Gargamel vs. the Smurfs

[VirgilCaine]

When Gargamel made Smurfette she had black hair and was evil. she was going to lead Gargmel to the village. Instead the smurfs were so nice to her she betrayed Gargmel and Papa Smurf turned her into a real smurf.

Naturally, the good hair color is blonde. Whoohoo. Another victory for Hitler.

I Godwinned the Smurf thread! Whoohoo!

[Blondes are overrated.]

And yes, this thread is scary. But the fun part is to twist and transmute The Smurfs into something the players will never recognize. And then tell them where you got it.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Then be sure not to check out the game "Fairy Meat". It's all the worst parts of this thread rolled into a vicious miniature wargame.

Aww yeah I'm familiar with FM. Stayin' away, thanks very much!

 

[StupidSmurf]

Naturally, the good hair color is blonde. Whoohoo. Another victory for Hitler.

I Godwinned the Smurf thread! Whoohoo!

[Blondes are overrated.]

And yes, this thread is scary. But the fun part is to twist and transmute The Smurfs into something the players will never recognize. And then tell them where you got it.

Niiiiiiiice!
I agree about the overrated bit, btw!

 

[Gez]

What's the link between smurfs and svirfs(neblin)? The names are too similar to be a coincidence. Except that the smurfs are actually "le schtroumpfs".

Red herring. Peyo named the "schtroumpfs" after... Strumpf (pronounced "shtroompf"), the German word for socks. Why socks? Well, just look at their hats.

Svirfneblins are named after some construction from svart (black) and nebelung (gnome). You know, like in "Das Ring der Nebelungen," Wagner's opera. So they're "dark gnomes".

Anyway, the Schtroumpfs were renamed Smurf for the Anglosaxon market, because the original name was deemed much too complicated... I would feel insulted if I were you!

To dispel a confusion, Gargamel (who himself took his name from... a female Giant, Gargamelle, the mother of Gargantua in Rabelais' story) is indeed looking for smurfs to create gold, but the smurfs aren't to be turned to gold. Instead, they need to be dissolved in a foul potion that allows to create the Philosopher's stone, and once this smurfy potion is brewed and the philosopher stone is created, Gargamel could turn any metal into gold.

Then, after having been thwarted several times, he's out for revenge more than for wealth.


Finally, the black-haired Smurfette wasn't evil. She was just ugly and clumsy by Smurf standards, and the other Smurfs were so mean with her she contemplated suicide.

Then Papa Smurf has just changed her look so that the other Smurfs would no longer mock her. He didn't change her personality.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm still working out the details of the fairygold spell (see the House Rules forum for more), so the Gargamel/Tabriz-Umon analogue's level won't be finalized until then, but here's the character write-up so far. As Monte Cook's Kem appears to me to be an analogue for Stygia (down to its name, which resembles Kemet, the name for ancient Egypt, which was in turn the inspiration for REH's Stygia), I went with a Conan villain-style name (which also harkens back to Kobolds Ate My Baby and Tabriz-Umon).

I use the Seven Sentence NPC system from that long-ago Dragon magazine.

Khenemet-Apep, Wizard of Green Mountain
Male Neutral Evil human wizard

Khenemet-Apep, the Wizard of Green Mountain, is a Kemite adventurer who has lived in a tower on the slopes of the mountain for approximately a decade. He is a balding thin man in his early 40s with olive skin, greasy black hair and a pronounced stoop. He tends to wear threadbare black robes. Despite his somewhat bookish appearance, he is a man of action, who knows his way around the Prustan Peninsula (Knowledge: Geography) and is an experienced dungeoneer (Knowledge: Dungeoneering). Although Khenemet-Apep is quite intelligent, he has a somewhat repellent personality (Charisma 8) and rarely associates with other adventurers, preferring to hire Green Mountain Kobolds to work for him instead.

Surprisingly, Khenemet-Apep and Baron Midwood get along well, with their common status as Redhurst Academy alumni bridging differences in personality and class, although the Wizard of Green Mountain takes a great deal of care not to disclose much of his business to the kindly baron.

Khenemet-Apep seeks magical knowledge from ancient Kem, and to get it, he needs both money for kobold mercenaries and magical items to protect him during his explorations. Having stumbled on the fairygold spell during a previous exploration of an ancient Kemite ruin, he came to the Tulgey Wood to hunt the native fey a decade ago. To date, he has only been modestly successful, and is likely to find things getting harder for him, now that the worshippers of Valarian have discovered what he is up to.

He is an expert on the northern ruins of Kem and knows a great deal of the region’s ancient history. Khenemet-Apep also has become something of an expert on the fey and can also pick his way through a kobold theological debate better than anyone in the barony.

When excited, he tends to cackle nasally and stroke his mangy Siamese cat familiar, Iblis.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Have you read 'The Wee Free Men' by Terry Pratchett?
The Nac Mac Feegle remind me of smurfs; strong,
violent, barbarian smurfs.

It could give you some ideas for 'D&Difying' smurfs.

Geoff.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Have you read 'The Wee Free Men' by Terry Pratchett?
The Nac Mac Feegle remind me of smurfs; strong,
violent, barbarian smurfs.

It could give you some ideas for 'D&Difying' smurfs.

Geoff.

Mel Gibson IS...Smurfheart. "They can take our lives but they cannot take away our smurf berries!"

 

[Staffan]

Khenemet-Apep, Wizard of Green Mountain

I can't see this name without thinking of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I can't see this name without thinking of the Warlock of Firetop Mountain.

I will absolutely concede that the early Fighting Fantasy novels are an influence on me, especially in tone.

 

[Hairfoot]

Red herring...

Thanks for that. I wondered if the svirfs were a cunning cartoon-culture reference. Seems not.