Ahhh, Lolth.
I guess they might not regret worshipping her.
I think I email you alot, Rich, but no answer.
Does Eilistraee or equivalent in Drow society and can Drows and Humans have children as Drows are technically elves (if so how they would look like)?
Oh? Sorry about that. I’ll check all my emails. Sometimes I forget to check the yafgc.net one. What address were you sending to?
Eilistraee is another Drow god in D&D isn’t it? I haven’t really decided, but as YAFGC goes on I’m more and more inclined to stick to original content. I mean, the founding of YAFGC was heavily D&D and I’m naturally committed to some of that. But I try to make new details more original and less….. copyright infringey. So if I decide to add more gods to the YAFGC pantheon at some point, they’ll be more like Ranna & Ch’Thier, things I make up myself.
And Half-Elves happen, sure. No reason why the Elf parent couldn’t be a Drow. Especially as the cultures get more and more blended. And what that looks like will depend on the two parents. I’ll doodle some for you. (I might even get some new character ideas out of this….)
Half Humans – Half Elves by way of the Drow.
Argh. I’ve got a serious lefty-tilt going on there.
I was never big on the pantheons to begin with. The kinds of stories I tend to write in YAFGC and for D&D games tends to relegate the gods to either just a quirk of priests and clerics or a serious, world-ending epic struggle like this one in YAFGC for high level characters. That being said, I do occasionally have to do ‘divine intervention’ scenes when the dice and story calls for it. I included a card-deck story enhancing system in my current AD&D 2e Al Qadim campaign that I’m running (I learned it from t!) that kinda forced me to have a god step in and keep the entire party from getting killed in a disaster of their own making.
So to get back on subject: No, I shan’t be introducing any more ‘classic D&D deities’ and if I do need more gods I’ll make them up to fit the world. YAFGC is old and strong enough now that it’s forming it’s components rather than still being formed by them.
Thanks.
Eilistraee is from DnD, Forgotten Realms, who is kinda like the only good deities among Lolth’s pantheon.
Since you are working by copyright, just thinking if such equivalent exists.
Also just that yafgc Drows are too insular and xenophobic (not to mention sensitivity to sunlight and notoriety) to not mingle with humans (or the fact that we are focusing in Black Mountain and Drows outside of the area—like city states with different culture or refugee-expatriates—aren’t shown yet).
That third one could be Nephilia’s daughter, if she were to cement the Drow’s post-Black-Mountain alliances via a diplomatic marriage to the monke…er, esteemed human neighbors.
I'm a little surprised to hear that, given that we heard that orcs and drow *can't* have children. I figured that meant that drow were different to orcs, humans, and other elves in some way, since they all *can* interbreed.
Lolth. Making a mess of everything since 3-1 400 000.
(And I can already tell that some indeterminate fraction of my anger at Ranna will probably end up transferred to Lolth, Scorpi, King I’Aran, and others who set up the newly evolved sapients and their gods for failure…)
I think this notation is (age) – (year). The third age would be the Age of the Elves, just as the second age had been the Age of the Dragons. I have no idea what the first age would have been.
I’m probably totally on the wrong track here but I have the impression that the more involved you are with the content, the easier spelling mistakes slip past your attention?
This is not meant to be snarky. I just like the idea of you being so engrossed in telling a good story, with the inspiration racing ahead, that some aspects just can’t keep up.
You’re not entirely wrong, Thomas. But there’s a few things going on. 1: As Aaron points out, I’m getting on a bit. 2: I do get so engrossed in my craft that I am blind to certain other things, like crappy spelling or the passage of time. 3: My wife had me take some online tests for ADHD assessment and I ranked in the ‘very likely’ area for Attention Deficit. 4: My elementary school education was in Partial French Immersion, and I never really figured out when to use (or not to use) e’s properly.
That specific brainfart — "ie" vs. "ei" in "their" — is one I never used to fall into. Until I tried to learn how to spell Ch’thier. Now, not only do I get the goddess’s name wrong half the time, but I screw up the regular English pronoun too!
1. I didn’t even notice it, but 27 years deciphering typoese at work, my brain tends to fix things automatically.
2. You were consistent and kept using the same spelling throughout the strip, so there is that.
*hands you a brownie*
😀 Thanks! I really got into anthropology for a while and I love learning about Neanderthals. It’s amazing to think that these cousins of ours were actually probably MORE sophisticated and taught US stuff before we blended genes with them.
"Do you know how the orcs first came into being? They were elves, once." 🤣 Though in this case they weren't taken and twisted by dark powers, I'm quite sure that orcs came first and they made Gruumsh, he didn't make them.
T-Chall, I’m feeling faerly faent from your puns! 😀 can’t thank you and your accomplices like Fang Fangirl enough for the laughs and groans. *Hands you a tray of brownies* I hope you like them- they’re a bit dark… EEEEEEE
Yes, "all" was the wrong word.
I guess some were created by magicians, strong magic exposure and so on.
And I remember how the centaurs (and other races) came along in the Xanth series.
There were magic pools that enhanced attraction and fertility and the resulting child were a mix of both parents. For example when male riders and their mares drank from that pool it resulted in centaurs. (Who kept their race pure afterwards by isolating themselves.)
Always had a minor problem with drow skin colour – sunless subterranean species usually lose their skin pigmentation rather than gain it – yet somehow the Drow retain black skin colouration despite millennia of chthonian dwelling
That was my thought too: most subterranean creatures can safely assume that no one ELSE around them can see a damned thing, either. But for Drow, both their most dangerous predators and their most valuable prey are other sapients, who can make use of light sources or magical darksight. Suddenly camouflage is important again.
Don't forget. This is a D&D-like world. If something does not add up, sometimes it is because a wizard did it. If something big does not add up, sometimes it is because Lolth gave all Drow black skin by direct divine intervention.
I just quickly reviewed the flashback you referenced and it doesn’t contradict this flashback at all. This is the origin of the gods. That was the origin of the Winnaloohoo-hoo people.
No no, I didn’t mean this story contradicted them, I meant in the winaloohoo arc we got two different stories of their origin, one that the shaman was a decent guy who got sent away and the messed up beings were the result of his magic going wild over years, and the winaloohoo believed they had been made by the gods then cursed by them for turning away from their duty, and I wondered if
Cut myself off, if we’d maybe see a quick thing to confirm if either of these are the real story (I’d be surprised if either was totally right since it’s happendd so long ago)
Oh I see. No, I shan’t be touching on that story in this flashback. This one’s supposed to focus on Falahn and the twins via Marion’s PoV, but I’m easily distracted and have to force myself back on track. 😀
Had to do some research on that one. And you are right. Ambient with an e is English. Ambiant with an a is French. I spent grades 5-7 in a Partial French Immersion program and it messed me up for life. I’ll try to remember this.
So if I'm following this, the elves originally were immortal, but otherwise similar to humans, or with *less* magical power even. Until humans started giving them that power by worshipping them as gods. And Llolth's original worshippers were *human*, not drow? OK that is very strange to hear. I do wonder if modern elves are still immortal, or if a million years of interbreeding with humans has bred that trait out of them. Come to think of it, hundreds of thousands of years of elves having children but not dying would result in truly *explosive* population growth.
I have a question. Marion other gods are immortal _now_ because of their worshipers, but it took over a million years for their future worshipers to evolve to the point of having culture and religion. How did Marion managed to live that long? Do elves in your setting have no lifespan limit? Is there something special about Marion and other gods-to-be that gave them unusually long lives? Did their future godhood retroactively make them immortal?
Ooooh, good questions! Hope Rich and others are up for a discussion, especially about that last potential paradox! *Sits eagerly awaiting people to join in*
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Forever People, Eternals, (New) Gods… Do I detect a Jack Kirby homage?
No.
Like moths before the moon.
🙂
Ahhh, Lolth.
I guess they might not regret worshipping her.
I think I email you alot, Rich, but no answer.
Does Eilistraee or equivalent in Drow society and can Drows and Humans have children as Drows are technically elves (if so how they would look like)?
Oh? Sorry about that. I’ll check all my emails. Sometimes I forget to check the yafgc.net one. What address were you sending to?
Eilistraee is another Drow god in D&D isn’t it? I haven’t really decided, but as YAFGC goes on I’m more and more inclined to stick to original content. I mean, the founding of YAFGC was heavily D&D and I’m naturally committed to some of that. But I try to make new details more original and less….. copyright infringey. So if I decide to add more gods to the YAFGC pantheon at some point, they’ll be more like Ranna & Ch’Thier, things I make up myself.
And Half-Elves happen, sure. No reason why the Elf parent couldn’t be a Drow. Especially as the cultures get more and more blended. And what that looks like will depend on the two parents. I’ll doodle some for you. (I might even get some new character ideas out of this….)
Half Humans – Half Elves by way of the Drow.
Argh. I’ve got a serious lefty-tilt going on there.
You could always make it so that the lesser known DnD gods used to exist and either died, lost power, merged or became other gods over time.
I /could/ do that. But I’m not going to.
That’s fine.
Now that IU think of it, are there more than the two classic dieties around or were they the only ones?
I was never big on the pantheons to begin with. The kinds of stories I tend to write in YAFGC and for D&D games tends to relegate the gods to either just a quirk of priests and clerics or a serious, world-ending epic struggle like this one in YAFGC for high level characters. That being said, I do occasionally have to do ‘divine intervention’ scenes when the dice and story calls for it. I included a card-deck story enhancing system in my current AD&D 2e Al Qadim campaign that I’m running (I learned it from t!) that kinda forced me to have a god step in and keep the entire party from getting killed in a disaster of their own making.
So to get back on subject: No, I shan’t be introducing any more ‘classic D&D deities’ and if I do need more gods I’ll make them up to fit the world. YAFGC is old and strong enough now that it’s forming it’s components rather than still being formed by them.
Thanks.
Eilistraee is from DnD, Forgotten Realms, who is kinda like the only good deities among Lolth’s pantheon.
Since you are working by copyright, just thinking if such equivalent exists.
Also just that yafgc Drows are too insular and xenophobic (not to mention sensitivity to sunlight and notoriety) to not mingle with humans (or the fact that we are focusing in Black Mountain and Drows outside of the area—like city states with different culture or refugee-expatriates—aren’t shown yet).
That third one could be Nephilia’s daughter, if she were to cement the Drow’s post-Black-Mountain alliances via a diplomatic marriage to the monke…er, esteemed human neighbors.
Isn’t she marri…wait, Drows are polygamist.
I send it to your address on yafgc.net, yes.
Weird. Try emailing me at rich morris dot yafgc at gemail dot com.
Already did.
Might be there any second no.
I'm a little surprised to hear that, given that we heard that orcs and drow *can't* have children. I figured that meant that drow were different to orcs, humans, and other elves in some way, since they all *can* interbreed.
Lolth. Making a mess of everything since 3-1 400 000.
(And I can already tell that some indeterminate fraction of my anger at Ranna will probably end up transferred to Lolth, Scorpi, King I’Aran, and others who set up the newly evolved sapients and their gods for failure…)
what is meant by 3-1 400 000 , 3- 1,4m years ago ?
I think this notation is (age) – (year). The third age would be the Age of the Elves, just as the second age had been the Age of the Dragons. I have no idea what the first age would have been.
Two million years ago, the age of the elves began.
Prior to the dragons, the age of their ancestors, The Age of Dinosaurs!
Obviously it was the Age of Fang.
It might be referred to as The 1st age – ?, when question marks ruled the earth.
I’ll just see myself out, you can put down those pitchforks.
I laughed, so no poking the Pooka!
Aw, thank you, Fang FanGirl. Would you like to have dinner with me? I just happened to have, uh….found! Yes, found, a couple of chickens. [sly grin]
*innocent whistle*
Sure. I’ll bring dessert
Hooray! [wagwagwagwagwag]
I am just waiting for the moment it is revealed Captain Fang is actually an "ever-living", "eternal" "Gaw’hds".
Oh, fang *definitely* was already around before they were. Because what else is there before *everything*… but pure, unbridled chaos?
All bow before the one true king – or is he the true god!!
Maybe… He is the Fizban of this world 😛
Fang is more like The Winslow in Phil foglio’s universe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Winslow
I don’t think the little kobold was here so long. The entity possessing him, of course …
Egads… between T-Chall’s comment and this thread…
My Fang is the question mark… he is (or the entity possessing him, as HKMaly suggested) is the first. It all makes sense now.
Forever People…
Eternals…
Celestials…
New Genesians…
Apokoliptites…
Heralds of Galactus…
Tomorrow People…
Immortals….
Highlanders (wait, maybe not that last one)
siiiggghhh…
Well, if that’s all you know, I guess.
t!
It was just a joke?
Hello Rich,
I’m probably totally on the wrong track here but I have the impression that the more involved you are with the content, the easier spelling mistakes slip past your attention?
This is not meant to be snarky. I just like the idea of you being so engrossed in telling a good story, with the inspiration racing ahead, that some aspects just can’t keep up.
It’s just old age. Wiser you get, the less brain cells are left for minutia.
Right Rich? ( lol, I’m just being a windup merchant 😀 )
You’re not entirely wrong, Thomas. But there’s a few things going on. 1: As Aaron points out, I’m getting on a bit. 2: I do get so engrossed in my craft that I am blind to certain other things, like crappy spelling or the passage of time. 3: My wife had me take some online tests for ADHD assessment and I ranked in the ‘very likely’ area for Attention Deficit. 4: My elementary school education was in Partial French Immersion, and I never really figured out when to use (or not to use) e’s properly.
Shoot. Did I mix up my ei and ie in Their? Damn.
That specific brainfart — "ie" vs. "ei" in "their" — is one I never used to fall into. Until I tried to learn how to spell Ch’thier. Now, not only do I get the goddess’s name wrong half the time, but I screw up the regular English pronoun too!
1. I didn’t even notice it, but 27 years deciphering typoese at work, my brain tends to fix things automatically.
2. You were consistent and kept using the same spelling throughout the strip, so there is that.
*hands you a brownie*
Oooh! Brownie! Omnomnomnom….
Nooo! Bad beholder! Brownies are people (household spirits, to be precise), not food!
I understand correctly that the first frame shows the Goblin ancestor, CRO-magnon, hobbit ancestor, and Neanderthal.
NICELY DONE!
YOU, TOO!
t!
😀 Thanks! I really got into anthropology for a while and I love learning about Neanderthals. It’s amazing to think that these cousins of ours were actually probably MORE sophisticated and taught US stuff before we blended genes with them.
Huh. I’d have thought that Neanderthal was actually a proto-orc.
The Orcs branched off the Elf line! But that’s a story for another flashback.
Who wants to tell them they are related, genetically if not hygienically 😛
So Gruumsh was originally an elf/elf-offshoot? ?
"Do you know how the orcs first came into being? They were elves, once." 🤣 Though in this case they weren't taken and twisted by dark powers, I'm quite sure that orcs came first and they made Gruumsh, he didn't make them.
Well, if they were guiding and directing how those species were evolving, they were in fact playing to be gods.
And note that Lolth somehow BECAME god.
That IS how it happened in the game. Demon to goddess.
Interesting, I didn’t expect that all races (except elves) where parallel developments.
Not all of them. But some of them, yup.
If Elves are fae creatures, where did the other fae creatures, like pixies, sprites, and, oh yeah, Pookas, and others come from? 🙂
Logically…..
Elves.
So that means all pixies, sprites, pookas, etc., are a fae t’accompli?
T-Chall, I’m feeling faerly faent from your puns! 😀 can’t thank you and your accomplices like Fang Fangirl enough for the laughs and groans. *Hands you a tray of brownies* I hope you like them- they’re a bit dark… EEEEEEE
Hee, hee. You’re most welcome, P!enapple. And thank you!
These brownies do smell delicious, but they certainly are dark. Are you sure these aren’t drownies? And dare I ask what’s in them?
You’re an expert at those puns, yourself, P!enapple. 🙂
Yes, "all" was the wrong word.
I guess some were created by magicians, strong magic exposure and so on.
And I remember how the centaurs (and other races) came along in the Xanth series.
Well I’ve never read the ‘Xanth’ series, so I couldn’t comment on that.
There were magic pools that enhanced attraction and fertility and the resulting child were a mix of both parents. For example when male riders and their mares drank from that pool it resulted in centaurs. (Who kept their race pure afterwards by isolating themselves.)
I’m surprised that Ranna is willing to wait and listen to all of this. Hasn’t she killed everyone yet?
But I’m loving the backstory. Just haven’t forgotten where it’s being told – in the middle of the mother of all battles!
Not surprised about Ranna stopping to listen, I *am* concerned about what *Kur* is up to
I love the second panel. The look on the girls face that say’s "I have no idea what you’re talking about but I love hearing you say it "
Hey, it’s better than being called ‘Geralds’.
Within those last two panels can be summarised every discussion I have ever had trying to get people to have more confidence in themselves.
I am kind of staggered.
t!
There’s a hint there that it may be due to the other humanoid species with there affinity to ambient power that some of the elves became "gods."
The other humanoids worship directed some of that ambient power to those elves, giving those elves even greater power than on their own.
Likewise, that same ability gave the other races, like orcs, to create gods of their own from their own kind.
Hint, nothing, Lady Marion says so right in the final panel.
This is what I get for not rereading before making a comment. Hoo, boy. Sorry about that, Rich.
Hahahah, not a problem my friend! Hahah
And Lolth looks like such a smug little sħit in that panel. BOO! HISS!!!
No, she was just the first to *embrace* the worship
No Marion, you are *nothing* like those you (in)directly evolved from simian state
Always had a minor problem with drow skin colour – sunless subterranean species usually lose their skin pigmentation rather than gain it – yet somehow the Drow retain black skin colouration despite millennia of chthonian dwelling
It’s camo. 🙂
That was my thought too: most subterranean creatures can safely assume that no one ELSE around them can see a damned thing, either. But for Drow, both their most dangerous predators and their most valuable prey are other sapients, who can make use of light sources or magical darksight. Suddenly camouflage is important again.
Lolth, a drow, is one of the earliest deified elves, and given how immensely vain she is, she wouldn’t want her followers to stop looking like her.
Don't forget. This is a D&D-like world. If something does not add up, sometimes it is because a wizard did it. If something big does not add up, sometimes it is because Lolth gave all Drow black skin by direct divine intervention.
So this would be a bit before the shaman who ended up creating hu-hus people started practicing his magic?
Or wait, his people had a different legend about the gods making them.
Maybe we’ll get to see which version is right in this little flashback.
I just quickly reviewed the flashback you referenced and it doesn’t contradict this flashback at all. This is the origin of the gods. That was the origin of the Winnaloohoo-hoo people.
No no, I didn’t mean this story contradicted them, I meant in the winaloohoo arc we got two different stories of their origin, one that the shaman was a decent guy who got sent away and the messed up beings were the result of his magic going wild over years, and the winaloohoo believed they had been made by the gods then cursed by them for turning away from their duty, and I wondered if
Cut myself off, if we’d maybe see a quick thing to confirm if either of these are the real story (I’d be surprised if either was totally right since it’s happendd so long ago)
Oh I see. No, I shan’t be touching on that story in this flashback. This one’s supposed to focus on Falahn and the twins via Marion’s PoV, but I’m easily distracted and have to force myself back on track. 😀
Just a quick heads up, and I love the story, but ambient has an ‘e’ not an ‘a’. I could ignore a once off…..but it isn’t. Sorry.
Had to do some research on that one. And you are right. Ambient with an e is English. Ambiant with an a is French. I spent grades 5-7 in a Partial French Immersion program and it messed me up for life. I’ll try to remember this.
So if I'm following this, the elves originally were immortal, but otherwise similar to humans, or with *less* magical power even. Until humans started giving them that power by worshipping them as gods. And Llolth's original worshippers were *human*, not drow? OK that is very strange to hear. I do wonder if modern elves are still immortal, or if a million years of interbreeding with humans has bred that trait out of them. Come to think of it, hundreds of thousands of years of elves having children but not dying would result in truly *explosive* population growth.
I have a question. Marion other gods are immortal _now_ because of their worshipers, but it took over a million years for their future worshipers to evolve to the point of having culture and religion. How did Marion managed to live that long? Do elves in your setting have no lifespan limit? Is there something special about Marion and other gods-to-be that gave them unusually long lives? Did their future godhood retroactively make them immortal?
Ooooh, good questions! Hope Rich and others are up for a discussion, especially about that last potential paradox! *Sits eagerly awaiting people to join in*