Elves in DCC

Before I get to the meat of this gratuitous and uninformative post, I will be addressing some topics interesting only to those who find fascination in things like blogging statistics and other points of douchebloggery.  If blogger.com's statistics are accurate, there are an awful lot of you.  Onward:

1. I had to take a break from the ol' blog over the Christmas holiday as there is a longstanding mandate from the Home Office that my final, year-end tally of posts must be a multiple of six.  As of the 20th of December I had hit 42 posts for 2013, so it was either crank out 6 more posts in 11 days--a pace that typically outstrips my productivity for an entire month--or take the holidays off.  I did not suffer much distress pondering this quandary.
2. This is my 175th actual, bonafide post. I know many thousands of you have been fervently following my Fraudulent Posts series, so I thought I'd let you all know.  Also, unless I actually start removing previously published posts, this marks the end of the reverse aging process; from here on out I can only go up.  
3. The Board of Directors has informed me that I should be reaching post #200 by the end of July.  Failure to meet this goal will result in docked pay, suspended health benefits, and cancellation of my Drones membership, so I better get at it.  Expect lots of pointless fluff in the first half of the year.

And now for your irregularly scheduled bloggledygook.

Like everyone else, I love the DCC RPG and usually trip over myself trying to find new ways to praise it.  But I'd like to start the year out on a negative note so I'm going to gripe about DCC instead.  Specifically, elves in DCC shall be the topic of my gripery today.

Everyone knows that elves are the least interesting PC race to play in any fantasy adventure game as they are universally portrayed as repressed and sanctimonious dullards that are loaded with special abilities to make up for their utter lack of personal charm.  However, there is one singular advantage that makes them the preferred race of all players: they can cast spells while wearing platemail.  Wisely, DCC in their infinite wisdom, came up with a counter to this perk: elves find the touch of cold steel--more specifically, iron--unpleasant to the touch.  But before you even start contemplating the horror of an elf forced to cast spells whilst bereft of metallic armor, DCC--obviously bowing under pressure from the always potent pro-Elf-lobby--immediately backpedals with this statement: 

These guys would be an improvement.

"At first level, an elf character may purchase one piece of armor and one weapon that are manufactured of mithril at no additional cost."  

So, when they graduate adventurer school, elves all get a stack of Mithril vouchers purchased at a fraction of a penny to the dollar. Nice work, DCC; in a single swipe, the only meaningful disadvantage to having an elf is swept out to sea. 

Of course, the ramifications of this should be made pretty clear the first time that the party encounters a gang of mithril hunters.  Seeing as any elf wearing metal armor or wielding a metal sword will be an easy source of wealth, there's gonna' be a whole economy based on slaughtering elves for their protective pelts and weaponry.  Much as ivory hunters have decimated the elephant population in this world (also habitat encroachment, but that doesn't serve my point very well), elves in the DCC-verse will find themselves constantly beset by gangs of mithril-seekers both amateur and professional.

Also, there's the imperious douchebag pondering a magical codex in the illustration on the elf page (p. 57?).  He looks like every cheesedick, preppy, teen villain that came out of Hollywood in the 1980s. If that smug prick--who is wearing, it should be noted, platemail--doesn't keep your players from running elves in your campaign then I don't envy you.