, MMII. For no reason. And only if you know what you're looking for. (TBF, MMIII is basically the Monstrous Appendix for Eberron.)
This is the intro for what will be a two-parter: Dark Sun and the other settings. There's just a lot of Dark Sun stuff in here and you would guess next to none of it, as only the Thri-Kreen (obvs.) and the Braxat are psionic. Indeed, I'm not convinced that I've matched all of the setting-specific content that's in this book; I didn't know most of it was until like a month ago or less.
Idiot me was unfamiliar with the word "fujo(shi)." Didn't know we even had a word for that. But still, roommates to sexual tension to murder is also a possibility.
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I've been running this blog for over ten years now. Over that time, I've made 1999 monsters for Pathfinder RPG, all available for free on tumblr. Monster 2000 posts very soon. I'm not planning on quitting anytime soon; I've got some new ideas that'll really make 'em scream.
I am also a trans woman. Who was forced to quit her last job over being bullied by students in the classroom and the administration's insufficient response. I have gotten all of one job interview in the whole time I've been looking for work, and I didn't get that job. Although I have launched a Patreon, and I'm very proud of how active it is... it's only a fraction of my rent. And my savings are dwindling as costs are rising.
If you like the monsters I've written. If you've reblogged my posts. If you've stumbled on this site through a Google search because apparently I'm considered an expert on obscure monsters now. Please, I could use the help. My paypal is here and my Patreon is here.
My birthday is coming up this week. And what I'd like more than anything for my birthday is a job. But barring that, it would mean the world to me if people would donate and/or join the Patreon. Thank you so much to the people who have already done so.
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By popular demand (well, singular demand), I'm filling in some of the gaps from my previous Pride Month post. Because why not? Anyway, this is also kinda long.
What's probably most important here is not what it says about attitudes towards elves and sexuality but rather what these treatments say about then-current sexual and romantic norms.
To my knowledge and from my research, within Ds and/or Ds there are a few articles and sections of books that deal with elf psychology, sociology and similar, but of those, only three have had anything to do with elven sexuality, romance, courtship, and associated norms. Those are The Complete Book of Elves (1992, 2nd ed.), "Leaf and Thorn: The Secret Life of Elves" in Dragon #279 (Jan 2001, 3.0), and Races of the Wild (2005, 3.5). Neither "The Elven Point of View" (Dragon #60, April 1982) nor The Quintessential Elf (I or II, 3.0, Mongoose Publishing) nor Elves of Golarion (PF 1e) covered such topics, at least that I saw. There might be other articles or sections of books elsewhere that I'm unaware of. However, this suits my purposes just fine: because I have one source per numbered edition/version, I will be labeling them as such instead of by title.
D&D has had three distinct treatments of elf "love": a direct transfer of lore from Tolkien with some details changed to fit restrictions on D&D (2nd ed.), one that gets hung up on the elven lifespan so much that it has to change it again (3.5), and a fairly sex positive attitude (3.0) that is best summed up by a friend's allusion to Austin Powers: elves shag like minxes.¹
2nd. Ed.: Tolkienian Catholicism, but...
2nd ed.'s treatment of elves is basically that they're Catholic: they form an incredibly deep bond (i.e., marry) one individual and are reticent to remarry after their bondmate (spouse) has died (divorce is not discussed); those that might only do so once. This is not terribly out of step for the period: the Women's Liberation Movement had only recently ended (not that feminism had, just that particular brand/wave of it) and divorce, while a thing, was still frowned upon. (We're talking only 18 years after the Equal Credit Opportunity Act had passed, which allowed women in the US to take out credit cards in their own names.) Attitudes were changing, but we hadn't hit the point where media was starting to offer treatments of the impact of divorce on children (which was a big thing for the rest of the '90s and into the early oughts).
However, the biggest cultural milestones around an American company putting out a book discussing a fictional race engaging in very white, Anglo-Saxon, 20th Century Anglosphere norms of sex and romance were the Satanic Panic and the Murphy Brown controversy.
For those unaware, Murphy Brown was a TV work sitcom that ran from '88 to '98 (though I don't remember it lasting past the Bush Sr. administration). Brown (the role for which Candice Bergen is best known) was a middle-aged investigative political journalist, but also a single working woman and recovering alcoholic -- stati which were already pushing cultural normative boundaries. As you'd expect, the character was extremely competent and tough as nails. With a character like that, you know the show was going to deal with topical, controversial matters. In the 1991-92 season, Murphy became pregnant and brought the baby to term -- again, as a single mother. VPOTUS and noted imbecile (no exaggeration) Dan Quayle tried turning this into a culture war talking point, but his statements made it seem like he didn't understand that Brown was fictional, showing his windmill tilting for what it was.
Aside: Quayle isn't the only person who has embodied the caricature of conservatives that Democrats et al. like to imagine, but he was absolutely the main one prior to Dubya's 2000 campaign. I cannot overemphasize how much that stereotype is modeled after him.
The Complete Book of Elves came out in the middle of that season at a time when D&D was still dealing with a moral panic. The AIDS epidemic had destroyed the gay community and given the religious right extra ammunition against them; in the wake of that, radical feminism had spawned and was already targeting trans people, who were a very long way away from receiving any popular sensitivity or even recognition. The LGBTQ+ movement had not made it to a point where many people were willing to come out and those who did faced rampant discrimination at a minimum. There was no major social impetus to cater to queerness and plenty to go against that. So it makes sense that this book would take a very traditional approach to sex and love.
And yet, there is the elf communion ceremony. Elves in this book retain some of the vague telepathy from Tolkien, so they can do certain things which don't really impact the game but which allude to abilities which absolutely should. This act in particular is a form of mind-melding very much akin to that in Stranger in a Strange Land for which Heinlein coined the word "grok." The elf communion ceremony can take a fortnight of preparation, only works with other full elves, and requires complete trust (including being under the influence of no mind affecting spells) and serenity to perform. So, y'know, the sort of mystical descriptions people frequently give to lovemaking.
This is where we get into the queerness. You'll be happy to note that this can be done with up to four participants and gender is not mentioned at all in this section or in that about the marriage-like bond. So yes, even in the hidebound days of the first Bush administration and the continuation (though gradual disintegration) of the norms that got Reagan elected, elves had some queerness attached to them -- but with enough plausible deniability not to offend.
3.0: Slutty Elves
"Leaf and Thorn" is only five pages long and has sidebars, enlarged quotes, and illustrations to shorten that length (in typical magazine fashion). Even so, it does more in its discussion of the elven perspective and way of life than basically any other source I've read within D&D. This is because it better understands the implications of an extremely long lifespan and a chaotic good alignment than the other sources I've looked at do and does so without feeling the need to cater to human sensibilities. It is a better attempt at xenofiction, however grounded in American cultural perspectives it may be.
The section on sexual experimentation takes up nearly a full column (>1/12 of the article) and treats elven sexual behavior as shockingly lurid to other races, specifically in how prone elves are to having casual sex and fuckbuddies. There is a bit about elven fertility rates being extremely low and that resulting in little to no worry on the part of female elves (and a following sentence that says elf communities don't give a fuck about children being "illegitimate" -- the community will raise the child communally and that child will be loved), but nothing about venereal disease (N.B.: in 1st-3rd eds., PF included, elves have a Con penalty, so that's worth discussing).
Another section on courtship and marriage is a full column. While a lot of this is more mysticism (soulmates at first sight) and other aesthetic bits you'd expect of elves, the penultimate paragraph ends with "The wild debauchery that begins after the husband and wife have retired to the nuptial bed might surprise them." Again, elves shag like minxes. Divorce is given a sidebar two columns wide and roughly a third of the page tall (with an accompanying illustration that spans all three columns but isn't quite as tall) and is treated as something sorrowful but done in a mostly amicable way (which is hilarious to me: I've read enough divorce transcripts and heard enough about others to know that no legal action is as fueled by spite as divorce -- and spite is a quintessentially elven emotion).
For all of this, there is no mention of queerness. At all. There is plenty of room for there to be queerness, but there's no direct mention of it nor anything that lends itself to a queer interpretation of sexuality beyond elves having a culture of sex-positive promiscuity. This is also true for gender: it does describe some gender roles as not rigid, but in no way does it try to dwell upon gender nonconformity of any kind, be it transitioning, cross-dressing, marrying a same sex partner, or any kind of identity or physicality.
Why? Well, a few reasons.
By 2001, USese had gone through moral panics in the wake of countercultural trends for about 20 years. The Satanic Panic was just one of them. I mean, for context, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone would release in theatres later that year and it was already the subject of moral outrage. Those who were not seized by the outrage were getting tired of a new controversy every few years. Meanwhile, treatments of sex and sexuality were becoming more accepting, though not dramatically so. Like, the Austin Powers installment I mentioned earlier and in the footnote focuses on the contrast of late '60s hippie culture sex with late '90s "responsibility" culture. Having an explicitly sex positive elf culture would somewhat shocking for the period, but not so controversial as to draw the ire of anyone within the gaming/D&D communities.
But for all that, the LGBTQ+ movement was still recovering. Ellen had come out. There had been a few movies that dealt with LGBTQ people and themes (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; The Birdcage; Mrs. Doubtfire; To Wong Fu) and Nathan Lane had come into the spotlight. But queer people weren't accepted and queerness was not acceptable.
3.5: And Then Came Some Regression
The Races of series was 3.5's answer to The Complete Book of and The Quintessential series (2nd ed. and 3.0, respectively) when it came to races because 3rd edition did not release supplements on individual races (or classes) but groups of them. This one, Races of the Wild, covers Elves, Halflings, and Raptorans (a race made for this book that could fly, which was a big deal at the time).²
3.5 tries to strike a balance between 2nd ed.'s Catholic monogamy and 3.0's free love. Elves once again tend to marry once and only once, but only when it comes to other elves. They'll be happy to have serial monogamous relationships with humans because the prospect of centuries of commitment is a lot (enough that the book goes on to say that they take frequent, years-long vacations from their partners), but a fling lasting about as long as typical elven courtship with a spouse who will grow old and die in that time is nothing. Elf maturation has shortened to twenty five years (that's entirely from this book: beforehand, elves reached adulthood at roughly age 110), elf parenthood typically lasts from ages 100 to 200, the fertility rate is still low, and children born out of wedlock face no social stigma, so you've got more than 75 years of sexual appetite without any consequences. There's otherwise a sentence given to elves being "flirtatious" and having "long-term dalliances."
There's not a whole lot I can say about the historical context of this book that I didn't say in the post about Corellon. Probably the biggest bit left unsaid is that this book was coming out in the wake of numerous state legislatures (my own included) adding bans on gay marriage to state constitutions. That was for no real reason: the gay rights movement was still working on recognition at this point and the big push for gay marriage wouldn't really start up again until closer to 2008. Brokeback Mountain had not been released to act as a watershed moment and the murder of Matthew Shepherd years prior did not yet have a major impact on popular culture or popular discourse. It wasn't that queerness was as widely closeted as it had been, but it was still mostly the object of ridicule.
What about Hanali Celanil and Legolas?
Ho boy.
For those unfamiliar, the Seldarine is the elven pantheon in D&D. Hanali Celanil is its goddess of love. Her first appearance ("The Gods of the Elves" in Dragon #60 [April 1982, 1st ed.])³ is about the earliest tidbit we have about elf sexuality and presents it as thoroughly heterosexual, even as it says that she almost always appears as a female but sometimes will appear as a male. The same rare genderfluidity is in Demihuman Deities (1998, 2nd ed.) but not Monster Mythology (1992, same ed.), which is fairly terse, or Faiths and Pantheons (2002, 3.0), which has very little to say about the goddess apart from her cult. Races of the Wild also discusses her, but it's the same but more so of Faiths and Pantheons. Almost none of these have much of anything to say about elf romance or sexuality.
The one bit that could be construed as queer is that Hanali's priests are called to shelter and provide "succor" to young lovers, who are seen as guides to the true paths in life. This suggests that elf society will sometimes ostracize or otherwise persecute people over romantic entanglements, contrary to what other sources have suggested, and implies queerness mainly in that gender isn't brought up here. However, one of the goddess's blessings and the only one dealing with love instead of beauty is a two-point Charisma boost on occasion for the purposes to stoking heterosexual love -- with the heterosexuality enforced by the rules.
If you were looking for a canonical treatment of queerness, sorry.
Legolas was the subject of much fan attention in the early oughts because The Lord of the Rings was current and he was young and attractive. Fanfic had a field day with him; yaoi was popular. But this was yaoi written by women for women (or at least girls for girls). While it is true that many authors and readers came to grips with queer identities through such stories, it's also true that yaoi was used to provide heterosexual women an outlet. There's been a lot written on this topic, so I won't belabor it. Suffice it to say that Legolas was the image of queer elfdom for several years.
Footnotes
¹ I had forgotten about the original quote, so I thought my friend was alluding to minks and just accidentally Smeogol-pluralized them. The original quote is "I bet she shags like a minx" from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. It's a strained simile even then.
² Counting the setting-specific books (of which Races of Faerûn is one in name only), there are six installments: Destiny, the Dragon, Faerûn, Stone, and the Wild. 5e players will be interested to know that these were the origins of Dragonborn and Goliaths. Athasian (Dark Sun) Half-Giants and Krynnish (Dragonlance) Draconians had already made it into 3rd edition and plenty of dragon-people races already existed in and before the edition.
³ This is the first appearance of the Seldarine and includes all of the recurring members who aren't setting-specific except Fenmarel Mestarine, god of the wild elves, because wild elves didn't debut until later that year; Rillifane Rallathil, god of wood elves, because he was already in Deities & Demigods; and, of all gods, Sehanine Moonbow -- I'm not certain yet, but I think she's from 2nd ed.
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This keeps happening. I watch a movie, I like it, I look up related content on tumblr dot com to reblog, and ALL the content is "actor hot".
Which, sure, I got nothing against hot actors, and I am perfectly capable of appreciating hotness. But the movie also had a plot. Memorable lines. Visually compelling scenes that involve more or other than a hot actor. Direction, cinematography, themes.
And it's frustrating, it makes me feel insufferably serious.
I swear I'm not serious, I'm a fucking clown. The first time I baked cookies I stopped mid-way and said "wait, I can give them any shape I want!" and proceeded to mold dozens of cock-shaped cookies. And I'd keep doing that if the oven hadn't then exploded for unrelated reasons.
<p>Over the last year, Paizo has been navigating one of the most challenging periods in our company’s history. I want to speak to
Oof. Posted on Jun 9, 2026, here's a summary on EnWorld:
Paizo is laying off 12 employees, due to losses sustained from Diamond Comics' bankruptcy last year. Paizo announced the news in a post made to their website today, citing losses caused by ongoing litigation surrounding Diamond's bankruptcy. Paizo stated they lost $2 million in 2025, which has necessitated the move. Diamond was Paizo's exclusive bookstore distributor and Paizo was one of several RPG companies caught up when Diamond declared bankruptcy last year. JP Morgan Chase claimed a lien on all product currently held by Diamond after they declared bankruptcy, which included stock owned by Paizo that was held by Diamond for consignment sales. Diamond also appealed the termination of Paizo's exclusive contract, meaning that Paizo hasn't been able to move to a new bookstore distributor.
Paizo is currently working with their union on the layoffs, with severance offered to impacted employees. If volunteers aren't found, Paizo will layoff the least-senior employee in each impacted division.
Additionally, Paizo will reduce their new Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society offerings to once a month starting in October. Foundry VTT modules for organized play will also be paused until Paizo can find a way to increase profitability. "These changes are not a retreat," Paizo said of the changes. "Paizo believes strongly in the power of Organized Play and always will, but the current publishing model for Society scenarios is not working and we need to slow down, stem the financial losses from a struggling program and evaluate where to go from here."
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