Fairy Tale 37: The Tablecloth, the Knapsack, the Cannon Hat, and the Horn

This one features some incredibly PC behavior. Three brothers are poor so they go to Spain for some reason. First they find a silver mountain so the first brother takes a bag of silver and goes home. Then they find a gold mountain and the second brother fills his bag with gold and goes home. The third brother keeps on going and gets lost in a forest where he finds a food-summoning tablecloth.

He trades the food-summoning tablecloth for a soldier-summoning bag. Then he summons some soldiers and has them bring back his tablecloth. He does the same thing and gets a cannonball-shooting hat and a horn of blasting.

When he returns home his (now) rich brothers don't want to hang out with him anymore so he summons some soldiers to beat them. This  annoys the king but the third brother just stages a coup d'etat and claims the princess by force. This annoys the princess so she plots against him and tricks him out of one and then two of his magic items but he's still able to kick butt with his horn of blasting.

What can we get from this one? The princess being dissatisfied with her protagonist husband and plotting against him isn't new but it's good to remember as this comes up a lot in these older fairy tales but I don't remember it appearing in any modern adaptations and it's good to remember that it's an established fairy tale trope as it's great adventure fodder: "you've slain the dragon and married the princess and boy is she PISSED." In a lot of ways some of these first edition fairy tales read as better deconstructions of the genre than some of those painfully clever modern "re-imaginings."

PCs Being Rat Bastards is In-Genre

Pretty dickish behavior for the hero to barter his magic items and then take them back by force but we can see here that that sort of PC behavior is perfectly in keeping with old school fairy tales before they were sanitized (and this story was indeed removed from later editions of the Grimm fairy tales).

Magic Items

Well the food-summoning tablecloth is basically the same as the food-summoning table in the last story but the cannonball-summoning hat (you turn it and a whole battery-worth of cannonballs just shot), the soldier-summoning bag (which seems ridiculously overpowered since there's no limit on how many you can summon) and the horn of blasting are new.

Magic Item Shops

No magic item shops in the fairy tales but as we can see here you can definitely barter your magic items for other ones. Having NPCs then immediately attack you to get their magic items back makes perfect sense as we can see here.

Encumbrance Matters

The first two brothers find entire mountains of gold and silver but can only bring one backpack-load back. Why? Well gold and silver are freaking heavy. Encumbrance is a great way to lay out massive treasure troves without having the party get infinite gold. Makes for good gameplay too as in "How much gold are you willing to carry? Enough to not slow you down at all? Enough to slow you down to a painful stagger? How much food are you going to throw out to make more room for gold? All of it? Really?"

For kids playing I think a CRPG-style slot based system works best as it's very visual and intuitive.

Up next: Mrs. Fox

Fairy Tale 38: Mrs. Fox

There's two different versions of this story.

In the first a nine-tailed fox pretends to be dead in order to test his wife. While the cat maid cooks warm beer (beer-based soup or mashing grains?) his wife cries her eyes out. Foxes come to court her and she sends them all away until one comes with nine tails who she accepts and has her husband's body chucked out the window. Then the fox wakes up and attacks the wedding feast and chases everyone away.

In the second story the fox really is dead but his wife will accept only someone who has a pointed nose and a red coat like him.

What really surprised me here was to see a nine-tailed fox in such an old European story. They're famous here in Asia but I had no idea they also appeared in Europe so long ago. Anyone know the story behind this?

What can we get from this one?

The Suspicious Husband

It really seems quite unfair of Mr. Fox to be angry at his wife for not remaining faithful to him after faking his own death. Putting in some similarly irrationally jealous characters into a setting could make for interesting plot hooks. Perhaps ghosts could be jealous as well?

Just like the last story we have a complication to hit PCs with after they think they've sealed an advantageous marriage.

The Picky Widow

Similarly having a widow who will only marry someone who reminds her of her deceased husband in a very specific manner could make for an interesting plot hook, especially if the widow is rich or otherwise a good catch. Could call for some interesting investigation.

Up next: The Elves

This one has two sub-stories, the famous one about the shoemaker and a more obscure one about a servant girl.

Fairy Tale 39: The Elves

This fairy tale includes a few stories about elves.

The first one is the story of the shoemaker. Elves make shoes for him at night and he sells them to buy ever more leather and becomes rich. One night he stays up to see who is making the shoes and sees naked little men. His wife says they should make clothes for them, which they do. They set out the tiny clothes and spy on the elves again the next night and the elves are happy to have the new clothes and leave and never come back.

In the second story a girl is called on to be a godmother for an elf child and sees all of the luxury in the hollow hills. After spending three days there she finds that a year has passed.

In the third a woman gets a changeling who is annoying. She makes it laugh by boiling water in eggshells (why is that funny?) because that breaks a changeling’s power and so the elves give her real child back.

Short little snippets rather than fully formed stories, what can we get from these ones?

The Passage of Time

One of noism’s blog posts at monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com provides rules for time passing at different speeds in different places. It’s determined randomly so three days in the elf king’s hall could be a month outside or a year or a century. That’s well worth stealing. The opposite happens in Narnia style overworld dimensions so that a lifetime in there could be a moment in the real world. Often in 3.5ed the characters would go from level 1 to 9 in just a few weeks of real time which we never really thought about, would be interesting to have NPCs react to PCs returning a few days later as grizzled veterans of world-shattering power when everyone remembers them as kids.

Neutrality Shouldn’t Be Boring

Neutrality shouldn’t be the most boring alignment but it often is in D&D. Here in fairy tales we often see neutrality as extreme reciprocity (give me a crust of bread and I’ll make you a king, be mildly rude and I’ll make you wish you were dead) which makes for interesting stories without having any real benevolent or malevolence to it. Here we see a different kind of neutrality: operating according to rules that have nothing to do with human morality. The shoemaker doesn’t do anything good to deserve elf helpers and he doesn’t do anything bad to the elves to make them desert him (he just makes them clothes), they just operate according to rules he doesn’t understand.

Good fairy tale-style elves should be bound by a thick weave of laws that players can use to their advantage if they figure them out. In fact, that really reminds me of something.

Free Men on the Elf King’s Land

Sovereign citizens and their fellow travellers are a fascinating bunch of nut bars who hold that the laws that everyone follows are invalid because of humans are technically boats, or capital letters don’t count, or tassels on flags make everything nautical or other crazy reasons. They believe that if you know how the law really works then you can legally not pay any money you don’t feel like. The really crazy part about all of this is their theory of how the government operates: the state is an evil illegitimate conspiracy that is deceiving the people but at the same time if you say the magic legalese words it’ll leave you alone and let you not pay taxes and drive without a license. That combination of malevolence and strict adherence to the letter of the law just doesn’t sound human. But you know what it does sound like? It sounds like elves.


Elves are governed by a long series of laws that they are incapable of breaking. They have no authority over roads. They are allowed to punish poachers. They must say “mayhaps” whenever attempting to deceive. They must ask permission to enter a dwelling. They cannot hard anyone whose food they have eaten. And on and on and on. Elves, no matter how malevolent they are and how much they hate you, must follow these rules. But they can twist them. They can send deer into your path in the hopes that you “poach” them, they can tempt you from the safe path and they can palm the food you offer them. But if you keep your wits about you and you know elven laws you will not be harmed.

What are some other good elven laws?

Up next: The Robber Bridegroom

Fairy Tale 40: The Robber Bridegroom

A princess is engaged to marry a prince and he keeps on bugging her to visit him in the forest and she keeps on making excuses. Eventually he ties ribbons to all of the trees along the way so she has no excuse about not being able to find her way.

When she gets there she finds an old woman who tells her that her fiance is a cannibal and that she should hide. She does and her fiance comes back with her grandmother who he butchers to each. While trying to get one of her rings off he ends up chopping off her finger which flies across the room to where the princess is hiding.

Later the princess sneaks home (following the ribbons on the trees again) and when her marriage comes around she tells the story of what happened to her as if it was a dream and then whips out the finger as proof. When that happens her fiance makes a break for it and gets arrested and executed.

Overall a good story, if a bit bare bones. IIRC this story gets fleshed out a bit in later editions so that the souls of the robber bridegroom's previous victims take the form of caged birds. This is another story with a very active princess as a protagonist which makes whining about how fairy tale princesses are too passive seem that much more annoying.

What can we get from this one?

The importance of paths

We've talked about this before but it bears repeating: unless you have a marked path or a supernatural guide you WILL get lost in a supernatural forest, no matter how good you are at woodcraft. The wild wood defies mapping.

Cannibalism again

Just what is the attraction of cannibalism in setting terms? If you're willing to go through all of the bother of setting up an engagement with a princess it seems rather inefficient to throw that away for a few pounds of meat. What kind of benefit of cannibalism could explain this in game terms.

Allies in the camp of the enemy

This reminds me a bit of the story of Baba Yaga in which the protagonist befriends EVERYTHING in Baga Yaga's house. There are a lot of similar stories in which the protagonist is saved due to the villain's mother or wife or what have you taking pity on them. Something important to mention in adventure design: just because someone lives with a villain doesn't mean they're automatically evil. Even in the home of the most vicious villain a clever PC has a chance to cultivate alliances.

Up next: Herr Korbes

Quote from: Daztur;908338Free Men on the Elf King's Land

Sovereign citizens and their fellow travellers are a fascinating bunch of nut bars who hold that the laws that everyone follows are invalid because of humans are technically boats, or capital letters don't count, or tassels on flags make everything nautical or other crazy reasons. They believe that if you know how the law really works then you can legally not pay any money you don't feel like. The really crazy part about all of this is their theory of how the government operates: the state is an evil illegitimate conspiracy that is deceiving the people but at the same time if you say the magic legalese words it'll leave you alone and let you not pay taxes and drive without a license. That combination of malevolence and strict adherence to the letter of the law just doesn't sound human. But you know what it does sound like? It sounds like elves.


Elves are governed by a long series of laws that they are incapable of breaking. They have no authority over roads. They are allowed to punish poachers. They must say "mayhaps" whenever attempting to deceive. They must ask permission to enter a dwelling. They cannot hard anyone whose food they have eaten. And on and on and on. Elves, no matter how malevolent they are and how much they hate you, must follow these rules. But they can twist them. They can send deer into your path in the hopes that you "poach" them, they can tempt you from the safe path and they can palm the food you offer them. But if you keep your wits about you and you know elven laws you will not be harmed.

What are some other good elven laws?

I like the sovereign citizen analogy for elflaw. I remember reading somewhere - I can't find it now - that seeing totalitarian regimes as rule-bound is incorrect, and their defining feature is actually their arbitrariness, not their strictness. By contrast, the reason that the sovereign citizen movement has some appeal is that our constitutional democracies frequently do look like they obey incoherent and irrational laws.

But just like sovereign citizens are far more interesting than governments, I find the humans who have to wrangle with elflaw far more interesting than the elves themselves. Perhaps a more fruitful question than "what are some elven laws?" is "how do humans live under elven law?"

Quote from: Sanglorian;908576I like the sovereign citizen analogy for elflaw. I remember reading somewhere - I can't find it now - that seeing totalitarian regimes as rule-bound is incorrect, and their defining feature is actually their arbitrariness, not their strictness. By contrast, the reason that the sovereign citizen movement has some appeal is that our constitutional democracies frequently do look like they obey incoherent and irrational laws.

But just like sovereign citizens are far more interesting than governments, I find the humans who have to wrangle with elflaw far more interesting than the elves themselves. Perhaps a more fruitful question than "what are some elven laws?" is "how do humans live under elven law?"

You're right about the behavior the laws inspire being more important than the laws themselves. Let me tell you about cows.

I run D&D with my students every so often and because I only have so much time I give them pregens. I've stocked these pregens with all kinds of equipment over the years but the most memorable item, above and beyond weird magic items, as been "a cow."

Have had them drive cows down hallways to check for traps, push them off ledges at ghouls, use them for cover while reloading crossbows and feed them to monsters to buy them time to escape. A cow itself isn't interesting but it can inspire interesting behavior.

Setting elements are like that too. It's more important for a setting to provide tools for the players to do interesting things with than for it to be interesting by itself.

For the Shrouded Land setting that we worked on a huge part of the setting was institutionalized rules lawyering around magical laws and curses which gave it a mad Alice in Wunderland feeling I like a lot. For this I'm not so sure that fits, would rather have a setting in which the players can figure out ways to rules lawyer rather than have a culture in which that's already baked in.

So I need laws that are like cows.

That means "big" enough to obviously impact people and with obvious uses and ways for both PCs and asshole elves to rules lawyer them without any one obvious course of action.

Looking at it this way "stay on the path" is a bad law since it doesn't give many ways for PCs to twist it you've just gotta stay on the path, no real room for creativity.

How about "those who steal the Elf King's water shall forfeit their soul." Elves can try to trick PCs into getting their pants wet in the Elf King's river and PCs can feed magic spring water to their dog (and recover it later) without having to worry because dogs don't have souls. Having organized dog caravans and businesses in place to get the dogs puke the water out and then strain it out from half-digested kibbles would be plenty weird (and perfect for The Shrouded Lands) but I would rather leave it open for the PCs to be the first to figure that out.

Let's see what else works like that:
-"They who rest their heads on the Elf King's land shall not awake for a thousand days and one." (PCs had better bring hammocks)
-"Elves may not bring the King's beasts to harm without his leave." (live rabbit shields?)
-"Elves may not refuse any request of one who bests them in battle." (rules lawyering about what constitutes a battleand standard genie wish trickery along with elves doing things like offering something minor in hopes that the human asks for not not knowing they can ask for anything)

As far as totalitarian states being more arbitrary and LESS strict about rules is really true. I can see that even in South Korea. I remember my wife telling me that of course the TSA would make an exception to the rule about bringing iquids through airport security because they were kiddie juice boxes and kids need to drink. She was really confused she couldn't talk her way out of it.

The weird mix of malevolence, dishonesty and law abiding that the Soveriegn Citizens seem to believe that the government engages in isn't human. It's not even Jean Valjean. He never tried to entrap people by decieving people about laws or tried to hide the real nature of the law.

Kind of reminds me of Anti-PKs in really old MMORPGs (bring back precasting!). They didn't want to be aggressors since the game would punish them for that so they'd do things like jump into other people's AoE spells so that the game would treat them as the victim. That kind of malevolence mixed with exploiting technicalities seems positively elvin.

Quote from: Daztur;908505Fairy Tale 40: The Robber Bridegroom

Love that one. My mom used to tell me one of its variants as a spooky story when I was a kid. One Halloween she came to my first-grade class and told it, creepy voices included, and all the other kids shit their pants. It was the best.


Elflaw taboos might mesh well with having jerky sorcerers in your setting. Magical rituals could involve breaking taboos, like gathering flowers on an elf-mound. Breaking a taboo is dangerous, but sorcerers need those flowers, so they kidnap innocent young folk to do the gathering for them.

Quote from: Dumpire;908669Love that one. My mom used to tell me one of its variants as a spooky story when I was a kid. One Halloween she came to my first-grade class and told it, creepy voices included, and all the other kids shit their pants. It was the best.


Elflaw taboos might mesh well with having jerky sorcerers in your setting. Magical rituals could involve breaking taboos, like gathering flowers on an elf-mound. Breaking a taboo is dangerous, but sorcerers need those flowers, so they kidnap innocent young folk to do the gathering for them.

Yeah, it's a good one. One thing that's not coming through in my summaries is just show bare bones the narration is in this first edition of the Grimm stories. The stereotypical fairy tale wordiness is completely absent.

Unlike in later editions in this version she doesn't mark her path by scattering seed that grow (which is a nice image), there are no bird cages  and for some reason the girl is a princess rather than a commoner. The "it's only a dream" gambit with the finger is the real centerpiece though and that stays throughout.

For the taboos one idea I had was that elves were the angels that stayed neutral when Satan revolted against God and were exiled to the Earth. They are bound to obey divine law but seek to weasel out of it to screw with people but divine law doesn't seem twisty enough for fairy tale elves.

Here's the stuff we've come across in the first 40 stories.

Fairy Tale Inventory

Magical Acts
-Turning people into frogs.
-Turning frogs into people by keeping your promises to said frogs.
-Taking living people to heaven.
-Spending 12 years not talking in order to break a curse.
-Making a cursed stream come out of the ground that causes people who drink it to turn into deer.
-Illusions that make someone look like someone else.
-Hugging a ghost to return it to life. Waving a sword over a ghost also seems to work.
-Crying healing blindness.
-Stoking people's temptations/making lettuce addictive?
-Getting strawberries in winter.
-Spitting gold coins whenever you talk.
-Making someone more beautiful/ugly.
-Blessing someone with marriage to a king.
-Cursing someone by making it so clothes don't warm them in winter.
-Cursing someone with a miserable death.
-Human ghosts possessing ducks.
-Preserving food etc. from the elements.
-Cause fear.
-Summoning birds, fish, etc. to help you and forming pacts with various species.
-Boot-based divination.
-Possessing a clothes-producing tree upon your death.
-Cursing your children so they turn into ravens.
-Using a person's ring to return them to their true shape.
-Eating someone's food to gain power over them.
-Using your finger bone to open doors.
-Establishing a threshold keeps out uninvited guests such as wolves.
-Making a circle of protection against evil vs. the devil and purifying self with tears.
-Successfully denying a bargain three times renders it null and void.
-Polymorph self.

Magical Creatures
-Many, many kinds of talking animals.
-Subterranean elf.
-Gardening elf in tower.
-Three little elves in a house in a forest who have winter strawberries.
-The Virgin Mary.
-God.
-Spectral(?) black cats and dogs.
-Guilty ghost.
-Cannibalistic witches.
-Animals possessed by human ghosts (usually birds).
-Wish-granting flounder.
-Unicorns that "damage fish."
-Stupid giant brothers.
-Giants that challenge people to contests of strength.
-Scary giant boars.
-Mother Holle, the avatar of frost and winter whose feather bed creatures snow when shaken out.
-Cannibalistic sun and moon.
-Glass mountain that is home to a dwarf and "lord ravens."
-Death the boatman to heaven and/or hell.
-Monstrous pigs.
-Little men of the forest.
-The Devil and his mom.
-Clever talking cats.
-Asshole lying goats.
-Shoemaking elves.
-Annoying changeling kids whose power can only be broken if you make them laugh.

Magical Items
-Vorpal knife.
-Key to the doors of heaven.
-Chimney that constantly drops skulls and other body parts.
-Annoying bed that runs around.
-Magical(?) scissors that let you cut things open without waking them up.
-Lilies that are actually your brothers so if you pick them your brothers turn to birds and stay that way unless you stop talking for 12 years.
-A white snake that if you eat it grants you the temporary ability to talk with animals.
-A singing bone that tells of its owner's murder when played.
-Food-producing table/tablecloth.
-Gold-shitting donkey.
-Club that hits you in the face.
-Bag of infinite soldiers.
-Cannonball-shooting hat.
-Horn of blasting.

Magical Locations
-Heaven and its many rooms.
-Harmless hats and dogs.
-Fairy's lettuce garden.
-Cookie house.
-The Tree of Life (which has apples).
-A well that takes you to a microcosm of the world were even tiny acts can have a big impact on the moral realm.
-Roads through the forest that protect you from wolves.
-River that divides the mortal realm from heaven/hell.
-Magic trees that heal you if you hug them.
-Mountains of gold and silver.
-Elven halls where time passes differently.

Trained Skills
-Iron heart-band installation and removal (necessary to prevent hearts from bursting with grief).
-Making your voice softer by eating chalk.
-Animal languages.
-Being nimble.

Misc Nifty Stuff
-Children being kidnapped at birth by the Virgin Mary and raised in Heaven.
-Kings constantly marrying mute girls they find in the forest.
-Serial disappearance of royal children at birth leading to accusations of cannibalism.
-Crazy kind saying that he'll kill his 12 sons if he has a daughter instead of a thirteenth son.
-Polymorphed creatures do not age.
-To break a spell you don't need to just kill someone, you need to kill them in a way that destroys their spirit.
-The palace-industrial complex.
-Lots of inhuman monsters want to eat people, perhaps to help give them the semblance of humanity.
-The threat of starvation as a way to kick off a sandbox campaign.
-Taking three (the third time you try something you get advantage if you failed the first two times and disadvantage if you succeeded the first two times). Also applies to stuff like three brothers trying the same thing.
-Ravens really really love horse meat.
-Saving throws vs. anguish.
-Failed suitors get executed.
-Lots of rings getting thrown into the ocean for some reason.
-Incredibly ornate crowns/thrones. For example a three-yard diamond crown or a two mile high throne.
-If you hide your humble origins from your wife she's try to get your in-laws to murder you in your sleep.
-Terrifyingly impressionable children.
-Judges using clever tests.
-Butchers being scary dudes.
-Deals with the Devil (he often tricks you into selling your kids).
-Girl walking around with her cut off hands slung over her back.
-Idiot NPCs who take everything literally and NPCs so stupid that they can be tricked into believing that they're not themselves.
-Passing as noble is difficult as you will be tested.
-Widow who only wants to marry someone who is similar to her husband in seemingly arbitrary ways.
-Cannibal robbers.
-There is always someone kindhearted in the camp of even the greatest villain. Always.

Fairy Tale 41: Herr Korbes

A rooster makes a wagon that's pulled by mice and gives a cat a lift. Same goes for a millstone, egg, duck, pin and needle.

They go to Herr Korbes house where the cat throws ashes in his face, the duck splashes water in his face, the egg breaks itself in his eyes, the pin and needle prick him and the millstone crushes his head.

Seems like a rather pointless little story, more of a convoluted "...walk into the bar" joke more than anything.

The only thing I can really get out of this one is that a lot of the small scale fairy tale magic of the "I summon a fish!" variety can be really useful if applied correctly. Summoning spells often get used as more disposable cannon fodder than anything (perhaps because of the short duration?) but they can be incredibly useful if applied correctly.

Up next: the Godfather

Quote from: Daztur;908805For the taboos one idea I had was that elves were the angels that stayed neutral when Satan revolted against God and were exiled to the Earth. They are bound to obey divine law but seek to weasel out of it to screw with people but divine law doesn't seem twisty enough for fairy tale elves.

Divine law could be pretty twisty! When you think of how weird some depictions of angels are, and how arbitrary parts of angelic and godlike behaviour are ...

Alternatively, the elves could be enforcing their memory of divine law, which over all these thousands of years could be looking pretty sketchy - full of mondegreens and anachronisms and mispellings. See for example the (unlikely) theory that the Qur'an is not written in Arabic at all, but in Syro-Aramaic, and people coming across it then tried to read it as if it were Arabic, and that explains its confusing elements. Perhaps the elves' records of divine law are written in a language related to, but not, Elfish, and it's one that elves don't speak.

Especially twisty if you don't have an elf-calendar handy. No eating unleavened bread during elf-Passover, no working during the elf-Sabbath, etc.

Now you guys are making me want to break out Leviticus and write up all of the more obscure laws for the elves to enforce. That would fit with these fairy tales being far more explicitly Christian than modern versions but then they never do give a crap about the ins and outs of theology (for example, IIRC there is never any mention of Protestants vs. Catholics).

This would net us weirdly Jewish elves, which I can never recall seeing before. Hell, even dwarves are very rarely Jewish these days, Tolkien's were very obviously based on Jewish stereotypes with a Norse coat of paint but that almost never comes through in modern versions of dwarves, not even vaguely.

Of course these elves would be very very different from actual Jewish people in that they don't care about or respect divine law at all, they're just bound by it and looking for ways to weasel out of it to screw over people.

Simplest way would be to break out the Ten Commandments and have them mess with people who take the lord's name in vain as people tend to actually know what those are.

Quote from: Daztur;908338Fairy Tale 39: The Elves

This fairy tale includes a few stories about elves.

The first one is the story of the shoemaker. Elves make shoes for him at night and he sells them to buy ever more leather and becomes rich. One night he stays up to see who is making the shoes and sees naked little men. His wife says they should make clothes for them, which they do. They set out the tiny clothes and spy on the elves again the next night and the elves are happy to have the new clothes and leave and never come back.

The shoemaker doesn't do anything good to deserve elf helpers and he doesn't do anything bad to the elves to make them desert him (he just makes them clothes), they just operate according to rules he doesn't understand.

While your conclusions are interesting and worth exploring, I'm afraid the reason isn't hidden in obscure sets of laws.
It's in all likelihood just a precaution not to treat your hired help too nicely, lest they leave when they get everything they wanted in the first place;).

Quote from: Daztur;909467Now you guys are making me want to break out Leviticus and write up all of the more obscure laws for the elves to enforce. That would fit with these fairy tales being far more explicitly Christian than modern versions but then they never do give a crap about the ins and outs of theology (for example, IIRC there is never any mention of Protestants vs. Catholics).

Not a bad idea at all:D!

Wow! Just finished reading through the thread, there's some really great stuff in here!