On Elves and Angels

In a post I made last week about the fey, a commenter mentioned a story about angels. According to the story, there are three types of angels:

1. Normal angels whose job is to be a protector (exemplified my the Archangel Michael) and a messenger (exemplified by the Archangel Gabriel).
2. Fallen angels who rebelled against God, also known as demons.
3. Followers of Azazel who didn’t openly rebel against God, but stopped doing their job:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' — Enoch 6:1-3

It is the last group that was of interest, because these angels could be a stand-in for all kinds of things in an FRPG. One of the more intriguing possibilities is that these “neutral” angels and their offspring become what we know as elves.

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. — Enoch 7:1

Note, that this story comes from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish work from sometime around 300-100 B.C. which is not accepted as part of the Canon of Scripture by the vast majority of Jews and Christians. For my part, I think this largely has to do with the depiction of the angels, who have come to be understood as being bodiless powers. While the Nephilim are mentioned in passing a couple of times in the bible and seem to corroborate what is spoken of in detail in the Book of Enoch, the word “Nephilim” is not something that can either be easily translated or understood. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT from around 300 B.C.) translated the word as “giant” not angel or demon.

Since the angels are bodiless, they can’t really be going around having children; however, I haven’t been able to get the idea of elves-as-neutral-angels out of my head for the last several days. What would a bodiless power stripped of their powers look like?

And Enoch went and said: 'Azazel, thou shalt have no peace: a severe sentence has gone forth against thee to put thee in bonds: And thou shalt not have toleration nor request granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou hast shown to men.' Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them. And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. — Enoch 13:1-6

In other words, they are cut off from heaven and cannot communicate with heaven, nor will any of their prayers be heard; however, they are condemned to be bound to earth until all their children kill each other, aka the Day of Judgment.

This leads to a very interesting proposition, especially given a world in which monsters are sin personified: what if the bodiless powers bound to earth (fallen and “neutral” angels) could enter into the bodies of those willing to house them? This would explain several very characteristic attributes of elves: the fact that they are long-lived, the fact that they seem not to really have much interest in the world of men, the fact that they are not affected by a ghoul’s touch and the fact that they were the only race in OD&D and Basic D&D that could “multi-class.”

In other words, all elves are dual personalities: the person who makes the deal with the “neutral” angel and the bodiless power themselves. This relationship cuts the person off from divine intervention but grants arcane power coupled with fighting prowess. Orcs could still be seen as twisted versions of elves, except that the person making the deal is likely cheated from having any say in how their body is being used.

This also puts a new spin on half-elves and half-orcs. These no longer need to be the children of a human and an elf/orc (and the strongly implied rape in the latter pairing). Rather, these are people from those communities that refuse to be possessed by a bodiless power.

Saintly Saturday: St. Gerasimus of Perm

Today is the Feast of St. Gerasimus the Bishop of Perm, which is both a city and an area in central Russia at the base of the Urals, where Asia and Europe meet. It is the traditional home of the Zyryani or Zyrian people (today, they are called Komi). St. Gerasimus was elected sometime after 1416 and was the third bishop of this newly Christianized people.

During his bishopric, he took part in local councils. One dealt with the structure of the Russian Church and one rejected union with Rome as advocated by Isidore, Metropolitan of Kiev. The villages of the Zyrian people were also frequently raided by Novgorodians (who had their own Republic at the time). These raids were primarily carried out by a pagan tribe known as the Voguls. St. Gerasimus was extremely diligent in caring for his flock, going so far as to condemn the raids and travel in Vogul territory urging them to cease their violence. He was murdered by a Vogul in 1441. Tradition holds that he was strangled with his own omophorion (part of the bishop’s vestments which go around his shoulders).

There is a meme among those of us who play fantasy RPGs which champions campaign worlds that don’t feel like traditional high fantasy and/or medieval Western Europe. Personally, I like my campaigns to be a healthy mixture of the familiar with the alien. The familiar elements help players immerse themselves in the world, while the alien elements help bring a sense of wonder and a need for exploration. The See of Greater Perm at the time of St. Gerasimus is an excellent example as source material for this kind of campaign.

While still ostensibly European in character, its proximity to Asia (especially a fantasy analog) justifies PC classes like monks and any others that one might port over from your favorite Asian-flavored rule set (mine would be Ruins & Ronin) as well as all kinds of cool monsters.

Politically, Perm is a keep on the borderland between the Far Eastern reaches of European Civilization and the Asian Wilderness. The Europeans have an ongoing political conflict between the power hungry Novgorod Republic, the more traditional power of Kiev and the upstarts of Moscow. (Given the raids by Novgorod and St. Gerasimus' rejection of the Kiev move to ally with Rome, it would seem that Perm-as-Keep on the Borderland would be a Muscovite endeavor).

The Republic is comfortable with assimilating (pagan) nomadic tribes from Asia in order to expand their territory. This could be interpreted as having a number of non-human and non-Lawful allies, which could very well complicate matters for PCs as they come into conflict with non-human adversaries.

The modern name for the Zyrian peoples is Komi, which can be translated as River People. This justifies re-skinning magic to be more water/river based. Cure Light Wounds, for example, could be understood to be the application of Holy Water to a wound.

Given that Perm is around the same Latitude as Juneau Alaska, the theme of Heat vs. Cold or Fire vs. Ice could also color the traditional Law (Civilization) vs. Chaos (Wilderness) dichotomy.

The coat of arms of Perm includes a bear, which suggests that (polar) were-bears play a large role in the campaign.

Finally, a branch of the modern Komi peoples are reindeer herders, which invites me to do the following:

Frost Elf

Prime Requisite: STR and DEX
Requirements: INT 9
Hit Dice: d6
Maximum Level: 11

Frost elves are found in arctic and subarctic forests and are often seen riding reindeer. While not as innately magical as normal elves (they cast arcane magic as a magic user of half their level), they do have the following abilities:

• Beast Friendship: frost elves gain a +2 reaction with wild animals, may take them as henchmen and can identify flora and fauna with a roll of 1-3 on a d6.
• Creatures of the Forest: +1 to surprise rolls when in the wilderness
• Elf Tongues: frost elves can speak elf, gnoll, hobgoblin and orc
• Elven Senses: frost elves can detect hidden and secret doors with a 1-2 on a d6 when actively searching and with a 1 with only a casual inspection
• Frost Familiarity: +1 saving throw bonus versus Petrification/Paralysis; immunity to the touch of ghouls
• Frost Missiles: frost elves can imbue any missile weapon with frost, giving them a +1 on damage. This increases by an additional +1 at 3rd, 6th and 9th level
• Frosty Mist: frost elves can cast Obscuring Mist once every eight hours
• Icy Grasp: at 3rd level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Shocking Grasp once per hour
• Ice Web: at 5th level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Web once per 8 hours
• Numbing Cold: at 7th level, frost elves can cast the equivalent of Slow once per day
• Stonghold: upon reaching 9th level, all animals within 5 miles of a frost elven stronghold will be kind and helpful

Frost elves fight as fighters, may use any weapon and can wear chain or lighter armor plus shields.

XP Progression:
Level 2: 3,350
Level 3: 7,700
Level 4: 15,400
Level 5: 30,800
Level 6: 61,600
Level 7: 125,000
Level 8: 250,000
Level 9: 420,000
Level 10:590,000
Level 11: 760,000

On Elven Clerics

One of the things that I adore about actually playing (as opposed to just thinking about playing) is that you are forced to consider things that would never occur to you otherwise. Living inside the bubble of intellectual exercise it is easy to be a purist, where your favorite ruleset perfectly meshes with your vision of the campaign world and the way you want the game to be played. Once you give up control and allow the messiness of an actual campaign, however, the intellectual exercise makes less and less sense.

As I mentioned in my last session report on Lost Colonies, some of my players have pooled a considerable amount of money in order to build a church in the elf lands — something that has never been done before. This comes on the tails of the party helping out the elves in dramatic fashion, all the while saying that their problems are better dealt with a dash of faith. A faith, by the way, that would be largely appealing to those elves of the Summer Court.

In the (in)famous verse Gen 1:28, God gives humanity dominion over all of creation:

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the east, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

In Greek, the word translated as subdue has as its root kyrios, meaning lord. This is a title given to God — thus, God is commanding us to have a relationship with creation as He has. This view is reinforced when one looks at the Hebrew for the word translated as dominion. The literal meaning is to tread in a wine press. In other words, we are to be co-creators with God and we are to offer up our creative efforts to God. It is significant that verb has the visual image of the wine press — creating something that, by offering it to God, becomes the Blood of Christ. This kind of relationship with nature is right up the elves' alley.

Therefore, due entirely to play, am forced to consider something I have never before allowed in any game I have ever played — an elven cleric. Looking at the rules as written (AEC/1ed), elves can advance to 7th level and half-elves to 5th level. Personally, this doesn't make much sense to me. I can understand why an elf would be less likely to advance to higher levels using divine rather than arcane magic, but why are half-elves so much worse? If being a cleric is a human thing, how is it that a half-elf would be less inclined to divine magic than an elf, who is completely alien to humanity?

The AEC is more generous with potential fighter levels than 1ed. Elves can advance to 10th level (as opposed to 7th) and half-elves can go to 12th level (as opposed to 8th). I believe this discrepancy originates in the fact that the AEC operates in a system where race-as-class is an option. Therefore, going the multi-class route needs to be comparable to the race-as-class or there is no point in allowing the multi-class option in the first place.

This begs the question: why shouldn't elven clerics simply be a race-as-class that casts divine magic instead of arcane magic? While I really like this approach (being partial to race-as-class), I am not particularly comfortable with the idea of elves running around like super-paladins (despite the extra XP requirements, it would be awfully tempting to go with an elf over the cleric). It also removes some of the alien-ness of elves.

A more attractive option, taking a cue from Genesis 1:28, is to allow Istinite elves to cast Druid spells. This differentiates them from ordinary elves and maintains that alien-ness that I like to have with my demi-humans (especially since no one else would be casting druid spells).

One aspect of this that I find particularly interesting is that this will likely sour relationships between the Summer and Winter Courts. Whereas the Winter Court is all about cheating death, a Summer Court dominated by Istinite elves would be quite comfortable with death. What had been a rather cordial relationship (because all Summer Court elves knew they would one day be members of the Winter Court) could become downright hostile.

An Example of a Story Emerging from Play Part 3

When Hamlen died and the party wanted to investigate ways of getting him raised, the party demonstrated a considerable amount of anti-elf prejudice. This afforded me an opportunity to explore the ways of the elves (what they think about bane weapons, etc.) and thus scratch an itch for Ahkmed's player. One way I intended to do this was have the Winter Queen bound to a bane weapon and the Winter King obsessed with finding a way to get her out.

When this campaign began, it was an experiment. I had no idea if a bunch of 3.5 players would be at all interested in playing the game in an old school style using a retrocloned ruleset. I therefore was not particularly interested in spending a lot of time creating a sandbox. I therefore placed Lost Colonies on one of the maps from the Wilderlands by Judges Guild. It has served me very well — it is sketchy enough to allow me to make the world my own but filled with enough detail to fire the imagination.

One of the few places where elves are dominant on the map I chose to use had a little blurb about the locals being very interested in finding out why undead were coming out of the ocean. I figured that the Winter King's obsession had gotten so bad that his own experiments were the reason for the undead incursion against his own kind.

About this time I had also picked up Frog God Games' Hex Crawl Chronicles: Valley of the Hawks. I have to admit, I have been hesitant to pick up anything they've done because I was never much impressed by any Necromancer Games product other than some of their Judges Guild conversions. Since the Hex Crawl Chronicles seemed to ape those conversions, however, I decided to pick this up (well worth the money, by the way).

Therein, the elves of the valley were divided between Summer and Winter courts. What inspired me, however, was that all of the Winter Elves were wights. This got me thinking about the life-cycle of the elf.

If one assumes that an elf's lifespan is measured in centuries and that they have something akin to a vegan diet (where fruits, leaves, saps etc. can be harvested without killing the source) than death would be virtually unknown culturally and mythically. Since it would be such a rare occurrence (as opposed to its daily presence in human life), there wold be no real need to explain it or incorporate it into the cultural/mythic landscape.

Elves are mortal, however. This mortality manifests as an inability to extract nutrients from food commonly consumed by elves. Thus, as the elf grows older, their diet becomes more and more exotic (possibly giving rise to the elven adventurer). When the diet of an elf results in the death of another creature (as in meat), they become a member of the Winter Court. Thus, the Summer Court is almost entirely made up of younger elves and the Winter Court is almost entirely made up of older elves.

Eventually, the elven system can no longer gain sustenance from food. This would be the natural end of the life cycle; however, since elves do not intimately know or understand death (outside of battle) they tend to fear it. Thus, they have spent centuries figuring out ways to cheat it. For example, many in the Winter Court have willingly become wights — they feed on the very life essence of other beings.

More importantly, the Bane weapons were one of these ways to cheat death. Elves of a certain age willingly had their souls tied to these weapons in an attempt to bring peace to the races in a kind of magical detente. Unfortunately, separated from their bodies, the elves went into a kind of torpor. The only way to wake was to find someone willing to give up their own will and allow the elf to act in and through the wielder of the weapon (as Ahkmed has done). In addition, the dwarves abused the bane weapons and brought corruption and death to the races instead of peace.

The Winter King is the oldest living elf. He has cheated death over and over again in a myriad of ways — including some that are truly heinous. He has made and broken deals with demons. He has killed innocents by the thousands. He is unwilling to die until he frees the Winter Queen from her torpor.

As a result of my players' interpretation of events, his latest cheat has had the unintended consequence of infecting others in the Winter court. While he is somewhat content to live as a half-shadow, he fears that once the Winter Court succumbs, it will affect elven kind as a whole. Currently, he is racing against time to find a way to work around this affliction. He has yet to find a cure.

Holmes & Cook: Elves & Dwarves

Those familiar with the works of Tolkien know that the origin of the orc is a deliberate breaking and twisting of elves by the evil guile of Melkor/Morgoth (the main antagonist of The Silmarillion). Given the influence Tolkien seems to have on Holmes, I think it is fair to assume a similar origin for orcs — they are a twisted version of elves (possibly as an attempt at a more malleable slave-version of elves by the humans of the suggested ancient civilization).

Using this as a point of departure, note the languages Holmes grants to the beginning Elf character:

Elves can speak the languages of orcs, hobgoblins and gnolls

Given that orcs are elves twisted beyond recognition suggests that the reason that elves know the language of the orcs is because it is a dialect of elvish. It follows that so, too, are the languages of the hobgoblin and gnoll. This suggests that hobgoblins and gnolls are either other twisted elves or a further twisting of orcs.

This vision is reinforced by the languages given the beginning Dwarf character:

Dwarves can all speak the languages of gnomes, kobolds and goblins.

Holmes essentially calls gnomes chaotic good hill dwarves:

Gnomes are similar to dwarves, whom they resemble. They are smaller, have longer noses and beards and inhabit low-land and hill burrows rather than mountains.

Kobolds are also described as a kind of dwarf:

These evil dwarf-like creatures behave much like goblins, but are less powerful.

The goblin behavior in question suggests that goblins, too, are a kind of dwarf:

They always attack dwarves on sight.

In other words, gnomes are chaotic dwarves, goblins are evil dwarves as are kobolds (possibly even a derivative of gnomes, due to their size). Therefore, the languages given the beginning dwarf character are likely all dialects of the original dwarven language.

This all suggests a very interesting definition of goblinoid, given how Holmes describes the hobgoblin:

Hobgoblins are big, powerful goblinoids

Since the suggested origin of hobgoblins is the elf and the suggested origin of the goblin is the dwarf, the term goblinoid seems to mean any race whose origin is the twisting of a progenitor race (such as elves or dwarves).

Given this statement by Holmes:

At the Dungeon Master's discretion a character can be anything his or her player wants him to be.

it follows that should one want to play a gnome, goblin or kobold that one could simply use the dwarf class as a template and, likewise, orcs, hobgoblins and gnolls could use the elf class as a template.