I got no sources on any of what I'm about to say, I'm afraid, though I'm sure you could find things to support parts of it from the CNJ chain and that one 3.0 quest that heavily involves the Elementals. Just my instincts from what I've seen in the game of the Elementals and my 10 years of experience RPing druids and shaman in WoW. >< Sorry.
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SpeculationThe Elementals might understand the concept of deception, but I doubt they'd view it as Always Wrong or anything.
They wouldn't understand what words a mortal was saying while they were lying to another mortal, or even probably most of the implications about said lie. They would understand the deceptive intent in the mortal's heart. They might reject them as a result. They might not.
If the mortal was trying to be deceptive towards an Elemental, they'd be ratted out in a second.
It doesn't seem possible to... explain things to Elementals, I guess? They perceive your existence by looking directly at your aether and what it's doing, how it's resonating, what aether you're similar or different from. I can only assume that things like thoughts and emotions represent fluctuations in aether that an Elemental could read. That's probably how they judge whether they like you or not.
(If there's malice in your heart, they probably don't. If they DID reject the Ala Mhigan refugees - I'm not saying they did, I'm saying if they did - then this is probably why; how is an Elemental supposed to tell the difference between malice towards the forest, and malice towards the Garleans? All they see is "aggression towards the environment". It's not possible to differentiate if that "environment" is the physical environment of the Twelveswood, or the bad political environment that the Garleans created.)
(What's my reasoning for this? Well, we know Elementals can't really differentiate between different individuals with similar aether. And they say woodsin is accumulated even living outside of the Twelveswood. It's about what's in your heart, not the actual effects of what you do - if you live with disregard for the environment, then the elementals are going to perceive that. You know what you did, sort of thing. If you live "the Twelveswood way" but in Thanalan or Vylbrand, then you probably won't have accumulated much woodsin by the time you return... but if you live the Thanalan way in Thanalan, then return to the Twelveswood, you probably want a cleansing ritual [which demonstrates regret and respect] on your return.)
So uh, which is to say... it's not like the Elementals would hear you say "the Elementals want this" and go "no, that's not true" and roflstomp you. The Elementals would perceive your intentions. So if your intention was to protect the forest, they'd probably be okay, even if the thing you were saying as a result was "these refugees are evil and aren't allowed here". If your intention was to further your personal agenda, it'd depend on other factors as to what their reaction would be. And if your intention was to bring harm to the forest, even if your words or actions seemed otherwise to a mortal... the Elementals would see through you in an instant.
They're probably not so keen on "if I do X, it'll hurt the forest temporarily, but in the long run it'll bring about Y" either. All they'll perceive is your lack of inhibition towards hurting the forest.
Where do the gangs like the Coeurlclaws fit into this? Well, first of all, most of them have popped up after the Calamity, when the Elementals are weakened anyway. Greenwrath is nowhere near as common or deadly as it used to be - as one NPC put it, "it's Gridania's turn to protect the forest", after years of the forest protecting Gridania. (Trying to invade the Twelveswood was like trying to invade Russia in the winter, but with greenwrath instead of snowstorms.)
Second of all... I mean, we talked before about how the Coeurlclaws set aside their scraps with the Redbellies and potentially with the loosely-Gridania-aligned Buscarron in order to protect the forest, right? Well, there you go. Yes, they poach. But that's a mortal law, enforced by Gridania, with - yes - the intention of protecting the forest. As a general rule, it probably works okay; most people, most of the time, poach because they don't care about the forest, and allowing them to do so would invoke greenwrath like anything else. If they have pure intentions, most of the time, they'll apply for a hunting license and process the skins through the Leatherworkers' Guild, all on the up-and-up.
You think Elementals directly differentiate between licensed hunters and illegal poachers?
No, they don't.
Elementals don't care about laws. At all. What they care about is: who are you, and why are you doing what you are doing, right now? And I'm wondering if, by a combination of the weakening of the Elementals in general and the poachers not actually intending to harm the Twelveswood but instead to participate in its ecosystem, it's no longer enough to prompt greenwrath?
Non-Spoken predators hunt their prey in the Twelveswood without invoking greenwrath every time. Because their intention isn't to hurt the wood. It's to play their role within it. They hunt and kill and eat and breed and die. The Elementals don't seem to have an issue with this. Maybe the Coeurlclaws and company are slipping in under the wire, as it were, with similar intentions. They just want to live free in the wood and survive. Grow their pack, have their babies, pass along their home to their offspring. They're not poaching for profit or to take things away from the wood and send them somewhere else. They want the wood to be okay. Because it's their home!
Even if Gridania's laws are not capable of seeing the difference, the Elementals would be able to, especially when weakened and with more important things to expend their energy on rejecting.
You really have to do away with the notion that specific words, actions, and reasons are important. It's all about emotions to an Elemental.
They wouldn't understand what words a mortal was saying while they were lying to another mortal, or even probably most of the implications about said lie. They would understand the deceptive intent in the mortal's heart. They might reject them as a result. They might not.
If the mortal was trying to be deceptive towards an Elemental, they'd be ratted out in a second.
It doesn't seem possible to... explain things to Elementals, I guess? They perceive your existence by looking directly at your aether and what it's doing, how it's resonating, what aether you're similar or different from. I can only assume that things like thoughts and emotions represent fluctuations in aether that an Elemental could read. That's probably how they judge whether they like you or not.
(If there's malice in your heart, they probably don't. If they DID reject the Ala Mhigan refugees - I'm not saying they did, I'm saying if they did - then this is probably why; how is an Elemental supposed to tell the difference between malice towards the forest, and malice towards the Garleans? All they see is "aggression towards the environment". It's not possible to differentiate if that "environment" is the physical environment of the Twelveswood, or the bad political environment that the Garleans created.)
(What's my reasoning for this? Well, we know Elementals can't really differentiate between different individuals with similar aether. And they say woodsin is accumulated even living outside of the Twelveswood. It's about what's in your heart, not the actual effects of what you do - if you live with disregard for the environment, then the elementals are going to perceive that. You know what you did, sort of thing. If you live "the Twelveswood way" but in Thanalan or Vylbrand, then you probably won't have accumulated much woodsin by the time you return... but if you live the Thanalan way in Thanalan, then return to the Twelveswood, you probably want a cleansing ritual [which demonstrates regret and respect] on your return.)
So uh, which is to say... it's not like the Elementals would hear you say "the Elementals want this" and go "no, that's not true" and roflstomp you. The Elementals would perceive your intentions. So if your intention was to protect the forest, they'd probably be okay, even if the thing you were saying as a result was "these refugees are evil and aren't allowed here". If your intention was to further your personal agenda, it'd depend on other factors as to what their reaction would be. And if your intention was to bring harm to the forest, even if your words or actions seemed otherwise to a mortal... the Elementals would see through you in an instant.
They're probably not so keen on "if I do X, it'll hurt the forest temporarily, but in the long run it'll bring about Y" either. All they'll perceive is your lack of inhibition towards hurting the forest.
Where do the gangs like the Coeurlclaws fit into this? Well, first of all, most of them have popped up after the Calamity, when the Elementals are weakened anyway. Greenwrath is nowhere near as common or deadly as it used to be - as one NPC put it, "it's Gridania's turn to protect the forest", after years of the forest protecting Gridania. (Trying to invade the Twelveswood was like trying to invade Russia in the winter, but with greenwrath instead of snowstorms.)
Second of all... I mean, we talked before about how the Coeurlclaws set aside their scraps with the Redbellies and potentially with the loosely-Gridania-aligned Buscarron in order to protect the forest, right? Well, there you go. Yes, they poach. But that's a mortal law, enforced by Gridania, with - yes - the intention of protecting the forest. As a general rule, it probably works okay; most people, most of the time, poach because they don't care about the forest, and allowing them to do so would invoke greenwrath like anything else. If they have pure intentions, most of the time, they'll apply for a hunting license and process the skins through the Leatherworkers' Guild, all on the up-and-up.
You think Elementals directly differentiate between licensed hunters and illegal poachers?
No, they don't.
Elementals don't care about laws. At all. What they care about is: who are you, and why are you doing what you are doing, right now? And I'm wondering if, by a combination of the weakening of the Elementals in general and the poachers not actually intending to harm the Twelveswood but instead to participate in its ecosystem, it's no longer enough to prompt greenwrath?
Non-Spoken predators hunt their prey in the Twelveswood without invoking greenwrath every time. Because their intention isn't to hurt the wood. It's to play their role within it. They hunt and kill and eat and breed and die. The Elementals don't seem to have an issue with this. Maybe the Coeurlclaws and company are slipping in under the wire, as it were, with similar intentions. They just want to live free in the wood and survive. Grow their pack, have their babies, pass along their home to their offspring. They're not poaching for profit or to take things away from the wood and send them somewhere else. They want the wood to be okay. Because it's their home!
Even if Gridania's laws are not capable of seeing the difference, the Elementals would be able to, especially when weakened and with more important things to expend their energy on rejecting.
You really have to do away with the notion that specific words, actions, and reasons are important. It's all about emotions to an Elemental.
![[Image: tUzrT.png]](https://puu.sh/tUzrT.png)
