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SirLitimus wrote:There are two types that I know of: Elves and Asgardian elves.

Greetings and Salutations. As others have pointed out, there are a few other types of Elves as well. And I won't address all the points, but I'll try to touch on some since I'm here.

Grazzik wrote:

ShadowLogan wrote:

SirLitmus wrote:Elves are supposed to be magical creatures. Sure, they get a base PPE but I feel they should have a connection to magic. Sense Magic and/or stronger magical bonuses would be appropriate.

Maybe in other games they are a Creature of Magic, but in Palladium they do not qualify as a Creature of Magic, just accept it as one of Palladium's many unique takes on the matter.

Too true. Though, despite the preponderance of evidence that say they are not CoM, which I agree with, I could have sworn I read somewhere an obscure line in one of the books that described elves as CoM. I ignored it and chalked it up to bad editing. Not going to bother looking for it.

As others have stated, there's evidence clearly indicating they cannot be Creatures of Magic (at least not as they are now). With that said, a quote that some may be thinking of comes to mind from Palladium Fantasy Second Edition main book, page 290.

"Some enemies of the elves have suggested that they are ancient creatures of magic and as such, should not be trusted.
Are elves creatures of magic? Unlikely ...

This provides the equivalent of a rumor, and then says it's "unlikely" but doesn't actually rule the possibility out. I used this possibility (and the existence of other types of Elves, such as Asgardian Elves) to write a small article: The Magic of Elves.

The concept is that they're not (standard) Creatures of Magic, but they have the ability to absorb large amounts of magical energy which may transform them into Creatures of Magic (though it's a bit unpredictable, at least without breeding from the results).

SirLitimus wrote:Elves are highly intelligent (minus the arrogance), and strives to do things to their utmost abilities. In addition, they have the long lifespans to learn more things than the lesser beings (do you sense that elven arrogance here?). Therefore, they should have bonuses to all or some skills sets.

That is not the logical conclusion. Long life spans and doing the most with your abilities would mean you are more likely to reach high level in an O.C.C. and/or multi-class. Player characters (in general) are considered near the beginning of their career/journey, not at the end of it.

Giving them bonuses because they have the potential to live long and develop more than a human is about the same logic that a human can reach mid to high level by the age of 40 (or earlier), so that means humans should be level 3 O.C.C. by the age 5. This logic also ignores things like Dragons, Demi-Gods, Altess, etc. that all have greater life spans without the bonuses you propose for the (comparitively) short lived Elves.

SirLitimus wrote:Elves are so athletic, their agility and speed would shame Olympic athletes. Why do they not have bonuses that show this?

They have a high P.P. to reflect this fact. Anything beyond that sounds more like personal preference without any actual book support (which is fine, as long as you're aware you're not discussing the same topic as others).

SirLitimus wrote:Finally (I could go on but naaaaa), I mentioned how they are a disorganized bunch. Why haven't they tried to regroup, reorganize, rebuild, restructure, and reinvent themselves?

*Takes a long, deep breath.* That's a complicated answer. First, we should address the fact there's more than one type of Elf, and not all Elves will have the same answer. With that said, I'll answer from a Palladium Fantasy (my preferred setting)/Rifts Conversion Book One perspective.

I'll do some of their quick timeline just for context.

100,000 Year Ago: Elves help defeat the Old Ones. The Age of Light begins and this is actually the start of the Elven Empire.
18,000 Years Ago: The Age of Elves is said to truly begin. (But, from what I can tell, the difference here really is more of instead of being "a" major player, they were "the" major player.)
10,000 Years Ago: Elf-Dwarf War begins.
8.000 Years Ago: Elf-Dwarf War ends, and Millennium of Purification begins.
7,000 Years Ago: Millennium of Purification ends.
6,000 Years Ago: The Time of Man begins (marking humans becoming the more dominant power).
2,800 Years Ago: The Timiro Kingdom rises to power.

So, the Elves have kingdoms for around 80,000 years. Then, they become the major race of the world, and decide to start a cold war with the Dwarves. When that doesn't work, they start an actual war. The war has a massive impact on other races (like reducing Titans, another survivor of the Old Ones) to a mere handful of survivors. Gnomes and many other races get severely impacted from the War, many of which were not actually involved (just collateral damage). When they finally stop fighting, they decide to wipe out all magic from the world (or at least they try). When they got tired of that, they settled into what would become the Timiro Kingdom and set up a new kingdom for a few thousand years, until the humans basically got fed up with the Elves being total jerks and overthrew them (which is the "Timiro Kingdom rises to power" 2,800 years ago).

So let's put this into a different context. You're an influential Senator in the U.S. government. Everything is going more or less fine. You decide to run for President of the United States, and win! Once president, you decide England has something you want. Sure, England is an ally and trading, but you're the U.S., and you want it to yourself. So you start a war. In the war, both sides launch some nukes. Parts of the world are now uninhabitable wastelands. You also decide to enact some biological warfare, and engineer a deadly virus that wipes out about 70% of the population of the entire world (countries that had nothing to do with the war included). Deciding you've gone too far, you decide to set things right by ... waging a war on science. Yup! Science created the virus, so you have to destroy all science because it's too dangerous. You attempt to purge every vaccine and piece of medical equipment as well, because, you know, science is bad. Clearly things have gotten out of hand, so now you enact martial law and a national curfew. People are extremely unhappy and starting to riot. Do you think: "Hey! I should run for 4 more years!" or maybe think: "Hey, maybe I should let someone else give it a try?"

Now, that might be a little exaggerated (but not much) for comedic effect (and emphasis) and condensed, but basically that's the reign of Elves. Basically, every time Elves have been in charge, they make others unhappy until there's a war or revolt against them. Honestly, the Elves not trying to run things sounds like one of their smarter moves.

With all that said, the Elves on the Palladium World do actually have some cities and towns they run/control (despite what Rifts Conversion Book One states), just none of major power on their own. So they might not rule a kingdom, but they can run independent towns and such. But Elves (overall) have decided not to try and rule their children (humans, who have already stood up and slapped the taste out of their mouth), but to advise them and hope their heirs (humans) do better. Hope some of that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.