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To increase the "fey" feel to the lands and foreshadow some legendary things the party may encounter some day, I've been working in some dark faerie #"fey"# tales and poems, inspired by medieval style tales, whether it be told over a meal at Oleg's by a superstitious hunter, or heard by children playing in the streets of one of the newly founded towns, and so on. I plan to scatter these throughout the first couple of modules for flavor, and I'm not so concerned whether the tale or poems are the same as the real event as many such tales are mixed with legend and a sprinkling of truth. Here's my start, and hoping to build on it:
The Knurly Witch
Knurly Witch, Knurly Witch, leave my bones alone!
Knurly Witch, Knurly Witch, don’t come in my home!
Knurly Witch, Knurly Witch, I won’t drink your tea!
Knurly Witch, Knurly Witch, oh – she’s got ahold of me!
At this point, the speaker acts as if being seized and dragged away, and the other children must catch up and surround the speaker while dancing and chanting “Knurly Witch, no!” until the witch stops dragging the child away. No one is quite sure of the origins of the chant, and locally children may substitute old crones or scary adults #e.g. Old Beldame#.
The Misbegotten Troll
The misbegotten troll lives in an ancient swamp and ventures out to kidnap young maids he finds travelling alone. The misbegotten troll takes the maids back to his swamp hut and makes them his wives. When he gets hungry he will eat one of his wives and make her skull into a lantern than he uses to travel his dark swamp at night or hangs outside his door to warn him of intruders. The misbegotten troll cannot stand the sight of a wedding ring worn by a virtuous woman.
The Wriggling Man
The Wriggling Man was a greedy soul who one day crossed the path of a forest leshy and became magically lost. Knowing, as some people here do, that the only way to become un-lost was to turn one’s clothes inside-out and wear one’s shoes on the other foot, the Wriggling Man did so and found his way. The leshy, impressed at the Wriggling Man’s cleverness, offered him a three wishes. The Wriggling Man, in his greed, demanded he be granted the immortality of the fey, the magic of the fey, and the beauty of the fey. The leshy, bound to its word, granted the boon, saying “as ye wish to be like me, so it shall be, times three.” The leshy turned the Wriggling Man’s body to wood, and roots went from his toes into the ground. Thus was he made eternal. The leshy then gave the Wriggling Man his magic, but being made of wood he could not speak the words. Finally, the leshy called worms from the ground to burrow into the wooden body and rot it from the inside, for the beauty of the fey is but an illusion. The worms became the Wriggling Man’s body, and now he hides his form in deep robes and cloaks as he travels these lands looking to steal magic to restore his body #if children are too frightened, parents often some joking quip like: and to seek out small children who don’t do their chores!#
Kargstaad the Giant
Kargstaad, with one arm… #insert phrase, the goal is to see who can rhyme the most phrases, if someone gets to 100, which no one ever does of course, the 100-armed giant Kargstaad will appear#.
Example would be:
Kargstaad, with one arm flattens a bee, Kargstaad with two arms breaks a tree, Kargstaad with three arms catches a flea, Kargstaad with four arms has some tea…. And so on.
The Nightmare Rook
Once upon a time a farmer who had moved from the city to start a new life came across a black-feathered rook with an injured leg. Being a kind-hearted soul, he cared for the rook despite his wife’s warning that the rook was an ill omen in the household. The rook healed and flew away, pausing to give the farmer one of its feathers. The farmer put the feather in his cap and went back to his chores. That night, he put the feather under his pillow for safekeeping. For six nights, his wife and children could not sleep for nightmares. The wife begged her husband to rid himself of the feather, for it was a dark omen. The farmer threw it into the fire. The next morning, a visiting neighbor found the family dead in their beds, faces frozen in fear. For what the farmer did not know is that the Nightmare Rook had chosen that week to ferry the souls of evil men from this land to the next world, and he would stop each night to rest on the farmer’s roof. The feather the farmer had burned was the only thing protecting him from the Nightmare Rook, and in his folly he rid himself of it.
I've also taken inspiration from slavic mythology #the leshy, the house domovoi, the week in the year no one bathes in a river or lake because that's when rusalkas are most active# and interperse those into the game. Feel it gives it more of a "living world." Curious as to other ideas people have implemented!
I love love love this post! Great inspiration, I'm starting Kingmaker this week for our group, and I'll be certain to use some of these throughout. I'll also post some of my own ideas as I come up with them.
As far as inspiration, a great resource I've found is the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susana Clarke. A delightful tale of england and europe during the napoleonic wars, wherein magic exists, the crown employs magicians to aid their armie, and faries are a terrible force to be reconked with. Definately worth reading.