Chapter 49: Bonus lore chapter: IRL lore origins.

-Inter-relation of Elves, Gnomes, and Dwarves.

This is probably the head-scratcher from the latest proper lore chapter that has a lot of people wondering. However, there is an actual proper reason why I decided to go with all of this, because in fact the three races have all actually been confused as the same species as one another at some point during their origin. As such, I have made all three of them related to one another for the purpose of the lore of this world.

The origins of the three races is a little convoluted. These three terms are all based on the German language, but Gnomes and Dwarves both have their original origins elsewhere. The reason behind my linking Gnomes and Dwarves actually is reflected in the complex history with these three races.

Dwarves originally come from Norse mythology, and are supernatural beings of incredible power that rivals the gods. In some Norse legends, four dwarves named after the four cardinal directions are even said to hold up the sky. They are most closely associated with metal smithing and metal work, and are said to have incredible abilities in that field. The dwarves were even the ones who created the most powerful weapon of the gods, Thor’s hammer Mjolnir which was crafted from the heart of a collapsed star.

There are also some norse legends that talk about Elves. However, upon closer examination of these stories about Elves, you quickly realize they are described as appearing like and doing the exact same things as the Dwarves. From this, it becomes clear that the Elves and Dwarves described in Norse mythology are actually referring to the exact same entities and are just called different names in different tellings of the legends.

The reason for Elves and Dwarves being mistaken as the same creatures likely stems from the Scandinavian countries being close to Germany geographically. While the German version of the dwarves are short and stocky with long beards, the Norse version of the dwarves are, in fact, tall slender and powerful, far more closely resembling the German Elves than the German Dwarves.

Now, as for where Gnomes come into all of this, they actually come from Renaissance Magic, a revival of the occult during the renaissance era primarily out of Italy. Gnomes were said to be earth spirits that could move through solid ground as easily as a human could move through air, and were described as “two spans high” (Span = the distance between the tip of a grown man’s thumb to the tip of the pinky if the fingers are spread as far as they will go.) Similarly, when this concept of a Gnome came to Germany, it got wrapped up in the German concept of the Dwarf and the two got confused with one another.

As such, the reason for the inter-relation of Elves, Dwarves, and Gnomes in the lore of this story is put there to reflect how these three races had very close relations with one another in their origins to the point of frequently being confused for one another.

The three races have been generally described here, but this only explains why I decided to have the three races be related in this way for the purpose of this lore. My gnomes and dwarves though, while being closer to their original lore than the Tolkien-based D&D universe has them, are harshly nerfed compared to the original lore. (Or, maybe not. This is a cultivation world after all, their original lore could just describe those at the highest levels of their cultivation.)

So, each race will also deserve to have a deeper dive taken into each one of them.

-Elves

The Elves are the only one of the three races that actually have their original origin in German lore. They are very closely associated with Faeries, and said to be supernatural beings of great power. Elves in German lore would often help or hinder humans in several ways.

One of the frequent ways they were said to harm humans was by kidnapping children who wandered into the woods. Although, there is some question as to whether or not this was actually a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the parents as the elves were also said to treat the kidnapped children well and said to have a great love and desire for human children. It’s likely that thinking their missing children were kidnapped by elves would be better than the possible alternatives.

There are several legends about faeries and elves alike that say that if you eat any food that they offer you, you will be forever unable to leave their realm. It is difficult to track the particular origin of this take on the legend though as it is common to German, English, and Irish faery lore, and is said to be a trait of both faeries and elves.

Elves have always been portrayed as tall and slender human-height beings, with Santa’s elves being an anomaly and a relatively new and non-traditional portrayal of Elves as of the early 20th century. The model of Elves most famous today comes from J.R.R Tolkein, and then from Dungeons and Dragons which heavily based its lore on the works of Tolkien.

-Dark Elves

Dark Elves are actually a concept that also originated from Norse mythology. While for the most part, Elves and Dwarves were more or less described as having all the exact same characteristics and had the exact same feats attributed to them, indicating it was most certainly just a regional difference between the two telling of the story, there is one difference among those who called them Elves instead of Dwarves. They were, in fact, described as dark-skinned, and often called “Dark Elves.”

It is likely that the Norse “Dark Elves” That were the same as their Dwarves came from an intermingling with German lore about Elves. However, German Elves are always described as fair-skinned. This is a likely origin of why portrayals of Dark Elves often have them being more powerful than the light skinned elves.

The name “Dark Elves” has something of a slightly sinister connotation to it to begin with, but the fact that they became something that was considered outright evil likely came from Tolkien once again. Tolkien’s Orcs were corrupted and mutated Elves that were kept underground and turned into bestial blood-thirsty murder machines. Dungeons and Dragons would later separate the concept of the Orc off into its own race unrelated to the Elves, but instead they re-applied the term “Dark Elf” and gave these dark elves almost the exact same origin as Tolkien’s Orcs.

One of the biggest differences between Tolkien’s Orcs and the D&D dark elves, aside from gaining back their gracefulness, is that D&D dark elves have powerful magic which surpasses that of the surface Elves. This is likely a stronger reflection of the Dark Elf’s origin in Norse mythology. (Of course, as a mechanic for game balance, the dark elf’s magic is also spoiled by sunlight.)

-Sun Dwarves, Dark dwarves, and Duergar

The second edition of Dungeons and Dragons had a concept of sub-races of dwarves, some being mountain dwarves, some being surface dwarves. The D&D 2nd eddition surface dwarves were described in terms that made them sound almost exactly like the D&D halflings, which was their coppyright-safe version of Tolkein’s Hobbits (since Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs were names taken from earlier mythologies and thus free use, but Hobbits are a race entirely invented by Tolkien and thus his intellectual property.)

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Sun dwarves and dark dwarves are a concept that is simply easier for readers to recognize the meaning of. Duergar is a bit more of a complicated example though. These are another one of the sub-races of dwarves introduced originally in 2nd edition D&D, and unlike the surface dwarves the duergar are a sub-race that persisted. Duergar, as opposed to regular mountain/cave dwarves (the version most associated with the image of the modern fantasy Dwarf,) Duergar were a sub-race of dwarf said to live so deep under the ground that they were never seen by humans and were rarely even seen by the regular mining dwarves who never dug down that extremely deep.

Duergar are likely the inspiration of someone on the TSR (creators of D&D) staff who took a second look at the norse origins of the Dwarves and noticed the confusion between the dark elves and the dwarves representing the same people, and likely asked why it was that the dark elves skin was dark, but dwarves were portrayed as white skinned like the German version. And, subsequently made a version of the Dwarves more similar to the dark elves.

The different versions of the better known dwarves are justified through the original German lore as well. Just like the dark elf - dwarf confusion in the Norse mythology, German folk lore about Dwarves also has two completely different versions of the dwarf depending on who you ask. Some versions describe them as having long bushy beards, and others describe them as being child-like and easily mistaken for a human child. Thus, for the sake of the lore in this world, the version of the dwarf that’s easily mistaken for a child have been turned into this world’s equivalent of hobbits and called “sun dwarves,” while the ones with bushy beards have been put up in their mines and called “dark dwarves.”

-Gnomes

Gnomes are likely the race with the least alternate versions, but the most twists and turns in their history. As described earlier on why they are on the same family tree in this lore as Elves and Dwarves, this is because they were combined with the German dwarves in their legends soon after they came to Germany and stopped being high-power earth spirits.

Later, when TSR got ahold of them and put them into their Dungeons and Dragons game, they essentially became slender versions of the Dwarves that specialized in magic, also featuring pointed ears as though they were short elves.

This concept of short elves with powerful magic has appeared before this in the real world though in the form of Santa’s elves. I have decided for the purpose of this lore, it was the Gnomes that had their name mistaken with the elves that created the concept of Santa’s elves back on Earth.

-Fey Dragons

The fey dragons are actually a product of some relatively recent lore. They come from the Fairy Dragons from Dungeons and Dragons. D&D Fairy dragons are based on western dragons, having butterfly wings instead of standard dragon’s wings. The origin of the fey dragons used here are a simple matter of me having taken this concept, not liking the portrayal of these little pixy like dragonoids with butterfly wings, and then using something I felt was more appropriate.

So, the fey version of any creature is supposed to be more powerful than their god-born counterpart. So, the fey dragons had to be more powerful than the normal dragons somehow. IRL, there are 3 major portrayals of dragons, Eastern Dragons, Western Dragons, and then the winged serpents of South America. I felt that winged serpents not only fit the definition of a more powerful form of dragon, since the South American winged serpents were all literal gods, but they actually were the closest of the 3 legends to the original lore about dragons back before they delineated into these 3 major models.

The original dragon lore was literally an amalgamation of everything that was dangerous to a human, basically they were mythical creatures that encompassed everything humans feared. Snakes are natural enemies of humans, so back before we evolved to walk across the ground we climbed trees to get away from things like that. But, what if the snakes could fly? Eventually, they were given the trait of fire breathing too.

As such, I felt South America’s winged serpents had to be used as my model of dragons at some point. I still did not like the idea of fairy or butterfly wings, so I gave the fey dragons shiny bird-feathered wings.

-Fey in general

I have had a hard time tracking down the actual origins of the term “fey,” but I have heard it in literature enough to know it applies to “fairy folk,” basically any creature associated with faeries. This includes all mythical creatures of the forest that are not portrayed as monsters, elves being included on the list.

-Human hybrid fey

IRL lore is absolutely littered with stories about human-hybrid creatures, and some of them, fauns, satyr, and arla-une in particular, are generally regarded as fey. So, in order to accommodate the concept of fauns and satyrs as fey, I wound up having to expand the definition to include all mythical human hybrids, including several that were actually from Greek and Egyptian lore. (I made the decision to exclude the anubis since they 1. shared the name of an Egyptian god, and 2. were too similar to Aldets, which are even also from Egyptian lore. It’s just that one is “dog” in general, and the other is “Jackal” specifically.)

-Demi faeries

Demi faeries are an adaptation of the “little people” from Irish folk lore. Irish folk lore had a whole number of different kinds of “little people,” each with different names depending on where they were found. There were the little people that lived in the house, the little people that lived in the barn, the little people that lived in the fields, the little people that lived in shoe shops, the little people that lived in other “insert X name” shops, and literally all of them had a different name that the Irish lore called them depending on where they lived.

To get even more confusing, the names of them were also different depending on what part of Ireland you lived in. The names for these “little people” never stayed consistent at all. Eventually though, some Irish store owner living in the United States decided he wanted to find a way to better market Irish folk lore to US citizens in order to help mend the suspicion Americans had for the Irish (At the time, the Irish were treated a lot like how Latin Americans are today.) What he did was he gathered all the oddly named different Irish “little people” under one name, Leprechauns.

Much like how Leprechauns are a gathering of all the different named “little people” of Irish lore, the Demi faeries fill the same role. They do not have wings, but they have faerie magic and, like other fey, are reliant on human spirit energy. Do not expect them to act very much like Leprechauns though, they are based far more on the original “little people” lore, leprechauns were given a lot of eccentricities to make them more charming for the sake of marketing them to Americans at the time.

-Final words

Well, that’s all for this chapter. I will likely do another one of these for the next book if anything new comes up that I feel needs to be talked about.

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