Ok, despite the fact that I renamed my blog "Real Life with Ryuei" I am going to continue to blog about my daughter's D&D adventures along with my thoughts about the story. I think that this time I'll put the story portion in italics.
Oh, I have to confess that I haven't been able to figure out how to put pictures in my blog. Ah well. At any rate, playing D&D now has become very multi-media because between Google Image Search and Youtube I have been able to show Julie pictures and videos in addition to bits of music to set the scenes and introduce characters. Some of the pictures have been really instructive to me as well. So for instance, I wanted pictures of elaborate fantastical treehouses. What I found were not just cartoons or pictures, but live photographs of very elaborate actual real life treehouses. Great stuff. Just do a Google Image search on treehouses and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, back to the story.
Ruby had settled into the elven city of Highfolk at the Doubletree Inn for the fall and winter. Early on she sought out and made friends with Captain Lirolrod, the commander of the Sky Riders who patrol the skies over Highfolk on the backs of giant eagles. For a fee (thousands of gold pieces changed hands if memory serves), Capt. Lirolrod trained Ruby to be a Sky Rider as well, and trained her friend Windcarrier (the giant eagle who had befriended her during the pirate adventure) to be her mount. Once this was accomplished, Capt. Lirolrod, impressed with Ruby's ability, offers to let her to accompany a patrol (of ground troops) into the Vesve Forest. Ruby accepts, because it is her dream to someday find and fly a pegasus, and she has been told they can be found in the Vesve Forest. Her mission is to take a small band of elves deep into the forest and drive off any human or orc raiders from the Empire of Iuz. She will of course fly Windcarrier to scout ahead while her elven archers follow on the ground.
Yes, in the D&D game, this is what elves do when they are not dancing, singing, engaging in various contests of skill, holding feasts and celebrations, or making arts and crafts - they go out on seek and destroy missions in a medieval version of guerilla warfare against savage inhuman enemies.
Now again a few comments about elves and orcs in the D&D game and what they are and what they represent. They are certainly influenced by Tolkien's presentation but not entirely. They seem to be based on some very ancient and universal archetypes which I'd like to explore for just a moment.
The elves seem to be part of a class of spiritual beings that include the Vedic yakshas, the Celtic sidhe or of course the elves of Germanic mythology which is the primary source for D&D. Basically the elves are a form of more or less benevolent nature spirits or guardians. More importantly, though, I think they have come to embody the concept of the "Noble Savage." Wikipedia lists the following as characteristics of the "noble savage" archetype:
Living in harmony with Nature
Generosity and selflessness
Innocence
Inability to lie, fidelity
Physical health
Disdain of luxury
Moral courage
"Natural" intelligence or innate, untutored wisdom
So in D&D the elves live in harmony with nature to the pointof living in treehouses (or sometimes under the wooded hills as per the Celtic sidhe); they are Chaotic Good which means that though they spurn the laws and rigid class structures of "lawful" beings they are selfless, generous, morally courageous, faithful and so on. They may not necessarily be innocent or honest however, but probably innocent of any intentional wrongdoing and honest enough to those they like. As for "natural intelligence" and such, the D&D game credits the elves with an aptitude for wizardry. It is said that they are marvelous craftpeople and artists (including crafters of magical items and jewelry) but not greedy and not concerned with hoarding wealth. Finally, as far as physical health, these "noble savages" are supposed to live for over 700 years and never look a day over 25. The elves, then, are a romantic idealization of natural humanity in tune with nature, benevolent and wise and so on.
So much for them, how about the orcs? As the Wikipedia entry reveals, the word "orc" derives from the Old English word for "demon." It was used in the epic poem Beowulf - the English language's first Sword & Sorcery hero (though he was Danish actually) who fought a troll (Grendel), the troll's mother (whom he killed with a magic sword he found in her lair) and later became a king and died killing a dragon. Anyway, orcs are related to other monstrous humanoid types in world mythology. Beside the European ogres and trolls and goblins, there are the Japanese oni , and the Vedic rakshasa. In D&D these are all different types of monsters, but basically they are all stemming from the same archetypal fear of the bloodthirsty and perhaps cannibalistic savage - the noble savage's opposite number. The "orc" represents our fear of the "Other." In the Bible, and other world mythologies you see this played out again and again - the rival tribes who threaten the integrity and survival of your tribe are viewed as monsters with no redeeming values - whose men are brutes and whose women are seductive sirens. In Norse mythology and Vedic mythology the trolls and rakshasas are physically and morally inhuman, but the daughters of the trolls and rakshasas are beautiful and capable of being won over, but on the other hand, like the Sirens of Greek mythology, can also be treacherous. In D&D, the orc women are not presented as being beautiful or seductive - though half-orcs are available as player characters, implying either rape or seduction as the cause.
Throughout human history people have projected these archetypes upon the "Other" when they have encountered them. Either the "other" is the "noble savage" like Tonto, or is the bloodthirsty savage that the cavalry must save us from in the final reel. In D&D at least, these projections are embodied in fantastic beings who are not real and can bear the archetypes without the danger of idealizing or demonizing real people. But this will raise some other complications that I will note as the story progresses.
Oh, and needless to say, when I first played D&D back in jr. high I didn't think about any of this background or any of the implications of this. Elves were simply allies and orcs were simply monsters to kill prior to taking their stuff. But now I find that I can't approach this material with the same naivete, even when just trying to create an entertaining adventure for my daughter.
Ok, back to the set up. What is this "Empire of Iuz" and why is it sending orcs into the Vesve Forest? What follows is the simplifed version of the background from the D&D default setting and mythology as I explained it to Julie (who promptly forget it right afterwards I am sure):
The elves believe that at the dawn of time the god Corellon Larethian with the help of other good gods created the forests, flowers, grasslands, and all the animals that live there. Unfortunately, the god Gruumsh tried to destroy the forests to make room for what he liked – deserts, wastelands, and rocky hills full of caves. A terrible fight broke out between them when Corellon tried to stop Gruumsh from cutting down all the trees and burning them. In the end, according to the elves, Corellon poked out one of Gruumsh’s eyes with his sword, and Gruumsh fled. After the battle, Corellon created the elves out of the earth upon which fell his blood and the tears of the elven goddess Sehanine Moonbow who cried during the battle and whose tears gave Corellon the strength to beat Gruumsh. Corellon charged the elves to protect the forests and to create and preserve all things that are good and beautiful like music, art, crafts, and poetry. But he also trained them in magic and swordplay so that they would be able to fight back against those who would destroy them or take away their freedom. In the meantime, Gruumsh created the orcs and commanded them to take back what was theirs – which he believed was the whole world – and to help him get his revenge against Corellon who took away his eye. Ever since, there has been warfare between the elves and the orcs.
Most recently, many tribes of orcs have begun to serve an evil emperor named Iuz, whose mother was a wicked witch and father was a demon [Note that this was also the parentage of the character Caliban in The Tempest by Shakespear]. Iuz’s followers, whether orcs, or evil humans, or hobgoblins, or other evil beings, believe that he is a god and worship him. Their armies have swept across the world killing and destroying until they were beaten back. Presently, orc and human raiders still enter the Vesve forest that is under the protection of the elves of Highfolk, the human hunters and trappers who live in the forest, and the sylvan or wood elves who live deep in the forest itself. In order to drive them out, the elves and humans send patrols into the forest to seek and destroy these raiders before they are able to harm anyone, cut down sacred groves, or start forest fires.
And so, equipped for winter, Ruby set out with a band of 20 elven archers led by two sergeants - a female elf named Nyra and a male elf named Alion. They crossed the Velverdyva River on a ferrboat and then sought out into the forest. I'll write more about what happened another time as this has already gotten too long.
Posted by Ryuei at October 12, 2007 03:02 PM