Elves in BW. please tell me more.

Hi Brian!

The fate of every Elf in BW is intimately entwined with their Grief. Grief is the accumulation of negative emotions (sorrow, anger, hate, disappointment, jealousy). As you can imagine, if one lives forever, he will certainly experience a lot of such emotions throughout the ages.

In BW character generation, Elves begin with no Grief. But the older your elf gets, the more Grief he accrues. Grief will also stack up if you take a warrior lifepath or a governing lifepath. There is a whole list of questions that will also help you to determine your starting Grief. A warning, though - if you're Grief reaches 10, your Elf must make his way Westward, to the undying lands. He is taken out of game and is unplayable.

Since most starting Grief is 3-6, this really isn't a worry for most players. During play, Grief advances like any other Stat or Skill, except Grief is never tested. You earn Grief tests by experiencing a situation that would generate one of the negative emotions. For instance, you might earn a routine Grief test when you are forced to fight against yet another orc. You might earn a Challenging Grief test when you fail to protect your Prince and he is assassinated before your very eyes - by another Elf!

It is possible to mitigate the effects of Grief by using Laments. Your Elf can sing a Lament when he experiences Grief-causing situations and thus reduce the level of the test earned. Theoretically, if your Lament skill was high enough, you could sing down every Grief test to a routine and thus never advance it (which is good).

There are times when having a high Grief is good for your character, though. There is a certain song warriors use that fuel their combat prowess by tapping directly into their Grief and turning it into effective rage. The higher their Grief, the easier it is to transform into a killing machine. However, this'll probably earn you even more Grief once you are through, so maybe not being able to do it is a good thing! ;o)

And that, my friend, is your Grief Lesson 101. :o)