Neither Here Nor There (Class: Elf)

My last post has been around 2 or 3 years ago, those that frequent the secret gathering places of gretchlings will know I never really went away, I just went from a participant to a lurker. Likely becouse I have been playing recently I have had ideas about what to write. I don't want to promise anyone more consistant posting, but I do have a class for you today.

---

They say that when the world was young and magic filled the land, elves worked miracles and wonders. They were tall and beautiful and at harmony with the world. Spells that modern sorcerors and hedge witches would not dream to control played at the fingertips, for spells are kin to elves. That they could with their hands wieve such enchantments, castles of shimmering light, carriages pulled by moths. But this was long ago and untrue.

By some quirk of fate, children are born nowadays with a spark of that elvish art in their souls. Many live their lives being none the wiser to this, aside from a nagging feeling in the back of their head. If only you could be so fortunate. You do not know quite what you are, but they call you an elf, the dwindling rustic folk of dell and cave. The children of the day see you as wild child, a disruption to the proper way of things. The children of the night see as corrupted, a slave that clings to their shackles. They want to seperate what they like about you from what they don't, but it doesn't work like that you are both your halves. So you wander the world, child of the twilight hours, not wild, not domesticated but feral.

Class: Feral Elf

While this is a racial class, you don't have to take it at first level. If you cavort under the Moon at night and cast aside the trappings of civilization before her, you may discover that you were an elf all along.

Starting Items and Skills: By Kin.

A: Heartspell, Moondancer, Changeling

B: Smile in the Sky, Plump Round Eye

Heartspell:

You are born with a human body, and the soul of a spell. Choose your spell from a GM approved list. You can always cast it unless your touching Cold Iron Cold Iron is simply iron that is cold, not a special type of metal. It can not be removed from you without killing you, and you can cast it with more finesse than a wizard could ever manage. If you become a ghost, wizards can treat your ghost like any other spell, albeit an unusually intelligent one.

When you roll doubles, you forget your human self for 1d4 turns and forcebly lose a random Tether. Your fae self panics, entering a flight or fight response befitting your nature.

When you roll triples you forget your human self for 1d4 days, forcefully losing a random Tether. Your fae self feels itself wither, and seeks escape. You will run, scream, gnaw your own leg, anything to get away from the fading of magic.

If after a double or a triple leaves you completely untetherd, you run wild indefinitely. However, you can be brought back if someone who cares about you Tethers you back. For example, calling your human name, throwing clothes at you, luring you in with Grandma’s soup.

Moondancer:

You have 4 Moon Dice that you can use exclusively to cast your Heartspell, aside from that they are identical to Magic Dice. Your MD returns to you when you frolic for at least an hour under the moonlight.

You lose 1 maximum MD for each Tether that connects you with the Sun’s world. You can increase your maximum MD back by casting aside any amount of these Tethers before the Moon and cavorting for a full night.

Tools: To cast aside tools requires you not to use crafted instruments. Rocks and sticks on the ground are fine, but not sharpened ones.

Shelter: To cast aside shelter requires you don’t wear clothes or rest in buildings. Making a nest of old rags in an abandoned ruin may be fine, at the GM’s discretion.

Language: To cast aside language requires you not read and tune out the words in speech. You can get by fine with non-verbal communication especially with those you know well.

Culture: To cast aside culture requires you to ignore your vocation, social standing and obligations. Hanging around with vagrants is fine.

No matter how many times you come back from the Sun’s world, she always accepts your pledge, that this time you're truly casting it aside. She is always laughing.

Changeling:

You have two selves, your human self and your fae self. Each Heartspell has it’s Kin, which comes with four Gifts and a favored environment. If you pick a spell that doesn't have a known kin, work with your GM to establish it.

Count both Moon Dice and Magic Dice for your total MD. At 0 MD you appear to be entirely human, at 4 you appear to be entirely fae with all that entails. In between you look like some sort of hybrid. Humans and spirits are both generally more comfortable with you at the extremes of the spectrum than the middle, but the extremes are more uncomfortable for you.

Each MD grants you access to the next Gift on the list and makes it easier for you to sense and interact with the world unseen.

At 1 MD you do not need to sleep, as long as you cavort at night.

At 2 MD you see under moon and starlight as during the day, and can cast a cantrip version of your Heartspell. Cold Iron is twice as encumbering for you.

At 3 MD you can live comfortably in your preferred environment without the Sun’s Tethers, both in body and in instinct. Cold Iron hurts like a hot stove. E.G. Not needing warm clothes in the tundra, not needing shade in the desert,being able to hunt food with your hands and teeth alone.

At 4 MD treat your body as lightly armored, your limbs as light weapons and communicate freely with creatures you share a likeness with. Cold Iron deals max damage to you.

You can choose a new Gift if you aquire more then 4 MD, adding it to the end of the ordered list, but each midnight you meet with 5+ MD you must save or forget your human self for a day.

Smile In the Sky:

Fools think that the Moon is most powerful when it’s full, the wise know that this is not true. The Moon goes dark because her light descends down into the earth, sinking into the ground, onto our tongues, beneath our fingernails. 

When a crescent hangs in the sky, you have Gifts equal to your Maximum Moon Dice if it’s higher then your current MD. On the New Moon you have all your gifts regardless of your Tethers, like it or not.

Plump Round Eye:

As the Moon waxes she collects back the light that has been soaking in the soil. With all this light she churns the world, and bids it dance.

When a gibbous hangs in the sky, you can cast aside your Tethers within a moment's notice. If you break something valuable, like a magic item or someone's faith in you immiditaly restore an MD. During the Full Moon all your Moon Dice fly back to the Moon, leaving you restless and entirely human for the night.

Kins:

Bolotnik

Lanky and sinewy things, stalking between willows on padded feet, long limbs keep it above the water. You might catch a glimpse of one in the mist, as it calls out to you with a mellow voice. Do not dare approach, do not run away, it’s aim is to lead you astray, to turn you around and around in the fog. Stick to the road, make note of landmarks, and count your steps.

Heartspell:

Fog

R: 30’ T: self D: [dice] hours

You breath out a bunch of fog. Everything up to 30' away from you is obscured.

Sunlight, wind, or heat dissipates the fog in 10 minutes. If you cast this spell with

3 or more [dice], other casters lose 1 MD while they remain in the fog.

Starting Equipment: Water-resistant clothes, simple knife, a ration of preserved fish

Starting Skill (1d3): Trapper, Fisherman, Distiller

Favored Environment: Foggy forests, steamy swamps, and misty marshes

First Gift: Pointed ears, and webbed toes. You have perfect vision in mist and fog, regardless of light. You can imprecisely mimic the voices anyone you’ve recently heard.

Second Gift: Your limbs are longer, you have a short tail, if not clearly visible can selectively decide who hears your voice. When you sing in your Fog, you can control the movement of anyone going to or away from your voice. After [sum] minutes of following/escaping your voice, they understand the trick and won’t fall for it again. Time flows strangly in there, it will feel like [sum] days have passed.

Third Gift: Your hands and feet are padded, your teeth grow sharper, and your tail grows longer. Your footsteps are quiet, and completely silent when on all fours. Your bite counts as a medium weapon, and your stomach prefers raw meat and doesn't tolerate cooked food. Direct sunlight gives you a point of fatigue.

Fourth Gift: Your skin is gray like mist. When not directly observed in your Fog, you could be anywhere in it. By casting Fog directly into someone’s ear you can make them forget the last 10 minutes, but only if they fail a save and have [dice]x4 or less HD.

Gluntie Queyne

Gangling, bristly and ungainly fairy women. Horse-faced and haggard and possessed of an abrasive angularity of demeanour. The Glunties dwell apart in realms of fearful loneliness as their capacity to strike men dead with elf-shot makes them formidable and hated and their tendency to imbibe inebriants immoderately makes them unpredictable.

Heartspell:

Magic Missile

R: 200' T: creature D: 0 

Target takes [sum] + [dice] damage, no Save.

Starting Equipment: Traveler’s clothes, hunting bow, and a ration of jerky

Starting Skill (1d3): Banditry, Town Drunk, Shepard

Favored Environment: Wind-swept prairies, fields and steppes

First Gift: Pointed ears and large teeth. You can use vaguely similar detritus in place of ammunition for normal damage, like sticks instead of arrows or peas instead of bullets. Ranged weapons loaded this way do not Tether you to Tools.

Second Gift: Coarsely hairy arms, and long face. When casting Magic Missile, you can split the damage into as many distinct projectiles  as you want, as long as each missile deals at least 1 point of damage.

Third Gift: Your legs are hooved, and your bow-pulling arm has only two fingers. You can move like mounted cavalry, shoot like a horse archer, and can run through grass at full tilt without disturbing the grass. Your stomach is suited to digest raw meat and grass, but not cooked food.

Fourth Gift: Single cyclopean eye. Your Magic Missiles are invisible, silent and deal internal injuries. They are experienced as sudden bouts of localized pain, and can be non lethal if you so wish. 

Gremling

Diminutive borrowers of toys and intricate things, petty breakers of tools left too long in forgotten drawers. Spirits of the unfinished task, cut short by the bent nail or the wrong screwdriver. Mischief achieved they make amends by mending what they had broken, and sometimes more besides. Many a broken marriage has been mended by the ministrations of a Gremling, forecasted by unexpected annoyance and woe.

Heartspell:

Mending

Range: touch; Target: object; Duration: instant

Repair a shattered item. You need 1/(sum) of the item. Can't Mend different pieces of the item into multiple copies. Doesn't restore lost magical properties.

Starting Equipment: Commoner’s clothes, a whittling knife or other clever tool, a ration of stale cookies

Starting Skill (1d3): Housework, Animal Husbandry, Gossip

Favored Environment: Dusty attics, old workshops, and cool dry caves

First Gift: Pointed ears and squinty eyes like a rat. Tools do not Tether you if used to fix things for someone else, and know the Tinker skill intuitively. Objects you mend will tell you their stories. Objects remember and care for only the narrow topic of things related to their function, but they remember people who take good care of them.

Second Gift: You're a head shorter than most people. You constantly unconsciously touch things around you with your quick clever hands, fingers lingering against cracks and faults and points of wear. Your fingers are covered with light brown fur; You can reverse Mending into Break, causing the object to take [sum] damage, but the damage is only revealed the next time someone interacts with it.

Third Gift: You're the size of a doll, and pass for one when still. Despite this you have as much inventory space as in your human form, in a pouch on your belly. If you have any shred of cover, then you are considered to have full cover, allowing you to hide behind cups and cracks between furnature.

Fourth Gift: Your whole body is covered in soft brown fur, and you don’t seem to have distinct internal organs, like a plush toy. You can use Mending with 4 [dice] to restore the magical properties of things, but it leaves you very very hungry for something very very specific. You can’t cast or think straight until you satisfy a peculiar craving slected by the GM.

Moon-Gander

Alabaster skin, cloven hooves, eyes the size of dinner plates. Always first to meet her to meet her smile with their own. Some say they are her favorite, but they only claim that she is theirs. They look gentle, and even kind, but be weary! For it is they who rouse the other kin to prance under the moonlight, for it is they who take away children and make fairies out of them. 

Heartspell:

Moonlust

R: 50' T: creature D: varies

Target creature loves the moon. They want to stare at it, jump up and hold it, or

write poems about it. If [sum] is equal to or greater than the target's HD, they are

stunned for 1d6 rounds. If [sum] is greater than 12, the target is stunned for 2d6

rounds and becomes permanently obsessed with the moon.

Starting Equipment: Bedazzled Clothes, gnarled walking stick, a ration of hard cheese

Staring Skill (1d3): Dancer, Astronomer, Prophet

Favored Environment: Clear and barren places, where neither trees nor clouds occlude the Moon

First Gift: Pointed ears, pupils that fill most of the eye. If you are lost under the open night sky, you will always find a safe place to rest and make anyone who should have ambushed you just as surprised to see you. Language does not Tether you if you're saying good things about the Moon.

Second Gift: Little nubby horns, pale skin. People under the effect of Moonlust will attack anyone perceived as disrespecting the Moon. If [sum] is greater than 6 you can choose to reach your magic down your target’s throat and ‘pluck’ a nerve, they can save to negate. This causes werewolves to turn, elves to suffer the same reaction as rolling a double on casting their Heartspell, and anyone else to do something reckless and wild. At the GM's leasure or a player's wish, a character previously unknown to be an elf may gain a template in Feral Elf this way.

Third Gift: Cloven hooves, deathly pale skin. Food is replaced for you by the Moon, you only need regular access to the night sky to sustain yourself. You can float up to a foot above the ground instead of walking, and no matter how lost you are, you will find a way to your destination eventually.

Fourth Gift: Great big horns, eyes the size of dinner plates. You can choose to have your Moonlust target anyone who hears your voice, but they save against the ‘pluck’ with advantage. You can't choose not to 'pluck' if you can.

Discussion:

First of all, aside from Mending, the spells in this post were sourced from the ever reliable Skerples. Second, this class riffs heavily on Ten Foot Polemic's and Middenmurk's Fallen Elves idea. My interpretion of the concept in large part differs becouse I didn't originally set off to adapt it into the GLOG.

On a whim I decided to stat up a cast of characters which has been bouncing around in my head using GLOG classes. Two of them could be faithfully rolled up with existing ones but not the third. The Fallen Elves fit the facts already established for my third character, so I wrote a class to cover both. This ended up both heavily impacting how I wrote the class, and filled in a lot of the gaps in the character's backstory.

In the past I would go over all the choices I made, but this time I'm going to forgo that hoping to generate more discussion in comments and the various discord channels. I will however explicitly spell out the implied Gift progression for anyone who wants to write their own Kin.

• The first gifts all consist of some combination of a special elfy extra-sense, an exception to Tethers, and/or a nifty trick.
• The second gifts expands on the use of the Heartspell in some way. 
• Third gifts are when elves become wild enough to live without civilisation, so this is the point where they get the bonuses and drawbacks that enable them to do so.
• Fourth gifts are another expansion on the Heartspell, as well as well as rounding off the physical transformation.

Eventually I will get around to a write up of each Kin in the Elfin Spellery. I wrote the Bolotnik to represent the previously mentioned character, and the Moon-Gander becouse I think Moonlust deserves to have an elf.

On theme in this class that it feels irresponsible for me not to address is how it relates to disability. The Fallen Elves are directly based changelings, an idea that is in part the result the medieval people trying to explain disabilities. This however isn't new ground, the problomatic elements I introduced lies in how I wrote this class to have the trade off of behaving as if you were disabled in exchange for magical power. I think this is a intresting narrative and gameplay space, but it's shaky ground to tread on and just becouse I'm neurodivergent doesn't mean I can't unintentionally propogate harmful ideas. Unlike various druid classes where you are a guy who's deciding to be an anarcho-primitivist, being an elf is something you are born with, which changes the implications segnificantly.

Finally, yes this post's drawing is that of my Bolotnik blorbo.