Post by robosnake on Jan 14, 2016 2:34:28 GMT
One of my games is in a semi-historical, D&D-ified dark ages Scandinavia during Ragnarok. One of the fun things has been taking the fantasy trope races and walking them back to some of their mythic origins. It looks like the PCs will be dealing with the svartalfar, or dark elves of Scandinavian lore, next.
We already have a very strong idea when someone says "dark elf", I think, thanks to the FR drow and innumerable rip-offs, but the Scandinavian version, while only vaguely described, is quite different. (Etymologically, they might be the same as the dvergar, or dwarves, but that's a whole other issue I'm ignoring). Actually, Skyrim has a pretty good version of svartalfar in the falmer (they got draugr right too).
The svartalfar in Scandinavian myth are corpse-like creatures who live beneath the ground, just as the ljosalfar, or light-elves, live above it in the sky. They are strongly associated with corpses, and generally with things that are "nith", which means evil or dishonorable (sort of), like poisoning people, men using women's magic, oath-breaking and treachery. In building a fantasy race based on the drow from this, I'm thinking that instead of spiders they worship Nidhoggr, the great dragon-worm that gnaws at the roots of the World Tree and crunches on the corpses of murderers, adulterers and oath-breakers. They cultivate carrion-eating creatures and domesticate them. They are also very skilled with poisons (carry-over from the drow) and have a strong tradition of necromancy. Hel, the underworld, is below them after all. They are always gnawed by hunger, because however you slice it, the "underdark" will be a terrible place to cultivate or forage food. So they reverently eat their dead, using the inedible parts as fertilizer, or to feed subterranean fish and crustaceans (and maybe worse things). They would go for low-energy hunting when they did hunt, making them masters of trap design (also convenient for a D&D monster race).
Anyway, what else comes to mind for you guys? I'm just fishing for cool ideas here, and I know that this forum is one place where cool ideas live.
We already have a very strong idea when someone says "dark elf", I think, thanks to the FR drow and innumerable rip-offs, but the Scandinavian version, while only vaguely described, is quite different. (Etymologically, they might be the same as the dvergar, or dwarves, but that's a whole other issue I'm ignoring). Actually, Skyrim has a pretty good version of svartalfar in the falmer (they got draugr right too).
The svartalfar in Scandinavian myth are corpse-like creatures who live beneath the ground, just as the ljosalfar, or light-elves, live above it in the sky. They are strongly associated with corpses, and generally with things that are "nith", which means evil or dishonorable (sort of), like poisoning people, men using women's magic, oath-breaking and treachery. In building a fantasy race based on the drow from this, I'm thinking that instead of spiders they worship Nidhoggr, the great dragon-worm that gnaws at the roots of the World Tree and crunches on the corpses of murderers, adulterers and oath-breakers. They cultivate carrion-eating creatures and domesticate them. They are also very skilled with poisons (carry-over from the drow) and have a strong tradition of necromancy. Hel, the underworld, is below them after all. They are always gnawed by hunger, because however you slice it, the "underdark" will be a terrible place to cultivate or forage food. So they reverently eat their dead, using the inedible parts as fertilizer, or to feed subterranean fish and crustaceans (and maybe worse things). They would go for low-energy hunting when they did hunt, making them masters of trap design (also convenient for a D&D monster race).
Anyway, what else comes to mind for you guys? I'm just fishing for cool ideas here, and I know that this forum is one place where cool ideas live.
