OSR Commentary - My Time Encountering Heward's Mystical Organ

 My history as a player of original Dungeons & Dragons is well known but not my misgiving encounters with an infamous artifact of Eldritch Wizardry. Let's get a bit of background & history on Eldritch Wizardry;" Eldritch Wizardry was written by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume and published by TSR in 1976 as a sixty-page digest-sized book, and was the third supplement to the original D&D rules.^[4] The supplement was part of the continued expansion of D&D in 1976, which also included Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes and Swords & Spells." 

Now I've been looking deeply into some of the more infamous & slightly 'Science Fantasy' flavored
artifacts for my upcomingGodbound rpg campaign.
But looking through Eldritch Wizardry has given me flash backs to the Fall of '86.
 In the wastes of Greyhawk we ran into  Heward’s Mystical Organ. "Heward's Mystical Organ is a a massive, immobile pipe organ
 as tall as a cathedral. It is an artifact of tremendous power and great danger"
But I digress.

If there's one S.O.B. that as a player of Dungeons & Dragons & Advanced Dungeons & Dragons to run across in my forty years of playing the grand game to have run across its Heward. Yes that Heward who was a favorite of my uncle. My uncle was former retired RAF pilot & friend of my father's. He was from the United Kingdom who had married an American. A lovely lady & whose children have since scattered to the four wind. Both my uncle & aunt were instrumental in my education over the decades. Alas they have since departed but they both had a naught invincible love of music & this spelled my PC's doom.
We had been tracking our campaign's villain across the wastes of Greyhawk why? Because
an eldery old bard/wizard type had given his location after the villain had bought a map.
That man was Heward, Heward is a powerful quisi diety in Greyhawk & the patron god of bards.
He's descriped as thus; Heward appears as a human male of uncertain age—both youthful and elderly at once. He is lively, athletic, strong, and quick, with rosy cheeks and a wrinkled forehead. His bald head is offset by a small beard and luxurious mustache of sandy-brown. He tends to dress either shabbily, or in fine garb which is long out of style. However, if he wishes to go unnoticed, Heward can appear quite nondescript. He seldom carries weapons or wears armor. He often carries pitch pipes and tuning forks, which aid him in his travels to other planes." My wizard didn't like the S.O.B. from the start & it cemented my life long hatred of D&D bards even back then. Why was he important? Because Heward has a long & twisted some would say illustrous history with Gary Gygax's realm of Greyhawk;
"Heward was a member of Zagig Yragerne's Company of Seven. He was among the adventurers who helped imprison Iuz. Heward is distantly related to both Zagig and Mordenkainen, and often visits the latter. Although he is most often alone, he can occasionally be found in the company of Celestian, Fharlanghn, Keoghtom, Mordenkainen, Murlynd, or Zagyg." 
We caught up with the villain 'Lumay The King of  Musicans & Necromancers' someplace just outside of Heward's  laboratory in hills just outside one of the former Elven capitals according to my notes from the Fall of '86. There was a twelve level dungeon that dated from the Age of Elves that Heward had taken the place  over. That's where we encountered Heward's Mystical Organ! . My uncle's design of the organ was based on; "Heward's Mystical Organ appeared in Eldritch Wizardry (1976). A later expansion describing its powers apeared in A Working Design for Heward's Mystical Organ (or, "Play it Again, Sam"), Dragon Magazine #29 (Sep 1979), p.43."We didn't make it outta that dungeon & it was a total party wide when our bard misplayed the organ to thwart the villain! 
Later on in my friend DM Steve's game the coven of bards belonging to Heward would contact our party again & go after the Heward's organ but this time we'd run smack into Odd House; "Heward's eccentric dwelling is said to be extradimensional in nature, far, far bigger inside than it appears from outside, and a nexus between many alternate worlds, planes, and times. He once dwelled in a building in Greyhawk City's Thieves Quarter known as Odd House or "Hew's Place", but hasn't lived there in many years. It still retains portals to other planes, however. He currently explores the planes from a variety of homes and strongholds across the multiverse."  We trekked back to the dungeon holding Heward's Mystic Organ again in second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons;" Heward's Mystical Organ appeared in the Dungeon Master's Guide (1989) and revised Dungeon Master's Guide (1995).^[1]. It appears in the Book of Artifacts (1993), p.38-41." 


The Fatal & Friends Website has an excellent break down & commentary on the 2nd edition AD&D Book of artifacts version of the Organ of Heward;

"There’s one more artifact that I want to cover before covering magic item creation and then sealing this book in a trap-filled tomb to be forgotten. It’s Heward’s Mystical Organ, another artifact that can trace its origins to Mystical Energies. Like Lum’s Machine, the Organ is an immobile artifact that’s always housed in a cathedral-like building, “not necessarily the same one each time.” The cabinet of this pipe organ has three sets of keys-one of ivory and obsidian, one of jade and lapis, and the third of steel and brass. Each set of keys has nine ivory stops, or 27 in total. Nine rosewood petals complete the cabinet. The organ’s pipes are made of silver and gold, with the tallest reaching almost three stories in height.

Heward was the Patron of Bards, who lived during the ascendancy of humans as the elves faded to the background. Early humans apparently weren’t interested in music, so Heward set out to change that by building a magic organ. The Organ was wildly successful and made everything wonderful, so of course a few deities decided to fuck things up. These gods convinced the mice of Heward’s hall to gnaw on the Organ’s pipes. The next time Heward played the organ it gave harpies and sirens their special abilities. Heward was of course pissed, and so he played one last song to curse the mice into being lowly and meek. And then Heward and his Organ disappeared.

The suggested campaign use for the Organ is very similar to the Machine of Lum the Mad-a party needs the Organ to produce a certain effect, they need to discover the musical sheet, then they have to find the Organ itself, and play the tune. The major difference is that by the artifact’s nature, this artifact works best with a Bard in the part, a class that a PC had a miniscule chance of rolling the requirements for in 2nd edition if they used method 1 of rolling attributes.

Like the Machine, the description of the Organ’s powers is more focused on how to use it than what it can do. There are at least 23 powers of the Organ, each requiring a separate song. No, these powers aren’t actually detailed, but at least the suggested random power tables are provided. To use a power, not only must the song be played flawlessly (an unmodified proficiency check) but the stops must be set appropriately. There are 27 stops, labeled A to Z with the last one marked “!”. Stops can be set from 1 to 8, with 1 being the the default. The ! stop is especially important, as setting it incorrectly automatically triggers the curse. Otherwise, if any of the other stops are incorrect or the proficiency check is failed, the DM needs to roll a d10. On a 1-7, nothing happens, on an 8-9 the artifact curse is triggered, and on a 10 there is a random effect.



These are the suggested tables for a DM to select the Organ’s powers, but the DM can always come up with his or her own. In fact, a lot of the powers that can come from these result are pretty lackluster for the effort involved, so a DM is better off making his own.


Personal Enhancements: 16, 8, 12, 11, 16

• 8: Regenerate 2 of the user’s hit points per turn
• 11: Cast lasting breath at will
• 12: Provide the user with a permanent +1 bonus to saving throw rolls

Abjurations: 3, 5, 16, 6, 12, 2

• 3: Cast banishment by touch (1/week)
• 5: Cast dismissal upon any planar creature by touch (1/week)
• 6: Cast dispel evil/dispel good (1/day)
• 12: Cast lower resistance (7/day)
• 16: Have repel insects in a 10’ radius constantly in effect while the artifact is in hand

Enchantment/Charm: 3, 15, 11, 7, 20, 17

• 3: Cast charm monster (1/day)
• 7: Cast command (7/day)
• 11: Cast emotion (1/day)
• 15: Cast geas by touch. The mission must relate to the goals of the artifact, if any (1/month)
• 17: Cast hypnotism (1/day)
• 20: Cast suggestion (3/day)

Cataclysms: 9, 11, 10

• 9: Strike the area of effect with an earthquake spell
• 10: Rain a fire storm down upon the area of effect for 2d6 rounds
• 11: Flood the entire area of effect, destroying buildings and fields. All living creatures unable to fly risk drowning in the rushing water. The water recedes to safe levels in 1d6 hours but remain covering land for 2d20 days.

Conjuration: 5, 17, 15

• 5: Cast call lightning (1/week)
• 15: Summon an invisible stalker (1/week)
• 17: Inscribe a symbol of the user’s choice (1/week)

I guess you’re expected to make a song for every power, even if you never plan to use them

If the curse is triggered from playing poorly, then all those within the hall containing the Organ must save vs death at -4. Those who fail go mad forever, unable to tolerate any sound but unable to bear silence either. They lose all class abilities “and are controlled by the referee”. This madness can only be cured with wish. There’s also a risk that a character play the Organ too well. If the organist rolls a 1 or less on the proficiency check, at the end of the song he or she is instantly struck by melancholia, knowing their performance will never likely be matched. Anyone listening must make a Wisdom check or come to the same conclusion. Stricken characters have no motivation to do anything and will waste away. No word on whether this effect can be reversed.

As for the songs themselves, the DM is encouraged to make their own list of tunes based on their own tastes in musics, and it’s suggested to play the tune “on a stereo” at the climactic performance. That’s my favorite part of this artifact, and I could see myself including it not just in a D&D campaign, but any roleplaying game where a world-changing Organ is plausible. At the very least it would rank up there with the greatest effort taken to Rickroll a group of people. "
We got set up to take a fall from the cult of Heward & my wizard was lost across the multiverse after nearly blasting the head of the cult off the face of Greyhawk. There was a tripple cross on the part of the cult's head & I got the brunt of it. Our party's actions were noticed by Heward himself & neutral good my ass, he had a personal vendetta against our party. Every bar, two bit brothel,etc. which had a bard meant that we had our heels dogged at every turn by that quisi deity & did job after job to get back into his 'good graces'. And Heward's Mystical Organ is still out there in that dungeon & its still a giant danger on Greyhawk as well as any of the alternative versions of it strung across the planes. The organ is dangerous as Hell to any god or demigod that has the misfortune of running across it. Even god level PC's should have share in take of breath if they even hear rumors of  Heward's Mystical Organ! 

Vampires, Ghouls, Undead Plagues, & More Horrors For Your Old School Campaigns

 "filling up a bag with stakes] How many more of these will I have to make before they're all destroyed? They want my blood. It's their lives or mine. I still get squeamish."

 

Someone behind the scenes today forced my hand when it came to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I'm Legend"
"Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of I Am Legend, a 1954 science fiction horror vampire novel that has been adapted for the screen four times, as well as the movie Somewhere In Time for which Matheson wrote the screenplay, based on his novel Bid Time Return. Matheson also wrote 16 television episodes of The Twilight Zone, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel"."Why talk about Matheson when you spoke the other day about the 1979 Stephen King's television adaption of Salem's Lot by Tobe Hooper? Because Matheson's work book end's King's Salem Lot television adaptation & his novel. Here the vampirism isn't something to be glorified in but is a supernatural disease of the first magnitude.
"The Last Man on Earth (Italian title: L'Ultimo uomo della Terra) is a 1964 Italian horror/science fiction film based upon Richard Matheson's best-selling novel I Am Legend.", Matheson didn't like the resulting film but for many its one of his best performances & I happen to love Vincent Price in just about anything.

Frankly,Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I'm Legend"is really depressing but it makes an impact on its reader that lingers for decades. And The Last Man on Earth grabs the same vibe of isolation & loneliness in the face of a pandemic of epic proportions & it keeps going.
But I need to go back to the source material & my thinking became haunted by a series of games that I ran back in 2011-14 based around the silent classic Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; or simply Nosferatu)."Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; or simply Nosferatu) is a 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok."
The OSR mini campaign  was a hybrid of Last Man on Earth, Nosferatu, & Varney the Vampire.
Count Orlock, & many of the other vampiric royals take full advantage of the Earth entering close to a conjunction with  the Abyss & the negative material plane to summon Orcus. Orcus lord of the undead consumes the modern world of 1964 with a undead plague. This leaves the Earth a  hallow world of the undead. It worked quite well for Mutant Future at the time & kept people coming back to the table.

The cover page from a reprint of the British penny dreadful series Varney the Vampire (1845).


The Bannerworths have already been mentioned in my Pan America New York setting & briefly I've had this idea of this same planar conjunction with the Earth entering a phase of the Abyss & the negative material plane. Perhaps there's a silent side Earth where a vampiric or ghoul plague has already taken place. Perhaps the summoning of Orcus is simply another Elven weapon ala Lion & Dragon retroclone setting.
The first time this was done it resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia and peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.


Now my game is set in 1904 but with a possible side time loop that jumps ahead to 1918 when the most famous and lethal outbreak was the 1918 flu pandemic (Spanish flu pandemic) (type A influenza, H1N1 subtype), which lasted from 1918 to 1919. The cause of this? The reappearance of the mace of Orcus on Earth rumored to have surfaced someplace in a war torn WWI  Europe among cultists. The violence of WWI creates the perfect conditions for the undead to thrive. In mythology there has almost always been a mythological connection between elves,ghouls,werewolves, & vampires.
"In ancient Arabian folklore, the ghūl dwells in burial grounds and other uninhabited places. The ghul is a fiendish type of jinn believed to be sired by Iblis.^[6]

Some state that a ghoul is also a desert-dwelling, shapeshifting demon that can assume the guise of an animal, especially a hyena. It lures unwary people into the desert wastes or abandoned places to slay and devour them. The creature also preys on young children, drinks blood, steals coins, and eats the dead,^[7] then taking the form of the person most recently eaten."

"In the silent film Nosferatu, Count Orlok is a vampire from Transylvania, and is known as "The Bird of Death", who feasts upon the blood of living humans. He is believed to have been created by Belial, the lieutenant demon of Satan."

Its no accident that Elves in Dungeons & Dragon are immune to a ghoul's paralyzing touch. The immunity is a built in defense mechanism to an ancient war that humanity has long forgotten.
The Alp is an off shoot of the Elves of German mythology - "Not to be confused with the similarly named Alp-luachra, the Alp is sometimes likened to a vampire, but its behavior is more akin to that of the incubus. It is distinct from both of these creatures in that it wears a magic hat called a Tarnkappe, from which it draws its powers. The word Alp is the German form of the word that comes into English as elf, both descended from Common Germanic. It is also known by the following names: trud, mar, mart, mahr, schrat, and walrider. Many variations of the creature exist in surrounding European areas, such as the Druden and Schratteli, or Old Hag in English-speaking countries."

This isn't an accident Elves in German mythology are dangerous creatures of Chaos & violence that are not to be trifled with. This accounts for their background in Dark Albion & Lion & Dragon.

"In the period before about 1000, the Old High German word alp is attested only in a small number of glosses. It is defined by the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch as a "nature-god or nature-demon, equated with the Fauns of Classical mythology ... regarded as eerie, ferocious beings ... As the mare he messes around with women".^[1] Accordingly, the German word Alpdruck (literally 'elf-oppression') means 'nightmare'. There is also evidence associating elves with illness, specifically epilepsy.^[2]

In a similar vein, elves are in Middle German most often associated with deceiving or bewildering people "in a phrase that occurs so often it would appear to be proverbial: 'die elben/der alp trieget mich' (the elves/elf is/are deceiving me)".^[3] The same pattern holds in Early Modern German.^[4][5] This deception sometimes shows the seductive side apparent in English and Scandinavian material:^[6] most famously, the early thirteenth-century Heinrich von Morungen's fifth Minnesang begins "Von den elben virt entsehen vil manic man / Sô bin ich von grôzer lieber entsên" ("full many a man is bewitched by elves / thus I too am bewitched by great love").^[7] Elbe was also used in this period to translate words for nymphs.^[8]

In later medieval prayers, Elves appear as a threatening, even demonic, force. Evidence includes Latin prayers found inscribed in lead amulets from southern Scandinavia and Schleswig.^[9] The most famous is the fourteenth-century Münchener Nachtsegen, a prayer to be said at night, which includes the lines:^[10]

alb vnde ł elbelin Ir sult nich beng’ bliben hin albes svestir vn vatir Ir sult uz varen obir dē gatir albes mutir trute vn mar Ir sult uz zu dē virste varē Noc mich dy mare druche Noc mich dy trute zciche Noc mich dy mare rite Noc mich dy mare bescrite Alb mit diner crummen nasen Ich vorbithe dir aneblasen

elf, or also little elf, you shall remain no longer (reading lenger) elf’s sister and father, you shall go out over the gate; elf’s mother, trute and mare, you shall go out to the roof-ridge! Let the mare not oppress me, let the trute not ?pinch me (reading zücke), let the mare not ride me, let the mare not mount me! Elf with your crooked nose, I forbid you to blow on [people]

Correspondingly, in the early modern period, elves are described in north Germany doing the evil bidding of witches; Martin Luther believed his mother to have been afflicted in this way."


Nachtmahr“ (“Night-mare”), by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1802), depicts an Alp sitting on the sleeper's chest, with a mara staring through the background.

I've talked at length about the connections between the Arthurian fairies & the Elves of Dungeons & Dragons who were the  slaves & servants of these powerful Medieval Elves. The bastard grand sons of King Arthur include among their own ranks Melehan, Melou and the Black Knight, Arthur's grandson as well as the Faerie Knight.

"The Faerie Knight was, in the Matter of Britain, a bastard son of Tom a'Lincoln and Caelia, the Faerie Queen. His proper name is never given. He appears in Richard Johnson's romance Tom a' Lincoln.

Tom himself was a bastard of King Arthur with Angelica, daughter of the Earl of London. Therefore, the Faerie Knight was, like Melehan, Melou and the Black Knight, Arthur's grandson.

Being half-faerie, the Faerie Knight inherited some of his mother's magical talents. He met his half-brother, the Black Knight (another bastard of Tom's), and they traveled together on many adventures."

The very ideal of knightly virtue strongly connected with the Earth's destruction might be its only salvation.


I spoken at length of the familial connections of Morgan Le Fey's sons & daughters as well as Arthur's half sister Morgawse both of whom have their own witch cults & covens scattered throughout Europe across history.

Morgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys (1864)

All of these families of royalty have strong witch blood connections & chaos laden connections to the lost half realities of Fairyland. These creatures we call Elves in Lion & Dragon have been hedging their bets across various worlds. We see this time & again in various stages of conflict in history where the Elves are drawn into battles & wars like moths to the flames of history. Dark Albion's Cults of Chaos picks this fact up and runs with it by placing it within a Medieval context.

These plagues of undeath & worse happen regardless of the prayers of men, only adventurers and heroes can make the pivotal sacrifices & movements to turn the tide of history in the favor of future generations.

One of my favorite OD&D villains - The Egg of Coot For Your Old School Campaign

 

Today on the blog a quick update & expansion from a blog entry that appeared in 2016. Now on with the show. 

The Egg of Coot is describe as;"Some scholars believe that it is one of the remaining servitors of the Outer Beings. In the Age of Blackmoor, these servitors are referred to as Elder Demons, and once dominated the entire continent. The Egg appears as a huge globe of mossy grey flesh and eyeballs and mouths randomly scattered across the slimy surface. The Egg is buried deep under ground and almost never moves. There are however tunnels leading to it which are used by its Keepers to contact and preserve the Egg. Its Spawn is of similar appearance. The Spawn of Coot has a relationship to the Egg as between Trees of Life and their Mother Trees. "

There are evils of the worlds of D&D and then there's the iconic, egotistical, weird, & downright nasty Egg of Coot. This thing has been around since the dawn of the original  Blackmoor campaign & its minions have cost me more then one PC over the years. My buddy Larry created adventures based on the mock up covers of Havard featured in this article.

Forget Strahd von Zarovich or any of the other iconic TSR era vile villains; The Egg of Coot is bio mechanical villain &  relic from Blackmoor's ancient era. The thing has been around since Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign from the early days of OD&D. My own interactions with the evil of the Egg came about when my friend Larry came across Harvard Blackmoor's 2009 Egg of Croot blog entry.

 Larry grabbed some of the concepts that Havard put out & we began to face down some of the ill breeded horrors that came from the weirdness of the egg.This was  after the appearance of one of the Empire's scout ships as a part of a dungeon that our party of adventurers were exploring.

What really got Larry stirring was when I brought over my copy of Astonishing Sorcerers and Swordsmen of Hyperborea (which is now counting down three or less hours for the second edition). The egg's minions began to appear popping up across the planes in Larry's, Steven's campaigns, and Peter's campaign all of them looking for pockets of caches of lost Beagle & Warden interstellar technology. The Egg was a completely evil entity that mocked the players at every turn with off color graffiti & all kinds of evil humor. The Egg is a hate of old times that has come down from the very beginning of D&D continues its evil to this day. The thing that it is insidious is the fact that in each & every Blackmoor city, settlement, and village is an agent of the Egg of Coot exists


Havard actually has a breakdown of the Blackmoor technology; he's done a really good job of dealing with some of the OD&D Beagle technology on his own website.

The sci fi technology ties back into the Temple of the Frog & it's so iconic for me.
"The Egg is the definition of Evil. It is highly intelligent and communicates with its fanatical followers through Telepathy. " You don't want to encounter its evil if it can be dangerous & very devious in its machinations."

The Egg's evil is completely behind the Temple of the Frog & has ties now to some of the events of today's Dark Albion game (a blog entry for another time). The game I played today has a deep connection to Return to the Temple of the Frog for third edition AD&D.   
The science fantasy aspect of the Egg of Croot is one of the iconic back bones of the Blackmoor setting. These seem to follow in the wake of the appearance of the Egg of Coot. There are several science fantasy devices that I came across today.

There is a really nice OD&D resource that Havard designed that's available through the Vaults of Pandius website. This has all of the background that a dungeon master needs to introduce the Egg of Coot into their own games. There are also several articles that have more technological artifacts from Bloormoor. These include The Technological Battlefield by James Ruhland from the Mystara Mailing List posted 25 December 1999.Additional tech weapons by Alex Benson, from the Mystara Mailing List posted 6 December 1999.
  & Sample tech weapons by Rob, from the Mystara Mailing List posted 3 December 1999.  As well as the Alien Devices from Blackmoor by Dave L. Arneson and David J. Ritchie, from DA3 City of the Gods.
Finally there's the light sabre rules that S.Lentz made; Light Sabre by S. Lentz, from the Mystara Mailing List posted 7 September 1999.



Note because the Egg of Coot is a higher dimensional being it has access to a wide variety of campaign settings including OSR & old school ones such as Greyhawk, Godbound/Cha'alt Earth, & even Cha'alt itself. Is the  Egg more powerful then the gods or Mystara's immortals?! No but it is a very definitive Lovecraftian menace across a wide variety of spectrum. 

 

The Egg has been imprisoned for eons & is using whatever means it can to expand its reach across the planes. This is one of the reasons that the other night when speaking with players for Castles & Crusades there was speculation about the fact that they were worried that the egg might show up again?! 

Dungeons & Dragons Elves, Alien Gods, & Hellish Demons For Your Old School Campaigns

 

Tonight I'm thinking about the  Original Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons PC race of Elves. Elves from pop culture have always to a certain extent been well problematic. Though I know where they come from Tolkein's Hobbit & Lord of the Rings books. In my mind there's always been a distinct disconnect from the Elves of mythology & Dungeons & Dragons.  But the ideas that these beings are simply a different evolutionary route then humanity doesn't take into account why there are so many negative connotations associated with the Elves of  mythology. Pop culture but I think has a very different species of creature lumped into the European mythological view;
This isn't an accident Elves in German mythology are dangerous creatures of Chaos;

"In the period before about 1000, the Old High German word alp is attested only in a small number of glosses. It is defined by the Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch as a "nature-god or nature-demon, equated with the Fauns of Classical mythology ... regarded as eerie, ferocious beings ... As the mare he messes around with women".^[1] Accordingly, the German word Alpdruck (literally 'elf-oppression') means 'nightmare'. There is also evidence associating elves with illness, specifically epilepsy.^[2]

In a similar vein, elves are in Middle German most often associated with deceiving or bewildering people "in a phrase that occurs so often it would appear to be proverbial: 'die elben/der alp trieget mich' (the elves/elf is/are deceiving me)".^[3] The same pattern holds in Early Modern German.^[4][5] This deception sometimes shows the seductive side apparent in English and Scandinavian material:^[6] most famously, the early thirteenth-century Heinrich von Morungen's fifth Minnesang begins "Von den elben virt entsehen vil manic man / Sô bin ich von grôzer lieber entsên" ("full many a man is bewitched by elves / thus I too am bewitched by great love").^[7] Elbe was also used in this period to translate words for nymphs.^[8]

In later medieval prayers, Elves appear as a threatening, even demonic, force. Evidence includes Latin prayers found inscribed in lead amulets from southern Scandinavia and Schleswig"

In the Dragon & Lion retroclone Elves have gone to war with the gods & for a time replaced humanity's gods. These monsters bred hybrid races of peusdo humanoids. These things were servants, slaves, and possibly closely genetically related to humanity but weren't even close to being human; "Evidence for elf-beliefs in medieval Scandinavia outside Iceland is very sparse, but the Icelandic evidence is uniquely rich. For a long time, views about elves in Old Norse mythology were defined by Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, which talks about svartálfar, dökkálfar and ljósálfar ("black elves", "dark elves", and "light elves"). However, these words are only attested in the Prose Edda and texts based on it, and it is now agreed that they reflect traditions of dwarves, demons, and angels, partly showing Snorri's "paganisation" of a Christian cosmology learned from the Elucidarius, a popular digest of Christian thought.^[8]

Scholars of Old Norse mythology now focus on references to elves in Old Norse poetry, particularly the Elder Edda. The only character explicitly identified as an elf in classical Eddaic poetry, if any, is Völundr, the protagonist of Völundarkviða.^[60] However, elves are frequently mentioned in the alliterating phrase Æsir ok Álfar ('Æsir and elves') and its variants. This was clearly a well established poetic formula, indicating a strong tradition of associating elves with the group of gods known as the Æsir, or even suggesting that the elves and Æsir were one and the same.^[61][62] The pairing is paralleled in the Old English poem Wið færstice^[63] and in the Germanic personal name system;^[51] moreover, in Skaldic verse the word elf is used in the same way as words for gods.^[64] Sigvatr Þórðarson’s skaldic travelogue Austrfaravísur, composed around 1020, mentions an álfablót (‘elves' sacrifice’) in Edskogen in what is now southern Sweden.^[65] There does not seem to have been any clear-cut distinction between humans and gods; like the Æsir, then, elves were presumably thought of as being human(-like) and existing in opposition to the giants.^[66] Many commentators have also (or instead) argued for conceptual overlap between elves and dwarves in Old Norse mythology, which may fit with trends in the medieval German evidence.^[67]

There are hints that the god Freyr was associated with elves. In particular, Álfheimr (literally "elf-world") is mentioned as being given to Freyr in Grímnismál. Snorri Sturluson identified Freyr as one of the Vanir. However, the term Vanir is rare in Eddaic verse, very rare in Skaldic verse, and is not generally thought to appear in other Germanic languages. Given the link between Freyr and the elves, it has therefore long been suspected that álfar and Vanir are, more or less, different words for the same group of beings.^[68] However, this is not uniformly accepted"

The associations between the gods & their slaves also can be clearly seen in the Huldra ("hidden being") in Scandinavian languages which in my home campaigns is the word for the traditional AD&D style 'Elves'. These are humans bred with the supernatural & occult power flowing through their veins. Both Morgause & Morgana Le Fey's family lines are examples of half Huldra sorceresses & witches. These beings have echos & shadow versions of themselves scattered across the multiverse. These Huldra are alien beings existing half in our world & half within the cycling Chaos realm we know as Fairyland. "Folklorists and mythologists have variously depicted fairies as: the unworthy dead, the children of Eve, a kind of demon, a species independent of humans, an older race of humans, and fallen angels.^[14] The folkloristic or mythological elements combine Celtic, Germanic and Greco-Roman elements. Folklorists have suggested that 'fairies' arose from various earlier beliefs, which lost currency with the advent of Christianity.^[15] These disparate explanations are not necessarily incompatible, as 'fairies' may be traced to multiple sources."


I've talked at length about the connections between the Arthurian fairies & the Elves of Dungeons & Dragons who were the  slaves & servants of these powerful Medieval Elves. The bastard grand sons of King Arthur include among their own ranks Melehan, Melou and the Black Knight, Arthur's grandson as well as the Faerie Knight.

But could there be a deeper connection to the world of men & the context of Fairyland? For that we must understand that Fairyland itself is a rolling blob of supernatural & occult lost lands having been taken over the centuries. It exists as a higher dimension right along with our own world whist touching countless others.
"The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces frequently occur in mathematics and the sciences. They may be parameter spaces or configuration spaces such as in Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical space we live in." These rolling foamy Hells & green tinged Heavens sometimes touch & consume our world in an effort to anchor themselves into our reality & time space. The problem is that the realm of Fairyland is tainted by Chaos & madness. Humanity was never meant to dally with the occult forces of Fairyland & this madness rolls through the bloodlines of these so called 'half elves'.A good example is the genetic crap shoot caused by Arthur's bastard sister Morgause;

"Her character is fully developed in Thomas Malory's 1485 compilation of Arthurian legends Le Morte d'Arthur, in which Morgause (Margawse) is one of three daughters born to Gorlois of Tintagel, Duke of Cornwall, and the Lady Igraine. According to Malory, her mother is widowed and then remarried to Uther Pendragon, after which she and her sisters, Elaine and Morgan ("le Fay", later the mother of Ywain), are married off to allies or vassals of their stepfather. Morgause is wed to the Orcadian King Lot and bears him four sons, all of whom go on to serve Arthur as Knights of the Round Table: Gawain, one of his greatest knights; Agravain, a wretched and twisted traitor; Gaheris; and Gareth, a gentle and loving knight.

Years later, her spouse joins the failed rebellions against Arthur that follow in the wake of King Uther's death and the subsequent coronation of his heir. Shortly after her husband's defeat, Morgause visits the young King Arthur in his bedchamber, ignorant of their familial relationship, and they conceive Mordred. Her husband, who has unsuspectingly raised Mordred as his own son, is slain in battle by King Pellinore. Her sons depart their father's court to take service at Camelot, where Gawain and Gaheris avenge Lot's death by killing Pellinore, thereby launching a blood feud between the two families.

Nevertheless, Morgause has an affair with Sir Lamorak, a son of Pellinore and one of Arthur's best knights. Her son Gaheris discovers them in flagrante and swiftly beheads Morgause in bed, but spares her unarmed lover. Gaheris is consequently banished from court (though he reappears later in the narrative)"

For player characters this means that the Elves of Dungeons & Dragons are not simply human like in temperament but of a truly alien mind set. Lamentations of the Flame Princess has several modules where the 'true' nature of Elves & fairies are explored. In the Lion & Dragon game several of the cults take prime advantage of the chaos tainted & rolling horror of the various Elven cults of Chaos.

So why would AD&D Elves or Huldra ("hidden being") continue to exist in the world & whom are these creatures actually hiding from? I think that the Chthonic of the higher dimensional layers might be the reason. Hidden in the folds of reality is a being first mentioned in In "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930)", a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshipers includes the following exchange:
"Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"

"Shub-Niggurath - "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young" is classified as both an Outer God & as Great Old One. This is no accident for she exists completely outside of normal space time in a higher dimensional realm.

"The revision story "The Mound", which describes the discovery of an underground realm called K'n-yan by a Spanish conquistador, reports that a temple of Tsathoggua there "had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious."^[7]

The reference to "Astarte", the consort of Baal in Semitic mythology, ties Shub-Niggurath to the related fertility goddess Cybele, the Magna Mater mentioned in Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls", and implies that the "great mother worshipped by the hereditary cult of Exham Priory" in that story "had to be none other than Shub-Niggurath.""

Shub-Niggurath by Dominique Signoret

Shub-Niggurath & her young are literally hunting for the souls of beings who are older then recorded time. She & other alien entities of her ilk are following the natural process that the Hundra were designed for. The Hundra are living supernatural batteries for the occult power that flows through them. They make excellent prey for many types of Chaos deity, demons,  Outer God or Great Old Ones.
Though out mythology the Hundra have been the perfect meal on the go for hyperdimensional beings of pure chaos & occult power. Their souls have so much acquired mystic potential that these beings make perfect prey for a wide variety of supernatural predator.

The Remorse of Orestes, where he is surrounded by the Erinyes, who were identified as chthonic beings, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1862
These proto Elves are the perfect portable sacrifice for a wide variety of supernatural predators & alien hunter species. These so called Elves are the perfect happy meal on the go for these alien gods & Hellish demons.