RPG Evolution: Special Delivery

The third valley that Dot and Tot of L. Frank Baum's titular novel pass through is specifically for babies, populated by storks. Here, children grow from blossoms on trees, tended to by giant talking white storks with black-splashed wings who bottle-feed their charges from a central fountain of milk.

The gentlest of the valleys, Dot and Tot stay long enough to observe the baby blossoms falling to the ground, storks feeding the babies, and then the babies leaving the valley atop their stork mounts for greeener pastures. That's it. There are, of course, a lot of unanswered questions and so many things that can go wrong.

The Stork/Baby Myth

The core of the stork/baby folklore is most firmly established itself in northern Europe, specifically Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. In medieval times, pagan couples traditionally wed during the summer solstice because summer was heavily associated with fertility. Coincidentally, migratory European white storks would leave for Africa around that exact same time. When the storks returned to northern Europe to nest and have their own chicks the following spring, it was exactly nine months later—coinciding with the wave of human babies born from those summer weddings. Because the birds arrived simultaneously with the newborns, they naturally became the heralds of new life.

In traditional European peasant cultures, childbirth was accompanied by extreme superstitions. During labor, a house would be sealed up, and older children were ushered outside to protect the family from supernatural entities. When birth was complete and the children were allowed back inside, parents needed a wholesome, immediate explanation for where the new infant suddenly came from. Because white storks naturally favor nesting on high poles, rooftops, and the chimneys of human homes, parents pointed upward. The chimney was the only open entry point to the sealed house, leading to the popular bedtime story that the friendly rooftop stork had dropped the infant down the flue.

But the true ur-text of storks bringing babies home was codified in 1838 by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (author of the original Little Mermaid) when he published The Storks. Like most earlier fairy tales, this story has a dark edge to it.

We're All Named Peter Here

The story opens on a stork family—a mother, a father, and four fledglings with un-ripened black beaks—nesting on the roof of a village house. A group of village boys gathers in the street below to mock the birds. Led by a particularly cruel boy, they sing a rhythmic chant taunting the young storks, promising that they will be captured, hanged, shot, and roasted alive. While three of the fledglings tremble in terror, a kind boy named Peter refuses to join in, stating that it is a sin to tease animals.

As the fledglings grow, learn to fly, and prepare for their autumn migration, their fear hardens into an obsessive desire for vengeance against their bullies. The mother stork reassures them that revenge is coming. She explains the hidden economy of her species: all human babies sleep in a magical pond until storks pluck them out to deliver them to families. She uses this delivery power to orchestrate a calculated retaliation against the children based exactly on how they treated her nest.

When migration day arrives, the stork family executes their plot before flying south. For the cruel ringleader, the storks fly to the pond and locate a stillborn baby. They deliver the corpse directly to the bully's house, ensuring his family is plunged into grief as punishment for his cruelty. For the bullies who sang the hateful song, the storks deliver nothing. For the kind boy, Peter, the storks deliver a healthy baby brother and a baby sister to his household. Because of his kindness, the young storks rename their entire species' lineage after him, vowing to call all future storks "Peter."

Attack of the Clones

Baum's baby-blossom tree is another version of the baby-making pond in Andersen's story. And in that regard they can be seen as cloning factories, creating babies whom are later ferried to deserving parents ... or punishing those who cross the storks. Given that the storks work for Queen Dolly, herself a construct nightmare willing to turn children into dolls, the Queen of Merryland's influence extends considerably further than just the seven valleys. In that regard, who gets a cloned-child and who doesn't becomes a crucial factor in populating other realms:

"Do you suppose," asked Dot, "that I lived here once, when I was a baby?"

"Probably," answered the bird. "But, of course, I cannot remember all the babies, especially after they grow big."

"Oh, of course not," exclaimed the girl.

"Course not," said Tot; "too many of 'em."

It is entirely possible, depending on the PC's origin, that they might originally be from here. Tieflings in my campaign are fey/fiendish hybrids, cultivated from the raw material of baby-blossoms and then grown rapidly elsewhere. Similarly, I envisioned entire armies populated by agreements with Queen Dolly, who can replenish a decimated kingdom's population -- or ruin it with a simple wave of her wand.

The Final Delivery

On the surface, storks carrying babies to their expectant parents seems like a sweet if somewhat naieve fairy tale told to children. But beneath the quaint story is something far more blood-curdling: the ever-present risk of infant mortality, determined by the storks themselves. It's a dark tale with a chilling moral: be nice to animals. Your family's future might depend on it.

Your Turn: How do you handle magical cloning in your campaign?