Fantasy Role Playing Games and Fairy Tales About Fairies - Powell, Prince of Dyfed

One of the more interesting fairy tales involving the land of fairy Powell, Prince of Dyfed is one of many early fantasy stories from the land of Arthur (Wales). There are a number of stories regarding the exploits of Powell; however the one which introduces him is perhaps of the most interest for those who play fantasy role playing games. In this story Powell is out hunting when he meets and befriends a fairy king. The fairy king is having trouble with an enemy he can't defeat, so he and Powell switch places so that Powell may continue the war with the other fairy princes and defeat their leader.

It is interesting how human many of the fairies seem in this fairy tale, very different from much of what we currently think of fairies as being. Fairies it would seem from this and a number of other stories gained their abilities primarily through knowledge, their ability to know almost anything. For like Powell the fairy king too enjoys hunting and holds court, similarly enough that they could pass for each other.

The idea behind what made a hero in the eyes of the Welsh is also interesting to take note of. For it was said of Powell that;

"He could ride a horse, draw a bow, and speak the truth. He was always honored by men, and he kept his faith and his promises to women. The children loved him, for he loved them. In the castle hall, he could tell the best stories. No man, bard, or warrior, foot

holder or commoner, could excel him in gaining and keeping the attention of his hearers."

One must of course realize that this story was indeed edited by those who wrote it down and so some of this description may have been based on the thinking of the 1800s. However this description of a hero is useful for anyone trying to create an RPG or fantasy character which will have to deal with fairies, for fairies believe very firmly in honesty, and admire greatly the skills of story telling and music. Indeed Powell would not have done so well in fairy land if he had not had these traits.

Another quality Powell had was politeness, for in his discussion with the king of the fairies it was how polite he was that allowed him to become friends with the king of the fairy. This theme is repeated over and over throughout the stories of fairies that no matter how rude they are one must be very polite to them. For in politeness a person will be rewarded by fairies and in rudeness they will cursed.

In fantasy stories it would be easy to use the idea of politeness and fairy curses and blessings as an element to add interest to the story. For with this element the characters gain unique powers, or interestingly horrible curses. For temporary lapses of rudeness a person could become horribly cursed, and may need to go on a quest to find the fairy who laid the curse on them, or to prove themselves worthy of getting it removed.

The story of Powell is of interest also because it shows a mortal entering the world of fairy to help a fairy king. One could easily see how a story that followed the exploits of someone who switched places with a fairy could be very interesting. Or of someone who entered fairy land and had to return home to grow bored. For in Powell's later exploits he is constantly entering realms of the fairy because he misses the excitement of living within this realm.

Ty Hulse is helping to develop dragonsmeet.net as center for role playing games, where you can learn about the impact of fantasy role playing games He is also the creator of Zeluna.net for fairy tale stories

The Godfather Death, and the Fairy Godmother - Fairy Tales, and Role Playing Games with Godparents

In the world of fairy tales it is not uncommon for the protagonist to have an interesting godfather or godmother. The best known of these is the fairy godmother variant, a creature of great power the godmother would provide her godchild with great gifts as they needed it in life. Lesser known but for the purposes of RPG's perhaps more important are the godparents from "The God Father" and " The Godfather Death," for in these two stories the godparents are the devil and death himself (respectively). In both these stories the father resolves to ask the first person he meets on the street to be the child's godfather. "The Godfather Death" is in many ways the more interesting of these two stories, first because it develops the relationship between Death and his godson more then most any other fairy tale, and second because although the father has resolved to ask the first one he sees to be godfather he passes over god and the devil for he believes that both of these discriminate against the poor. Upon meeting death however he is happy for death treats all people equally, taking them as it is their turn to die.

Within role playing games we can take from this the idea that a person could indeed on rare occasions choose a godparent for their child, no matter what the parents normal disadvantages. It would be interesting to play a character with a godparent who provided them with some great gift, but who in return made demands that would be difficult to keep. In the case of the Godfather Death, the person knew how to stop Death from taking someone, but was told never to do this if Death stood at the persons head. However realizing that Death loved him the godson chose to ignore this, for he loved those who where dying. In role playing games this may not be as much of a challenge for the players for although their characters might be attached to someone the player may not be. Unless the player is able to more honestly play their character. And then what is it death might demand in return for the sparing of someone's life.

To take this idea a step further the godfather in an RPG could be an evil god, who waits until long after the character is good to provide him with his gift. Imagine the conflict of being caught between a godfather one has grown to love and the ideology and beliefs that the character holds dear. Again such conflicts require a good role player; however there is real value in such stories, for it is such conflicts that make fantasy so interesting. For within fantasy the conflict is itself invented and so is able to question much more deeply the reality in which we live just as fairy tales are.

Ty Hulse is helping to develop dragonsmeet.net as center for role playing games, where you can learn about the impact of fairy tales on RPG's, and about creating fantasy worlds for your role playing games.

Tales From the Trench

As long as we're all back here together, let's catch up on some of what makes our campaigns so great; those moments that can never be forgotten as long as we game. Recent is what I'm looking for… not pining for the days of our campaigns years ago.

For me, it came a few weeks ago in my current campaign. The main villain, a young woman, was created by the PCs. They don't know this of course, nor that she's even a villain. Someone was trying to kill them, as minor NPC bad guys are wont to do, waaaay back at the beginning over a year and a half ago. A crate was dislodged on the docks, intended to crush the PCs while they talked to a minor (and very unimportant) NPC. I sucked at the Listen roll for the NPC to determine where exactly the PCs were and the wrong crate was pushed. It fell towards the NPC and his pregnant wife instead. The PCs failed some rolls to notice this, but the NPC did not (he was very protective of his beautiful and pregnant young wife) and he leapt to push her out of the way. The crate landed on him and killed him. The shove provoked a miscarriage in his wife several days later. She decided fate had turned against her and has since been on a mission to unleash a terribleness on the world that will end all life...period.

Fast forward to a couple sessions ago; the PCs are in another land dealing with an offshoot of her plan. She is there, unbeknownst to them. They foil the evil plan at great expense to themselves (one now has no right hand, another lost an eye, and the third will never be the same though she doesn't know why yet), and find this girl chained to a wall (her dealings with lower planes type things require this for everyone's protection...what she does isn't pretty, as all well done evil shouldn't be). They of course assume she is a captive and rescue her. They take her back with them to a city they operate out of. Most specifically to the library of an ancient order...that she has wanted to access all along to speed her plans along. They brought her to the very meeting where the next stages of their plans were laid out with the major good guy NPCs. When her warlock minions came to rescue her from their ship, the PCs of course thought it was a kidnapping and still have absolutely no idea at all that they've undone most of their success since the beginning of the campaign.

They're even putting their *very important* plan in the hands of others so they can rush off and rescue her again...not that that will matter now that the plan is well known by their enemies, but they won't be there to try and put it right again (nor to maybe realize how the enemies knew about it). Instead, they'll be walking right into the worst place they could possibly go at this point in the campaign in order to "rescue" her again. Along the way, they intend to recover and bring with them something she mentioned that she might need if she's to "help them against this evil" so that they have it right there with them when they "save" her.

I really love my job.

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