Hello! It's been awhile, but I thought I'd drop back in with something fluffy for you all. This is a set of tables I began writing for a campaign I ran almost 3 years ago. I was originally planning to have very odd Elves, in OSR fashion, but what I've ended up with might fit a more nebulous word. Something like "Neighbors", "Guests", or "Co inhabitants".
François de Nomé, Explosion of Cathedral
How many ages have they been holed up in there? How many petty intellectuals have written treatise decrying imagined decadence and tyranny? Scribes copy and recopy these lies on vellum as the endless knot of the Elven world coils tighter and tighter. As the roots take hold of its foundations, as the grass chokes the promenades, as the locks rust to nothing the Elves continue their inscrutable project.
The earth is a watch. The watch has yet to be invented, but
the Elves know that the earth is a watch. It is a law-bound system, subject to
limitation, subject to chaos: ticking out of time. Wildfires and droughts and
peasant revolts and, perhaps, eclipses are all like this: evidence of a contradiction
running its course and trying to resolve. The watch begs to be wound up but
betrays again as it loses synch. But what if a contradiction could be flipped inside
out? I know, what does that even mean? ‘Flipped inside out’, a description of
an object in space, not compatible with an abstract noun. But this is exactly
what the Elves have attempted. An impossible task to make an impossible place.
That is, a Utopia, no place at all.
Their logic is so calcified that it’s become endlessly
creative. Every instrument of brutal, mechanical control has become its exact
opposite. Grasping scarcity has become so ingrained in them that they have discovered
limitless wealth. For centuries they have practiced their etiquette and manner.
But none of this is extravagance, exactly the opposite. Every flourish is exquisitely
necessary, organized to unknown ends. Nothing should work but it does.
Before they blinked out of history and out of their vast cities,
the Elves struck a deal. This is the Ancient Contract. Nobody remembers who
agreed to the terms. It is not so much a document as a mandate, a ritual, an
action which constantly repeats. The Elven Arbiter arrives without warning, the
Embassy is begun. Why? Something is wrong with our side of the world. Something
like a quest needs to be performed. Our world must be kept as it is. There are
details that must be maintained. Natural features, borders, social structures,
ideological hegemonies, which the Elves have deemed necessary to the function
of their hidden society. It is as if we
are not so separate afterall.
Mode of Transport: The Arbiter always travels in style.
1. Completely white litter carried by porcelain coloured
humanoids without clothes, genitals, or faces
2. Bed of exotic flora which grows to move forward and
withers just as fast
3. Floating glass pyramid inscribed with calligraphy, it
keeps above the earth by constantly singing
4. A large crawling red hand with a small castle tower
rising from the wrist
5. A carriage of silk which several large spiders swing
through the trees
6. A muzzled troll whose belly can be slit open to reveal a
lovely parlour with fleshy coloured furniture
7. A group of skeletons carrying four large iron wheels who
fold together to make a carriage
8. A large egg which rips a chuck out of reality when
cracked, replacing it with the Arbiter’s elegant drawing room. The egg appears
in the fireplace and causes the room to disappear if it’s removed.
9. A massive roughhewn crystal crawling on crab legs. The
sunlight makes its reflection the portal to a pleasant grotto.
10. A moving bonfire with a huge steel kettle cooking on it.
A lovely kitchen is poured out when the water boils.
Appearance: It is forbidden for outsiders to gaze upon a
being as mighty as the Arbiter, but they conceal themselves with the most
stylish guise.
1. A crudely anthropomorphic crocodile. Eyes like stars wink
from inside its jaws.
2. Robes like water, an obscuring cataract that gets nothing
wet.
3. Light bends around the Arbiter, creating a moving void in
sight.
4. The Arbiter is inside out. It is no shame for outsiders
to see one’s guts and bones.
5. Light passes through the Arbiter, an unbreakable
invisibility. But their voice is everywhere.
6. You. Just like you. A mirror.
7. A veil of chitinous insects surrounds them. Their
whirring wings change colour, signalling mood.
8. A luminous silken veil from which copious sweet smoke spills.
9. A face-shaped obsidian cage encircles their body. Arms
and legs, naked and pale, stick out.
10. Behind you. Always behind you.
Knights: The Arbiter’s personal entourage.
1.Dressed in armor made completely of slashing edges and
stabbing points fitted together and riding muscular horses whose flesh is all
scar tissue (Knights of Predation)
2. Gnarled tree bark
is fused to their flesh, they ride owlbears and wield wooden weapons (Knights
of the Spring Thaw)
3. Wear armor of iron feathers and ride huge swans with the
legs of lions (Knights of the Summer Updraft)
4. Dress in armor made of elegantly folded paper and ride
gently purring snow clouds (Knights of the Winter Gale)
5. Their heads are grafted onto long spindly golems grown of
glass and rosebushes. They carry their fleshy bodies on their backs in vats of
purple jelly. (Knights of Spring’s Cull)
6. They are completely invisible but leave footprints of all
manner of forest creatures as they march and sound like a whole zoo. Only
during eclipses are they visible. (Knights of the Beast Star)
7. They appear as black blotches moving across the ground,
beautiful shadow puppets of knights carrying clouds of banners atop displacer
beasts. At the moment the sun sets completely, they rise from the shadows.
(Knights of the Consecrated Moon)
8. They are
emaciated, missing limbs, eyes, mouths and wear armor of dark red resin which
has been formed into strange prosthetic feet and hands. They ride fat quadrupedal
devils who smile all the time. (Knights of the Sun’s Ash)
9. They ride steeds of flowing glass warped into the shape
of horses with rooster-like manes. The knights are entombed in steaming glass
canisters, like champagne flutes fitted around their arms and legs. Miscellaneous
tubes hang from their chests, fragrance flowing freely. (Knights of High
Summer)
10. They sit on long legged lizards with huge crests emblazoned
with psychedelic patterns. Their armor is scale of petals held together with
thorns. (Knights of the Spring Equinox)
What are the knights up to? After all the official business,
they’ll need to blow off some steam.
1. Eating somebody’s cattle with their bare hands, they just
chew the meat and spit it out
2. Standing perfectly still and staring at the sun
3. Beating each other with their own limbs, for training
purposes
4. Stalking townsfolk, silently
5. Trying to trade flowers for goods and services, and
succeeding
6. Peacefully sewing tapestries from grass, skin, and clouds
7. Shooting song birds out of the air with perfect accuracy
and sorting their feathers by size and colour
8. Swallowing weapons, dogs, ect, and coughing them up in
perfect, or more than perfect, condition
9. Burning vast amounts of incense and sitting in the
flames, mediating
10. Laughing uncontrollably at every aspect of non-Elvish
society. They might spend an hour just standing around an outhouse, finding
everything about it hilarious.
Go-Between: The Arbiter belongs to
the highest echelon of Elven society, they will not debase themselves by
actually speaking with the party. Thus the Go-Between, who will speak on the Arbiter’s
behalf to the players and vice versa. The Go-Between is not of high enough rank
to even ask questions of the Arbiter, they must ask one of the knights to do
so. This is a complicated procedure.
1. Low status Elven knight
2. Terrified local dignitary
3. An ambassador from a foreign
place, kidnapped
4. Enchanted Bear
5. Treant Slave
6. An overeager wizard, obsessed with
the Elves
7. Gibbering half-elven changeling
8. Drunken Satyr
9. Local farmer with an Elven device
embedded in her skull. Her eyes sparkle and she is oh so courteous.
10.
An amalgam of local wildlife forced into semi-humanoid shape
What must be done? The task must be
seen to or else both our worlds will fall apart, so they say. Trust me.
1. A custom
is changing too quickly. A story or song is being forgotten or a style of dress
is being replaced.
2. Unrest
is brewing in the wrong group. An uprising in the earliest stages must be
stopped or the object of its ire changed.
3. A
place is not being respected. A grove is being impinged upon, a quarry mined, an
ancient ruin looted for building material.
4. An institution
is in crisis. A temple is falling apart, a government is losing its authority,
an industry is losing relevancy.
5. A natural
disaster is looming, it must be mitigated. A flood must not destroy the
harvest, a volcanic eruption must not interrupt a festival.
6. Infrastructure
must remain as it is. A road is not being maintained, a mode of transport must
be kept in fashion, a new project (like an aqueduct) must not succeed, a new
technology must be destroyed.
7. Everything
is too stagnant. Something drastic and traumatic must happen to society.
8. A dispute
amongst the elite is getting out of hand. A political border must be maintained,
an aristocratic family must not fall apart, a war must not start.
This post is dedicated to Algernon Blackwood
