Folklore Elfs

What games have added in the mythological fairy, sidhe, Norse alf? What were their rules? How does one incorporate them into a game?

You might want to have a look at the wood elves from warhammer fantasy. They reside in deep forests and steal human children. Some of them return as mages. Sometimes they attack humans, sometimes they suddenly appear to help them in battle. No one can really figure out why they are doing things.

I know there's a lot of backlash against the game since, but I felt the original editions of 7th Sea handed the Sidhe very well in their fluff.

I know where I am from, Elves typically are house spirits like Hobbs and shit. Guard your home and your family if you aren't a broken family.

Wasn't there a Camelot themed game that had the sidhe as an etherial enemy race?

It's interesting that there's been such a backlash against the concept of the diminutive elf. I know a lot of people don't like the modern associations it has, but the concept of the little people living in the hollow mounds has been around for a long time, at least as long as the idea of elves being tall and beautiful.

Longer, there is far more rich and detailed information about Elves being child-snatchers, evil and twisted forest spirits than there are of them being the fair haired immortals of grace we tend to see them now.

Personally, I love the opposite. The closest media I could place them to would be something out of Hellboy, the comics and the moives generally do a good job of visually representing older or alternative mythology.

Well, there's overlap too. Even the tall and beautiful elves were thought to be cruel and possibly even soulless, and there are stories about them stealing humans and leaving changelings too.

>believing christian propaganda
My fair Ljósálfar would never do such a thing!

Dude, our earliest source about the Ljósálfar IS Christian and describes them in seemingly angelic terms.

>Elves in the Anglo-Saxon tradition were small, invisible, demonic beings, causing illness with arrows. Scholars, but not the primary texts, labelled the illnesses elves caused as "elf-shot".

My axe would like a quick word in the ear of your little dark elf.

Eh, that's more a problem of actual mythology being pretty fucking vague with a lot of overlap between creatures. Us modern peoples like to codify things more.

Plus, I can't think of any mythological creatures that were actually tall and thin--most were short, and we have regular ol' fairies for tiny creatures that live in trees

Well, it's a known pattern that mythical creatures got shorter and smaller in stories as belief in them waned. The Tuatha de Dannan/Sidhe, the trolls, even the Tengu over in Japan.

Just like dinosaurs.

And self esteem!

Well hey, if anything that would support what I said. Now that elves are much more prevalent in our culture and various forms of media, more people would "believe" in them and they'd grow taller. All thanks to LotR and D&D.

Would also explain dwarves growing wider, too.

What is this picture from? Can't do shit for searching on mobile

Book Brian Froud did on elves and fairies, I believe.

I really like a more rural, folklore like games, specially were little faes and more little/local problems are involved. Labyrinth and Froud books, Spiderwick chronicles, Troll Mill and even edge chronicles style, but really I don't know what system to make it for.

Not Froud, Tony DiTerlizzi, from DnD 2º edition and planescape fame. The picture is from the Spiderwick book, Field guide or something, I never found it in the net.

South american folklore is so underused. Yeah, there are lots of faes than have a penchant for rape or have european originsand stuff but some of them are pretty cool.

You could say that about most folklore - African, Indian, Asian. You could even make an argument for Slavic folklore being misconstrued or ignored.

Would a traditional fae be an ethereal?

>What were their rules
Folklore rarely had rules.
They weren't making a D&D game, they were just telling stories, sometimes as a way to explain stuff they didn't understand.

He was asking if there were games that included fae and if they did what were the rules for them.

Not what rules did mythology follow.

Eh, not really. One has to keep in mind concepts of how solid spirits were very fluid back then. "Spirit" didn't necessarily mean something that was totally ephemeral.

OP was asking what rules did the mythical elf follow. And the answer is none.

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