Anatomy of an elf

Started by spicemustflow, March 17, 2009, 06:57:00 AM

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March 17, 2009, 06:57:00 AM
I'm having trouble picturing my favorite race, help me out.

Here we have a humanoid creature that is considerably taller than a human. It is much weaker than a human, so I'm assuming that its muscle mass is insignificant in comparison. Do they look like stick insects or ethiopian starving children? If that's the case, the 'official' race picture is wrong. If it isn't then they either have hollow bones, or their muscles are made of foam.

They can also run incredible distances, putting the modern (human) long distance runners to shame. Now, I'll get the standard 'there is a difference between strength and endurance' response but I'd imagine that a kick from a leg that can run across the known world could crack a mul's skull. Imagine a gazelle or something similar, they don't appear to have much mass but their kick is dangerous. If they would use it anyway.

Also, what kind of heart they have, in order not to burst after such a long run?

What I'm trying to say is that you have to employ some serious suspension of disbelief when you consider an elf.

I'm not too bent on realism, I'm more curious about how do you picture an elf.
March 17, 2009, 07:22:24 AM #1
Elfs don't have hearts. Everyone knows they wouldn't pee up yer bum if yer kidneys were on fire.
Quote from: MorgenesYa..what Bushranger said...that's the ticket.
March 17, 2009, 09:19:44 AM #2
I've always pictured them as much like a horse standing upright and of course humanized.

Good long well muscled legs, very narrow hips and waist with a long large rib/chest area for massive lungs and heart (such as a horse) but almost no muscle or weight from the hips up, very bony arms and long necks and faces...almost horselike there too.

One reason I always get an OOC laugh out of any elf female that is "buxom" In any way, breast REALLY hamper running ability...no elf would have more then slightly larger bumps then a male.

I'd draw one if I was an artist.

But basicly picture any african from a tribe known for running then get them 10 times better adapted for distance running and give them pointy ears.
A gaunt, yellow-skinned gith shrieks in fear, and hauls ass.
Lizzie:
If you -want- me to think that your character is a hybrid of a black kryl and a white push-broom shaped like a penis, then you've done a great job
March 17, 2009, 07:33:12 PM #3
This has to be the most quoted Zalanthian art orignal submission ever, but it comes in handy so often.

As of February 2017, I no longer play Armageddon.
March 17, 2009, 07:59:51 PM #4
I can't say that I care for that picture too much except for as a reference of other races vs half-giant.

IMO the elf is far to thick and curvy and generally 'healthy' looking to be Zalanthan.

I've always imagined them much like X-D said.
A staff member sends you:
"Normally we don't see a <redacted> walk into a room full of <redacted> and start indiscriminately killing."

You send to staff:
"Welcome to Armageddon."
March 17, 2009, 08:14:38 PM #5
Peering into the darkness, your voice uncertain, you say, in sirihish:
     "You be wary, you lot. It ain' I who's locked 'p here with yeh. it's the whol
e bunch of youse that's locked down here with meh."
March 17, 2009, 08:43:13 PM #6
Hah, I had a lot of trouble imagining an elf when I first played. I've kinda imagined them as a human, but with much longer limbs and torso. Probably only slightly skinnier as the average human, but because their limbs are longer, they look much skinnier. Probably the same amount of muscles, but elven arms have much softer muscles, with their legs only slightly tougher than a human's. I don't want to imagine them looking malnourished either, because it's not cool.

I think elves just have really light bones, which is what makes them move much more faster. Sure, their legs can propel themselves, but they can't kick too strongly because there's just not much mass in their foot. But definitely brittle bones.

Their muscles and organs were just designed to let them accelerate much faster, but without much power.

I'm sure there's some bio student around here who's going to be laughing at everything I wrote :P
Quote from: Rahnevyn on March 09, 2009, 03:39:45 PM
Clans can give stat bonuses and penalties, too. The Byn drop in wisdom is particularly notorious.
March 17, 2009, 09:10:58 PM #7
Quote from: Majikal on March 17, 2009, 07:59:51 PM
I can't say that I care for that picture too much except for as a reference of other races vs half-giant.

IMO the elf is far to thick and curvy and generally 'healthy' looking to be Zalanthan.

The elf IS pretty curvy, but I've always imagined it was because of that one elven tribe widely known to make the sexiest clothes in the Known World. That doesn't directly relate to a shapely form, of course, but it's how I've always thought of the elf there.


Quote from: SMuz on March 17, 2009, 08:43:13 PM
I think elves just have really light bones, which is what makes them move much more faster. Sure, their legs can propel themselves, but they can't kick too strongly because there's just not much mass in their foot. But definitely brittle bones.

Their muscles and organs were just designed to let them accelerate much faster, but without much power.

I'm sure there's some bio student around here who's going to be laughing at everything I wrote :P

Light brittle bones sound very bad to run on, they sound like they'd snap easily. I'm too lazy to look and check if that's true, so we'll both have to wait for those bio students to comment.

I agree with the idea of faster, but with not as much power if power means strength. I think of desert elves, at least, having a fair amount of stamina and long-term endurance, since they don't ride mounts.


As of February 2017, I no longer play Armageddon.
March 17, 2009, 09:15:42 PM #8 Last Edit: March 17, 2009, 09:17:37 PM by Twilight
I visualized them as having a more compact, "shorter" torso in comparison to their legs.  I view the legs as being very long,  letting them fall into a rhythm when they run (sort like like how when penguins waddle, that actually is the most energy efficient way to move over snow...only for sand, not snow).  Shorter (in proportion) thighs and buttocks than humans, but with more muscle.  Longers legs below the knees, but with thin, extremely hard calves.  However, due to the longer lower legs, they wouldn't be able to kick very hard, because they would loose leverage (feet could move very fast, but not with a lot of force).
Evolution ends when stupidity is no longer fatal."
March 17, 2009, 09:51:06 PM #9
It's really not all that tough to picture a Zalanthan elf, people. Take a regular elf, stretch them out and make them generally tall and slender, then give them superhuman running ability and stamina. As far as what gives them the ability to run like all hell, that's easy. It's the thousands or millions of years of running away from whoever they stole from. The slow perished, and the tough lived to brag about it and make babies.

Think about it.
Keepin' it dusty,
                     Mr.B

EvilRoeSlade: "There's something seriously wrong when I say aide and everyone hears whore."
March 17, 2009, 11:21:41 PM #10
That last elf looks like a muscular version of Elrond ...
"When I was a fighting man, the kettle-drums they beat;
The people scattered gold-dust before my horse's feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back."
March 17, 2009, 11:22:42 PM #11
... or a half-elf.
Yeah here come the rooster,
You know he ain't gonna die.
March 17, 2009, 11:24:07 PM #12
The races art...That should only be used to compare heights. Other then that, It is WAY off..on pretty much everything. First, the mantis only has four limbs, You know something is wrong when the artist cannot remember that a mantis has six. Dwarves, normaly descibed as being about as wide as they are tall, in that art, he is barely HALF as wide as he is tall. Muls keep basicly the same preportions of the mixed parent races, So, they should be about halfway between dwarf and human...that mul is a baby, Under weight, undersized. The elf is shown as a very FAT one of its race I guess. The Half-giant, though maybe about the right height is shown as half the weight/mass it should be. IE the artist left it human only taller, that HG could not weigh more then 900 or so lbs...while zalanthus HG range about 1600-2000 lbs.
A gaunt, yellow-skinned gith shrieks in fear, and hauls ass.
Lizzie:
If you -want- me to think that your character is a hybrid of a black kryl and a white push-broom shaped like a penis, then you've done a great job
March 18, 2009, 01:16:15 AM #13
Wow. Those are some freaking awesome pictures, Allegria.
Quote from: LauraMars
Quote from: brytta.leofaLaura, did weird tribal men follow you around at age 15?
If by weird tribal men you mean Christians then yes.

Quote from: Malifaxis
She was teabagging me.

My own mother.
March 18, 2009, 01:54:59 AM #14
The dwarf with the battle ax is about perfect IMO...the muls are still too skinny, I like the first HG pic, for a few reasons.
A gaunt, yellow-skinned gith shrieks in fear, and hauls ass.
Lizzie:
If you -want- me to think that your character is a hybrid of a black kryl and a white push-broom shaped like a penis, then you've done a great job
March 18, 2009, 02:01:36 AM #15
The last pic's HG's height is out of whack. The maximum height an HG can have is 155 inches. Which is just about twice the size of a tall human (78 inches).  I always wondered how can HGs weigh SO MUCH, with such little height. But I suppose that's why they were created via magickal means.
Peering into the darkness, your voice uncertain, you say, in sirihish:
     "You be wary, you lot. It ain' I who's locked 'p here with yeh. it's the whol
e bunch of youse that's locked down here with meh."
March 18, 2009, 02:03:25 AM #16
Quote from: SmashedTregil on March 18, 2009, 02:01:36 AM
The last pic's HG's height is out of whack. The maximum height an HG can have is 155 inches. Which is just about twice the size of a tall human (78 inches).  I always wondered how can HGs weigh SO MUCH, with such little height. But I suppose that's why they were created via magickal means.

I'd say density, yeah.
"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."

--Alan Moore
March 18, 2009, 02:19:51 AM #17
HG's are pretty dense.

/pun
Quote from: Wug
No one on staff is just waiting for the opportunity to get revenge on someone who killed one of their characters years ago.

Except me. I remember every death. And I am coming for you bastards.
March 18, 2009, 11:02:35 AM #18
I have a problem with anyone depicting elves as just a tall human.  Elves should look pretty freakish by human standards, they should NOT BE ANYTHING REMOTELY ATTRACTIVE (by human standards).  This whole fantasy elf thing where people imagine elves as some sort of romatic teh hotness person with pointy ears just doesn't fit the zalanthian version very well.  These are not tolkien elves, you are not playing legolass (however it's spelled). 

I agree the racial picture is way off because basically the person drew humans of varying height, and they're totally not.  A mul kills the mother to give birth to.  Therefore they have to be something that as a baby is too big for to be born.  Cross species mating is highly frowned on.  Now why would that be?  I think it goes beyond just racism in game, to the point where most people would probably look at individuals of other races as distgusting to get down with. 

I dunno why this all seems to come down to knocking boots with me and races, but I really feel that that is the main guiding force behind people making out every race to be some version of human.
March 18, 2009, 02:42:39 PM #19
I totally agree with Underseven.

It is known that I prefer to play dwarves, And though I have had at least one dwarf who would fuck pretty much anything alive...and even some things that were not. The rest look at anything but another dwarf with downright disgust to have sex with. The same applies with any other race I have played.
A gaunt, yellow-skinned gith shrieks in fear, and hauls ass.
Lizzie:
If you -want- me to think that your character is a hybrid of a black kryl and a white push-broom shaped like a penis, then you've done a great job
March 18, 2009, 02:58:47 PM #20
Quote from: X-D on March 18, 2009, 02:42:39 PM
It is known that I prefer to play dwarves, And though I have had at least one dwarf who would fuck up pretty much anything alive...
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I play this game to pretend to chop muthafuckaz up with bone swords.
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March 18, 2009, 04:24:09 PM #21
Aheh. Heh. X-D must have mistook himself for Malken there for a moment.
March 18, 2009, 10:15:15 PM #22
Quote from: UnderSeven on March 18, 2009, 11:02:35 AM
I have a problem with anyone depicting elves as just a tall human.  Elves should look pretty freakish by human standards, they should NOT BE ANYTHING REMOTELY ATTRACTIVE (by human standards).  This whole fantasy elf thing where people imagine elves as some sort of romatic teh hotness person with pointy ears just doesn't fit the zalanthian version very well.  These are not tolkien elves, you are not playing legolass (however it's spelled). 

I agree the racial picture is way off because basically the person drew humans of varying height, and they're totally not.  A mul kills the mother to give birth to.  Therefore they have to be something that as a baby is too big for to be born.  Cross species mating is highly frowned on.  Now why would that be?  I think it goes beyond just racism in game, to the point where most people would probably look at individuals of other races as distgusting to get down with. 

I dunno why this all seems to come down to knocking boots with me and races, but I really feel that that is the main guiding force behind people making out every race to be some version of human.
Buh, isn't there docs stating that delves are considered extremely sexy?
Quote from: Fathi on March 08, 2018, 06:40:45 PMAnd then I sat there going "really? that was it? that's so stupid."

I still think the best closure you get in Armageddon is just moving on to the next character.
March 18, 2009, 10:31:06 PM #23
Quote from: UnderSeven on March 18, 2009, 11:02:35 AM
I have a problem with anyone depicting elves as just a tall human.  Elves should look pretty freakish by human standards, they should NOT BE ANYTHING REMOTELY ATTRACTIVE (by human standards). 

Sorry, while elves look very different from humans (from the perspective of both races), they're not nearly alien as you would have us believe.  Humans and elves have sexually viable offspring, you know what that means?  Biologically they're the same species.
Quote from: scienceAn early study by Plaut and Kohn-Speyer (1947)[11] found that horse smegma had a carcinogenic effect on mice. Heins et al.(1958)
March 19, 2009, 02:47:50 AM #24
Are you trying to inject science into a fantasy world, with magick?
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