|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 4:19AM
#31
|
Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2004
|
Really. Care to show me an example of a non-female land god, then?
Geb from Egyptian mythology is the first, most obvious example to come to mind. He represents the earth and is the husband of Nut, goddess of the sky.
Okay, one god, that I've never heard of. Now compare that to the overwhelming number of female land-gods.
Not just Geb, but Osiris himself was a male fertility god. If you're totally ignorant of one of the most ancient and influential mythological cycles, why are you even IN this conversation? Also, the Baals were male fertility gods, and it is more historically common to have a male-female pair of fertility gods than otherwise.
Osiris wasn't really a fertility god so much a god of death and rebirth. And while I'm not a scholar of ancient languages, it sounds like Baal is just a title meaning "lord", and referring to the general group of fertility gods worshipped by local tribesmen; do we know that they were in fact male?
Okay, one god, that I've never heard of. Now compare that to the overwhelming number of female land-gods.
Oh, I will certainly grant that deities of earth and fertility are more often than not depicted as feminine, but all that's needed is a singular big example to show that need not be the case exclusively. And Geb is certainly a big example. It's not like Egyptian mythology of all things is obscure. Not only is a masculine deity of earth and fertility possible to conceive of; it actually happened, and in the mythology of what's arguably one of the greatest and most influential ancient cultures in Human history no less.
Also Frey, from the Norse.
My understanding is that Frey wasn't the really the god of the fertility of the Earth so much as prosperity in general. That was covered more by his sister, Freya.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 4:27AM
#32
|
|
|
I'd like some more "Orange and Blue Moality" in my fey.
Fey should be good but rather illogical and foreign in their thought patterns.
"Why ae you attacking us?"
"Because you are dessed in iron/You are dressed in hides and the animals did not consent/Its November, the month of war/You presented no formal invitation/You didn't offe me a banna.... so you must die."
I like this. Fey creatures aren't far realm horrors with completely unfathomable minds, but thier notions of what makes sense are sufficiently different that they're unpredictably dangerous.
I also like the idea that there are "rules", but they're rules that either don't really make much sense to an outsider or that are sort of folksonomic. As you go "deeper", superstition and "makes sense to me" supplant physics in terms of determining how the world works. This can even be built into some iconic fey creatures. A pixie can fly because it has wings, and wings mean you can fly, whether or not the pixie's wings are large enough or move fast enough to actually support its weight. It's possible to be so good at hiding that you're literally invsible. If hearing a catchy song sort of makes you feel like dancing, then a SUPER catchy song irresistably compels you to dance. If something beautiful is dazzling, than the most beautiful things can literally physically blind you.
A positive fey creature is often bold beyond what its physical form should warrant because it's used to things going its way, because its psyche shapes the world around it. A shy or craven or tricky fey creature is the same - its mentality is self-reinforcing. A tricky sprite is extra tricky because it thinks it's very tricky, and every minor trick reinforces this in a sort of feedback loop.
Dwarves invented beer so they could toast to their axes. Dwarves invented axes to kill people and take their beer.
Swanmay Syndrome: Despite the percentages given in the Monster Manual, in reality 100% of groups of swans contain a Swanmay, because otherwise the DM would not have put any swans in the game.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 5:56AM
#33
|
Date Joined:
May 22, 2003
|
Mythologies all around the world have metaphorically depicted the land and creatures symbolically representing it as male, female, both, or neither. There's no "correct" way to symbolize the land or its fertility. This is even more true when you're talking about a Dryad, a creature connected to something that actually does have sex characteristics: Oaks are hermaproditic trees.
Really. Care to show me an example of a non-female land god, then?
What about the enduring and ever-present Green Man of many traditions? 
Anyone else besides me missing a tiny 2-3" faerie for their characters to interact with? If atomie are the smallest wee folk at 1' tall, that makes sprites and pixies of comparable height, somewhere between 1-2' tall.
I need a teensy, sparkly faerie to make my D&D complete!
Eh, then again, perhaps the wee folk are a class of tiny-sized fey that explicitly excludes the fine-sized faerie I have in mind?
But then, what do we call it?
I agree that extremely small fey should exist. How about we call them fairies?
but witht tehem bing so small do we realy need combat stats for them?
are players ever going to fight them or are they just intresting npc's
asking the players for help to fight the goblins who keep kicking over the faries lil houses.
Sure! They could have some nasty magical attacks, or swarm tactics!
As to the plot hook, I'm definitely of the opinion that the Monster Manual can be leveraged as a bestiary of sorts that offers explanation of a vivid and colorful, creature-filled world. -- Not every entry being a monster to slay.
I'd like some more "Orange and Blue Moality" in my fey.
Fey should be good but rather illogical and foreign in their thought patterns.
"Why ae you attacking us?"
"Because you are dessed in iron/You are dressed in hides and the animals did not consent/Its November, the month of war/You presented no formal invitation/You didn't offe me a banna.... so you must die."
I like this. Fey creatures aren't far realm horrors with completely unfathomable minds, but thier notions of what makes sense are sufficiently different that they're unpredictably dangerous.
I also like the idea that there are "rules", but they're rules that either don't really make much sense to an outsider or that are sort of folksonomic. As you go "deeper", superstition and "makes sense to me" supplant physics in terms of determining how the world works. This can even be built into some iconic fey creatures. A pixie can fly because it has wings, and wings mean you can fly, whether or not the pixie's wings are large enough or move fast enough to actually support its weight. It's possible to be so good at hiding that you're literally invsible. If hearing a catchy song sort of makes you feel like dancing, then a SUPER catchy song irresistably compels you to dance. If something beautiful is dazzling, than the most beautiful things can literally physically blind you.
A positive fey creature is often bold beyond what its physical form should warrant because it's used to things going its way, because its psyche shapes the world around it. A shy or craven or tricky fey creature is the same - its mentality is self-reinforcing. A tricky sprite is extra tricky because it thinks it's very tricky, and every minor trick reinforces this in a sort of feedback loop.
+1
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 6:32AM
#34
|
Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2007
|
Rather than "Orange and Blue," fey alignment could explicitly be "Seelie" or "Unseelie," allowing GMs/players to decide what the hell that means.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 6:36AM
#35
|
Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2012
|
The designers are going in the right direction.
I'm most pleased with this comment.
"Third, and most important, a Monster Manual isn't just a source of monsters to fight."
I'm also happy that the gnome wasn't on the list of fey creatures.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 6:46AM
#36
|
Date Joined:
May 22, 2003
|
The designers are going in the right direction.
I'm most pleased with this comment.
"Third, and most important, a Monster Manual isn't just a source of monsters to fight."
I'm also happy that the gnome wasn't on the list of fey creatures.
I'm ambivalent about the gnome, but I had wished to see elves mentioned. 
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 6:47AM
#37
|
|
|
I don't know, but planar campaigns just arn't for me. Even when I DM the Forgotten Realms, I try to avoid the subject alltogether.
I don't need the term 'fey' in my worlds to present things like elves, dryads and hags.
So my only request is that they remove any references to the Feywild, Shadowfell and Far Realm and keep that in the Cosmology or Planescape Setting.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 6:51AM
#38
|
Date Joined:
May 22, 2003
|
I don't know, but planar campaigns just arn't for me. Even when I DM the Forgotten Realms, I try to avoid the subject alltogether.
I don't need the term 'fey' in my worlds to present things like elves, dryads and hags.
So my only request is that they remove any references to the Feywild, Shadowfell and Far Realm and keep that in the Cosmology or Planescape Setting.
Perhaps interestingly, the Feywild, Shadowfell and Far Realm are not a part of the original Planescape setting, or its cosmology.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 7:03AM
#39
|
|
|
I don't know, but planar campaigns just arn't for me. Even when I DM the Forgotten Realms, I try to avoid the subject alltogether.
I don't need the term 'fey' in my worlds to present things like elves, dryads and hags.
So my only request is that they remove any references to the Feywild, Shadowfell and Far Realm and keep that in the Cosmology or Planescape Setting.
Perhaps interestingly, the Feywild, Shadowfell and Far Realm are not a part of the original Planescape setting, or its cosmology.
Considering that they are 4th Edition terms, you are right, they wouldn't have appeared in Planescape
My point is though, I find putting emphasis on things like fey and feywild drive your campaign world towards a planar setting and to me that doesn't feel Setting Neutral.
|
|
|
|
7 months ago ::
Nov 27, 2012 - 7:16AM
#40
|
Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2006
|
The classic nymph represented the archetype of feminity. The word "nymph" itself meaned literraly "bride" or "marriable age young girl". The male equivalent to "nymph" should be a different word, for example "ephebe" or "gallant" (if we are talking about a metrosexual male instead the satyr or faun).
"Say me what you're showing off for, and I'll say you what you lack!" (Spanish saying)
Book 13 Anaclet 23
Confucius said: "The Superior Man is in harmony but does not follow the crowd. The inferior man follows the crowd, but is not in harmony"
|
|
|
