Fey from other cultures

[fusangite]

What about the tanuki or the kappa?

Fill me in. My co-GM did the Japan section.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Removed

 

[Nyeshet]

The Tanuki are raccoon-ish creatures that can shape change. Not too dissimilar from the fox people, perhaps you could refer to them as the raccoon people.

The Kappa are a turtle like humanoid creature with a cup like hollow on the top of its head. While full of water its strength was greater than any man' but while empty it was as weak as a child. Needless to say, it was often found in or near water. Sort of a turtle people (even had a shell on its back, as I recall).

Tengu are sort of bird people / oni.

There is a term for the fox people (the Japanese term for fox, actually), but I forget it at the moment.

 

[Lord Liaden]

What about the tanuki or the kappa?

These are reasonably detailed online descriptions for those creatures:

Tanuki

Kappa

If you're interested in info on creatures from Asian myth and folklore that's geared to gamers, I suggest checking out the two-volume HERO System Asian Bestiary. It's thoroughly researched from legitimate sources on the cultures dealt with, and includes illustrations for all the creatures (albeit only black and white). Even ignoring HERO game stats there's still a ton of usable material on these beasties, many of which have never even been heard of by most Westerners.

Volume I covers China, India, Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Thailand and Viet Nam. (Note the free PDF sample from the book.) Volume II deals with Japan, the Phillipines, Burma, Malaysia, Korea and Tibet.

 

[Nuclear Platypus]

What he said but here's some more info.

Tanuki tend to have a tendency to play pranks which can be harmless or downright malicious as well. Whenever they'd cast a spell, leaves ended up as a side effect like Hachi (Miroku the monk's friend) from InuYasha and in Super Mario 3, especially when you get the Raccoon Tail and possibly when you turn into a statue with the Tanuki Suit (its been awhile since I played it). There's another um... interesting tidbit about tanuki's 'drums' that you have to see / read to believe. Tanuki entry

Kappa also had a weakness / fondness for cucumber. Make it an offering and they'll let you live, at least according to an Usagi Yojimbo comic (Stan Sakai tends towards realism as best as possible). This is also backed up by the wikipedia entry, which makes them sound like the various faerie folk. Kappa entry

Tengu had at least 2 'strains', which may have been different forms of the same critter. One was the bird people (karasu tengu) that sometimes carried the ring topped staff (shakujo like what Miroku carries) to fight with or ward off evil while the other common form was a red faced big nosed fellow (mountain tengu / yamabushi tengu) who often carried a bo staff or a large mallet. Reputedly master swordsmen, they might train warriors or even craft superior weapons as well. Tengu entry

There is a term for the fox people (the Japanese term for fox, actually), but I forget it at the moment.

Kitsune = fox. Also excellent at shapeshifting and some might gain more tails the longer they're alive up to nine. Again with InuYasha is Shippo, the young fox demon, who's ok at shapeshifting due to his age but often keeps his tail in his new shape. Kitsune entry

Actually it seems like all 4 tend towards pranks. See also obake and yokai.

 

[green slime]

As to the etymology of Faerie, I am indeed aware that popular scholarship is still catching up to a debate that remains very live in the academic world. The Peri example is nevertheless taught by a number of medievalists (e.g. Sheila Delany), whose arguments I have found persuasive. Here is a precis of why they disagree with the conventional theory of the etymology:
1. The fatum association is not one that one sees gradually emerge in literature. English literature of faeries never uses the term fatum to refer to these creatures. Instead, the authority on which the fatum theory rests is based on taking medieval etymologists at their word when they assert how the word came into being. But fictive etymology was a standard part of medieval scholarship; if we treated the word "Briton" the way we treat "faerie" etymologically, we would be asserting that it came from Brutus, the Trojan founder of England. So, I find it highly problematic to take medieval etymologists at their word on this word when scholarship has disproven them on so many others.
2. The term that was in use in England before "faerie" is "aelf." Faerie appears in the high medieval or late medieval period out of the blue to refer to creatures who were elves a century or two before. This suggests that the term was a sudden import and not the gradual modification of an existing word. Now, genshou's point also has merit; the Anglo-Norman period in England was one in which French loan words were imported into English on a fairly large scale.
3. Many scholars of literature of the Scholastic Renaissance in England and France are seriously reappraising the extent of Islamic influence on literature in the period. Both the grail romances and Chaucer's works are now undestood to be surprisingly direct importations of Sufic allegorical literature. Given that the influence of Islamic thought on literature is being seriously reappraised at the moment, it seems an equally reasonable time to reassess the arrival of terms from the Islamic world.

While my view has yet to command majority support in the academic community, it is my expectation that, given the West's new interest in Islam, this may change in the next few decades as people continue the work of looking more closely at cultural exchange in the High Middle Ages.

I agree to a certain extent that this theory about the origins of the word "faerie" may be correct. Nevertheless, the concept is older than the lending/borrowing of this word. You yourself point out the "existance" of the "aelf" prior to "faerie".

As to their reduction in size, I can quite easily see this in connection with an expanding human population, reducing the potential places for these mythical beings to be hidden, so that the creatures are required to be smaller. Until you end up with faeries the size of tinkerbell, and can basically hide in your pocket.

 

[Zander]

Zander... As Fusangite pointed out, he had asked for Judean fey, not for Jewish fey, though I'm a bit uncertain as to the difference. Wouldn't the Talmud be considered both Judean and Jewish?

Judean is of the area that now corresponds to Israel & Palestine. In practical terms, all Judean folkloric beings that we know of are from the Jewish tradition. However, because Jews migrated all over the Middle East, Europe and North Africa, there can be mythical creatures that are from Jewish culture without being Judean. In other words, Judean is a subset of Jewish.

And yes, I'd love to learn what books/resources you've used!

I highly recommend Carol Rose's Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes and Goblins: An Encyclopedia of the Little People. Not only does it describe hundreds of folkloric/mythical creatures, it also has indexes sorting them by culture of origin, habitat etc. It's out of print, but used copies are easily found online.

She has also written Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns and Goblins: An Encyclopedia which is in print. But I haven't seen it so I can't vouch for it.

 

[Steverooo]

Fey

The Greco-Roman "Genius Loci" always seemed like fey, to me, and I'd call that "Hellenistic". It also agrees well with the Japanese Kami, such as the YamaKami (Mountain Spirit, such as Tolkien's Caradhras). Note, here, that "The Spirit of a Place", while usually a natural place, could also be a place like a hearth, as well...

Kappa also had another weakness... By formally bowing to them, before a battle, one could usually get them to bow back, thus emptying the water from their head!

Here's another couple of resources:

Bastion Press' Complete Minions has stats on the Foxwoman (as a Magical Beast (Shapeshifter), though), as well as the Deep Fey & tiny Nagley (the Mistji and True Mistji (and perhaps some other fey that I'm not recalling) must be in the Faeries book you already have), as well as a "Blessed Ring", which is very similar to the Faerie Ring, but once you lie down inside it for five minutes or more, quickly grows up around you, and seals you in. Five minutes later, if anything inside it is Evil, it begins to dissolve you all. Otherwise, it protects you for the next eight hours, opening in the morning to let you out.

The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatureshttp://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007208731/701-1698583-1209148, 704 pages in paperback, order # AV0532, $24.95. It covers a lot of other stuff, as well, but also faeries, banshees, mermen, chinese dragons, and something called a lampaluguas.

The Great Encyclopedia of Faeries, 184 pages, hardback, order # AU7122, $26.00. "Faeries protect forests, animals, and children, appear in the folklore of virtually every country on the planet, and are comprehensively cataloged in this gloriously illustrated volume. The customs, habitat, and activities are magically revealed in this..."

Both of the latter are available from: What on Earth, 5581 Hudson Industrial Parkway PO Box 2599 Hudson, OH 44236-0099, if you'd like to order any of them. I don't have either book, so can't rate how good or bad they may be. The first is by John somebody-or-other Matthews, whose name I can't make out. The second is by Pierre Dubois, if that's any help...

Brian Froud also has quite a few books, all available on Amazon (as are some of the above):

Good Faeries, Bad Faeries, and
Faeries, 25th Anniversary edition, just for two.

 

[Dragonbait]

Fill me in. My co-GM did the Japan section.

The tanuki, kappa, tengu, and kitsune are just the starting point. There is a huge amount of fey-like creatures al over Asia. In Japan they were typically all kami, a word that would mean spirit but can refer to the gods too. Check out Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke for modern examples of this (they had a radish kami, luck kami that looked like giant chicks, frog kami, stench kami, river kami, and so on). Cultures with animism have a huge assortment of nature-spirits and their ilk, which D&D often classifies as fey. I wish I knew more about the fey of other Asian countries, but I don't. I know that Korea has their version of oni (sometimes translated as ogres, but demons can work too. They are not all evil) and talking tigers.

I appreciate that they added the Spirit sub-type in OA. It allows for some more accurate (D&D-wise) interpritations of fey-like creatures. Some things that have been classified as faeries in other non-gaming sources might not use the Faerie stats in D&D. The Woman in White (undead), many giants from mythology, fey hounds (magical beasts?), and so on.

 

[Quickleaf]

I have a ton of available resources, if you'd like help coming up with useful stats. I'd be happy to supply info if Boz (or his avatar!) does stats. Heh.
RC

Thanks Raven! That's very generous of you (and the volunteered Boz)!

Currently I'm trying to stat up a peri, basing her off of a nymph with the swanmay template and a few home-made special abilities. Here's what I know:

* Were once malevolent but has mass conversion to good...What caused such a dramatic change in their society's conception of virtue?
* Peris ruled the earth thousands of years before coming of humanity...What did they do during that time?
* All the stories involve female peris marrying human men...Are the stories inaccurate/biased? Are there lots of pissed male peris? Why are female peris so dissatisfied with lovers of their own species?
* They serve a monarch named Gyan...All of them? In principle or practice?
* They’re spirit guides who represent the emotional soul of men. They free a man from his desires so that he may strive toward enlightenment...How do they free a man from desire? By sex? Love? Abandonment? Wish fulfillment? Does every body have a peri as spirit guide? Only men? Only those in need?
* When you lose an object you make a knot and say, “I have barred the way to the daughter of the king of the peries.”...Do knots act as a ward against peries? Is the daughter of the peri king a notorious thief?
* They have a weakness for fragrances, which the deevs use to lure them into captivity. Is this a sign of vanity? An old trait from their evil days? An association with air or the celestial?

Here's one of the abilities I'm working out for peris:

Poetic Glamour:One who looks upon a peri’s native form is unable to describe it in any way save through poetry. To accurately convey any details about the peri to another they must succeed on a Perform (poetry) check. The DC is equal to 10 + the peri’s HD/level.
The results depend on the degree of success or failure:
Fails by 5+: Your poetry is an insult not only to the peri, but possibly the person listening to you as well. They might think you are deriding their own appearance, or perhaps insinuating rumors about their wife’s fidelity, or insulting their daughter’s beauty. You convey some piece of misinformation about the peri, or no information at all.
Fails by less than 5: You cannot do the peri’s beauty justice. You get tongue-tied, your poetry is nonsense, you resort to metaphor and exaggeration that no one could understand. Alternately, no one takes you seriously. You cannot convey information about the peri to others.
Succeeds by less than 5: Your poetry manages to hold a candle to the peri’s flame. You may relate basic facts that you know or believe about the peri. Should you speak ill of the peri, no one seems to remember what you say, or else won’t take action on it. However, if you speak well of the peri, what you say is always exaggerated. Anyone listening is intrigued, though the superstitious remain so.
Succeeds by 5+: You weave a poem of such beauty that the lamp of bliss is lit in the heart of your listeners. You can relate any facts about the peri you wish, though only in portraying the peri in a positive light. Even if you intend to speak ill of the peri, everyone around you (even those normally suspicious of such beings) interprets what you’re saying in the most positive way.

I highly recommend Carol Rose's Spirits, Fairies, Gnomes and Goblins: An Encyclopedia of the Little People. Not only does it describe hundreds of folkloric/mythical creatures, it also has indexes sorting them by culture of origin, habitat etc. It's out of print, but used copies are easily found online.

Thanks, I'll check Rose's book out, though I admit the title sounds like it's the standard European fey she discusses.