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Kithran
OK I've been digging through my old Shadowrun and Earthdawn books and something suddenly struck me - how many elves are there?

The reason I ask is according to the BBB elves (and dwarves) first appeared in 2011 and they were born rather than adults transforming in the way Orcs and Trolls appeared. Yet a mere 18 years later (ie the eldest elf was only 18) the Sinsearach were formed and it was only 23 years later that Tir na nog was formed. Whilst the Immortal Elves had obviously appeared human during the fifth age I think there must have either been far more immortal elves than we know about (by a factor of a 1000 or so) or some elves must have transformed.

Anyone else have any comments?

Cheers

Kithran
Method
Don't forget spike babies. Some elves were born before UGE in 2011.
Stahlseele
also don't forget that immoral elves only don't die of old age but will surely do so with some metal in a place in their body where it does not belong
HentaiZonga
A tangential question: Where are 2070-era metahuman demographics published?
Cantankerous
If even one in 300 births were elves during those years there could be several millions of Elves in just the Western world alone. And from everything Shadowrun tells us, it was allot more prevalent than just that. Even with attrition figured in, there should be allot of elves in their sixties downwards and adding in "spike babies" you might be able to actually double even that amount.

For my own game I figure that Elves occur MUCH more often than that even in human/human pairings still today, so that a world wide figure of almost 1% of the population being elven leaves us with more than 60 million elves world wide. I add about half that many dwarves and more than 5 times that many orcs and almost as many trolls as elves to the mix.

And mind you, my demographics are STILL much lower than the game represents. I do this for a number of reasons, including the much higher than human attrition rate among eta humans...because they are still a small minority and are so often hated and or feared. Human beings subconsciously don't want a competitor race that might supplant them. So it is only when they begin to understand that metahumanity does NOT represent such a "competitor race" in their conscious thought processes that any type of parity in attrition values can begin to happen. When it does the values will probably get to be even a bit higher than in game before more or less stabilizing. Except maybe for the Orcs. smile.gif I have a sort of odd half thought back in the recesses of my mind which has most of humanity getting off of Earth at some point (maybe around 2300) and baseline humans one day being the second largest population on their homeworld after all.


Isshia
SIN
Hello all,

Sorry to ask a silly question, but what's a "spike baby"?

Thanks,

SIN
HentaiZonga
QUOTE (SIN @ Apr 27 2008, 10:04 AM) *
Hello all,

Sorry to ask a silly question, but what's a "spike baby"?

Thanks,

SIN


An Elf or Dwarf born before 2011, so-called because it could only happen in a "Mana spike" - basically, a few Domains with extremely high background count (places like Stonehenge, or Uluru, or the Sphinx) would occasionally spike up high enough during the Fifth World to actually produce a measurable ambient mana field for a few months; if an embryo with metahuman genes happened to spend most of its gestational period within that domain, they came out as an Elf or Dwarf. Rare, but it happened.
SIN
So, where were all these spike babies before 2011? Did no one notice them?

SIN
Kithran
My point isn't so much about how many elves are around now but how many were around when the various elven nations were formed. Spike babies have to be very rare - otherwise UGE would have been considered to have occured earlier and therefore shouldn't really matter. For there to be enough elves to allow the formation of the two tirs and still leave plenty in other areas the numbers just seem wrong unless a percentage of normal humans suddenly found themselves changing into elves - possibly descendents of the immortal elves as a small number of them could leave a lot of descendants in 7000 years or there are a hell of a lot more immortal elves than we know about.

Kithran

Stahlseele
there were people hunting dragons during the down cycle, and the elves had no magic during the down cycle either, accidents happen my friend . .
accidents, wars, general violent crimes . . some thousand years is a long time and long enough to kill some thousand immoral elves with other causes than dieing of old age . . if every year just about 10 immoral elves get killed due to some other circumstances it's a wonder that any made it over to the 6th world . . .
Rad
QUOTE (SIN @ Apr 27 2008, 01:20 AM) *
So, where were all these spike babies before 2011? Did no one notice them?

SIN



Sure they did, maybe you've seen them on the cover of the National Enquirer? wink.gif
CanRay
QUOTE (SIN @ Apr 27 2008, 04:20 AM) *
So, where were all these spike babies before 2011? Did no one notice them?

SIN

Because all an "Elf" is, is a tall, scrawny person with pointy ears.

Frag, my RL Grandfather fits that description.

Come to think of it, my family does have a tendency towards a long life expectancy, save for accidents...
MYST1C
QUOTE (HentaiZonga @ Apr 27 2008, 10:18 AM) *
A tangential question: Where are 2070-era metahuman demographics published?

Not 2070 but 2063 - demographics from Shadows of Europe compiled:
CODE
Human  67.29%
Dwarf   7.24%
Elf    10.35%
Ork     9.18%
Troll   4.71%
Other   1.29%

CanRay
Yeah, but is that just the SINners?
weblife
So basically the two Tirs were founded by a bunch of riled-up teenagers, working coordinated across several continents to recruit and muster the funds and firepower needed to execute their plan?

I think you have to assume a few immortal elves were involved. But if they are good enough, then it can probably be done, although the "feel" I had of the Tir nations did not include being founded by people in their early twenties. - But the more power to them if thats how it was!

On that note, during the formation, almost every elf on the planet would have to have heard of or received recruiting calls for them to gather enough elves to get away with this.

Regarding the immortal elves and attrition, assuming they breed at all, they would do so at an exponential rate that far surpasses that of attrition. However, it might be that the children of mixed blood would simply be humans, not immortal elves. Or even, if elves, then not immortal.

I know the cause I going to bring up now stems from a grim period, but at the end of the movie Schindlers List, there is a summary of the people that were saved, and then a number in the hundreds of thousands that are their descendants. The point I'm trying to make is that people breed, the rest is not for here.

Another good example is America, if you do the math the population growth in the US has been significantly higher than in Europe since the initial colonization. People spread like wildfire if there is room enough. And its darn hard to kill off a family strain unless you specifically target them. As part of natural attrition, its highly improbable that one strain is completely wiped out.

Now we count in thousands of years, if even a handful of immortal elves had any kind of libido, their children are everywhere. (UGE babies being the first of their families to return to elf appearance).
CanRay
And you know that Harlequin has to have so many bastard children... nyahnyah.gif
Kithran
QUOTE (weblife @ Apr 27 2008, 01:15 PM) *
So basically the two Tirs were founded by a bunch of riled-up teenagers, working coordinated across several continents to recruit and muster the funds and firepower needed to execute their plan?

I think you have to assume a few immortal elves were involved. But if they are good enough, then it can probably be done, although the "feel" I had of the Tir nations did not include being founded by people in their early twenties. - But the more power to them if thats how it was!

On that note, during the formation, almost every elf on the planet would have to have heard of or received recruiting calls for them to gather enough elves to get away with this.


And that is my basic question/problem. If you assume that any elf aged less than 15 wouldn't have been any use in the creation of the tow Tirs this means you only have 7 years worth of UGE births - somehow 10% of 7 years births managed to set up their own countries, in the case of the Sinsearach you'd only have 3 years of UGE births. Even with help from the immortal elves I have trouble with the concept. If the conversion has been more like goblinisation whereby people who were already experienced became elves then it is more believeable but still a stretch.

Kithran
last_of_the_great_mikeys
The elves, immortal or otherwise, were working on forming the Tirs long before they became reality. When human paranoia and prejudice threatened metahumans and Oregon said, "Hey, come here, dudes. We're just like you," well, migration happenned.That 10% elves also had other metahumans as well, like dwarfs.Now, let's say 25% of elves migrated. Random number. 10% of the7 years of births. Let's say there was a population of 50 million people in North America. Each had 1 child. That would be 5 million metas. Half of which were elves? 2.5 million. Multiply that by 7. 17,500,000 elves. So, with 25% showing up that's over 5 million elves showing up at Oregon and are told the plan. Immortal elves use their magic and experience to guide this horde. Word gets out that elves are making their own land...hmmm...maybe a second migration happens, doubling that number...

All just a mental exercise here with pretty much nothing to back it up, but it was fun to think about.
Kithran
QUOTE (last_of_the_great_mikeys @ Apr 27 2008, 02:59 PM) *
The elves, immortal or otherwise, were working on forming the Tirs long before they became reality. When human paranoia and prejudice threatened metahumans and Oregon said, "Hey, come here, dudes. We're just like you," well, migration happenned.That 10% elves also had other metahumans as well, like dwarfs.Now, let's say 25% of elves migrated. Random number. 10% of the7 years of births. Let's say there was a population of 50 million people in North America. Each had 1 child. That would be 5 million metas. Half of which were elves? 2.5 million. Multiply that by 7. 17,500,000 elves. So, with 25% showing up that's over 5 million elves showing up at Oregon and are told the plan. Immortal elves use their magic and experience to guide this horde. Word gets out that elves are making their own land...hmmm...maybe a second migration happens, doubling that number...

All just a mental exercise here with pretty much nothing to back it up, but it was fun to think about.


Current US Birthrate is approximately 13.7 which gives just over 4 million births a year from a population of 300 million. If 10% were elves that would be 400,000 per year or 2.8 million total elves born in the US over 7 years, a quarter of them would be 700,000.

The birthrate for Ireland is slightly higher at 14.4

Kithran (gotta love the net for looking up facts wink.gif
Ancient History
Recall that the Elven birthrate was somewhat higher in the Pacific Northwest and Ireland than in other areas.
Method
It would only take a few thousand willing to fight, lead by powerful IE magicians and backed up by a dragon to overthrow a local state government. Fending off the US reprisals would be the real challenge...

And the Sinsearch tribe kind of makes sense. I can see a bunch of angst ridden teens and twenty year olds wandering out into the wilderness to found a utopian hippy love colony.
CanRay
Great... Elven Hippies...
Kithran
QUOTE (Method @ Apr 27 2008, 06:05 PM) *
It would only take a few thousand willing to fight, lead by powerful IE magicians and backed up by a dragon to overthrow a local state government. Fending off the US reprisals would be the real challenge...

And the Sinsearch tribe kind of makes sense. I can see a bunch of angst ridden teens and twenty year olds wandering out into the wilderness to found a utopian hippy love colony.


But would adults let a bunch of agnst-ridden teens (remember the eldest would be 18....) wander out into the wilderness to found a utopian hippy love colony.... And if you think 1 or 2 older people (ie immortal elves) would help I think it would be more likely to hinder at least in the public perception stakes.

Kithran
CanRay
Guess you never heard of the '60s. nyahnyah.gif
Kithran
QUOTE (CanRay @ Apr 27 2008, 06:24 PM) *
Guess you never heard of the '60s. nyahnyah.gif


But in the 60s it was the first time it had happened, are you telling me an attempt nowadays by a bunch of angst-ridden teens would be easy....
CanRay
It wasn't easy back then, either, I bet. Wouldn't know, wasn't there.

But if it can be done once, it can be done again... And, honestly, people forget all too quickly the lessons of the past.

And, who knows, maybe this is part of the Immortal Elves' plan after all...

Or, they couldn't be arsed, and had more important things to do...
Aaron
QUOTE (HentaiZonga @ Apr 27 2008, 02:18 AM) *
A tangential question: Where are 2070-era metahuman demographics published?

If you turn to page 66 in your hymnal, you'll find that humans are a "slight majority of the Earth's population."
Hatspur
We can claim that the elves are all angsty teens, but they were also a generation that grew up dealing with things like: The Great Ghost Dance, Economic and communications crash, social upheaval with SAIM, and the VITAS plague. These were not genetically, philosophically, or physically weak people. Nobody would be at this time in history if you were still alive. In fact, there isn't anyone living in the United States who isn't from an Eastern Block country or served in active military service in the last 10 years who can really relate to anything close to that amount of catastrophe in an 18 year period. The foundation of the country is also no surprise when you couple all the above horrors with the NAN already failing to hold together under their newfound autonomy.
CanRay
Very good point.

Frankly, the Generation most "Hard as the Streets" 'Runners are, are wimps compared to their parents.

And I can see the Grandparents going, "Damnit, boy... Back in my day, we had to steal our food from heavily armed convoys, going up hill, both ways, through a MOB! And we were LUCKY if we even had PANTS, forget shoes!"

Which, considering what happened in New York... Might not that be far from the truth...
MYST1C
QUOTE (Kithran @ Apr 27 2008, 09:58 AM) *
The reason I ask is according to the BBB elves (and dwarves) first appeared in 2011 and they were born rather than adults transforming in the way Orcs and Trolls appeared.

In general, possible metahuman age is something that seems to be forgotten sometimes by SR authors (both professional and fanstuff).
The first elves and dwarves (not counting spikebabies) were born in 2011, meaning the oldest regular elves and dwarves are just in their late 50s in 2070.
The first orks and trolls (not counting the first goblinization wave of formerly normal humans) were born in 2021, meaning the oldest born orks and trolls are just in their late 40s in 2070 - if they got that old, that is.

Yet there are descriptions of "really old-looking" dwarves and elves in stories set just in the 2060s or even 2050s! Geriatric-looking orks or trolls I can accept (I'm of the "orks and trolls age faster than humans"-school) but not elves and dwarves.
Kithran
QUOTE (MYST1C @ Apr 27 2008, 08:53 PM) *
In general, possible metahuman age is something that seems to be forgotten sometimes by SR authors (both professional and fanstuff).
The first elves and dwarves (not counting spikebabies) were born in 2011, meaning the oldest regular elves and dwarves are just in their late 50s in 2070.
The first orks and trolls (not counting the first goblinization wave of formerly normal humans) were born in 2021, meaning the oldest born orks and trolls are just in their late 40s in 2070 - if they got that old, that is.

Yet there are descriptions of "really old-looking" dwarves and elves in stories set just in the 2060s or even 2050s! Geriatric-looking orks or trolls I can accept (I'm of the "orks and trolls age faster than humans"-school) but not elves and dwarves.


Its not an issue with Orcs and Trolls - goblinisation is explictily described as something that happened to 10% of the worlds adults therefore they can quite easily be elderly (or even die of old age) in the 2050s. The one off 'old looking' elf or dwarf could be explained as disguise, disease or the like but the whole forming of nations is far more of a stretch.

Kithran
Nath
QUOTE (MYST1C @ Apr 27 2008, 01:50 PM) *
Not 2070 but 2063 - demographics from Shadows of Europe compiled:
CODE
Human  67.29%
Dwarf   7.24%
Elf    10.35%
Ork     9.18%
Troll   4.71%
Other   1.29%

I found 67.29% of humans, by suming the human percentile of every country, and dividing this sum by the number of countries. Which is not the right thing. Factoring population in, Western Europe figures are human 69.49%, dwarf 6.34%, elve 8.71%, ork 10.21%, troll 4.21% troll and "other" 1.05%.

Figures for North America circa 2062 -according to Shadows of North America- are human 65.94%, dwarf 6.81%, elve 9.84%, ork 11.85%, troll 4.91% and "other" 0.65%. Shadows of Asia features numbers only for India, Japan, Rusia and Korea, with high figures for human, 76.84% (Japan's not that much to blame : Indians account for 70% of it).

Overall, known data (North America, Western Europe, those four Asian countries, plus Aztlan and the Trans-Polar Aleut) give human 73.14%, dwarf 5.73%, elve 6.82%, ork 10.57%, troll 2.60% and other 1.14% on a total of 2,290,514,134.
.
Stahlseele
the one of the old looking dwarf can simply be explained away by dwarfs simply looking old no matter how old they really are . . kinda like elves looking young no matter how old they are . . i still don't believe in the elves living for more than 200 years . .
Spike
That whole age thing is a great part of why I worked for so very long with the assumption that Elves and Dwarves were part of the 'goblinization' in addition to the UGE...

BUt I was mocked!! MOCKED!!!


Who's laughing now!!!

Bwahahahahahahaha....




Er... I mean... nevermind.
Method
QUOTE (MYST1C @ Apr 27 2008, 12:53 PM) *
The first orks and trolls (not counting the first goblinization wave of formerly normal humans) were born in 2021, meaning the oldest born orks and trolls are just in their late 40s in 2070 - if they got that old, that is.


Uh... except that goblinization occurs at or around puberty which means they are 12-13 to begin with (i.e. born around the same time as UGE in 2011). Thus in 2070 the oldest orcs and trolls are as old as the oldest UGE elves and dwarfs- late 50s (which according to fluff is pretty old for an orc or troll). rotate.gif

Edit: also, I've always thought the shorter life span of trolls and orcs had a certain "social injustice" quality to it. Poverty, manual labor, crappy health care, shitty diet, violence, etc... all major contributers to shorter life span in certain minority populations even today in RL.
Fortune
Mock! nyahnyah.gif biggrin.gif
Cthulhudreams
Orcs with their fast lifecycles and capability to give birth to litters, and the fact that they are the mster race in shadowrun terms should mean that they would be majority of the population by themselves.
last_of_the_great_mikeys
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Apr 27 2008, 02:27 PM) *
i still don't believe in the elves living for more than 200 years . .


Well, let's see if my memory serves me here. I do believe there was/is a definite link between Earthdawn and Shadowrun, considering some of the exact same characters from Earthdawn appeared in Shadowrun. So, using this logic, I also think I remember the Eartdawn game book stating unequivocably that elves lived for 400 years. If my memory is correct (though at my age it can get kinda buggy) then that means Shadowrun elves have a 400 year life expectancy, unless they happen to be of the immortal variety.
Critias
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Apr 27 2008, 05:27 PM) *
i still don't believe in the elves living for more than 200 years . .

Really? Well, I don't believe in trolls getting big body and strength bonuses.

Who's laughing now?
Fuchs
Just change it for your game. Nothing like making all the elven tradition and cuture as big lies spread by the half-breed offspring of demons masking as "immortal elves".
Stahlseele
the only reason why no elf has died of old age is, that they simply don't know when to keep out of other people's business . .
dieing of lead poisoning should be considered of natural cause . .
FrankTrollman
Juggling the numbers from various books, it appears that Roughly 1/7 of the world are Elves, roughly 1/7 of the world are Orks, and roughly 1/7 of the world are all other whacky metatypes: trolls, dwarfs, ghouls, whatever.

-Frank
CanRay
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Apr 28 2008, 05:47 AM) *
dieing of lead poisoning should be considered of natural cause . .

Oh, I'm sure there's more than one medical report that reads: "Shot fifty-seven times in the back, stabbed eighteen times in the neck area, nearly severing the head, poisoned extensively by unknown agent... Cause of death, heart failure due to undiagnosed heart murmur exasperated by poor air quality."

Or that CSI Episode where a variety of people try to kill a Boxer, and, in the end, it was the Lawn Chair.
Blue eyes
I expect that if/when we get an official update of the demographics, humans will still be the majority but that the orc race is growing fast and clearly the 2nd largest, followed by elves and dwarves. I assume trolls still will be the smallest overall.

Hopefully we will see an offical update regarding the race demographics in a future book.
CircuitBoyBlue
QUOTE (Critias @ Apr 27 2008, 11:59 PM) *
Really? Well, I don't believe in trolls getting big body and strength bonuses.

Who's laughing now?


Funny. But the difference is that Trolls get big body and strength bonuses RIGHT NOW. It's a lot easier to make your game not include long-lived elves without whipping out a house-rule-hammer. Stahlseele's games without 200 year elves don't require any houserules, just housefluff. That just makes it a little easier to manage than your games without RAW trolls. Not trying to tell you your games are wrong or anything, just that I can see it being a lot easier to run a game without 200 year elves than without RAW trolls, especially given the speculative nature of a lifespan that hasn't ended yet.

And yes, I realize that you were probably just disputing his interpretation of that very same speculative fluff.
MYST1C
QUOTE (Method @ Apr 28 2008, 01:03 AM) *
Uh... except that goblinization occurs at or around puberty which means they are 12-13 to begin with (i.e. born around the same time as UGE in 2011). Thus in 2070 the oldest orcs and trolls are as old as the oldest UGE elves and dwarfs- late 50s (which according to fluff is pretty old for an orc or troll). rotate.gif

To quote myself (with emphasis):
QUOTE (MYST1C @ Apr 27 2008, 09:53 PM) *
The first orks and trolls (not counting the first goblinization wave of formerly normal humans) were born in 2021, meaning the oldest born orks and trolls are just in their late 40s in 2070 - if they got that old, that is.

In 2021 10% of the human world population, people of all ages, suddenly transformed into orks and trolls. There is still discussion whether such transformed humans would still have normal human life expectancy (the novel "Never trust an elf" indicates this - but it's only a novel...).
The first actual ork and troll children, metahumans from impregnation on, were born in 2021 or 2022, I guess.

I was talking explicitly about the latter, not the former.

I don't remember where exactly but there is some piece of fluff in one of the books stating that goblinization has been receding over the last decades - people either get born as metahumans or as humans - and that births of babies of a different race than the parents have been receding as well.
CanRay
OK, here's a question... How many groups are running Shadowrun that takes place in 2200s?

So what does it matter how long elves live?

Another point is that we're still, what, four generations? Five? After UGE. No one born at that time thinks long-term like that, there's no social imputus into it. The Elven GANGS have just started to notice that their Leaders aren't getting old and retiring/slowing down and dying like they do in Human/Ork/Troll Gangs. It'll take a few more years for the "Old Men" in the boardrooms to notice the same thing about their business compatriots that are Elves and Dwarves.

That's the totality of the "Elven Longevity" at this point and time.
Fuchs
Not to mention that with leonisation and similar tech, up to full body replacement, just about every rich person will stay young. Only the poor grow old, and I assume that an elf living in the barrens won't exactly look young with 40, just maybe a smidgen less worn than his troll chummer - maybe even more, given that the troll may be hardier (higher body).
CanRay
Exactly. In 100 years from Shadowrun, there'd start to be changes seen in culture to deal with issues of longevity and so on, but in the 2050s-2070s, it's just not an issue.
Fuchs
I'd already say it is an issue, just not elves vs. the rest, but "rich vs. poor" - and that has been an issue for SR since SR1. A number of important people are nearing their "retirement age", but are as healthy as a 20 year old thanks to leonisation. That's bound to create some issues, which usually lead to runs. "Help my dad retire, he won't do it else" Johnsons anyone?

In my games, the rich do not age, and are not ugly (unless they want to). And the poor age and often look ugly, no matter their race. Pollution will ravage any human of any race.

(In SR2, one of my longest running story arcs centered around a cabal of rich people investigating various ways to become effectively immortal, from vampirism to cybernetic bodies to copying your consciousness into the matrix to genetech and nanoware regenerators. I am not sure my players ever figured the link to all those runs out.)
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