Various role-playing RPG game stuff not deserving its own thread

[rusty_shackleford]

@WhiteShark I won't claim to have a tenth of the knowledge on the subject that Tolkien had, and the elves in his work were directly inspired by men before the fall. IIRC. I have no source for this claim, but I'd say with almost certainty that he wouldn't have made such a connection in his work without a good reason to do so. You might be able to find more about this by looking into his work/research.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

Dark Messiah is the best bad game ever made.

Nah. The game is straight up good.

[WhiteShark]

It means exactly what it says on the tin: elf.

But what is an elf?

The Old English forms are cognates – linguistic siblings stemming from a common origin – with medieval Germanic terms such as Old Norse alfr ('elf'; plural alfar), Old High German alp ('evil spirit'; pl. alpî, elpî; feminine elbe), Burgundian *alfs ('elf'), and Middle Low German alf ('evil spirit').
[...]
Of the many words for supernatural beings in Germanic languages, the only ones regularly used in personal names are elf and words denoting pagan gods, suggesting that elves were considered similar to gods.

Opinions seem divided. I think it's reasonable to assume that, given the positive associations you've shown, elves were regarded as wise, bright, and powerful, but whether they were benevolent or not is less clear. Regardless, whatever the perceptions thereof, they can only be angels or demons, and those are essentially the same thing: spirits. Perhaps our ancestors had encounters with both varieties.

I won't claim to have a tenth of the knowledge on the subject that Tolkien had, and the elves in his work were directly inspired by men before the fall. IIRC. I have no source for this claim, but I'd say with almost certainty that he wouldn't have made such a connection in his work without a good reason to do so. You might be able to find more about this by looking into his work/research.

I'll have a look.

[rusty_shackleford]

It means exactly what it says on the tin: elf.

But what is an elf?

The Old English forms are cognates – linguistic siblings stemming from a common origin – with medieval Germanic terms such as Old Norse alfr ('elf'; plural alfar), Old High German alp ('evil spirit'; pl. alpî, elpî; feminine elbe), Burgundian *alfs ('elf'), and Middle Low German alf ('evil spirit').
[...]
Of the many words for supernatural beings in Germanic languages, the only ones regularly used in personal names are elf and words denoting pagan gods, suggesting that elves were considered similar to gods.

Opinions seem divided. I think it's reasonable to assume that, given the positive associations you've shown, elves were regarded as wise, bright, and powerful, but whether they were benevolent or not is less clear. Regardless, whatever the perceptions thereof, they can only be angels or demons, and those are essentially the same thing: spirits. Perhaps our ancestors had encounters with both varieties.

I won't claim to have a tenth of the knowledge on the subject that Tolkien had, and the elves in his work were directly inspired by men before the fall. IIRC. I have no source for this claim, but I'd say with almost certainty that he wouldn't have made such a connection in his work without a good reason to do so. You might be able to find more about this by looking into his work/research.

I'll have a look.

It's worth remembering that Anglo-Saxons aren't "germanics", they're part of the North Sea Germanics group. Old High German is a cousin language to Old English, not a parent language. So, Old Norse is very close to Old English, but Old High German, Burgundian, etc., are quite far.

[WhiteShark]

I must also note that when I first read what is supposed to be the etymology of elf:

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

I was immediately reminded of this:

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

[rusty_shackleford]

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

Those 'proto' languages never existed, FWIW. They're hypothetical reconstructions.

[Acrux]

In medieval thought, there was another type of "being" that was outside of humans or spirits: the longaevi or "long lived". Elves, fairies, dwarves, etc would have fallen into this category - there were a lot of theories about where they might fit into the cosmological system. It was thought that they resided somewhere between earth and the air. In accordance with the confusion we see about elves the main theories were that they were:

a natural species somewhere in between humans and angelic beings
spirits of the dead that people occasionally encountered
angels who didn't rebel, but remained "neutral" during the angelic rebellion
fallen angels or demons

C.S. Lewis wrote a book about medieval thought (The Discarded Image) and includes an entire section on them (starts on p. 122):
https://archive.org/details/the-discard ... s/mode/2up

This is a really good book, by the way. It's one of a handful of books that has heavily influenced my thinking on how the world works.

[rusty_shackleford]

@WhiteShark Tolkien refers to this very thing(ælfsciene with respect to Sarah/Judith) in one of his letters. I'm not sure if he had any more knowledge on this topic than we do, and I suspect less as more documents have been found since this was written.

Also, he's (of course) correct about the Beowulf part, which I either subconsciously omitted or forgot. On the 'undead' part, the word is 'orcneas'(yes, orcneas) he's referring to. Which possibly gives more context to why orcs exist as they do in LotR. He also says "trolls, giants" but the text only states "eotenas": modern English ettins — jotun, not trolls, along with giants. That is, it did not equate ettins(jotun) with giants.

It seems there was no agreement as to what elves actually were. I suspect he was using other North Sea Germanic sources, rather than Old English ones. I know a lot of the dwarves come from Edda.

---

I have a feeling I actually remembered this from reading this letter prior.


[edit]
But I maintain that using 'ælf' so much, with such a positive connotation, would be quite strange if they were malevolent. Would you, as a pious Christian, be willing to name your child 'demon-gift'?

[WhiteShark]

But I maintain that using 'ælf' so much, with such a positive connotation, would be quite strange if they were malevolent. Would you, as a pious Christian, be willing to name your child 'demon-gift'?

No, but I did not mean to imply that they were regarded as purely malevolent, for that seems not to have been the case, at least among the Anglo-Saxons. The comparison with pagan gods makes sense to me: wise, powerful, and beings with whom you want a good relationship, but not unconditionally benevolent. If I were a medieval Christian with a belief in 'neutral' or otherwise ambiguous spirits of great power and wisdom and who had an immediate ancestry full of such names, I might name my progeny in such a fashion.

[Silvanus]

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

Those 'proto' languages never existed, FWIW. They're hypothetical reconstructions.

In most instances they indubitably existed, but the hypothetical reconstruction may not perfectly reflect how they were spoken. For example, in the absence of recorded Latin literature, a Latin reconstruction would lack the common "-us" suffix.

It's worth remembering that Anglo-Saxons aren't "germanics", they're part of the North Sea Germanics group. Old High German is a cousin language to Old English, not a parent language. So, Old Norse is very close to Old English, but Old High German, Burgundian, etc., are quite far.

The North Sea Germanics form a branch of the West Germanic family, of which Old High German is another member. Old Norse belongs to the North Germanic family, having separated from Proto-Germanic prior to the North Sea Germanics.

[Mondain]

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

Those 'proto' languages never existed, FWIW. They're hypothetical reconstructions.

In most instances they indubitably existed, but the hypothetical reconstruction may not perfectly reflect how they were spoken. For example, in the absence of recorded Latin literature, a Latin reconstruction would lack the common "-us" suffix.

It's worth remembering that Anglo-Saxons aren't "germanics", they're part of the North Sea Germanics group. Old High German is a cousin language to Old English, not a parent language. So, Old Norse is very close to Old English, but Old High German, Burgundian, etc., are quite far.

The North Sea Germanics form a branch of the West Germanic family, of which Old High German is another member. Old Norse belongs to the North Germanic family, having separated from Proto-Germanic prior to the North Sea Germanics.

He's right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English

The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order, and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language.[2][28]

The strength of the Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like hence and together), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings because, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character.[2][27] Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins, and with some words in common, speakers roughly understood each other;[27] in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged.[30][32] It is most important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost. This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar".[2]

Old Norse and old English are sister languages despite classifications
Anyone who speaks Norwegian, Danish or Swedish knows this, English is much closer than german

[Silvanus]

Old Norse and old English are sister languages despite classifications
Anyone who speaks Norwegian, Danish or Swedish knows this, English is much closer than german

I don't disagree, but substrates do not change classification.

The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order, and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language.[2][28]

I'm not certain that the analytic nature of English can be attributed primarily to Old Norse influence given that Anglo-Saxon is far more synthetic than Modern English.

[Irenaeus]

I must also note that when I first read what is supposed to be the etymology of elf:

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

That's what I came to understand. Elf means White.

[Rand]

PSA (food for thought for your next RPG session):

2.) There are no good spell casters, wizards, sorcerors, etc. in history. Not a single one.

Merlin, Moses, and Jesus are all famous and good-aligned spellcasters, though only one is described as a sorceror.

[Hauberk]

PSA (food for thought for your next RPG session):

2.) There are no good spell casters, wizards, sorcerors, etc. in history. Not a single one.

Merlin, Moses, and Jesus are all famous and good-aligned spellcasters, though only one is described as a sorceror.

The first one was a satanic half-devil. The latter two are not spell casters.

[Rand]

PSA (food for thought for your next RPG session):

2.) There are no good spell casters, wizards, sorcerors, etc. in history. Not a single one.

Merlin, Moses, and Jesus are all famous and good-aligned spellcasters, though only one is described as a sorceror.

The first one was a satanic half-devil. The latter two are not spell casters.

Quibbling about nomenclature?
They're all magic users.

[maidenhaver]

PSA (food for thought for your next RPG session):

2.) There are no good spell casters, wizards, sorcerors, etc. in history. Not a single one.

Merlin, Moses, and Jesus are all famous and good-aligned spellcasters, though only one is described as a sorceror.

The first one was a satanic half-devil. The latter two are not spell casters.

Qrd on Merlin?

[Hauberk]

Qrd on Merlin?

Merlin's traditional biography casts him as an often-mad cambion, born of a mortal woman and an incubus, from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities.

I expect one of our resident experts will chime in soon.

[Hauberk]

Quibbling about nomenclature?
They're all magic users.

No. God is responsible for any miracles.

[Stack of Turtles]

Quibbling about nomenclature?
They're all magic users.

No. God is responsible for any miracles.

What else do you think good magic would be?

[rusty_shackleford]

From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic *albi, from Proto-Germanic *albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰós (“white”).

Those 'proto' languages never existed, FWIW. They're hypothetical reconstructions.

In most instances they indubitably existed, but the hypothetical reconstruction may not perfectly reflect how they were spoken. For example, in the absence of recorded Latin literature, a Latin reconstruction would lack the common "-us" suffix.

It's worth remembering that Anglo-Saxons aren't "germanics", they're part of the North Sea Germanics group. Old High German is a cousin language to Old English, not a parent language. So, Old Norse is very close to Old English, but Old High German, Burgundian, etc., are quite far.

The North Sea Germanics form a branch of the West Germanic family, of which Old High German is another member. Old Norse belongs to the North Germanic family, having separated from Proto-Germanic prior to the North Sea Germanics.

Old High German is further from Old English than Old Norse is, regardless of language family lineage. Old Norse and Old English had regular contact with each other, Old High German and Old English branched off from each other and became separate languages.

"Old English and its Closest Relatives: A Survey of the Earliest Germanic Languages"(can be found on e.g., z-library) is a decent read for this. In the concluding chapter they go so far as to suggest that the germanic languages can't be grouped as a tree because of repeated divergence and convergence. The current working theory is that Old Norse and Old English were most likely mutually intelligible, refer to works by Matthew Townend(e.g., "Language and History in Viking Age England: Linguistic Relations between Speakers of Old Norse and Old English" or more recent works.) Some go as far to suggest they were part of a language continuum rather than separate languages(e.g., Jackson Crawford, an expert in Old Norse), but I'm not sure if I'd say that.
From The Cambridge History of the English Language, Vol II(1992):

---

Old High German would have almost certainly not been mutually intelligible (i.e., Second Germanic Consonant Shift and such)

[Acrux]

Qrd on Merlin?

Merlin's traditional biography casts him as an often-mad cambion, born of a mortal woman and an incubus, from whom he inherits his supernatural powers and abilities.

I expect one of our resident experts will chime in soon.

Yeah, there's really not too much more to tell other than that. I'm not aware of anything that gives more detail on Merlin's childhood.

http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/bio ... t on earth.

Merlin was the illegitimate son of a monastic Royal Princess of Dyfed. The lady's father, however, King Meurig ap Maredydd ap Rhain, is not found in the traditional pedigrees of this kingdom and was probably a sub-King of the region bordering on Ceredigion. Merlin's father, it is said, was an angel who had visited the Royal nun and left her with child. Merlin's enemies claimed his father was really an incubus, an evil spirit that has intercourse with sleeping women. The evil child was supposed to provide a counterweight to the good influence of Jesus Christ on earth. Merlin, fortunately, was baptized early on in his life, an event which is said to have negated the evil in his nature, but left his powers intact. The original story may have been invented to save his mother from the scandal which would have occurred had her liaison with one Morfyn Frych (the Freckled), a minor Prince of the House of Coel, been made public knowledge. Although, chronologically speaking, this man fits better as the father of the Northern Merlin (See below).

Incidentally, Merlin's ancestry is a plot point in That Hideous Strength, as he's needed in the fight against NICE as someone who would "legally" be allowed to use magic.

[WhiteShark]

What else do you think good magic would be?

There is no good magic. Magic is the practice of getting demons to do things for you, which is necessarily evil and the reason it's forbidden in the Bible. Some real-life sorcerers claim to practice 'white' (good) magic, as opposed to 'black' (evil) magic, but this is either spiritual delusion or intentional deception. If you want to put both magic and miracles in a single category, you have to call it something like 'supernatural acts'. When the **** call Jesus Christ a sorcerer in the Talmud, it's meant as a blasphemous defamation, not a neutral descriptor.

[maidenhaver]

How do we get good magicians in rpgs, if magic has to be evil?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

How do we get good magicians in rpgs, if magic has to be evil?

They have to have been given authority/blessed by God. Or it's just manipulating the laws of physics of that world and isn't anything spiritual in nature.

[logincrash]

How come there are never any half-dwarves?

'Cause nobody wants to have a child with a manlet.

[Stack of Turtles]

What else do you think good magic would be?

There is no good magic. Magic is the practice of getting demons to do things for you, which is necessarily evil and the reason it's forbidden in the Bible. Some real-life sorcerers claim to practice 'white' (good) magic, as opposed to 'black' (evil) magic, but this is either spiritual delusion or intentional deception. If you want to put both magic and miracles in a single category, you have to call it something like 'supernatural acts'. When the **** call Jesus Christ a sorcerer in the Talmud, it's meant as a blasphemous defamation, not a neutral descriptor.

This is just a difference in defining the term "magic". To most people, magic isn't specifically used in the sense in your second sentence, but means anything sufficiently inexplicable and supernatural.

[rusty_shackleford]

How come there are never any half-dwarves?

Umli from Middle Earth Roleplaying. They're based on this line from Tolkien:

swarthy Easterlings who have beards like dwarves and wield great axes

[rusty_shackleford]

How do we get good magicians in rpgs, if magic has to be evil?

Have a higher over-deity that is implied to be God, barely mention said deity. All lower deities flow from God. Bam, all magic is biblically-approved magic .

[maidenhaver]

Clerics.