Grunge Elves

(I’m on a bit of a roll today with variant races, so I’m going to post something I swiped from HackMaster…)

Grunge elves degenerated into barbarism during the long years of Ragnarök due to destruction of their forests and isolation from other elves. (In this respect, they are not unlike slag dwarves.) They call themselves the grel; other elves name them grugach.

Forced to live as nomads, grunge elves believe in strength and survival of the fittest. Clans of grel are small but fiercely loyal to one another. Each clan is led by the strongest warrior, whose primary goal is survival of the group. Grunge elves will often make camp near communities of other races, though they are mistrusted.

Unless stated below, a grunge elf is identical to a standard elf in terms of rule effects:

• Level Limits: Their nomadic existence has made them tough, and grunge elves may advance to 6th level as fighters. Conversely, advancement as runecasters is restricted to 7th level.
• Combat Ability: Grunge elves gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls when using spears and javelins (instead of bows).
• Adventuring Feats: The grel are tougher than other elves, but not as graceful. They do not have any modifiers to Skill or Might checks.

Grunge elves interact with many other races as they travel – even traditional foes such as dwarves and goblins. Some individuals have even been known to leave their clan an take up a life of adventuring with non-grel.

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The Uruk

The uruk are a synthetic race, magically-created hybrids of humans and gargun (mostly Gargu-Khanu or black goblins). Also known as orcs, they were bred as shock troopers during Ragnarök but now live as a free race and are spreading throughout Asgård.

Like trollborn, uruks are not well accepted by most Asgårdian cultures. Not only are they are viewed with antipathy by humans, dwarves and elves; but they are mistrusted (and often mistreated) by trolls and giants. They are held in awe by gargun, however, and often lead tribes of goblins.

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Elvish Equipment

A while back I posted about the elvish aversion to iron. This (intentionally) nerfs elf PCs, since they cannot use normal steel weapons and armour without suffering penalties.

Elf metalsmiths would compensate by using different materials, however. This post gives game rules for bronze and orichalcum gear. Also, the finest elven armour would be made of mithral – as described in the Expanded Armour Rules – and elvish bows are of mastercraft quality (and are priced accordingly).

Unlike the chain hauberks common amongst other races, elves favour scale. Leather scale and scale mail are the two most common armour types. Since their warriors typically prefer mobility, breastplates are the heaviest armour produced by elven smiths. (Plate armour is a dwarven innovation and is unknown to the elves.)

In terms of weaponry, elves prefer blades (daggers / short swords / long swords), spears (and javelins), and archery bows (short bows / long bows). Remember that elves can inflict a maximum of 1d8 base damage, which limits adoption of heavier two-handed weapons.

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Elves and Iron

(It’s been a while since posting here – I’ve been more active on my Tempora Mutantur gameblog lately – but there’s something that’s been bugging me and I want to get it online before I forget about it…)

I feel that the elves in Dwarven Glory are a wee bit munchkin (especially since dwarves are small-sized), so I’m going to nerf them.

Iron, particularly “cold iron”, was employed as a protective substance or charm against faeries. In various folklores, supernatural creatures are held to hold an aversion to iron or even be harmed by the touch of iron.

So here’s some additional elf racial traits:

• An elf wearing armour or bearing a shield constructed of iron or steel suffers –2 penalty to d20 checks (attack rolls, feat checks, and saving throws).

  Similarly, an elf wielding a medium or heavy weapon with iron suffers a –2 penalty. * (Light weapons have less metal and can used without penalty.)

• Weapons made of cold iron inflict +1 damage per die to elves.

(* Note that these penalties do not stack; it’s a single negative condition – aversion to iron.)

In practice, this means that elf fighters typically use bronze instead of steel (or mithral, if they can afford it). Which means I’ll have to put together some rules for bronze armour and weapons at some point…

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Asgårdian Dragons – Behir

(The behir isn’t exactly a Linnorm, and is not from Norse myth. Nonetheless, they are totally cool are therefore included in Dwarven Glory.)

The behir is a snake-like reptilian monster with more than a dozen legs. Its many limbs allow it to move with considerable speed and climb at fully half its normal movement rate. It can fold its legs close to its long, narrow body and slither in snake-fashion if it desires. The behir can discharge a lighting bolt of considerable strength from its mouth, but requires several minutes to build a charge between attacks.

Behir have band-like scales of great hardness. Their color ranges from ultramarine to deep blue with bands of gray-brown. The belly is pale blue. The horns curving back over the head look dangerous enough but are actually used for preening the creature’s scales and not for fighting.

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