I'd be wary of having him raised by Rangers. Rangers are pretty close with the Elves, so close that their rightful king was actually raised by Elrond. If a Ranger found a lost Elf kid, he'd most likely bring him to Rivendell (or to whatever Elf-outpost is nearest) instead of raising him himself.
I have an overwhelmingly underdeveloped story for one of my Elf characters where she was raised by humans.
What I wanted was a way for one of my Elven characters to consider one of my Rohirric characters her brother, and an excuse for her suspiciously Rohirric name.
I haven't really looked into the arithmetic of who's aging at what rate, and I don't Roleplay this character at all, but how I've basically worked it is that her family had some run-ins with some rather nasty Dunlendings when she was a baby, and she lived, parentless and with no memory of where her home is, with the Dunlendings as a servant for some undefined number of generations of Men. Later, when she was whatever Elf-age corresponds to early teenagehood among Men, some Rohirrim got into scrapes with the Dunlendings (it was probably a blood-drenched massacre sort of scrape) and one of the Rohirrim men took pity on the Elf girl and brought her home. He and his wife sort of adopted her (really, her position was that of a well trusted and much loved servant; this is the point where she either took a Rohirric name for herself, or was given one by the household) and their son, an infant at the time, grew up with her (think live-in babysitter). The son is another one of my characters. He's about 30 now and his elven "sister" is still pretty much a teenager. It's a somewhat odd sibling dynamic which would be interesting to roleplay, because he grew up thinking of her as a much older and wiser sibling, and now he has aged far beyond her and their roles have been switched.
If I were going to actually play this character or write her story out in novella form, I'd have to do some sleight of hand for explaining WHY the Rohirric adoptive family took her in in the first place, how they came to trust and love her as much as they did, if they were even aware she was an Elf, and if she herself even knew she was an Elf. If she was separated entirely from all things Elven before she can even remember, then the only thing which would set her apart from other Dunlending servant girls is her slow aging and her pointy ears.
Actually, I'm tempted to work this out fully. The potential for interesting explorations of identity and culture and language (she's an Elf who speaks Dunlending and Common and Rohirric and no Quenya or Sindarin) are immense.
Last edited by Runekaster; Sep 15 2013 at 11:57 PM.
Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,[right]Mind shall be harder, heart be keener,[/right]
mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.[right]Spirit be greater as our strength lessens.[/right]
[center][url]http://iranonofarda.wordpress.com[/url][/center]