Gary Gygax was 28 years old when Star Trek first started airing and he was 36 when he published the first version of DnD.
I have a feeling that he was very much influenced romulans in his portrayal of dark elves as shifty paranoid and backstabbing.
I mean vulcans are explicitly meant to be space elves and romulans are meant to be a “dark” version that amplifies the negative traits and demonstrate the downsides of an isolationist society (Gene Roddenberry HATED isolationism).
The more original take on that idea of a “bad guy” player race, the thiefling, didn’t join DnD canon until 1994 in Second edition.
Gary Gygax was 28 years old when Star Trek first started airing and he was 36 when he published the first version of DnD.
I have a feeling that he was very much influenced romulans in his portrayal of dark elves as shifty paranoid and backstabbing.
I mean vulcans are explicitly meant to be space elves and romulans are meant to be a “dark” version that amplifies the negative traits and demonstrate the downsides of an isolationist society (Gene Roddenberry HATED isolationism).
The more original take on that idea of a “bad guy” player race, the thiefling, didn’t join DnD canon until 1994 in Second edition.