Dwarves – Dwarves play on
the fear of avarice. Dwarves are capable of fantastical acts of
creation; their rune-inscribed weapons are the most powerful to be
found in the World Between and they can harness the intersection of
magic and technology to craft wonders that no other race is capable
of. However, a dwarf feels an unreasonable need to be paid
magnificently for his or her labor. Dwarves are unpredictable in
what they will accept as tender; each is driven by a specific greed:
some lust after gold, some favor gems, yet others crave stranger
things like the hair of blonde maidens. A dwarf who feels he has
been cheated will go to great lengths to exact revenge and gain their
reward; cheating a dwarf is the mark of a suicidal mind.
Eladrin – Eladrin play on
the fear of alien-ness. Though the eladrin are the de facto
leaders of the Seelie Court, their motives and desires are utterly
inexplicable from a human perspective. Eladrin exist at a remove
from the World Between, and are content to pursue their own ends
within their mystical traveling towers. However, when humans come
into contact with the eladrin they are left with an impression of
emptiness, coldness, and dispassion towards the vagaries of the human
condition. While eladrin may sometimes aid mankind, their reasons
for doing so are their own and seldom possess a correlation to an
understandable human explanation.
Elves – Elves play on the
fear of chaos. Though elves are friendlier to mankind than much
of the fey, they are creatures of terrifying impulses. Elves are
beings of constantly shifting moods who follow their whims and
caprices with no regard to the harm that this causes to mortal men.
One day an elf may offer to help a cobbler create wondrous shoes so
that he might better feed his family, the next day that same elf may
shoot down the cobbler's children with arrows for mere sport.
Unpredictable and motivated entirely by their passions, elves exist
in what seems to be a constant state of madness; they are capable of
moments of manic revelry, crushing sorrows, and fierce violence. As
creatures who represent the chaos of the natural world, they give
worship to a myriad of gods and goddesses associated with the wilds,
such as the Crooked Moon, the Forest Who Walks, and the Lamenting
Mother. Other types of fey (such as sprites, pixies, brownies, etc.)
act in much the same way as elves.
I like these. Particularly the dwarves and fear of avarice is interesting. The acquisitveness and monomaniacalness that leads to ruin. The current public interest in horders might offer some interesting fodder for dwarf portrayals.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the chaos of elves might spill over into unnaturalness? It makes me think of this bit from Machen's "The White People":
"What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad."
Yeah, it was a little tough to differentiate elves and eladrin at first, but I think of it this way: elves act insanely, but their whim are at least recognizable distortions of human emotions...eladrin are just plain unknowable.
DeleteAlso, I love anything Machen-related!
Great stuff!
ReplyDeleteThe Elf description reminds me of myself as a kid in how I 'played' with the ant hills out in back of our house. One day I might collect leaves and a dead lizard to put on top for them as food... the next day I might pound them with a hammer or pour gas on them and light it. Totally random, pretty much insane.
Thanks! That's really interesting because I tend to play smaller fey (pixies, sprites, etc.) as insane children.
DeleteI love all of these. Especially the bits about cheating a dwarf and Trey's comment about hoarders. What if dwarves hated to give anything up that they had claimed ownership to? That might give justification for the giant underground complexes too, for hiding their wealth. Great paranoia would also be a common racial feature, and dwarves might go to great lengths to build trust. Or maybe dwarves are incapable of trust. That would take "trust, but verify" to a new extreme level.
ReplyDeleteAre all these races playable as PCs? I would worry that some of the antisocial qualities (and really, all these anxieties have antisocial manifestations) might result in characters that aren't all that fun to play with, like the old "chaotic neutral" problem. The unpredictable elf seems to pose a particular danger of this.
Thanks! I am definitely going to develop the "hoarders" angle next time I use some dwarves; it's too cool not to include.
DeleteThe World Between campaign is humans-only as far as PCs go. I like to keep elves, dwarves, and the like as mysterious, monstrous, or at the least strange allies.