I always wondered why there weren't more elf wizards. I mean, human wizards tend to be freaking powerful, but (barring lich-dom) also tend to be old. But what about an elf, who lives for over a thousand years? Shouldn't the world be over-run by Elven arch-magi?
Elves live 5-20 times as long as humans. Shouldn't there be elves with 5x-20x as many levels as humans?
Part of what is driving my compulsion to do this is recent research into human anthropological history. 50K years ago, we had a whole lot of 'homo' species running around, competing and interbreeding. So I'm creating 'homo' species that resemble the standard fantasy races, and then trying to retro-engineer the evolutionary pressures that would lead to that. Hobbits are easy: 'homo florensis' are tiny due to Island Dwarfism. Dwarves are beetle browed, broad chested homo neanderthalis/homo robustus.
The thing that drives long-life in humans is the age of parents at conception, especially of the father. So we need some sort of biological mechanism that creates a feedback loop that results in a species with crazily long lifespans, enough to overcome the 'disposable soma' that Dawkin's selfish gene predicts? So elves should likely have ridiculous recuperative/healing abilities to fully recover to crippling injuries as well.
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Let's be honest here: Elves aren't exactly the brightest people in the world. Orcs get a reputation for brutishness and cruelty, but they at least live in tribes, and the ability to grasp that someone is about to betray you is pretty important to have.
For elves, it's much simpler. There is the queen, and everyone does what she says. And if an elf doesn't like it, he can bugger off. And not a few elves do, choosing solitary lives in the wilderness over living 'at court' with the local elf-queen. A few join other courts.
Elf society revolves around the queen. And taking care of her offspring.
Elves didn't always have long lives. It's an evolutionary adaptation to elven social circumstances: The oldest female is queen. The oldest female is queen only as long as she is fertile. And while the standards vary among tribes, a child annually is considered the minimum. THis is because the queen is the only elf permitted to bear children, a position she maintains by keeping all other females in a state of constant distress. (Constant emotional distress isn't just a habit--it's an evolutionary imperative). So the reproductive capacity of the entire 'court' of the elves relies on a single individual. So elf-queens maximize their reproductive potential by having many offspring, very quickly. Sadly, one of the costs of this is a very high infant (and child) mortality rate. Being born at six months tends to be part of the problem, as all elf infants are effectively premature.
Female elves flee into the wilderness with some regularity. They tend to be even more hermetic then their male counter-parts; elf-queens regard these 'wild maidens' as potential rivals. (While all the other female elves are also rivals, they also tend to be sisters, daughters, nieces, grand-daughters, or otherwise related individuals).
Two wild elves may also meet, mate, and begin their own 'court'. The different elf 'courts' and their queens are more or less constantly at war. Or rather, in a constant state of war, in a series of raids and counter-raids. It's one of the ways in which elf lords can distinguish themselves, win the attention of the queen, and have some hope of offspring. Thence, anything to win the attention (and affection) of the elf queen. What wins that favor of the queen may vary from day to day, for an elf queen, over-all, must maintain her court in constant chaos: the females in terrorized dismay, and the males in frenetic and hopeful yearning.
For any elf, live is a long long period of waiting. For the elf ladies, to become queen. For the elf-Lords, to achieve the notice and favor of the queen.
To achieve the notice of the queen, elf-lords attempt all sorts of endeavors. Martial prowess is well regarded, but so are other achievements of all sorts, often the more esoteric the better. Hence, many elves acquire a bizarre array of skills. Music, dancing, archery, hunting, and running are merely the most common. Bird-song contests, horn scrim-shander, tree climbing, breath-holding, drinking contests, the consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms have all been known to occur. (It is not unknown for such contests to be fatal, especially for younger elves-lords). It is to the advantage of the elf-queen to be as fey and volatile as possible in her choice of desired achievement, lest one elf-lord grow too dominant, and the striving for favor end.
In such a society, the sustained pursuit of magical skill tends to be ill-rewarded. (Did I mention that the penalty for displeasing the queen is death?)
So, living in scattered settlements, in constant contest for survival and advantage, elves have little enough time to devote to esoteric disputes. Minor skills in many (or even most things) are common achievements.
Did I mention that elves are terrible parents? While an elf-queen must bear a (living) child, the child's survival is far from assured. And indeed, placing an elf-child with a human family (abandoning them nearby) can be a highly successful parenting strategy. And with long lives, what matter is it to wait another half year or year for another child?
Even elven 'exiles', or leave Argoth and go adventuring in the world...don't tend to be very bright. For there is no reason for an elf to be bright: The queen is winsome, chaotic, and deliberately contrary: deliberate practice in any skill is unlikely to be rewarded. Nor is there a reason to share skill with another contender.
Elven parentage is, to say the least, confused. Which elf-lord is the father of any child is almost unknowable, elf-courts being in a state of general polygyny. And an elf-queen is mother to most of the children in a court, so all children are largely interchangeable, insofar as she is concerned.
Elves know neither trade nor manufacture: They make what they need, and the fierce contest between courts (and depredations of wild elves) make any journey a perilous one.
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