De-Tolkienized demihuman faerie player races / classes

The case for de-Tolkienization

As so many have remarked and even dissected before, DnD, from its inception on, took most of its inspiration and
setting from pre-Tolkien fantasy. Weird tales, Sword and Sorcery, and the like.
The use of Tolkien's sentient races (elves, dwarves and halflings) presents a rather jarring inconsistency that one can
revel in, from a Super Smash Bros sort of chaotic mashup viewpoint, or be frustrated by. This document is
primarily being written for those of the frustrated by camp. What it will give you is some tangential info of why I
dislike Tolkienic races, and alternative approaches / flavor texts to the three LotFP demihuman classes.
Tolkien's fantasy worldview is very different from that of both the Weird Tale or of Sword and Sorcery. These have
much in common with Science Fiction and with old travellers' tales, presenting a world that is colorful and diverse,
buzzing with millions of unrelated agendas, adventures and happenings, and inhabited by many distant and exotic
cultures.
For Tolkien, fantasy is simply a metaphor of Christian moral conflict. His world has One God, One Ring, One Villain,
One Story Arc, One Moral Truth. Middle Earth doesn't just exist like, say, Barsoom does. It is there for a purpose. It
has a beginning, a conflict, a resolution, and an end. When thinking about it, throughout the entire Lord of the Rings,
no location, no civilization except that of the Shire ever felt real with any depth to it. And I did read it several times.
I do not hate Tolkien, I just started seeing his flaws as I grew up.
As Tolkien's fantasy is a metaphor, so are his fantasy races. Uprooted from their mythical origins deeply engrained
through folk superstition, polytheistic paganism, legends and children's stories, songs and ballads they become thin,
and through feverous re-use, clichd beyond palatability (including most all the attempts to freshen them up, or
make them more realistic.)
Looking at the literary background, my personal opinion that the locust people and desert slaves of Dark Sun have far
more business being playable races than any of this standard Tolkienish bunch, but since the elf, dwarf and hobbit are
as deeply engrained as they are, I decided to try my hands at them.
What I attempt is to re-connect these races with more primal archetypes behind them. Demihuman, to me, is a sorry
creature that didn't quite make it to be human, and so got stuck halfway. It's either a monster, or a racist slur. Faerie
evokes something quite different, and whether that be Irish superstition or Peter Pan, it is guaranteed to be more
powerful than any Tolkienism.
Faerie, in my interpretation, is raw power and chaos the sort of chaos that's deeply intertwined with life. It's not all
that different from Lovecraft's great old ones, but evoking less xenophobic preconceptions.

The Elves Aes Sidhe (Fair Folk)

The Fair Folk is the people of Chaos and freedom.
Christianity, and the encroaching reign of Order drove them
back from their old abodes, and now they live in secluded
colonies under mounds and in forests. Their places are not
entirely of this world, and accessible only at certain times of
transition, most notably dawn and twilight, and when certain
secret conditions are met (such as in the manner of
approaching the entrance).
They are slim and lithe, their height ranging from petite to
tall. Their faces tend to be attractive to humans, from
ethereal to playfully cute, but all of them possess
disquietingly large eyes. Their bodies always have
something inhuman in it horns or antlers, long and pointed
ears, carnivore teeth, goat hooves but what this is is
different from individual to individual. They tend to smell
like rain-washed moss and bark and forest soil.
They are not so much decadent as a manifestation of
decadence. Humans become decadent when they are
elevated so far above the basic necessities of survival that
work and morality simply lose their meaning amid a flurry of
abstract philosophy and ravenous hedonism. While in the
outside world they are no less vulnerable to cold, injury or
hunger than humans are, it is arguable that in their native
state of pure Chaos, the Fair Folk have no such basic
necessities, and so their lives consist entirely of those that in
humans seem sinful excesses.

What's wrong with elves?

In Tolkien's stories, elves were the firstborn. The wise big
brothers and sisters who have committed their crimes, built
their cities, fought their wars, and now just want to sit back
and tell younger ones what they should do, and get admitted
back to the land of the gods. They are the nice, if
condescending adults to the childlike halflings. The scenes
of Galadriel and the hobbits almost makes me think of a
sweet babysitter who knows exactly that little Johnnie and
Billy are totally crushing on her, and being nice as she is,
even plays on it, of course on a strictly platonic level.
It's also hard not to see them as downright angelic the
elven choirs of Lothlorien evoke images of angelic choirs
depicted on church murals, and their fall from grace is more
Biblical than anything else.
That sort of works in Tolkien's original setting, but to be
honest, has zero legitimacy to be anywhere else. Even the
somewhat de-numenized elves in DnD and in post-Tolkien
fantasy feel somewhat weird. These all-knowing,
ridiculously pure, ethereal, hyper-cultured and deeply
aristocratic illuminati of a people are probably the worst
staple of contemporary fantasy I can imagine. I probably
couldn't come up with something less imaginative even if I
tried. And no, making them evil or scheming doesn't help a
lot.
The vast folklore of fae however, is evocative, enchanting,
creepy, erotic, scary, disturbing, and everything else that we
like about fantasy. Other creatures to be consulted for
inspiration include gray aliens, sirens, succubi and incubi,
and anything that's chaotic, gleeful, decadent and dangerous.

They are highly sexual, but no-one has ever seen a pregnant
woman of the Fair Folk nor one of them who looks old. It
is debated whether they are truly immortal in a human sense
or not. No human or group of humans has been able to
observe a Fair one for longer than a few years. Most of them carry memories of being leaves on a tree, summer
breezes and storm clouds, but none of being children. If they know of the true nature of their people, and that of other
faerie folk, they certainly never reveal any of it to humans. Some human scholars theorize that they themselves don't
know either, and being creatures of Chaos, couldn't care less anyway.
Most of them are governed by a childish glee and amorality. While usually they are not actively malicious, few see
fellow beings especially humans as more than toys to play with. All of them live for having an effect on others
be it love, longing, ecstasy, terror, revulsion, pain, or descent into pure madness. Legends say they sometimes lure or
steal humans away to be kept as dolls, pets or slaves. The legends are true.
All Fair Folk are Chaotic. They are revolted by the Bible, Christian icons, churches, and particularly by the sound of
churchbells. This revulsion isn't powerful enough though to translate into in-game penalties. Dogs always violently
bark at the Fair folk, but are afraid to actually attack them. Cats often seem to have an affinity to them though. Due to
their inherent glee, indifference and affinity with Chaos and magic, they are immune to effects of insanity from being
confronted with cosmic truths.

Fair folk and humans

Those of the Fair ones who walk among humanity tend to be quite adept at masking their appearance with clothing,
and appearing at least acceptably human. Even so, they are usually shunned in human communities as sorcerers, and
receive little in terms of welcome.
In most human settlements, being discovered as a Fair one necessarily means immediate lynching. It is the rarest and

most vile human sorcerer that is subject to as much fear and hate as a member of the Fair Folk. Distant villages in the
North that still keep some of the old faith might welcome the Aes Sidhe with gifts and hospitality, but even there, this
is much more out of fear than out of love or sincere sympathy.

The Dwarves Schwarzalben

The German word for nightmare is Alptraum. That is the
same Alb as in Schwarzalb. While similarly creatures of
the faerie, that primordial principle of life and Chaos, the
Schwarzalben are the frost and dark of winter to the
midsummer of the Aes Sidhe.
They live and work in the stone depths of the Earth, from
whence they are born, and where they quite literally return
when they finally tire of existence. Most of them have
memories of being bubbling lava pits, thundering
earthquakes and cold crystal geodes. Similarly to the Fair
Folk, the Schwarzalben do not age either but while the Fair
ones seem forever young, they seem forever old. They do
grow tired however, and after hundreds of years, having had
enough, tunnel and burrow deep beneath the stone roots of
the mountains, and become stone themselves.
Schwarzalben know much of the depths of the Earth, and of
secrets the surface has long forgotten. They guard this
knowledge with great jealousy, even from one another.
Beside unique precious stones and trinkets of gold, they
value ancient and eldritch artifacts and secrets greatly. Once
it is said, even the gods had to bow down to partake of their
wealth and knowledge.

What is wrong with dwarves?

While by far not as annoying a trope as Tolkienic elves are, I
have to admit, my approach to dwarves tends to be one of
total indifference and apathy. None of the campaign settings
I have made so far had dwarves in them, nor have I ever
played a dwarven character, and I think that says a lot.
Somehow the idea of vertically challenged Vikings feels
more silly than anything else. Even in Tolkien's own
cosmology they are an accident, an afterthought, merely
tangential to the whole big affair with the maiar, elves, and
humans. But if we look at the vast depth behind the
stereotype of the craftsman / warrior dwarf, there are much
more interesting and evocative sources to reach to.
For one, Wagner and his Ring cycle. Heavy metal. Old
Norse epics. Add some similar well-known creatures from
other cultures, like the Karasu-Tengu of the Japanese, and
there is no end to the fantastic associations one can assign to
this stereotype. My take on the dwarfish people don't burrow
too deep to find ancient horrors. They are the ancient horror
you'll find, when YOU burrow too deep.

They are short, wrinkled, bent and ugly, sooty with the dust and coal of the depths they inhabit, but their bodies are as
hard and strong as the mountains themselves, and their hands are quick and dexterous. They are fearsome warriors and
miraculous craftsmen, their strength and skill rivaled only by their pride. There is nothing they crave more than the
wonder and adoration of others. If one of them travels the surface, it is usually for no other reason than to have
humans marvel over their abilities.
While different from the Fair Folk, they are similarly creatures of Chaos, they do not hold a grudge against
Christianity, as their home is deep beneath the rock, where the humans rarely or never go. They are also invariably
Chaotic, and have the same immunity against insanity, but for different reasons: beside being of the Chaos
themselves, the Schwarzalben are already keepers of great secrets, and it's very hard to show them anything they
haven't seen before.

Schwarzalben and humans

Much plainer than the Fair Folk, a Schwarzalb wandering the surface is often taken for a crippled vagabond or an
ancient wizard more of a pariah than an immediate threat. They may walk with impunity in less superstitious human
settlements, but that hardly means they are welcome. An innkeeper would think twice before giving a room to a dusty,
bent, wizened old creep, directing him to the stables instead. Some reconsider upon seeing the generous amount of
gold offered in payment; most don't.
While being in the presence of a Schwarzalb will fill most people with some sense of wrongness, and some vague idea
that this creature was born of no human mother, this becomes immediately clear to anyone who sees one of them fight
or work: any god-fearing human who looks like this would have trouble standing, let alone swinging a hammer as
heavy as they are.
Even so, a Schwarzalb is less likely to incite a murderous rage similar to an uncovered Fair one. Most would,
however, take definite steps to make sure he knows he's expected to leave immediately. A few would be intrigued and

drawn to the stranger. Many an adventurous human youth dreams of being accepted as the apprentice of a Schwarzalb.
Very few ever get to have that privilege.

The Halflings Wee People

If the Fair Folk are the nobles of the fae, then the Wee
People are their commoners. They grow half as tall as a
human, and are often portly in build. Almost all of them are
red-haired and freckled, but in far reaches of the world, darkhaired tribes are known to exist.
They live in mounds and in hidden valleys somewhere
between the realms of the Fair Folk and the lands of man. In
areas with low human population, they keep sheep and grow
crops, but where they are forced to co-exist with Christian
folk, they often turn to stealing.
Humans who keep the old faiths and pacts often leave out
food to appease the Wee People. If the locals aren't so
generous, then they sneak and break into their houses during
the night, taking food and gold with them, and sneakily
milking the sheep and cows.

What is wrong with halflings?

I'll be honest. Everything is wrong with them. I can't bring
up a single thing that is right about halflings. In Tolkien's
fiction their sole purpose was to embody the viewpoint of a
child, and the lazy mundanity of the English countryside. If
the endless re-iterations of the elf were the pinnacle of
unimaginative, the very idea of the hobbit is the pinnacle
of lame.
Notice how no self-respecting fantasy setting has any
halflings, and the ones that do tend to have them for comic
relief? Years ago Michael Moorcock wrote an entire
monography about what's wrong with the damn things, so I'll
just refer you to him (google Epic Pooh).
There is some thin chance of saving at least the DnD class of
the same name. I do have to go out on a tangent though.
They live in hills... like food... materialistic... thieving... well
that does sound a bit faerie-like, even leprechaun-ish. So
that's where I started from.

Wee People, while quick on their feet, capable farmers and

woodsmen, tend to be somewhat lazy and extremely
materialistic. Their two greatest loves are gold and food, and
they derive great enjoyment from simply possessing a huge
hoard of both. They have a particular love for cheese, but there's hardly anything edible that a Wee man doesn't like.
If one of them decides to venture out into the lands of man, it's for no other reason than for treasure. To return, sooner
or later, with a wealth of gold and tons of the best foods. They are extremely protective of both gold and food, and
prone to envy. While often thieves themselves, being stolen from sends them into an irrational fit of rage. They are
also vain, taking pleasure in dressing elegantly, especially in fancy hats and shiny boots. Yes, contrary to some
rumors, the Wee People do actually wear boots; though in summer, on the lush green pastures of their homeland, they
prefer not to.
Unlike nobler fae, they are mortal, and are indeed born from a mother. The Wee People live in tribes, and possess a
concept of marriage and family, though their culture is markedly pagan, and quite foreign from that of humans.
Having shared the same conflict with Christianity as the Fair Ones, they have similar attitudes toward its symbols, and
as faerie creatures, are always Chaotic. However, being mortal, they aren't harmed by holy water, and do not possess
the immunity from cosmic insanity that faerie nobles do.
My suggestion (for LotFP rules) is to allow the player to take Sleight of Hand instead of Bushcraft, for the thieving
tendencies.

Wee People and humans

In superstitious human settlements near faerie mounds and colonies, those of the Wee People can expect the same sort
of fear and murderous treatment as Fair Ones.
However, further into civilization, especially in larger cities, they are often taken for circus freaks, performers or some
other sort of carnie. Indeed, many of the Wee Men who wander among humans have taken up some sort of performing
art to maintain this disguise. While still regarded as strange and outlandish folk, they probably stand out the least
among the faerie people, and can relatively easily pass as human.
They even have navels. (Noble faerie races do not.)