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Something I've noticed is that in D&D and Pathfinder a number of magical creatures will behave in ways that very wildly from how they do in folklore.
3 I know for certain are Elves, Kobolds, and hobgoblins. In the aforementioned games Elves are these noble, somewhat stuck-up creatures with an etherial air to them, while kobolds and hobgoblins are malicious and spiteful monsters that, aside from a few special snowflakes, tend to be violent assholes.
But in folklore Elves are magical yes, but also random as fuck, they were just as likely to help travelers as they were to; conjure up an anus on their forehead so they could shove a banana into it all while singing a merry song. Meanwhile you have House Kobolds and Mine Kobolds, the latter being vicious and evil creatures, while the former is friendly and helpful. And Hobgoblins, while being described as being as ugly as goblins, tended to act more like Hobs. which according to Wikipedia
-"They are said to work in farmyards and thus could be helpful; however, if offended they could become nuisances."-
This has all gotten me curious, are there any other classic D&D/Pathfinder creatures that act wildly different from how they do in folklore?
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>>52588050
What's your "folklore" source?
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>>52588050
Gnolls act like they gave up on actually hyena-ing.
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>>52588050
>conflating D&D elves, who are based off of Tolkien's elves, who were Norse inspired, with faeries/fey in european myth
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>>52588449
Wikipedia, Grimm's fairy tales, the Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, Greek and Norse Legends, /tg/, I'm sure I have other sources but that's what's coming to mind.
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>>52588792
>Greek and Norse Legends
>conjure up an anus on their forehead so they could shove a banana
hmm yeah. sure.
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>>52588901
THAT was a exageration provided by /tg/ to emphasize that in folklore Elves were often arbitrary in their behavior, one moment benevolent and helpful, and another, they are secretly swapping your child for a demon as a joke, which IS a Grimm fable.
but it's cute that you took that literally.
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In all seriousness, if a race in my games doesn't behave like a race of Tolkien's or its equivalent, I don't allow it. Tolkien did it right the first time, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Orcs and Goblins are the biggest offenders of this. They are warlike savages, miners, mountain-dwellers, tinkerers as far as goblins go, and they often work for an evil lord. Anything else and it's not an Orc or Goblin.
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>>52591918
okay... but I'm talking about situations where DnD monsters act differently from their original sources. I'm trying to see more than a tangential relevance to your statement here to that original premise.
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>>52592030
The dnd creators didn't really care about historical accuracy or mythology, they just needed monsters suited to the game and took names from anywhere they could find them with only vague nods to actual mythology.
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>>52592731
Wait so your saying clerics did use blades? I knew it!
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>>52592785
>Wait so your saying clerics did use blades? I knew it!
no they really didn't, but the reasoning is contrived. Clerics wanted to join the armies as they waged war but they usually took vows to not spill blood, so they got around this by wielding blunt instruments, if you bludgeon your enemies then you are technically not "spilling their blood" the first ever example of RaW over RaI.
>>52592731
That's my point, I only know of the three examples listed in the OP can you point to any others?
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>>52592977
Until you see a guy who got clubbed to death bleeding and releasing the insides of his skull on your carpet
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>>52593161
>Until you see a guy who got clubbed to death bleeding and releasing the insides of his skull on your carpet
"you can't prove those two events are related" said the abbot as he held the bloody hammer, "also it was God's will anyway"...
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>>52588050
The problem is that you are mixing up the original sources. Yes, fantasy elves aren't like folklore elves, but fantasy elves are based on Tolkien elves not fairy tale elves
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>>52591918
>if a race in my games doesn't behave like a race of Tolkien's or its equivalent, I don't allow it.
You sound like loads of fun.
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>>52588050
I only took one course about fairytales and folklore creatures, but one thing is certain:
Written stories and accounts congealed a few versions of countless variants. There was no canon material, one simply added and mixed it up as he felt the folks at the tavern getting bored. The mouth-ear-mouth chain also distorted it. The superstitions arising from coincidences and associations varied from place to place.
Fantasy and rpg making something different is truer to folklore than following what's on wikipedia or sacred texts. Audience got bored? Mix it up or add something. Following only the pattern/archetype/model eventually makes it boring.
One could say the spread of written records "domesticated" folklore instead of keeping wild, and while I love to learn about things half a world away, it does have its drawbacks.
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