Elves

If you play an elf at my table, you're actually playing a Cribswap.  They get all the same traits of Elves in od&d.

Edit 2025/12/14: added Lunar and Solar aspects, based on how I've been running cribswaps in Palace of the Vampire Queen.  

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1,000 years ago, faeries ruled the earth, draped in leaves of gold. They crossed the skies in wild hunts, slaying beasts and men with blade of glass and helm of bronze.

The faeries were driven from the surface with fire and iron. The Queen of Faeries now holds her court beneath the hills, within the Underworld.

It is said that faeries cannot create life, and so must reshape it. A child was snatched from its home, taken to be made an elf, and you were left in its place. You were made to die.

But you didn't. Rejected by your family, cast out by your community. Under unknowable stars you quested for meaning. You lived. You learned. You wondered. Bled and cried and scratched and screamed. What could be more human then that?

Aspects

The unusual circumstances of your existence have left you with a twofold soul. Before each adventure, you must choose to be in either your Lunar or Solar aspect. Each aspect has its own name, its own physicality, its own dreams. Together they are whole, but they are never together. They may never share the sky.

XP is shared between aspects, but HP is separate. While in your Lunar aspect, your prime requisite is Intelligence, and you act as a mage. While in your Solar aspect, your prime requisite is strength, and you act as a fighter.

At the height of its power, a Lunar aspect can grow far more powerful then a Solar one. Some consider the role of the Solar aspect to protect the Lunar one until this strength can be achieved. A cribswap which has fully realized both aspects becomes as powerful as the old elves-under-the-earth, and fights as a Monster.

(a fully-realized Lunar cribswap can reach 8th level, while a Solar aspect can only reach 4th) 

Comments

Warren D. said…
Oooo good name "cribswap/cribswapped"
alice said…
thank you! i pulled it from a magic: the gathering card, Cribswap, which has been living rent free in my head for years now
Kyana said…
If HP is separate, what happens if one Aspect dies but another does not?
alice said…
my intention was that, sharing a body, if the active aspect dies, both are killed.

however, i think playing it otherwise would also present some interesting options! perhaps if one aspect dies, you can spend half your XP for the other aspect to live? the friend i've been running Vampire Queen for also suggested that if one aspect takes lethal damage, but the other aspect has a greater maximum and thus would not be killed, then the aspect which took lethal would be dead forever, with the surviving aspect continuing with the same amount of damage marked on them.
Kyana said…
Yes, I do like this idea of letting one aspect survive on their own much more than just letting both die.
Archon said…
That's rad! I don't have a lot of experience with OD&D, so it's a lot of fun to read through your blog and see your takes on its gaps. A class with really simple leveling that suddenly gets A New Ability at max level is a really nice structure, too.

Do you plan to make a similar post about your dwarves? I know in the Vampire Queen play report they have stone bones, but what else is up with them?
alice said…
thank you, Archon! i could definitely see myself doing a dwarf post later, though my understanding of how they work might need to develop a bit first! for the Vampire Queen game we kinda have an understanding that the dwarves are doing dune shit, having duels using bone knives and such. in our game, the princess of the dwarves was a warrior captured in battle, rather then being kidnapped.