[MH] Vile Vortices and Supernatural Threats

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm also wondering which ancient cultures would be most appropriate to cast as places where otherworldly influence had been from some variety of 'Faerie', i.e. any kind of fey creatures or variations of Faeries, distinguished by a weakness for iron and powerful glamour, as well as often having strong associations with verdant nature.

I should probably specify that I'm especially interested in cultures in Eurasia or around the Mediterranean that could be cast as having developed with significant fey influence. As in, if Earth and Faerie were linked with gates and pathways that allowed much more frequent contact back in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, which Bronze Age cultures would be appropriate to cast as having had significant contact with fey creatures, as opposed to different species of supernatural creatures from other other worlds.

If Earthly humans learned many different traditions of magic from otherwordly beings, which Neolithic or Bronze Age cultures were learning from 'Fair Folk'?

I'd guess that it's easy to justify all sorts of proto-Celtic peoples in Europe learning from various fey. In fact, in many places, the pre-Celtic inhabitants might already have been using dolmens and standing stones for congress with Faerie. But who else?

There are also other magical traditions, where iron isn't necessarily hostile to the magical beings. The Norse have legends about elves, much like their Celtic neighbors, but there are also supernatural species that work iron and shouldn't be represented in GURPS as akin to any race of iron-fearing fey.

I've used Sumerian mythology and magical traditions as rituals deriving from some very unpleasant spirits, hungry for blood, death and sacrifice. I'd probably link the same kind of spirits to sacrifice-heavy traditions in Central and South America, explaining any incidental similarities in fashion or art. Also, Sumerian demons and Aztec gods are just awful.

I suppose that most ancient religions involving nature-spirits and deities that are close to nature might be linked to Faerie, which means almost any pre-Indo-European substrata which was never written down is probably fair game. Solar deities seem to me less Faerie-like, so I guess the PIE Kurgan warriors represented different otherworldly allies and mentors than were in vogue in Europe at the time. Also, any culture heavily into iron can be assumed to be anti-fey, in the main.

What about Cimmerian and related cultures? Was their magic pro-fey or had they some other supernatural backers?

Thraco-Dacians? Or proto-Thraco-Dacians, as we can assume that by the time they are Iron Age, fey are out of mainstream favor?

If there were supernatural factions involved in the wars in the Ancient Near East leading up to the Bronze Age, what were those factions and which human factions had fey allies?

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I should probably specify that I'm especially interested in cultures in Eurasia or around the Mediterranean that could be cast as having developed with significant fey influence. As in, if Earth and Faerie were linked with gates and pathways that allowed much more frequent contact back in the Neolithic and Bronze Age, which Bronze Age cultures would be appropriate to cast as having had significant contact with fey creatures, as opposed to different species of supernatural creatures from other other worlds.

If Earthly humans learned many different traditions of magic from otherwordly beings, which Neolithic or Bronze Age cultures were learning from 'Fair Folk'?

...

If there were supernatural factions involved in the wars in the Ancient Near East leading up to the Bronze Age, what were those factions and which human factions had fey allies?

First I'd say any culture could be influenced by Fair Folk. I agree Proto-Celts are especially easy to justify. Also, any "barbarian" culture about which little is known is fair game also: Proto-Germans, Thracians, Illyrians, Dacians, etc. There are aspects in Greek culture which could be Fair Folk influenced--Pan, nymphs, satyrs, amends, Dionysus.

It was my understanding that the Cimmerians were part of the Scythian, Persian, Into-Aryan cultural group. If you wanted to make the PIE Kurgan makers not Fair Folk influenced I would say the Cimmerians aren't either. Probably. Maybe. Alternately, you could use the ideas that the Cimmerians were related to the Welsh. Those theories seem like just the kink of "science" you are looking for. Plus they would allow a Cimmerian warrior to say "By Kromm" and be named Conan.

One possibility for a Fair Folk influenced culture is Egypt. While Egyptian religion doesn't seems very much like the Fair Folk, Egypt adopted iron relatively late. A preference for bronze over iron could be the result of the Fair Folk.

I also agree Tartessos was obviously settled by survivors from Atlantis.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by a humble lich

First I'd say any culture could be influenced by Fair Folk. I agree Proto-Celts are especially easy to justify. Also, any "barbarian" culture about which little is known is fair game also: Proto-Germans, Thracians, Illyrians, Dacians, etc.

Very true.

And note that just because I cast the markers of Indo-European culture at arrival in Europe as opposed to fey influences doesn't mean that a later culture that emerged from contact between steppe people like the Yanma or others with already existing cultures in Europe could not continue to be influenced by the fey. Certainly, real cultures show that there was almost never just a one way direction of cultural influence.

So proposing that an Proto-Indo-European people mixed with those who lived where they arrived and the resulting society had magical traditions that showed some continuity with the pre-PIE culture is no crazier than saying the same about religion, where it has often been demonstrably true.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

There are aspects in Greek culture which could be Fair Folk influenced--Pan, nymphs, satyrs, amends, Dionysus.

For extra fun, some of these things are derived from other cultures and/or may have pre-Greek roots.

Dionysus is widely assumed to have an Eastern origin, even by Ancient Greeks, either Prygian/Anatolian or from some other Oriental culture. Pan was linked, in his first appearances, to a Cybele-like 'Mother Goddess' type, which is the sort of thing which usually points to something like pre-Greek substrata or Phrygian origin. I haven't researched the others yet, but I note that satyrs and the Men of Leng have an uncanny resemblance. Et in Arcadia ego indeed.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

It was my understanding that the Cimmerians were part of the Scythian, Persian, Into-Aryan cultural group. If you wanted to make the PIE Kurgan makers not Fair Folk influenced I would say the Cimmerians aren't either. Probably. Maybe.

Well, we don't know enough about the Cimmerians to classify their language, at least not any closer than 'probably Indo-European', at least unless the few names we have are merely titles or adaptations in another language than their own, which is actually not impossible.

Sure, Cimmerian culture seems to fit within a wider Indo-Iranian cultural sphere that also includes Scythians, but judging from other periods in steppe history, it's far from implausible to propose that a people speaking an entirely different language, from an unrelated language family, might adopt an almost identical material culture as a ruling group of steppe peoples. While there is no good evidence for such a claim in actual scholarship, it probably wouldn't contradict anything we know about them to cast Cimmerians as having spoken a language in the language family which includes Thraco-Dacian (which, in turn, might be a Thraco-Illyrian family, thought I doubt it).

Genetically, Cimmerians appear to show some East Asian haplogroups and might have been the source of the East Asian admixture in some Scythian individuals and groups (or, alternatively, this might result from the same factors among both). There is, I believe, quite as much evidence to assume that Cimmerians were a society of Indo-Iranians dominated by a non-Indo-European elite (or vice versa) as anything else.

Certainly, other steppe cultures have plenty of examples indicating how fluid ethnicity was on the steppe and how little material culture and even language truly tells us about the origin and genetic composition of a people living on the great steppes. Essentially, I nave no idea how Cimmerians might even have looked. Like modern Ukrainians? Modern Iranians? Modern Finns? Georgians? Kazakhstanis? Bulgarians? Hungarians?

The scientific evidence can't really tell me whether Cimmerians were mostly blond and blue-eyed with fair skin, R.E. Howard's dark-haired and blue-eyed with weathered skin, the medium-dark, brown-eyed and brown-haired that Yanma culture people may have been, or something entirely different. Cimmerians might have looked closer to modern Turkic people than the stereotypical 'Aryan', or even resembled Manchu or other Tunguscic peoples.

And, always, a fairly heterogeneous mix of people is entirely possible, with 'Cimmerian' being a tribal confederacy not necessarily indicating close familial kinship between individuals belonging to it. There appears to be every reason to believe that ancient steppe cultures, much like more recent ones, could have individuals with a strongly Mongolic appearance living next to other individuals who appear like they could be featured on Waffen-SS recruitment posters. And those two individuals might even belong to the same extended family, certainly they could easily speak the same language.

I believe the best current scholarship has 'Cimmerians' genetics showing similar signs as individuals from Pazyryk and Aldy-Bel cultures, which might mean that they looked something like indigenous Siberians, with or without a genetic relationship with West Eurasian people who may have looked like almost any European, with no evidence yet that allows us to narrow down a range of hair, eye and skin colour.

Basically, human remains are much better at telling us all sorts of things other than the superficial details of appearance that are the first thing that people who meet someone in real life notice. Which makes it pretty hard to feature NPCs from ancient cultures in a game, without making a decision about archaeogenetics on incomplete evidence.

In any case, if I were to feature supernatural things in my campaign which had some connections with Cimmerians, I would need to decide what made someone 'Cimmerian' rather than just belonging to one of the many peoples that get lumped under the 'Scythian' cultural designation. In a campaign where magic is real, having different magical traditions might be just such a difference.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

Alternately, you could use the ideas that the Cimmerians were related to the Welsh. Those theories seem like just the kink of "science" you are looking for. Plus they would allow a Cimmerian warrior to say "By Kromm" and be named Conan.

Ironically, some pseudoscience that actual people have believed in the past seems too implausible to me to have be true, even in game, while I'll happily accept supernatural explanations. I can't really have Cimmerians and Cymry share a linguistic root.

That being said, there is really no reason I can't have both peoples share contact with a group of fey, which might account for any similarities that exist between them. Eh, not that I'm aware of any similarities that need explaining, though, which rather spoils things. Then again, featuring real Cimmerians in a game requires inventing nearly everything about them, as we know precious little.

The only real reason we have to separate them from other Indo-European peoples of the period are statements in a few histories, none of which is specific enough to know whether they should be considered related or even identical with a wider 'Scythian' or 'Thracian' culture.

I haven't come across any source which precludes viewing Cimmerians as merely one of the many tribal identities of Indo-Iranian peoples that made up the 'Scythian' cultural descriptor, while older scholarship considered them somehow related to the Thracians who lived close to them. I've even heard their language proposed as a 'missing link' between Indo-Iranian languages and Thraco-Dacian languages.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

One possibility for a Fair Folk influenced culture is Egypt. While Egyptian religion doesn't seems very much like the Fair Folk, Egypt adopted iron relatively late. A preference for bronze over iron could be the result of the Fair Folk.

It could. Of course, any culture which exist long enough and controls an area large enough probably could use influence from multiple magical traditions and supernatural factions, just for plausibility. So Ancient Egypt obviously has some fae-influence. I've been assuming that fish-people are fey and I know that the kind of people who look for that sort of thing consider the Nommo who taught the Dogon of Mali somehow connected to Egypt.

I also heard a statement in an Ancient Astronaut TV show about people emerging from a submerged island in the sea to teach Egyptians something, which, if there is even a tiny nugget of an actual myth behind (not guaranteed, as the standards of research among that crowd are not always the best), can clearly be cast as contact with fey merfolk.

Originally Posted by a humble lich

I also agree Tartessos was obviously settled by survivors from Atlantis.

It just seems so obvious! :-)

[tshiggins]

Just about every culture has its "wee folk" of one sort, or another. They're all over the place in American Indian folklore (and particularly nasty, in some cases).

That's why I created a third set of fey folk, for Facets. A lot of those "little people" stories do not fit the highly Euro-centric division into the "Seelie" and "Unseelie" courts, nor do they indicate any other sort of hierarchy.

Basically, they're nature spirits, and do things people find incomprehensible. So, the notion of unaligned "Wild Fae" seemed to work best.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Just about every culture has its "wee folk" of one sort, or another. They're all over the place in American Indian folklore (and particularly nasty, in some cases).

That's why I created a third set of fey folk, for Facets. A lot of those "little people" stories do not fit the highly Euro-centric division into the "Seelie" and "Unseelie" courts, nor do they indicate any other sort of hierarchy.

Basically, they're nature spirits, and do things people find incomprehensible. So, the notion of unaligned "Wild Fae" seemed to work best.

For my campaign, the division into 'Seelie' and 'Unseelie' dates back to a civil war in Fair Folk society, where one faction, the 'Unseelie', wanted to respond to humanity's ever increasing use of iron and steel with all-out invasion of Earth, before the humans grew too powerful to defeat. The 'Seelie' faction favored curtailing traffic to Earth and keeping the ways secret, instead.

The fey civil wars raged for centuries, with some Seelie nobles bringing in human magician allies, who proved able to bar many of the easier pathways between Earth and Faerie, putting the Seelie at a strategic advantage. Unseelie raiders and infiltrators into human society over the war years were responsible for many of the nastier faerie myths and legends.

I proposed that there was a third faction of noble Fair Folk who rejected all-out war with Earth, but were unwilling to fight fellow Fair Folk over what amounted to a difference of opinion about the best way forward for their people. Both sides consider them cowards and oath-breakers, though the neutral faction would counter that they broke no oaths, they merely interpreted the ones they had sworn to allies and feudal lords in strictest accuracy. No oaths bound them to service on other worlds or to the swearing of new oaths of wartime fealty, as other Fae nobility did.

And, obviously, Faerie is full of fey who are not somehow reflections of European noble society and who are not sworn to individual Faerie lords, and thus mostly uninvolved in the Fair Folk civil wars, though eventually many did get drawn in on one side or the other before the war ended with the Accords. Just as many, however, ignored the civil war of the nobles in their castles, as they ignored everytbing else they did, in favour of their own concerns. Faerie is a vast place and the Fair Folk but one race of many.

It should not need to be said that having fought on the side of the Seelie is no guarantee of benevolence. Many Seelie took the position they did over concerns that invading and settling Earth would corrupt the fae or the fear that humans might win such an all-out war between the worlds. In fact, some nobles on the Seelie side positively loathe humans, but fought as they did based on their belief in prophecies that held that conquering Earth would eventually result in the end of the Fair Folk.

By contrast, some Unseelie delight in human company and proposed conquest of Earth as a desperate last-ditch strategy that might end human reliance on iron and thus allow Fair Folk to continue their close association with humans. Fair Folk love music, art and beauty, but while their artistic and musical skills are immense, the ability of humans to create novel forms of expression and entirely new art, is far beyond the fey.

Hence, true lovers of art and beauty among the Fair Folk were irresistably drawn to humans, but now it seemed every human had iron tools. Every interaction between human and fey was thus had the power dynamics tilted ever more in favour of the humans and the Unseelie saw no choice but to either submit to human authority and become a pathetic race of slaves bound to mankind through the dual chains of love and fear, or to seize power in human society while there was still time to reject the use of iron.

I inagine that any fey who were involved primary with human societies where iron was rare or unknown at the time of this war, which seems from secret records of human occultists to have ended at some point before the Renaissance, would not have felt any strong impetus to take sides.

[tshiggins]

I draw a lot of my ideas about the fae from Castle Falkenstein and the Dresden Files.

In an Infinite Cabal setting, there are also lots of places to go once humans get too advanced in one world, as well.

That means the fae are vastly powerful, and humans only begin to threaten them, en masse, on worlds where industrialization begins. Until then, the fae outclass most humans in just about every way.

However, since the fae literally cannot lie (although they can mislead and are very good at figuring out what people want to hear...), they sometimes get tangled in conflicting vows and promises. Moreover, they must keep their words and are a bit hidebound, so clever humans can sometimes find a way to out-think them.

Throw in the fact that most human wizards have the ability to gain considerable power, most are at least very clever and some may be quite devious, and that means most fae tend to avoid underestimating humanity.

In general, they usually only deal with people when they want something, or find someone who amuses them.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

I draw a lot of my ideas about the fae from Castle Falkenstein and the Dresden Files.

I love the Dresden Files fae, but haven't any experience of Castle Falkenstein.

I did read your campaign notes on these forums, just last week, in fact. Rather randomly. I can't say I noticed any fey, though, but then again, I don't think the mystery of the second season was explained.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

In an Infinite Cabal setting, there are also lots of places to go once humans get too advanced in one world, as well.

Yeah, that may be the largest difference between my campaign and Infinite Worlds or Cabal with Infinite Worlds. There may be more than one Earth, but if so, no one that my PCs have encountered knows or is saying anything about it. There are many, many worlds, but only one of them is Earth.

Most of the other worlds don't even have humans and if they do, they do not appear to be simply Alternate History Earths with a single divergence point (nor do they tend to exist on a 'normal' planet, with space that obeys our astrophysics around it).

The other worlds that the Fair Folk of my campaign know about are worlds of demons and a wide variety of other magical creatures, with some human occultists theorizing that aside from spirits and demons (and maybe one or two other strange things), the vast majority of the 'different' worlds are simply areas of Faerie that are far enough apart so that only magical travel is viable between them. The fey, meanwhile, either don't know or aren't saying.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

That means the fae are vastly powerful, and humans only begin to threaten them, en masse, on worlds where industrialization begins. Until then, the fae outclass most humans in just about every way.

Well, an individual fae knight or noble will obviously outclass a human programmer, cashier or hairstylist, but in my campaign, fae that aren't born with a great deal of power do not tend to amass it the way ambitious humans can do. There aren't many self-made fae warlords or archmages, merely noble fae born into such roles and likely enough prophesied to achieve everything they would and no more.

That being said, few humans ever achieve the kind of power to stand toe-to-toe with a fae noble, either magically or in terms of skill-at-arms. But if the humans have iron or steel items, they don't need to. Iron blinds fae senses, weakens and disorients them and the slightest touch of it causes them unimaginable pain. And fey glamour is dispelled by iron.

A fairly ordinary human blacksmith need not fear any lord of the Fair Folk when inside his smithy and a human knight of average skill is a terrible foe to even multiple fae knights, if he happens to be clad from head-to-toe in iron and steel mail hauberk, greaves and helmet, brandishing a sword made from steel.

TL5+ humans, if the humans in authority were to learn of the existence of fae and decide they were a threat to human society, would be capable of massacring fae almost without resistance being possible. Armies of humans clad in cheap, mass-produced iron armour, shooting iron shot and wielding steel bayonets and other melee weapons as back-up...

Originally Posted by tshiggins

However, since the fae literally cannot lie (although they can mislead and are very good at figuring out what people want to hear...), they sometimes get tangled in conflicting vows and promises. Moreover, they must keep their words and are a bit hidebound, so clever humans can sometimes find a way to out-think them.

My Fair Folk, at least, shall be unable to speak direct lies or to break their word once given. I'm not sure whether that ought to apply to all inhabitants of Faerie. At the very least, this can vary between species.

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Throw in the fact that most human wizards have the ability to gain considerable power, most are at least very clever and some may be quite devious, and that means most fae tend to avoid underestimating humanity.

In general, they usually only deal with people when they want something, or find someone who amuses them.

In my campaign, all fae are tempted by the thought of artists, musicians and poets without Hidebound and maybe even having Versatility. Many of them have internalized rules that are aimed to prevent fae from giving into temptation and avoid humans to the point of phobia. Others constantly scheme to find ways around the wording of the geasa that were forced on them by the Accords.

[tshiggins]

The nunnupi sisters who take the form of large magpies, Hops About and Twirls Thrice, are Fae wee folk from Desert Southwest Indian folklore.

Their foes, the deer-herding zips ("seeps"), are wee folk of the Indians of Northern Mexico.

The party also encountered a dryad with a "chahmin'" Texas drawl after they'd crossed through Fae lands to reach Dallas by foot in a single night in the real world, although it took several days, on the other side of the Veil.

At the time the nunnupi did the favor for the party, neither they nor the zips were aligned.

Since then, the group thinks Hops About and Twirls Thrice have traded the favors to someone in the Unseelie Court, and now wear Winter colors.

Also, the two have accompanied the group on its trip through the Orbital Realm of Jupiter, but mostly seem to be along because they find the antics of the group fairly entertaining.

They also tend to disappear for extended periods, but always show up when violence is imminent.

What do you mean by the mystery of the secondary season?

(Er, maybe answer that in the Facets thread. I don't want to hijack this one.)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

What do you mean by the mystery of the secondary season?

(Er, maybe answer that in the Facets thread. I don't want to hijack this one.)

I'm talking about the Castle Falkenstein campaign notes you have. Many, may years old.

Do you want me to ask there?

It was something about London gangs and murderous violence.

Edit: The campaign in question started as a One er... Two Shot about ten years ago. The second season mystery (which, on checking, might count as Season 3), to which I referred, was the criminal gang of the Blue Gate Dogs.

I didn't get any sense of what, exactly, they were, but I admit freely that lacking any background in Castle Falkenstein, I suppose I might have missed clues connecting them or really anyone else in the campaign to Faerie.

I gathered 'Steampunk Europe with Magic', but didn't notice Faerie or the fey in any kind of important role, which Wikipedia tells me is a feature of Castle Falkenstein.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Since then, the group thinks Hops About and Twirls Thrice have traded the favors to someone in the Unseelie Court, and now wear Winter colors.

I think I want a Winter Court and a Summer Court, but not identical to the Seelie and Unseelie factions. Rather, they are geographical areas of Faerie, as I imagine the world of Faerie as one where time and the seasons are not Earth-like, with many areas stuck in one season or even one time of day for eternity (or at least a very long time).

I also imagine that more than one lord of the Fair Folk claims a title of King and if he rules a manse in Faerie large enough, there is no to tell him nay.

If there are Kings or Queens of Winter and Summer, let alone of the Seelie and Unseelie, I think I want their very existence to be something humans do not know. There are legends and myths, but whether they correspond to truth is something that would require a human to be deep in the counsels of a noble of the fae, something which has not happened for many centuries in my campaign.

If the players are interested in the fae (their PCs will be, as Curious is the most common Disadvantage), learning more of them can be the focus of many adventures.

At the moment, the PCs have a chance to meet one fae King of Winter, in the Lord of the White Riders who exist in the version of HPL's Dreamlands they are currently exploring. Of course, whether these are merely fantasies inspired by Gwen Delvano's (the girl whose dreams the PCs are exploring) love of A Song of Ice and Fire or whether they represent something 'real', which exists out of dreams, is as of this moment undetermined.

Also, the one PC who lacks Curious was the one who was using magical sight to see the White Riders and their crystal-spired cities clearly. That PC decided to refrain from reporting on them with any detail, so as not to inspire other PCs to deviate from their Quest to explore their exotic fastnesses.

Of course, worst case scenario is that these fae White Riders, as the Antarctic Space Nazis might do also, represent powers and polities influenced and dominated by the Lords of the Last Waste and their presence in Ms. Delvano's Dreamlands is due to the sorcerous catastrophe that somehow opened a pathway to the Outer Dark within her very mind and soul.

And that case, the White Riders would be a faction of fae devoted to Winter (and likely of the Unseelie) who have been corrupted by the Lords of the Last Waste and might be outcast from normal Fair Folk society. Perhaps they rule a manse in Faerie that is by now almost detached from that world entirely, walled off by protective magic enacted by Fair Folk and fey of all persuasions, seeking to prevent their world from becoming an icy wasteland where no life can endure.