Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I am thinking that the origin of elves is from the faerie realm. Elves will be mortal versions of "true faerie elves" that are created in the mortal realm to suit the whims of the faeries. Elves are nature faeries and this is the reason why they love nature and live in woods, under the ocean, or on mountains. The shadow elves are unseelie and have been corrupted by evil thus they enjoy the cruel and darker aspects of nature.

Dwarves and gnomes are mortal earth faeries and this is why they live underground, lust for precious earths and enjoy craftmanship in creating items from their element. Halflings are mortal hearth and harvest faeries and this is why they love food and cooking and the domestic side of life.

The goblin-kin, ogres and trolls are mortal unseelie faeries and they delight in being nasty and cruel. They enjoy war for it's own sake, not merely for territorial reasons. Plus trolls may have stronger faerie blood as some can regenerate and others turn to stone in daylight.

True faeries are leprechauns, pixies, nymphs, fauns and many others. They are more innately magical but they require mana to exist while mortal faeries don't. The reason I like there to be a connection between elves, dwarves, gnomes and other fantasy races to faeries is because I like to connect them to their origin which are faeries. This helps to explain their quirky behavior and also allows them to be different than a Darwinian style being which would live by practicality not passion.

What do you think of this idea? Thanks for any input.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

For Dungeon Fantasy you don't have to have any reasons for anything. You don't have to have any coherence. As a matter of fact, the genre works against that sort of thing. Why is there a dungeon full of monsters? What do they eat? Why does it always seem like the adventurers are the only ones who've ever been to one of these dungeons? Why does each level of the dungeon have progressively harder monsters? Why is there are town nearby that sells dungeoneering stuff...yet they never really get bothered by the monsters, nor go into the dungeon themselves? Who cares? Go in, kill the monsters, take their stuff, go back in again.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I don't understand why DF has to be the way that you describe. People spend hours making dungeons and think of reasons for their existance and how to incorporate them into the surrounding area so why not explore some of the faerie derived races and give some reason for their existance? Not all dungeons are the way that you describe, many have actual reasons for their existance mst likely being a wizards or evil clerc creating it to guard treasure. I think you are making DF into something it isn't.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Some Quotes:

DF1, pg 3
"... the “plot” for a hack-and-slash adventure will be very sim-
ple. “Joe the Barbarian, with his friends Ed the Barbarian and
Marge the Barbarian, went down into a cave. They saw lots of
monsters and killed them and took their treasure. A dragon ate
Ed. Joe and Marge ran away. The End.”
–GURPS Basic Set
Fantasy is an engaging genre, bursting with wonder and
mystery. It offers worlds full of fascinating lands, dotted with
great cities and populated by exotic cultures. All of this has a
powerful resonance with any gamer familiar with myth, fairy-
tales, and the fantasy epics of literature and film. For that, get
GURPS Fantasy.
But something else resonates with nearly every gamer.
That’s the thrill of taking a powerful, faux-medieval adventur-
er down into a cave – or a haunted forest, or a sinister strong-
hold – and seeing lots of monsters, killing them, and taking
their treasure. For that, there’s GURPS Dungeon Fantasy.
Break it out when you don’t feel like dealing with complicated
plots, fussy social interactions, and so on. The results won’t be
refined. They might not even be “real roleplaying” (whatever
that is). But they’ll be fun!"

"Be warned that Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers shamelessly
cuts corners and makes assumptions. It’s a guide to making
two-dimensional “heroes” from a non-culture, and pillages his-
tory and fantasy novels at random for powerful equipment and
mythology. Use it in a serious fantasy campaign at your peril."

DF2, pg 2.
"The term “dungeon” refers to a simple fantasy adventure.
Typically, the PCs wander from room to room, killing monsters
and grabbing treasure . . . A “dungeon” can also be a building,
battleship, space station, etc. If the adventurers are dropped into
a limited area, with little or no goal except to grab what they can
and get out alive, it’s a “dungeon.”
–GURPS Basic Set"

ETA: Can you mix Dungeon Fantasy with Fantasy? Sure. But the DF pdfs make it pretty clear that they are about killing things, taking their loot, and not thinking too deeply beyond that.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Sure, that is what people at Steve Jackson games think about DF but they are not any authority, they are a small company with a rules system I like. Dungeons and Dragons had people spending hours in their fantasy world (along with their money) so they must have created a gameworld that people thought highly of.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Or that have lots of players who enjoy killing things and not thinking too heavily about the background detail. Who aren't worried about crafting or economies or why there are goblins in a dungeon that has been sealed up for 100 years. That has been my majority experience with D&D. Sure that have been DM's that have done extra work. But most wanted just to go killing things and didn't worry too much about the details. It was fiendish traps and skeletons and loot. It was all dwarves having Scottish accents and drinking Ale and hating Elves. And all elves being a bit haughty and thin and lithe and vaguely British. It was characters with absolutely no backstory.

Can you do other stuff? Sure. But it seems the phrase "Dungeon Fantasy" is being used to describe that...and it seems that there is a distinction being made between Dungeon Fantasy, and Fantsy that has dungeons in it.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I think that DF is more a style than anything. It is combat heavy and the PCs are powerful. But that doesn't mean (at least to me) that there can't be explanations and actual thinking in the game. I mean you can have mindless adventures and settings in any genre but you can also have well thought out, intelligently desgned settings in DF as well. I think that players appreciate the background more than people think. At least the people I played with had stories for their characters and how they fit into the world.

So for me, I am thinking of giving the elves, dwarves, gnomes and others back their faerie ancestry to help them seem quirky and obsessed with things that seem beyond any practical reasoning. These races will be mortal faeries but they will tend to be freindly with "true faeries" as long as they have similar core beliefs. Things like lzard-men are more practical and are territorial in their aggression as opposed to orcs who are just sort of nasty by nature. Lizard-men would be more mundane in their origin as opposed to orcs who were created by or descended from unseelie faeries.

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

Would your players want to player Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, etc like that? If they would then go for it!

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

I think so.

The way I see elves is that they are nature faeries and they protect nature because they love nature no because it is their territory and they are defending what the nature around it provides to them. They would live in hidden groves surrounded by magical briar patches or thickets so that few mundanes could approach their lairs. They would use elf shot to defend their forests and woods from outsiders attempting to harm them. On nights of the full moon they would perform wild hunts through the forest, often hunting down those that they have captured harming their forests. They would be friendly to pixies, leprechauns, fauns and nymphs living near them and would have a close kinship with them. They would dislike unseelie mortal faeries like goblin-kin, ogres and trolls and would unite with other seelie faeries to defeat them. They would be neutral with humanity because humanity tends to be destructive to their habitat but humanty can also be good natured too.

Dwarves and gnomes would be earth faeries who live below the ground because they are connected to the earth. Their love of precious metals and gems is deeper than can be explained by a mortal being as they see perfection in a diamond or golden ore. They also love to refine and create with metals and gems and spend time polishing and forging them because the gnomes and dwarves are truly linked to the earth.


And so forth....

Re: Idea for the origin of elves, dwarves, goblins, trolls etc. in Dungeon Fantasy
 

And what motivates them to leave their natural habitat to join a mercenary group that delves into dungeons to kill things and get loot? Or meddle with the affairs of men? Or whathaveyou.