sholio | Fantasy lore 101

Hey RPG/gaming people! Help!

In my urban fantasy novel, I have a scene in which my characters, a group of gaming nerds, are brainstorming a supernatural creature's identity (what kind of creature it is, I mean) based on the handful of clues they've already picked up on.

The most obvious answer is the correct one, and it's obvious to them as well, but I need some ideas for other possibilities that they toss out there. Most of their knowledge of mythology comes from tabletop and online RPG game settings, so it's going to be slightly skewed. *g* I have done some gaming, but not recently and not in enough depth to remember the creature supplements well enough to come up with ideas.

The clues they have are:
- It can't touch iron
- It has to tell the truth to humans
- It's several hundred years old, at least
- It uses illusion to make itself beautiful

What I'd really like are specific things (rather than just "elf", say, a specific kind). The more esoteric and geekily specific, the better, especially if you can also tell me what game it comes from! These options don't have to fit all the evidence; in fact, since it's supposed to be a brainstorming session, it's best if some of them are really obvious wrong answers. I just need more specific creatures than "fairy", "ghost", "witch", which are the ones that I plugged into the rough draft.

(Anything that was probably created for a particular game system and is therefore under copyright will need to be left out or changed, but don't let that stop you from suggesting it; at the very least, it'll give me ideas.)

ETA: Thank you, guys! This was immensely helpful, and I've got my scene written now. :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Suggestion: Have them say "Sidhe" rather than "fairy." Or insist on the spelling "faerie." Or both. And "light" courts versus "dark" courts, and who might or might not be bound by truth (truth can be a harsh weapon for evil, as well as for good)... :-) That's geekily specific. :-) As you know, of course, a "fairy" might be Tinkerbell, while a "Sidhe" is a human-height supernatural creature from Celtic mythology. You might also have them bring up a Celtic god or two, which would be mistaken...

A leprechaun has to tell the truth under specific circumstances, so that might be another mistaken guess.

Have you considered a pooka? (The horse-fairy does disguise itself with illusion.)

Thank you for the suggestions - these are very helpful! :) I especially like the point about my geek characters insisting on "faerie" or "sidhe". (In the latter case, as far as I know, "sidhe" actually means the barrows/mounds where Irish fairy-people are said to dwell, not the people themselves, but for purposes of this scene and the characters' level of knowledge, that makes it even better.)

I think of Sidhe being the people but a bit of googling says it is both [the mounds and the people living within them]

*facepalm* I feel so horribly pedantic saying this, and I will totally accept my faily wrongness if someone who's Irish corrects me on this, but no, it isn't, actually. It's just the mounds. I've researched this as much as I was able (still messed up on singular versus plural nouns in Irish Gaelic, though *headdesk*) and it is my understanding that sidhe -- sí is actually the correct modern spelling, as far as I know -- is just the mounds.

Now I'm coming at it from a particular angle -- since one of my main characters (the one who's being discussed in this scene, actually) is one of the aos sí, it matters to her. And because I knew even before I started writing that the vast majority of American fantasy novels absolutely butcher Irish/Celtic mythology, and Irish people hate this, I'd known from the beginning that if I was going to deal with Irish mythology in this book at all, I wanted to make it as close to the source as possible.

But this is what I was talking about over in the LJ comments: I've done too much research to be able to even come up with plausible-sounding erroneous guesses to write this scene!

I'm happy to be corrected. And to know where to come to have discussions about such things :D

I believe that you are correct that in Irish, "sidhe" is the mounds, while "aos si" is the people. :-)

However, the RPG gamer characters you described -- unless they are Irish? -- will likely come in with the assumption that "Sidhe" are the people, not the mounds, because 1) most all the fantasy romance novels use the word that way, 2) most all the urban fantasy novels use the word that way, and 3) Wikipedia defines the word that way, with the caveat, "While this is linguistically incorrect, it has become a widespread usage in English." Oh, and in Hellboy too, yes? It's been years since I've seen the movies, and I've never yet read the comics, though the library now has lovely collected volumes...

While we're on the subject, Lost Girl fandom spells "fey" as "fae," and means "fairy folk" by it (their universe's conception of "fairy folk" is wider than the Sidhe alone, as I understand it).

This does make a lot of sense - yes! And it's something that I haven't dealt with in the book, and really should at some point - thank you. :)

Fantasy lore 101

I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.

Re: I'm not an RP geek, but I have sometimes been a Celtic mythology geek.