Half Sidhe

Chaotic elf princess

The elven knight who waited for too long

From my sketchbook, I drew this in my bed while I had the flu:

Elven Firefighters campaign

After drawing the elf maiden travelling in a water bubble I posted some drawings about elven firefighters having to protect their forest against fire based menaces and monsters. Sadly I lost those posts when I deleted my public collections on G+.

So here is a repost of what I remember.

The idea was to setup a non grim-misery-crawl OSR campaign. I mostly got inspired by the post "Playing Cute" on Gloomtrain.

• Most of the characters are elven firefighters (fighter-mages) apprentices who wield water and vegetation based spells. They are level 01 trainees. 
• The campaign start after their graduation but something happen and the firefighter veterans are cursed into a eternal sleep or are somehow magically disabled. 
• The safety of the forest now rest on the shoulders of those newbies PCs.
• The characters have access to some of the artifacts of the firefighter guild, but they have to learn how to unlock their potential. 
• XP is awarded for doing firefighter stuff. 
• The sandbox is build around the forest and it inhabitants. 

• The elves have a firefighter treaty with the other forest dwelling races, including the chaotic races like the Bullywug. The newbie firefighters will also have to keep the respect of those races to avoid losing their help.
• To add variety, some replacement or backup characters can be from the races that honor the firefighter treaty. It is often a political move for those races to send away a annoying member of their specie on firefighting duty to get rid of him or her.  
• For exemple this bullywug moss shaman who can summon moss spirits. 

• Most of the monsters encountered need help with some fire based menace or incident. 
• Like a troll that was stupid enough to eat something on fire. Now he can't contain the fire in it regenerating fire belly. He is afraid to set the fire of the forest but he dont dare to speak because he fear belching fire out of his mouth. So he get in a lot of trouble and incidents. Simply killing the troll is a solution but there is a big risk that he will explode and set up more fire!
• So the players have to find inventive solution to deal with the fire based menaces and monsters.

• As the character level up, the campaign escalade with the apparition of the Dark Fire. A corrupting fire that twist what it burn into monsters. 
• For exemple a dark fire treant, who is angry and resentful of the firefighters for failing at their duty and letting him burn. The fire treant become a dark fire king that try to spread the fire in the forest.

• Defeating some of the big monsters should also bring some hope and a opportunity for reconstruction. 
• Like when the dark fire treant die, if you open it bark you can find a Embers Dryad. If well nurtured this dryad can use her power to help the vegetation regrow after a fire, she can also sense the dark fire and travel between burning trees. Maybe she also have some limited fire control power. People dont trust her but she could be a new replacement character.   

The end game could be about lifting the curse from the firefighter veterans to awaken them or to accept that they are gone forever.

Blade Seer

Moon elf of YNGARR with her/his oculus buzzer pet:

Moon Elf of Niru

The new zine YNGARR is available in PDF as pay what you want on DriveThruRPG.
Source: http://spacewizards.blogspot.ca/2016/01/yngarr-pdf.html
Here is one of my illustrations for the zine: a strange moon elf.

Cursed Elf Maiden with dancing blade

A mischievious arachnid girl hybrid opening a bottle of gaseous spiders.

Incomplete elven campaign setup.

Some notes for a LOTFP elven campaign where all the players play elves.

Basic premise:

• The world was dying and the elves walled themselves in mighty magical citadels (kind of like the caerns in Earthdawn). 
• Centuries passed and the world changed. 
• The citadels lost contact witch each others. 
• Older elves are falling into a eternal sleep (instead of going west to retire from the world). 
• The players characters are the first elves to ventures outside their citadel.   
• Their goal is to find the other elven citadels to establish contact with them.
• The lost citadels have become adventuring locations and dangerous dungeons to explore. 

The world:

• The world renewed itself and is now mainly covered by a endless forest. 
• Monsters and beasts have changed.
• Great beasts play the role of dragons.  
• Humans are the new orcs and menace the emerging races. 
• Halflings are slaves owned by humans.
• Dwarfs turned bad before vanishing.  
• New races emerges to replace the old ones. 

Since we have only one character class (elf) we need something to have more character variety.

• Each character is from a randomly rolled noble house.
• Each character receive a background that determine their starting skills and gear. 
• Characters gain 1 skill point at level 3, 5, 7 and 9. 

Noble houses:

• Roll a level one spell for your house. Your house is build around this spell, the other houses can't roll, choose or learn this spell (but characters can learn it from a scroll from a adventure). 
• Roll a signature weapon or armor for your house. You start with a elven quality item of this type. 
• Roll a specialty skill for your house. You start with +1 in this skill.   
• Roll a random type of hireling for your house. Your can easily hire above average hirelings of this type. 
• Roll a random patron animal for your house. You can speak the language of your patron animal and you receive a 1 point bonus for your reaction tests with them. 
• Roll a random attribute for your house. House members roll 4d6 (take 3 best) to determine this attribute. (not sure about this one) 

Backgrounds:

• Roll a random background (stuff like ranger, shield maiden, healer, etc), each background give +1 in one skill and determine your starting gear. 
• This replace rolling starting money and shopping for starting equipment. 

New characters:

• When you create a replacement character you may choose to come from a already established house or to create a new house. (So dying bring the opportunity of creating a new house). 

New skill: Songs.

• The songs skill start at 2 (1 +1 for being a elf). 
• Songs work like a lore skill. Elves can sing songs to remember ancient lore about things. 
• Elven songs are elaborate living things, you can learn something different each time you sing a song. 
• Songs are about unique locations, events, characters, monsters, items and deity. 
• On a success you know a song about a subject. You now get +1 to your skill each time you sing that song.
• Songs can also be discovered and learned (like spell scrolls). 
• Each character start with two random songs, one related to their house, one related to their background. 

New skill: healing (since there is no clerical spells).

• The healing skill start at 2 (1 +1 for being a elf).
• You can use your healing skill in the turn after a battle to heal a character. (you get -1 if your are trying to heal yourself). 
• On a successful test heal 1 hp if you have no healing gear, d3 if you have bandages, d4 if you have elven bandages, d6 if you have healing herbs and d8 if you have a healing potion. 
• On a failed test remove two step from your healing die. (d8>d6>d4>d3>1>0) 
• Bandages, herbs and potions can be buy at the characters's citadel. (herbs and potions are quite expensive).
• A second skill test can be made at the end of the day if the character rest for a day (in addition of any natural healing). 

Experience Points:

• Earn XP for bringing back lost treasures of the old world. 
• Earn XP for bringing lore about the new world.
• Earn XP for learning new songs. 
• Earn XP for defeating monsters as usual. 

The Lost Citadels:

• The group start with a map with the location their citadel and 3 other citadels. 
• The map depict the ancient world, so everything have changed. It can be fun to create contrast or link between the ancient names and what the group encounter. 
• Each citadel is randomly generated with random tables.
• Roll on the First elven inhabitant table.
• Roll on the Something weird happened table.
• Roll on the Who survived table (and check how they changed).
• Ron on the Who or what moved in table.
• Check if something weirder happened. 
• Check if someone still survived this new event (and check how they changed).
• Reroll on the Who or what moved in table. 
• Create treasures for each group that inhabited the citadel.
• Place clues towards new citadels and new adventuring locations. 

I also noted something about the elven seasons:

• Winter: ivory, meditation, beautiful magic automatons. 
• Spring: green, spreading, dryad creatures, great beasts. 
• Summer: yellow, madness, insects & flowers. 
• Automn: red, mourning, undead, cardinal birds. 

Murder-Hobo Warrior-mage Elf