Idea: The world of Wesnoth is the Elvish afterworld
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Idea: The world of Wesnoth is the Elvish afterworld
Why do Elves live in harmony with the nature? How did they get the gift of magic and longevity, and why are they so xenophobic towards other races? Why do Orcs enjoy fighting and destruction, and how do they manage to rise up after every defeat? Why are Humans the "jack of all trades, master of none", and why almost all necromancers have been Humans?
Of course, the real answer is because that's how we, the players, expect them to be, after getting acquainted with other works of fiction. It would be really weird if, e.g., Elves were the savage brutes, and Orcs were the wise magic-users. Nonetheless, here's my attempt to offer an in-world explanation. I know that it isn't fully compatible with the official Weshoth history, but maybe it will inspire somebody to write an alternative campaign.
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The planet Irdya was created by Eloh, the patron goddess of Elves, to provide a pleasant afterlife for the righteous subjects of hers. The ecosystem was specifically tailored to Elvish comfort; they never need to worry about food or shelter. The forests are the Elvish version of the paradise garden; in prehistoric times such forests had covered most of the continent.
Nobody has ever seen baby Elves, because they don't exist in this world. As soon as an Elvish soul departs its home world, it receives a fully grown and capable body which is not (or just barely) susceptible to ageing or disease. Whatever their home world is, it must be a very rough place, so Eloh cleanses the soul by erasing its traumatic memories. Most Elves don't remember anything from their past life, but they can endlessly gain wisdom and experience in their new world.
In addition, Eloh has granted her subjects a deep and intimate link to the magic essence of this world. To an Elf, using the magic is just as natural as using his muscles. They don't need to study magic spells from books; an Elf learns to use magic just like a child learns to walk, then run, then dance.
Eloh is an absentee patron; she prefers doing a thing just once but doing it right. She took her best effort to create a paradise world for her chosen ones; and she is certain that, with the aid of her gifts of magic and longevity, they will thrive forever and ever without her intervention. As a consequence, if an Elf somehow loses his life on Wesnoth, there is no more afterlife for him; his soul just disappears.
And so Elves did thrive in bliss and tranquility for aeons on aeons; but then a disaster happened. A rival god has decided to play a cruel prank on Eloh by planting Orcs into her little cute garden.
---
The patron god of Orcs has a very short attention span; he cannot bother himself to even build them a home world. Instead, he plants his people into worlds created by other gods, and watches with enjoyment as they destroy the nature and wreak havoc by fighting the natives and one another.
Every Orc knows that their god is only watching when the fighting and destruction is ongoing; he collects the souls of particularly rapacious warriors in order to plant them into the next world. This is the only chance at an afterlife that an Orc can get.
The arrival of Orcs was an unprecedented threat to the Elves; the possibility of permanent, irreversible death suddenly became very real. Being infinitely more adapted to their own world, the Elves managed to defeat Orcish incursions with minimal losses, but they kept appearing again and again — perhaps the Orcs retained some foothold on remote islands, or maybe their patron god just kept replanting them.
The days of bliss were gone for good. The Elves began to launch armed patrols far and wide, with the mission to spot and eradicate anything that looks like alien life. As they systematically scoured the continent, they noticed to their great surprise that the Wesnoth's native wildlife have been evolving, and over the long aeons some of the species started to develop consciousness. First were Woses and Trolls, then Dragons, then Saurians and Drakes. Some races, such as Dwarves and Nagas, may have been secretly planted by other gods.
This discovery caused the first political strife among the Elvendom. The more cautious leaders advised to exterminate the sentient species in their infancy, lest they grow to be threateningly aggressive like the Orcs. Others pointed out that those creatures still constitute a part of the nature, and as such they deserve respect. Ultimately the Elves decided to let the other races live, out of fear of disrespecting Eloh's gift; however, they adopted a deeply distrustful attitude to any sentient lifeforms save their own.
---
All these races proved to be of little concern to the Elves: either because of their low numbers, or because they settled in those parts of the world that weren't quite suitable for Elves. The real breakthrough came when an obscure species of ape evolved into Ogres, then into Humans. Humans quickly proved to have remarkable intelligence, strong social instincts and an unrestrained drive to expand; their arrival on the continent of Wesnoth was the factor that blew to smithereens any possibility of balance.
Having evolved naturally from beasts, Humans have no patron god; thus they are free to devote themselves to any god or gods, or none at all. However, those gods have no obligation to grant any afterlife to Human devotees, and the Humans are painfully aware of their mortality. This has led some to explore the ways to defer death, or even to avoid it altogether. Human scholars researched into the areas of magic that were customarily dismissed by Elves, and they have discovered that dead flesh can be animated, and that a living soul can be bound to a non-living object. All other races, and even the majority of Humans, view this as a gross transgression against natural order; however, there is no shortage of desperate Human souls who believe that their goal, whatever it may be, justifies the means.
---
Of course, the real answer is because that's how we, the players, expect them to be, after getting acquainted with other works of fiction. It would be really weird if, e.g., Elves were the savage brutes, and Orcs were the wise magic-users. Nonetheless, here's my attempt to offer an in-world explanation. I know that it isn't fully compatible with the official Weshoth history, but maybe it will inspire somebody to write an alternative campaign.
---
The planet Irdya was created by Eloh, the patron goddess of Elves, to provide a pleasant afterlife for the righteous subjects of hers. The ecosystem was specifically tailored to Elvish comfort; they never need to worry about food or shelter. The forests are the Elvish version of the paradise garden; in prehistoric times such forests had covered most of the continent.
Nobody has ever seen baby Elves, because they don't exist in this world. As soon as an Elvish soul departs its home world, it receives a fully grown and capable body which is not (or just barely) susceptible to ageing or disease. Whatever their home world is, it must be a very rough place, so Eloh cleanses the soul by erasing its traumatic memories. Most Elves don't remember anything from their past life, but they can endlessly gain wisdom and experience in their new world.
In addition, Eloh has granted her subjects a deep and intimate link to the magic essence of this world. To an Elf, using the magic is just as natural as using his muscles. They don't need to study magic spells from books; an Elf learns to use magic just like a child learns to walk, then run, then dance.
Eloh is an absentee patron; she prefers doing a thing just once but doing it right. She took her best effort to create a paradise world for her chosen ones; and she is certain that, with the aid of her gifts of magic and longevity, they will thrive forever and ever without her intervention. As a consequence, if an Elf somehow loses his life on Wesnoth, there is no more afterlife for him; his soul just disappears.
And so Elves did thrive in bliss and tranquility for aeons on aeons; but then a disaster happened. A rival god has decided to play a cruel prank on Eloh by planting Orcs into her little cute garden.
---
The patron god of Orcs has a very short attention span; he cannot bother himself to even build them a home world. Instead, he plants his people into worlds created by other gods, and watches with enjoyment as they destroy the nature and wreak havoc by fighting the natives and one another.
Every Orc knows that their god is only watching when the fighting and destruction is ongoing; he collects the souls of particularly rapacious warriors in order to plant them into the next world. This is the only chance at an afterlife that an Orc can get.
Additional thoughts about the nature of Orcs
The days of bliss were gone for good. The Elves began to launch armed patrols far and wide, with the mission to spot and eradicate anything that looks like alien life. As they systematically scoured the continent, they noticed to their great surprise that the Wesnoth's native wildlife have been evolving, and over the long aeons some of the species started to develop consciousness. First were Woses and Trolls, then Dragons, then Saurians and Drakes. Some races, such as Dwarves and Nagas, may have been secretly planted by other gods.
This discovery caused the first political strife among the Elvendom. The more cautious leaders advised to exterminate the sentient species in their infancy, lest they grow to be threateningly aggressive like the Orcs. Others pointed out that those creatures still constitute a part of the nature, and as such they deserve respect. Ultimately the Elves decided to let the other races live, out of fear of disrespecting Eloh's gift; however, they adopted a deeply distrustful attitude to any sentient lifeforms save their own.
---
All these races proved to be of little concern to the Elves: either because of their low numbers, or because they settled in those parts of the world that weren't quite suitable for Elves. The real breakthrough came when an obscure species of ape evolved into Ogres, then into Humans. Humans quickly proved to have remarkable intelligence, strong social instincts and an unrestrained drive to expand; their arrival on the continent of Wesnoth was the factor that blew to smithereens any possibility of balance.
Having evolved naturally from beasts, Humans have no patron god; thus they are free to devote themselves to any god or gods, or none at all. However, those gods have no obligation to grant any afterlife to Human devotees, and the Humans are painfully aware of their mortality. This has led some to explore the ways to defer death, or even to avoid it altogether. Human scholars researched into the areas of magic that were customarily dismissed by Elves, and they have discovered that dead flesh can be animated, and that a living soul can be bound to a non-living object. All other races, and even the majority of Humans, view this as a gross transgression against natural order; however, there is no shortage of desperate Human souls who believe that their goal, whatever it may be, justifies the means.
---
Spoiler:
Last edited by odisseus_ on May 31st, 2025, 12:30 am, edited 3 times in total.