Fea Trait

So Luke, to match some of the traits to your notes above, are you saying:

  1. Noldor and Sindar are considered the Fea?

  2. Those who were born in (or lived in) Valinor are the Aman?

  3. Those who never set foot in Valinor but are descended from those who have have Prince of the Blood trait with Fea but not Aman (assuming their father was etharch)?

  4. First or Second generation is based on above, depending on where they were born?

Aman is Valinor, same place.

I believe what Luke is saying is that because everyone is immortal, fea never succeed to the place of etharch.

Thanks for the replies. So, to put things in Middle Earth (Third Age) terms, the only Aman etharch would be Galadriel. Elrond, Cirdan, and Thranduil are Fea princes (although of great age).

Considering that it’s likely that THE EVENT of the elves returning from Aman happened thousands of years in the past, and elves of this age are completely overpowered in character burning terms, how would one burn a regular old elven prince like Thranduil, Cirdan, or Elrond? Are the Prince of the Blood and Althing lifepaths specifically for such characters?

Also, is it intentional that BW elves are much younger than ME elves? I’ve tried burning one to match an Elrond or Galadriel with the online character burner and after the tenth lifepath or so it starts to get ridiculous.

My interpretation would be that Elrond is an elder, Cirdan an althing and Thranduil a prince.

And for those of us whose games do not mimic middle earth, the idea of first and second generations of elven nobility can still be relevant in character burning and play.

My purpose isn’t really to mimic Middle Earth in my game, but to get examples of how elven traits would be applied to Middle Earth characters, so I could understand better how to use the traits in Burning Wheel, which does claim to mimic Middle Earth.

Personally I like elves closer to the Fair Folk, somewhat amoral and terrifying when compared to Middle Earth’s elves, and I think BW’s elf lifepaths would work great for this; just trying to get the finer points of the lifepaths and traits.

That’s my point exactly! Luke has done such an amazing job constructing this game, and even though some assumptions had to be made, we know what they are and how they apply.
I never even gave the elven nobility traits much thought before you started this thread, yet because of it, I have learned more now than I did before.

I could never get the ages to match exactly. I made my humans too human for the sweep of time between Elves, Dwarves and humans to make sense. And, I suppose, I made my Elves too human. I created them in the lens of human lifepaths. But who fucking knows what the Fea do between the great events of Middle Earth. So in the end, I shot for approximation and feel. I didn’t worry too much about exact matches.

Luke, it sounds like you originally intended for Fea to be good enough for princes and for Aman to be for Etharchs. In practice, because princes require Fea and Aman requires Etharch, you actually often require Etharchs to have both. Should Aman be an acceptable substitute for Fea in the Prince LP requirements?

And if not, what would happen to elven society when the last of the Aman journeys west or dies?
(Sounds like a story to me)

It’s more that I decided that there would be two classes of noble elves, Fea and Aman. All noble Elves are Fea, but only those who have come from Aman can claim the Aman trait and thus can claim the highest ranks in that part of Elven society.

That clears up some of my confusion. I was assuming that the Aman trait meant being descended from elves of Aman rather than necessarily being elves of Aman.

Doesn’t this kind of limit the Aman trait to many-lifepath NPCs though? Unless the Aman came to “the world” yesterday. Your standard 4 LP elf is only 150 years old or so.

Shrug. The life path system isn’t perfect!

Fair enough.

Follow up question: in rereading the Prince of the Blood trait, it says that this character is “destined to one day be etharch.” This suggests that the Prince lifepath is for one character and one character only, namely THE HEIR.

My question is this: how would you burn up a regular old Fea prince. Not a member of the etharch’s family but a regular old member of high elven nobility?

" Among the Fea, this Elf is a ruling prince and destined to one day be Etharch" note the " this Elf is a ruling prince" that part of the statement indicates a group of ruling princes (or it would have been: this Elf is the ruling prince) and they could each, through succession, be destined to rule one day. All are in line for the Elven crown.

At least, that’s how I read it.

The Etharch rules over everyone. That seems clear. The Lord Protector is commander of the military, although the Etharch remains commander-in-chief.

The Althing rules over a citadel. Although the name drives me nuts; the Althing is the Icelandic parliament. I’d make it atheling, prince, but the prince role is taken. I’m not sure whether Althings are members of a ruling body or if each one individually reigns over a citadel.

The role of princes seems a little odd to me. They’re ruling princes—but ruling over what, exactly? Ruling at the Etharch’s right hand as a very important aide? Some kind of superior over the Althing, or even multiple citadels?

The one thing I really have to insist on is axing the “destined to one day be Etharch” line. Because there are Fea princes who, well, aren’t.

The way I’ve generally put it together is that the Elves have something of a constitutional monarchy. The Althings are the elected ruling council, but they often answer to a prince. Relations can be good or strained. Some princes come from princely lines, so on the death of a prince a son or daughter, also a prince or princess, succeeds. The Etharch’s line are also princes, and may also rule territory in their own right, but only they can actually succeed the Etharch.

In human terms, the Althings are elected or selected representatives of the citadel, a Fea but not Aman prince is somewhat analogous to the high nobility of Men (think dukes or, well, many princes not of the blood) and a Fea and Aman prince is like a prince of the blood.

Of course Elves don’t necessarily have human-like social structures. It’s quite possible that the princes reign over allodial territory—that is, they don’t owe feudal homage to the Etharch—but that in great matters the Etharch is the titular ruler. So it might well be that the Althings are like the legislature under the executive office of a prince, but the princes are the national legislature under the executive office of an Etharch who holds different but not absolute power.

Good points guys. So could we say that the Prince lifepath can be used for all elven nobility, with the Prince of the Blood trait being applied very liberally? As in the heir is the son of the etharch, with another prince who’s descended from the current etharch’s grandfather’s brother, another is the etharch’s cousin, etc.?

(Apologies for posting in an oldish thread, but it’s a fascinating topic). I’m not super sharp on my lore, but isn’t it possible for a young elf born in Aman to make the journey east to middle earth? He would be Aman, but there is no requirement that he is fea and there’s no requirement that he be thousands of years old…(Aman is a land like Florida, where very old elves from New York retire, but plenty of elves who live there have children all the time.) Certainly even elves like Elrond (fea) who have never seen Aman would treat this young elf with a lot of respect and even awe and galadriel would recognize him as one of her own even if he were a “commoner” (I.e. Not also fea).

Another analogy is colonial. Leaving aside questions of its ugly history and discussions of critical race theory and white privilege*. England is Aman, now “anglo-Saxons/WASPs” (elves) in America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada…especially say in the 18th century have a commoner and ruling class structure separate from “ethnics/races” also living in those lands. An Englishman (Aman) can come to New York and he, especially in the 18th century, will have privlages within those colonial cultures, this privlage will be an order of magnitude higher if he is also an aristocrat (fea). Until very recent history non “Anglo-Saxon” Americans (WASP) could not ever hold national political power. Only anglo-saxon Americans (elves) could live in Harvard (Lothlorien).

Basically, George washington’s great grandfather was Aman + fea and George Washington is fea (with prince of blood) and both are elves courtesy of WASP privlage in a colonial empire. Not all WASPS are Aman not all are fea and not all fea are Aman and visa versa. Now, throw in immortality Washingtons great great grandfather at some point perhaps retired back to England (or Florida or whatever) and Galadriel is an example of an early aristocratic English colonial still living in America having come over with the early settlers and now some centuries later president of Harvard, where following the logic train of racialist 18th century thought, elves, dwarves, hobbits, orcs and humans can now all live.

elf = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
Aman = England (if England were also a great place for old people to retire…like Florida).
Middle Earth = an English Colony
Fea = Large plantation/slave owning WASP (america) or Titled Nobility (england).
Valmar = Oxford
Lothlorien = Harvard

  • I should reiterate I am not attempting to elevating centuries of degrading and racialist psudo-science whose negative effects continue to the present with the purity and morality evidenced by Tolkien’s enchanted and enlightened mythological race.