On Elves and Angels

In a post I made last week about the fey, a commenter mentioned a story about angels. According to the story, there are three types of angels:

1. Normal angels whose job is to be a protector (exemplified my the Archangel Michael) and a messenger (exemplified by the Archangel Gabriel).
2. Fallen angels who rebelled against God, also known as demons.
3. Followers of Azazel who didn’t openly rebel against God, but stopped doing their job:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' — Enoch 6:1-3

It is the last group that was of interest, because these angels could be a stand-in for all kinds of things in an FRPG. One of the more intriguing possibilities is that these “neutral” angels and their offspring become what we know as elves.

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. — Enoch 7:1

Note, that this story comes from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish work from sometime around 300-100 B.C. which is not accepted as part of the Canon of Scripture by the vast majority of Jews and Christians. For my part, I think this largely has to do with the depiction of the angels, who have come to be understood as being bodiless powers. While the Nephilim are mentioned in passing a couple of times in the bible and seem to corroborate what is spoken of in detail in the Book of Enoch, the word “Nephilim” is not something that can either be easily translated or understood. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT from around 300 B.C.) translated the word as “giant” not angel or demon.

Since the angels are bodiless, they can’t really be going around having children; however, I haven’t been able to get the idea of elves-as-neutral-angels out of my head for the last several days. What would a bodiless power stripped of their powers look like?

And Enoch went and said: 'Azazel, thou shalt have no peace: a severe sentence has gone forth against thee to put thee in bonds: And thou shalt not have toleration nor request granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou hast shown to men.' Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them. And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. — Enoch 13:1-6

In other words, they are cut off from heaven and cannot communicate with heaven, nor will any of their prayers be heard; however, they are condemned to be bound to earth until all their children kill each other, aka the Day of Judgment.

This leads to a very interesting proposition, especially given a world in which monsters are sin personified: what if the bodiless powers bound to earth (fallen and “neutral” angels) could enter into the bodies of those willing to house them? This would explain several very characteristic attributes of elves: the fact that they are long-lived, the fact that they seem not to really have much interest in the world of men, the fact that they are not affected by a ghoul’s touch and the fact that they were the only race in OD&D and Basic D&D that could “multi-class.”

In other words, all elves are dual personalities: the person who makes the deal with the “neutral” angel and the bodiless power themselves. This relationship cuts the person off from divine intervention but grants arcane power coupled with fighting prowess. Orcs could still be seen as twisted versions of elves, except that the person making the deal is likely cheated from having any say in how their body is being used.

This also puts a new spin on half-elves and half-orcs. These no longer need to be the children of a human and an elf/orc (and the strongly implied rape in the latter pairing). Rather, these are people from those communities that refuse to be possessed by a bodiless power.

World Building: A Surface Map

A10 Monastery of the Holy Well
E08 St. Morol's Spring
E18 Sahuagin Lair
H14 Ruins — Plain marble shrine that is magically sturdy [Humanoids]
I31 Foursaints (a village built around a holy spring)
I29 Ruins — Plain cyclopean stone observatory (Haunted) [Giant]
I03 Ruins — Poor quality brick manor (creaky but safe) [Fungus]
I13 Temple [Human NPC group]
J05 The Still Mountain (one of only two floating mountains that remains stationary)
L11 Cylan — City with dungeon beneath [Lycanthrope]
M31 Tymestl — City with dungeon benath [Humanoid]
M07 Ruins — Burned out outpost [Animal]
M11 Ruins — Ornate brick library (haunted) [Construct]
O29 Ruins — Ornate stone keep (cursed) [Fey]
O04 Mt. Ore — Floating mountain chained to the earth by duergar to make it stationary so that they can mine it.
O12 Cythraul — City with dungeon beneath [Demon/Devil]
S02 Spring of St. Rhain
T30 Well of the Mother
U07 Monastery of the Hidden Spring
V24 Abandoned well
X32 Mine accessed via a secret tunnel [Dragon]
X08 Assassin's Guild via mouth of a volcano [Extra-planar Race]

Notes:

In deciding on how the surface world should look, I did allow the underworld to guide me in two ways. Firstly, I made the assumption that anywhere there was a quarry in the underworld, there would be a mountain range above. Secondly, there would be a valley or depression anywhere a "Special" was below (assuming that these had impacted the surface in ancient times, leaving behind a geographic fingerprints):



Forests can only exist where there is water, so there had to be either a river or a spring; however, I didn't want to have very many rivers (to emphasize importance of springs and wells). Thus, I only included two.

I placed springs roughly based upon where they exist in Anglesey.

Floating mountains are wandering monster encounters — they ride the wind patterns and are constantly moving. Some follow more erratic patterns than others. The two floating mountains on the map are the only two that are stationary. One has been chained down in order to mine it, the other is stationary due to some unknown reason (note that it lies between to "specials" in the underworld beneath).

I determined what lay above each dungeon in a random manner. There were four possibilities:

• Ruins (which I gave the greatest chance, because I thought it cool and CDD#4 has a table on ruins that I wanted to use).
• Cities
• Temples
• Misc. (determined by another CDD#4 table on dungeons).

The monsters listed at these locations in brackets indicate the main occupant or the "master" of the dungeon beneath.

A (Very) Brief History

This area is known by several names:

• Asymi Isle = ancient human name
• Silver Isle = modern human name
• St. Morol Isle = Afonite name
• Glynaria = ylfe name
• Silbental = duergar name

Elves and dwarves are known as ylfe and duergar. Both races are descended from Nephilim. As such, there is no distinction between "wood" and "dark" elves or "mountain" and "grey" dwarves. Neither are particularly trustworthy or happy about humans being on the island.

The current wave of humans are Afonites (followers of Afon(eos) and the revelation of God as Triad). They originally lived east of the island in the most north-western part of a world-spanning Afonite Empire. A massive invasion by pagan barbarians and humanoids collapsed the western half of the Empire, cutting off the colonies of the north-west. In the face of the invaders, the Afonites fled west, finally arriving at the island. They had nowhere else to flee and things looked bleak; however, following the martyrdom of the Four Martyrs and the miracles surrounding their death, the Afonites pushed the invaders off the island under the leadership of St. Morol.

Thus, everything east of the channel is occupied by pagan barbarians and humanoids (save for the Monastery of the Hidden Spring). West of the channel is wilderness with pockets of Afonite civilization.

World Building Part 5

The Flood

God looked at the earth: it was corrupt, for corrupt were the ways of all living things on earth. God said to Noah, "I have decided that the end has come for all living things, for the earth is full of lawlessness because of human beings. So I am now about to destroy them and the earth. Make yourself an ark — Gen 6:12-14

For those of us interested in creating a fantasy world based on Scripture, the Flood is problematic from the perspective that it wipes clean from the world a fantasy staple — the Nephilim (giants) and their monstrous children. It is also troublesome from the modern scientific point of view which understands millions of years of prehistory with all kinds of wildlife that were wiped out before they ever had a chance to board the ark.

At this point, I must emphasize the primary purpose of Scripture — the revelation of God. Although it has historical elements, many of which can be corroborated by archeology, the Bible is not an historical document. It is revelation. It answers the question, "Who is God?" and from a Christian perspective, "Who is Jesus Christ?" As such, the story of the flood needs to be understood from this perspective.

Note that the cause of corruption on earth is humanity. We have turned our back on God and have taken all of creation with us. But for the goodness of one man — the choice of Noah to seek to be with God — God would have allowed creation to plummet toward destruction and return to nothing. God allows us the freedom to choose Him or choose to reject Him. In Eden, God gave the garden to Adam. When Adam chose to turn His back on God, the garden was taken away. The story of the flood is the flip side of the Eden story. God was willing to take everything away from humanity. Noah chose to turn towards God. Thus, God allows His creation to continue to exist.

God spoke as follows to Noah and his sons, "I am now establishing my covenant with you and with your descendants to come, and with every living creature that was with you: birds, cattle and every wild animal with you; everything that came out of the ark, every living thing on earth. And I shall maintain my covenant with you: that never again shall all living things be destroyed by the waters of a flood, nor shall there ever again be a flood to devastate the earth" — Gen 9:8-11

Ultimately, the primary purpose for the story of the flood is the covenant made by God. When God makes a promise, He never breaks it. All of His promises have been and will be fulfilled. This metaphor can be found in iconography, where the ark has been equated with the Church. Christ fulfills God's promise to all of creation by becoming Incarnate and intimately uniting Himself to His creation. The Church becomes the safe haven from the storm of a fallen world.

When creating a fantasy world, the flood is necessary only in metaphor, not in actuality. There need to be humans that turn toward God, even in the midst of corruption and evil. God, in some way shape or form, will make covenants with His people. From a Christian perspective, these covenants will be fulfilled in the person of the Christ.

World Building Part 4

My project continues...

Humanity

There is one centrally important reality about humanity in Scripture — God made humanity in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26-7). As such, humanity has a special role within creation — we are God's representatives to creation and we represent creation to God. This is why when Adam and Eve fell, they took the rest of creation with them.

Thus the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than all the wild animals of the earth. On your breast and belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His heel.

This special role within creation still exists despite the fall. God has set up humanity in an adversarial role against the Adversary himself. He has given us the power to lift creation up to God — away from nothing and into life. As the personification of that nothing, the devil and his minions will try to lead us to pull creation back towards nothing. Since we have been endowed with the image and likeness of God, who is ultimately free, we have the freedom to choose which path we will follow.

When creating a fantasy RPG where their are a plethora of fantasy races from elves and dwarves to goblins and lizardmen, there arises a conundrum: what, exactly, is "humanity?" Or, more precisely, who is endowed with the image and likeness of God?

This can be handled in a number of different ways:

1. All fantasy races are not human and play, to one degree or another, an adversarial role towards humanity. In terms of an RPG, this works better in a Sword & Sorcery-type world where players are going to have exclusively human characters.
2. All fantasy races are human. The various differences in races have come about because of some expression of magic. In a world where sin can manifest itself physically, an orc represents humanity consumed by hate and violence. Half-breeds are easily explained in this manner. Worlds using this model allow players to have characters from a wide variety of fantasy races.
3. All fantasy races represent the children born of the Nephilim and human women. This choice falls somewhere in between option 1 and option 2. In this setup, fantasy races all have a dark beginning and are more apt to side with their demonic origins than a normal human. As such, players would be free to play the exceptions — those that embrace their human origins as opposed to their demonic one. To a greater or lesser degree, these races would face distrust and prejudice from their human neighbors.

Each one of these choices has consequences in terms of moral dilemmas that will face players. Option 1 allows more freedom for players to slash their way through a bunch of orcs with little or no qualms — they are physical expressions of evil that need to be eradicated. Option 2 muddies the water quite a bit. Killing an orc is the equivalent of murdering a human being. Option 3 similarly muddies the water; however, this can be tempered by how one sees the choice of following the demonic or human path for fantasy races. If this choice is ongoing, than killing an orc is murder. If following the demonic path represents a choice where there is no going back, killing the orc is closer to option 1.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of flexibility in how to represent humanity in a fantasy setting — none of which requires a polytheistic world view.