1) I don't see us changing our stance on that. If anything, I'd like to see more cracking down on roleplay inconsistent with cultural expectations.

2) Far too many people try for those types of characters, relative to the number of people who can pull it off. The most popular excuse seems to be "I woke up one day, got helped by someone, and suddenly I saw the Light!".... except that a dark-elf's instincts would guide them towards "I woke up one day, got helped by someone.... sucker. I stole his lunch too." The root problem is that they try to enforce real-world guidelines onto fantasy creatures.

In the real world, people commit heinous crimes, (sometimes) go to jail, and (sometimes) come out with a better understanding of the nature of what they did wrong, and live a more moral life after that. However:

A) Dark-elves aren't humans. There's no reason to assume they'd be capable of the same kinds of changes. To use a real-world example, there are many animal species that have not been domesticated despite significant effort.... some animals can't learn to consider their owner as "not lunch". Dark-elves might have similar mental glitches regarding concepts of 'mercy' or 'forgiveness'.

B) The cultural differences between CF races would be expected to be much, much greater than between RL races. Not only do they clump in different communities, look different, have different histories.... but dark-elves evolved underground, were tainted by evil gods, are burned by a particular metal, can cause other being to glow, etc. Think of how strong cultural differences can be among RL humans who belong to the same ethnic group, grew up in similar socioeconomic strata, but grew up in different parts of the same country. Now multiply that by 1000. If I'm a dark-elf, am I ever going to want to sit and chat in Akan? Those scruffy bastards mine and forge freakin' mithril! Think of how much less agony would be in my life if someone swatted them dead!

C) Divine and/or magical influences are in play here, particularly with respect to dark-elves. In addition to the cultural and genetic issues, they're dealing with ancient curses and more.

D) Good and evil are more polarized in CF. Angels, demons, paladins, necromancers, and more all walk the lands. "Switching teams" is a much bigger step than going from "nice" to "not nice".

valguarnera@carrionfields.com