The Blackwood Campaign Setting | Folklore. Action. Dice. | PEACH

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There may be a hidden post here. Now, would you be opposed to having a semi-mythical Witch?

What do you mean by "semi-mythical"? Like, a figure who "they say" lives out in the woods, but there's never been any evidence? That's right on par!

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As for the issue of troll-on-humie mateing, it could be mostly a Hag thing. As in, "Mortal wanders in one of the darker glades of the woods, finds a cute girl, has a minor fling, and then wakes up a few days later without recolection of the past few days" if the hag is of the sort who does not eat her mortal compainons. A little more than a year later, a baby girl with strange disposition is found on the doorstep of a elderly couple who leaves little loafs of bread for the animals, and the resulting lass is later found to have a natural nack at magic that makes every recruter for miles try to get her into The Elder Kingdom as the next big thing. Or something.

Alternetivly, while most Trolls are born that way, some humans naturaly come to enjoy the darkish primal energy they tend to have, and as such eventualy come to be the stuff of fairy-tales. Presumably, these troll-acendents could come in a way as a prestige class that has them slowly becomeing more monster-like as its life goes on, picking from several tables for powers as it levels up. Strangly, half-trolls or those with trollish blood usualy never go on such a path, perhapes because they are already somewhat inbued with the energy that makes a troll a troll and has little ability or reason to make the sudden changes that make up a troll acendents clime.

Neverless, there are both half-trolls and those who become trolls, and of course pure trolls themselves. Of course, there are also those fey who have fallen so far, like the ever-feared Firbolg, that seem to be weakened elves who seem to unable to retreat to there lands, and are twisted by it. Then again, there are those that have been noted to simply be more lucid and legendary than others that seem to be more in line with true, malevolent fey. These horrors are more than mear hags and ogres, and the fables about them are few and terrible, and all point to some seething pit in the realm of the fey, where even there amoral kin fear to dwell apon for too long. Those "Formorins" are, rather than simply treating humans with a sence of whimsy, treat them like toys. And, much like a angry toddler, they like to smash and break there toys. Neverless, they are still elves, nothing more, but are perhapes more like a troll than what could live up to what could be called the standered for such a varied race.

This shows a lot of good creativity! And there's actually something like the Hag stuff already present in the world with the Huldras and Maras (they're in the "female creatures" section of that link, just a little ways down the page). In a nutshell, Huldras are dryad/nymph figures that tempt men into the woods for sex. If the guys don't please the Huldra, she might kill them. I could see this being one of the ways that Half-Elves are born. Maras, on the other hand, are born of human women who undergo a strange ritual (you really should read it, but I won't get into it here). All girls born by the woman after this ritual become female werewolves, which is another sort of Half-Elf origin... albeit without the Elf part.

I'm still not sold on Trolls being sexually compatible with humans. The more I think about it, the more I think they ought to be a completely separate, older race, instead of being another variation of the Elves.

Another problem I'm running into is that I'm restricting myself to Germanic mythology, which means I can't use firbolgs, hags, ogres, or formorins.

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While I'm posting, check this out! We got a pretty cool tip of the hat from one of the very guys who inspired me to make this setting! By golly!

He presents an interesting solution to a problem that I hadn't even put into words yet. In my attempts to get to the roots of folklore etc., I've been really loath to include planes, and when I have I've been really loath to call them "planes." I also didn't really want to use terms like "coexistent." I made a compromise because that's the common parlance amongst players today, but I don't think I need to do that. There's no problem with saying "The Land of the Dead is somewhere else," rather than saying "The Land of the Dead is another plane." The characters in the setting don't think in those terms, so why should I present the information to players in those terms?

He's also made me start to rethink The Wild Hunt. In Germanic myth, the Hunt is often said to carry people off to the land of the dead, but it doesn't often say where it comes from. In fact, sometimes the leader of the Hunt is a god like Odin, and sometimes (not in Germanic myth, but still) its actually a fey king of some kind.

Maybe instead of the Wild Hunt being a strictly "Dead" thing, it is instead a third entity. It's "wild." It's made up of Elves and The Dead, and it goes where it pleases. Hmm...

Thanks, KORPG!