Design Notes

Setting Author: Joe Terranova
System Authors: Joe Perry, Jacob Shpiece

Huldufolk was written based on the experiences of a decade of live action and tabletop gaming, attempting to resolve some of the common issues found in live play, and expand the Parlor LARPing hobby.

Here are the general broad strokes of the design intentions for this game. For more specific comments, look for the “Design Notes” or “Narrative Notes” buttons throughout the online version of the book.

An Urban Fantasy Campaign/Parlor LARP

Consider a live action game that occurs indoors, uses character sheets and mechanics for conflict, is run as a networked game with groups in other cities, and runs as a campaign, with chronicles that last several years.

What would you call that style of game? For the most part, it’s called “Vampire”, because Vampire the Masquerade is the only game left that’s run like that (as well as other World of Darkness games). I’ve been calling it Parlor LARP, but many nordic style LARPs are referred like that too. I’ve been suggested to call it “Campaign LARP”, but it doesn’t roll off the tongue very well. If you have another idea, let me know.

Regardless, that style of LARP is my favorite, and I want to see more of it. There used to be more Parlor LARP options on the block, but as the years have passed, those options have dwindled, as has the size of the Parlor LARP part of the community. As the LARP hobby grows, Huldufolk aims to provide new options and growth in the Parlor/Campaign LARP side, and perhaps teach it a few new tricks borrowed from the other parts of the LARP ecosystem.

Pick Your Own Themes

Huldufolk falls squarely in the Urban Fantasy genre, but when it comes to making your own characters, and deciding what sort of themes you want to engage in, there’s quite a bit of leeway built-in to decide which themes you want to focus on. That’s on purpose.

If you want to play a monster, most of The Banished faction should be right up your ally. Though there’s some pretense to their monstrosity, they’re clearly the bad guys. If you want to play a good guy, this game has room for you too, and The Blessed offer a number of options to that end.

If you want your character to have a tragic backstory, take a look at The Stolen. If you want to give other characters a wide open way to mess with you, play The Lost Twin. If you want to have ties to the mortal world, play a Stolen or Lost Twin. If you want focus more on Huldufolk culture and have the option to harken to some of their Fae-like history, play a Hidden Born.

Importantly, while there’s room for darkness in the game, it’s also possible to play the good guy. Evil exists in the world, but you don’t have to be a monster, unless you want to be.

Social PvP With Long-Term Rivalry

Huldufolk is very focused on Social and Political PvP (Player vs Player role-play), and the factions are in constant conflict with each other. However, the difference is that Huldufolk takes killing characters almost entirely off the table. Instead, if you want to fight your enemies, you do so by messing up their plans, going after their ties to the mortal world, or maybe even stealing their allies among the Huldufolk.

Taking character death mostly off the table opens up the possibility for long term rivalries, in the style of Batman and the Joker: the good guy finds out the bad guy’s plan, foils it, roughs them up a bit, and … walks away, to see them next month. The hope is that with less risk of losing their characters to any sort of feud, players will be more likely to take risks in general.

Storyteller-inspired Politics

Many LARP games are highly focused on political conflict between player characters. However, political conflict is generally meant to happen organically, based on the starting conditions of the characters. If that doesn’t occur, players are meant to start their own rivalries with their characters. If that doesn’t happen, either political conflict falls to the wayside, or the Storyteller tries to inject conflict that can easily feel artificial.

Huldufolk tries to solve this issue by introducing factions that ultimately work for Non-Player Characters. It’s wonderful if players develop their own goals and conflict, but the Messengers and Patrons provide Storytellers the opportunity to organically inject conflict into the game.

What is a Role-Playing Game?

Every RPG has a section at the beginning of it explaining what a role-playing game is, and if you’re a long-time player, you might be confused why. However, dealing with new players, I’ve learned that this part is actually really important, so let’s give this a go.

Role-Playing in General/At The Table

In general, think of a role-playing game as interactive storytelling. There is one main person running the game, and instead of portraying a character, they’re portraying the entire world — if a role-playing game is a story, they’re the narrator. In some role-playing games they’re called the “Dungeon Master”, due to the tradition of Dungeons & Dragons, where the person running the game literally designs a dungeon for you to explore. Other games go with the more general “Game Master”. Huldufolk prefers “Storyteller”, given the core purpose of the game. The Storyteller helps you create your characters, and creates the story your characters interact with, and shape with your choices.

Each of the other people in the game creates a character. This character has their own merits and weaknesses, their own dreams, goals, and fears. You interact with the world of the game through your character, talking to other players at the table as your characters. Your Storyteller is portraying every other character in the world, and if you want to interact with that world, you talk to the Storyteller. Your character will find themselves in hard situations, conflicts, and moral quandaries. While your character may very well be nervous, angry, or distraught at what happens in the game, remember that the point of role-playing games is to tell a story. You might be more invested in your character than you would a character in a tv show or a movie, but all great stories involve experiencing setbacks.

If you’re playing Huldufolk at a table, your game is likely focused on the specific plots of the Storyteller’s creation, and dealing with political enemies and allies the Storyteller has created as Non-Player Characters. Your group may decide to all play on the same side, as a single faction dealing with the others, or you might play in similar but differing factions, allowing some amount of conflict at the table between player characters.

Each RPG has different focuses with its setting and system. In Huldufolk, the focus is telling a story, and so the system is narrative. You may encounter other games that instead focus on a simulationist system, where the system focuses on trying to reflect a real world understanding of combat, with consistent logic. Examples include Shadowrun, or GURPS, or Battletech. Huldufolk is instead a narrative game; instead of focusing on the details of every knife swing and gun shot that happens, Huldufolk focuses on allowing players to resolve conflict quickly, leaving the players to fill in the details of how it was resolved in the world.

Live Action Role-playing

While role-playing at a table involves a small group of 2-6 players and one Storyteller, Live Action Role-Playing games can host significantly larger groups — ranging from a table top sized 6 person game, up to hundreds of players. As a game grows larger, there’s generally a host of assistant Storytellers, who work for a Lead Storyteller.

The fundamentals of Live Action Role-Playing are similar to table top, with one main addition: instead of sitting at a table playing your character, you’re acting them out in the room, and costuming as them as well. Beyond the obvious difference of costuming and live acting, the focus of the game shifts as well: instead of a small group of players sitting around a table with an ST, the player characters are mostly interacting with each other. The Storytellers set the scene, run missions and plots around the city, and resolve mechanics conflicts between characters, but a Live Action game is far more focused on the interactions between the player characters.

While some Live Action games are physical combat oriented, with foam weapons or nerf guns for actual real world fighting, Huldufolk’s Live Action play resolves combat in the same way as the table top version does: with character sheets and playing cards. Luckily, the game’s system is light enough to work equally well at the table or walking around a Parlor LARP.

Safety and Consent

While tabletop games are played with a small group, usually with players who know each other well, often in LARP games you will be playing with people you don’t know quite as well. While at a table top game it’s generally easy enough to get a feel for everyone’s comfort levels with play, in a large LARP, additional safety mechanics are put in place to ensure a safe, welcoming, comfortable gaming experience.

Make sure to pay attention to your Storytellers, and the safety rules for their game.

As a baseline:

• Hold up crossed fingers to signal you are speaking Out of Character. This lets the other players know you are speaking as yourself, not as your character, and allows you to ask questions or otherwise get important Out of Character information across. Once you’re done, you can put your fingers down and fall back into Role-Play
• The Parlor LARP style of Live Action Role-Play requires consensual touch. Ask out of character before physically touching any other character. You should not grab, hug, shake hands, or any other physical contact, without asking for the player’s out of character consent.
• Your game should establish some form of Out of Character Check-In, to check if a player is OK with a scene or action as it’s playing out. The most common version, and the recommended one, is the OK Check-In. Be sure to play attention to your LARP Organizers for all of the safety mechanics implemented in their games.
• Know who to talk to if you’re uncomfortable in game. Often this is the Storyteller themselves, but some games may have a player representative or a similar office responsible for helping uncomfortable players. The LARP’s organizers should make this designated person clear.
• The safety and comfort of people is more important than a game. Intense role-play is a great experience, but only when everyone enjoys it. Be cognizant of the comfort level of your fellow players, and use the out-of-character tools your Storytellers provide to make sure we’re all happily playing together.

Networked LARP Games

Huldufolk: The Hidden People will be run as a networked Parlor LARP by Winding Path Initiative, a Parlor LARP Social Club. As part of WPI you’ll be able to play your local Huldufolk game, as well as travel to other games, play at conventions, and interact with other players between games online. Huldufolk games in WPI also benefit from a national Creative Director, working with the Huldufolk design team to run consistent stories and setting reveals across all WPI’s Huldufolk games. If you’d like to find a WPI Huldufolk game, or start one of your own, Contact Them.

Game Status and Changelog

Current Status: Final Playtesting

Huldufolk is currently finishing up the playtest phase of development. We’ve run 2 local playtests, along with public playtests at HLGCon, Dreamation, and PAX Unplugged 2019. In the new year we’ll be releasing a Playtest Packet and asking local groups to try running a Huldufolk event for themselves.

Following the playtest period, Huldufolk will enter a beta period, with the local playtests being able to continue into a WPI Huldufolk chronicle. Consider this analogous to an early access video game, except the RPG will be available for free on our site. During this time, Huldufolk will be ready for live play, including running as a live chronicle within the Winding Path Initiative, a Parlor Larp Social Club. As play progresses, we will be making changes to the game to reflect any issues found, further refining the setting and system. We believe having the game out early on in the process, and reacting to issues, is far better than waiting until after a final release to find problems in the system. You can’t “patch” a game book, so it’s important to us to have everything battle tested before a final release.

If you read through Huldufolk and have questions, or have feedback on things you think would improve the game, don’t hesitate to contact me at joeterranova@gmail.com. If you’re interested in staying in the loop to run a Huldufolk game once it’s ready for the public beta chronicle, Contact Us at WPI.

Changelog

• 8/27/18 First version released, including initial setting information
• 12/4/19: PAX Playtest Update
  • Full playtest system added to site.
    • If you previously read through the system PDF for a previous playtest, there are very few notable changes:
      • Instead of Huldufolk receiving 1 Belief point per Belief Rank, they receive 3
      • When using Empire 2: Plant the Flag, it is now possible to contest the Demesne of a Huldufolk of a higher Belief rank, but doing so requires spending a Belief¹Conflict over Demesne in combat is expended to be back and forth, constantly swapping. This change makes that possible when challenging someone of higher Belief, but costly to do.
  • Settings changes:
    • Updated origin story for The Blessed. According to The Blessed, the Huldufolk were cursed for stealing the secret of fire.
    • Minor updates to the Blessed faction descriptions: Friends of God, Bringers of Fire, Judges of Light. Instead of dissension in the ranks of the Bringers of Fire and Judges of Light about their purpose, dissenters over those group’s goals are instead in the Friends of God²With so much room for political conflict in Huldufolk already, having dissent within political factions made the politics unwieldy. Instead the subfactions have united internal goals, and the conflict is without instead of within. Plus, more reason to be a Friend of God.
    • Added The Exile, a setting explanation of how overt actions by Huldufolk affect their ability to use Belief. This is the macro explanation — on a per scene basis we’ll be adding a “Scene Loudness” system, which will likely be tried at PAX Unplugged.
    • Added Duels, an explanation of how Huldufolk can resolve serious disputes³Duels will likely be folded into a larger explanation of Folkslaughter in a later revision, but such conflicts have come up often enough it should be spelled out, and I’ve had that story about the Huldufolk inadvertently starting the Bronze Age collapse sitting in my drafts folder for 2 years now.

The Chastened

Here lies a toppled god —
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and tall one.
Tleilaxu Epigram, Dune Messiah

Patron: Abaddon, sower of Chaos

There’s an old parable that goes something like this. A scorpion comes to the edge of a lake, and sees a frog. The scorpion asks the frog to let it onto its back, and swim across the lake, so it can reach the other side. The frog says “but you’re a scorpion – how do I know you won’t just sting me and kill me?”, to which the scorpion replies: “because if I sting you, both of us will drown.” The frog lets the scorpion on its back, and swims into the center of the lake, when the scorpion stings it. As they both sink, the frog asks why. The scorpion merely replies: “because it is my nature.”

Abbadon’s role in creation was always clear: destruction. All things must die, all things must end, and Abbadon was the purveyor of that end. With Hadad’s usurpation of the throne, Abbadon fought and fled alongside the forces of Attar. Once cast down from Heaven, Abaddon set about doing what they were made for: destruction.

Abaddon spread destruction upon the earth — and was successful enough that humanity was almost wiped away entirely. Attar found them, commanding them to stop: “There must be a balance to all things”, Attar exclaimed. “What is the purpose in defeating my brother if all we win are ashes?”

So chastened by his Lord was Abaddon that the lesson led them to accomplish a task never before attained by an angel above or below, one beyond the comprehension of that scorpion: in order to survive in this world, Abaddon changed its true nature. Instead of calling on its followers to destroy the world in an inferno, Abaddon asks that they to burn away all that holds humanity back from its destiny. As Abaddon was able to adapt and grow, so must the humankind. Where it does not wish to change, Abaddon’s followers will teach the harsh lesson needed to make it so.

Motivation: In the grand scheme of things, all of this – The Rightful God and the Usurper, the Blessed and the Banished, good and evil – is an evolutionary experiment. As we approach the end of days, the question will not be who is right and who is wrong, but who can adapt to survive the struggle, and take the actions needed in order to win, as Abaddon has shown them.

In many aspects, The Chastened share similar goals to The Bringers of Fire. The Chastened, too,  seek for humanity to evolve into the prosperous future. The problem with humans is that it’s too easy for them to get complacent; too easy for them to hit local maximums. Sometimes they must be freed from what limits them, and pushed, perhaps off a cliff, for them to be able to soar to new heights. The Bringers of Fire seek progress, but they’re rarely willing to burn out the corruption and apathy which holds back society. Where The Bringers of Fire fail to act, The Chastened step in — they’re not above putting down Old Yeller when its his time.

The Bronze Age might have seen like a glimmering apex of civilization at the time, but a society of monarchs in decadent mansions, focused on their piles of gold and back patting, had long ceased to improve the human condition. Without the fall of the Bronze Age, we might have never had Iron. Without Genghis Khan’s conquest and destruction of whole civilizations, the East and West would have remained isolated from each other, possibly permanently, by the greedy nations who profited from their separation. Without the impetus of catastrophic wars in the 20th century, humanity would’ve never gone from a land bound civilization to exploring the moon in 66 years — they would still be ruled by a single, petty, inbred, ruling family. Ultimately, The Chastened are willing to set fire to the “old guard” if it means making room for something new. Progress is worth cracking some eggs.

While the Chastened certainly have their own projects, they work best when they’re subverting the Blessed’s Bringers of Fire or Judges of Light — getting them to take things too far, to make changes they haven’t entirely considered the repercussions of. The Chastened were the ones who managed to convince the Judges of Light to fight the Crusades and stop those terrible Muslim heretics from stealing the Holy Land. Only much later did they find out that there were Blessed on both sides of the war, and that the Chastened convinced the Judges of the Caliphate of the same. However, the bloodshed was minimal compared to the progress gained bringing the Christian and Arabic worlds together. You can thank the Chastened for mattresses, paper, and not having to use Roman numerals anymore.

Goals: Tear down the structures that are holding humanity back from achieving its perfect, enlightened form. Show humanity the mistakes they allow to hold themselves back, and bring them kicking and screaming into the future. The future is worth any cost.

Beliefs Invoked: This society, group, company, is fundamentally flawed. The only way to purify it is fire. We must be willing to destroy in order to create.

Criticisms: By nature, the Banished receive a great deal of ire from the Blessed, but none more-so than the hatred the Bringers of Fire hold for The Chastened. They see their purpose reflected in their enemies, but corrupted through callousness and pride. What most worries the Fire-Bringers, however, is how easy it is for The Chastened to convince their members to simply go too far to reach their goals. The line is a slippery one, and while it is somewhat rare for a Blessed to leave for The Banished, it is often a Fire-Bringer being lured across that line that leads them into The Chastened. And after all, it was the Demons who started bringing progress to humanity in the first place.

While The Profane and The Betrayed certainly have their own problems being good teammates, they take special issue with the tactics The Chastened have used in modern nights to further their goals. In the world of instant communication and viral messaging, often all it takes for humans to tear down the old guard is a glimpse at the corruption within, and a sliver of opportunity — sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant. The housing crash and the Arab Spring were surprisingly easy for The Chastened to kick off, and The Betrayed will hold a grudge over the influence lost for quite a long time.

The Betrayed

“This will never end, cause I want more.
More. Give me more. Give me more.”
Fever Ray, “If I Had a Heart”

Patron: Mammon, the Prince of Greed

When Attar created Mammon, their purpose was to test humanity and weed out those who were ruled by avarice. Mammon, Attar’s most loyal follower, stood by him in his war against Hadad.

Yet while Attar retreated to the depths of the earth to decide what to do next … Mammon was left to wander, discarded. Attar did not lead them to their new home like the other fallen angels. Mammon was left on earth, alone. And so did Mammon find his place on the earth, fueling the selfish into dominating their communities, building Strong Men societies that hoarded power and wealth for the rulers, with Mammon, Prince of Greed, manipulating them from the dark. It was only then, when Attar saw the power Mammon was now able to wield over the world, that he deigned to bring Mammon into his new kingdom. Mammon now follows Attar once again, but has learned an important lesson: you are only as important as you are useful and powerful, and you should never depend on loyalty for your survival.

Motivations: While The Profane may be interested in doing evil for evil’s sake, The Betrayed have no strong longing for evil. The Betrayed, instead, seek power, at any cost.

Ostensibly, the The Betrayed hoard power and influence for the war with Heaven. They use their power to spread their beliefs and gain more power, and to stifle the best laid plans of The Blessed. Yet every Betrayed knows that their true goal is to collect as much power as possible, to assist Attar with his war against Heaven, while ensuring Mammon can never be cast aside again. There will be a place in the world for Mammon and The Betrayed, because they will hold all the keys needed to make that world happen.

Goals: To acquire as much personal influence as possible, both in Huldufolk society and the mortal world. The Betrayed will use their power to help the Banished when they need to, but they will never cede control of that power to another. Ever.

Beliefs Invoked: The world is a savage garden of horrors, where we must protect ourselves and do whatever we need to in order to stay on top. What I own I have worked for, those close to me are mine, and I will do whatever it takes to protect them and keep them safe.

Criticisms: The Profane and The Chastened point out that, whether its influence over leadership, or secret knowledge, or magical items, The Betrayed always seem to manage to hoard more than their fair share. The Betrayed are perennial deal makers, often coming to the other Banished with some new con that they claim will be extremely profitable if they join up and play their cards right. The other Banished can usually tell they’re being used, but they often end up playing along anyway, even if they know The Betrayed are usually getting far more out of the deal.

The Profane

“Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed and threw it at Henry — threw it to miss. The stone, that token of preposterous time, bounced five yards to Henry’s right and fell in the water. Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.”
William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Patron: Beelzebub, the Prince of Gluttony

At creation, Ba‘al Zəbûb, the Lord of the Flies, was formed by Attar with one role: to oversee pestilence in the world, both bringing and curing disease in man as was due. Yet Hadad in his garden of Eden, forbid disease entirely. Later, upon thrusting the first humans out of Eden and stealing dominion over good, Hadad took dominion over the cure of disease as well, forbidding his people from seeking Zebub’s aid. And so did Beelzebub take on their new calling: to punish Hadad for his hubris. To feast on the sorrow and fear of humanity as flies on filth, to revenge that which was taken. So must their followers fill the world with filth for their sovereign to feast upon.

Motivations: If evil is our cup, then drink it up. The Profane embrace that they follow evil, and relish in it. The Rightful God will overcome the usurper when the dark triumphs over humanity. If the Usurper will force evil onto his foes, then let him cry bitter tears while we eat the dish he’s prepared for us. Ideally, it should be humanity themselves that feeds this foul dish to him, as they prove just how much savagery lies beneath the surface, just in need of a slight nudge to bloom.

The Profane (at least in theory) don’t breed this malevolence just for the joy of it — the evil they bring to the world is a direct consequence of Hadad’s pride; of his jealousy towards his brother; of the betrayal of his kin corrupting all of creation. Hadad’s selfish example is the core reason Humanity is so easily riled into monstrosity. When the world is filled to the brim with horror, Hadad will see what his hubris has wrought, and the rightful God will return to his throne.

Goals: Encourage humanity to perform evil acts purely for the sake of malevolence. To hurt others only to make their own blood run hot in the street. By not only thwarting the best efforts of the Blessed, but making the world demonstrably worse, The Profane hope to demoralize their opponents, and eventually cause the same hopeless attitude in their Patrons. As humanity grows more frightened of the world they live in, their concern for helping each other dwindles; fear is all that remains, and fear paralyzes the good to do nothing. Only by breaking the spirit of good people, including The Blessed themselves, can The Banished hope to with this war.

Some Profane pursue these goals through societal change of their own, though the goal of their change is clearly different than the rest of the factions. The Profane seek out corrupt, amoral, selfish leaders, and push them into power; corruption breeds corruption, and when humanity sees the sheer immorality of their leaders, and the lack of consequences for their actions, it’s a lesson they take to heart.

Other Profane choose to get their hands a bit more dirty in the process. It’s said that there are, at any time, over 2,000 serial killers at large in the United States. The Profane actively encourage the worst elements in society to rise up, taking out their anger on their fellow man. Sometimes they even join in on the fun themselves.

Beliefs Invoked: The world is a rotting cesspool of filth which can never be fixed or redeemed. The weak and the kind should tremble, hiding themselves away from the world. The strong should do whatever they wish, to whoever they wish, whenever they wish.

Criticisms: The Betrayed think The Profane’s crusade for evil does little to actually win the war for Heaven — they see the true fight as a strategic one, while they see The Profane trying to win a moral victory, in a universe with little care for morals. The Chastened see much of their Patron’s former unchained appetite for destruction in The Profane, though not all of them see this as a bad thing. Within certain plans, both The Betrayed and The Chastened find good uses for the havoc The Profane can wield.

Both The Friends of God and The Judges of Light loathe The Profane to the core. While The Friends of God help those in danger and need, The Profane work to put more in danger and need. While The Judges of Light remove evil people from the world, The Profane encourage the worst aspects of humanity, from cruel leaders to rampant serial killers. In addition, The Profane are more likely than any other faction to make the war personal, targeting the those close to their enemies. The Profane accept that all of these frustrations are absolutely correct, and exactly what they’re seeking.

Who are the Huldufolk?

While the Huldufolk disagree on the finer points of how it happened, a basic gist can be agreed upon across the Hidden People.

According to the myths of the Icelanders, after being kicked out of Eden, Adam and Eve gave birth to children. Though their reasons for doing so are unclear, they then hid some of their children from God, just as they had hid their nakedness from him. God, upon discovering the treachery obliquely declared “what man hides from God, God will hide from man”, sending the hidden children to remain hidden from the world forever.

After being cast off, those hidden children were raised by Angels, who took mercy on them. While the Huldufolk are still separated from humanity by their curse, the Angels provided them ways to influence Creation and everything within it — including the ability, with great effort, to appear to humans for short amounts of time. With these gifts, one of the hidden children agreed to follow the Angel’s plan, and help shepherd humanity through the ages. They became the founder of The Blessed. The other accepted these gifts, but decided to spurn both God and the Angels, and follow the way of the Adversary. They became the founder of The Banished.

The history of the Huldufolk is vague in their prehistory, but it is known that originally they were centered in the Fertile Crescent, among what is presumed to have been the Hebrew people. Over the years the Huldufolk expanded in influence, reaching much of mesopotamia. Eventually their influence began to encroach into the great Egyptian empire itself… at which point something pushed back. The Huldufolk were expelled, some say with extreme violence, out of not only Egypt, but pre-Israel Canaan as well. With this dyaspora, they spread to the four winds, becoming part of almost every culture on earth, from Asia to North America.

For much of that time period, many of the Huldufolk worked only for themselves, living among humanity, becoming the source of many of the world’s myths and legends, as their fueled their power and survival on the belief of the people they lived among. Some of the Huldufolk are said to have remained in service to The Patrons in some form or another over the centuries, but the thread of Huldufolk history does not pick back up until the Middle Ages.

In Feudal Europe, as Christianity spread, the traditions of The Blessed and Banished reemerged in Huldufolk culture, as the Patrons Angels and Demons of both reformed a cogent Huldufolk society. Over the centuries a vast majority of the Hidden People have re-joined the fold — though legends they formed still live on, and those legends themselves have influenced the blood of the families of Huldufolk who formed over those disparate millenia.

Huldufolk Society

Huldufolk Society centers around three factions:

• The Blessed, seeking to influence the world towards good and justice
• The Banished, seeking to influence the world towards evil, or at least other ends
• The Agents of Balance, sitting between the two powerful factions, attempting to keep an uneasy peace and shifting equilibrium between them.
• Those Huldufolk that choose to live outside of society’s factions, gathering fearful believers of them as Urban Legends to fuel their power, are Rogue, to be hunted by the Huldufolk.

While numerous wars have been fought between the factions over the millennia, the fights themselves have had dire consequences to the humanity they’ve fought over — whether the collapse of all bronze age civilization, a plague which nearly destroyed Eurasian civilization, the Crusades, or the massacres of the Mongols. In modern times, a tense peace has been kept between factions, with a core tenet, enforced by the Patrons: with the exception of the Duel of Blood, no life may be taken among us.

Storytelling In Huldufólk

“When a rabbit is placed inside the Black Box and vanishes on cue, it is the audience’s privilege to simply ooh and aah in wonderment. But we who step on stage should know how the trick is done. The loss of innocence is the price of applause.”
The Codeless Code: The Magician’s Code

The following section details the anatomy of a Huldufólk game, and the plots within it. If you do not plan to be running Huldufolk for your group, do not read this section. If you are not the magician pulling the rabbit out of the hat, retain the joy of not knowing how the trick is done.

The Judges of Light

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill

Patron: Uriel, archangel of repentance

The Frisians of northern Germany had a legend. Twelve ‘law-speakers’ of the Frisians were called to the Court of Charlemagne, having been fully conquered by the Franks. Charlemagne demanded that the law-speakers write down the laws of their people. When they were unable to do so after several days, Charles the Great gave them three choices: execution, enslavement, or to be set adrift in a rudderless boat. The twelve law-speakers chose the last option.

As they had drifted directionless in their discussions of the law, so did they drift at sea, praying for redemption, when a man bathed in light, with an axe of gold, appeared to them. He brought their ship back to land, and gave them the laws.

This story came with the Norse who settled in Iceland, and the Huldufólk learned of the Norse God of Justice, Forseti, who passes judgement from his shining throne, bringing law and justice to the land. Modern Huldufólk know this thirteenth man to be Uriel, descended from heaven to redeem the repentant and instill order. Yet the story of Forseti was deeply ingrained in the brave Huldufólk of Iceland; it is said that Uriel, on nights where he calls Huldufólk closest to him to action, appears to them with a golden axe in his hand.

Motivations: Helping people is a great way to deal with the evil in the world, but it doesn’t deal with the core problem: the people committing evil deeds. Whether it’s serial killers, muggers, drug cartels, or monsters in suits, The Judges of Light see that evil has a face, and knows that the best way to save the flock from wolves in the night is to flush out the wolves with the blinding light of justice.

Shining light on evil people doesn’t necessarily mean removing the person from the world entirely. Some of the Judges of Light are sporting enough to even give the Friends of God the opportunity of convincing them to repent. Unfortunately, most of the Judges would tell you, people with evil corrupting their hearts can rarely be redeemed, and more often than not, the evil doer must be destroyed.

Goals: Improving the world by destroying evil. The Judges are both judge and executioner, finding the worst elements in society and making sure they receive what they are due.

Beliefs Invoked: There’s a Karmic justice to the world, and those who bring harm to others will eventually receive the justice they are owed. Those who live by the sword will end up dying by the sword.

Criticism: The Friends ask what gives The Judges the right to decide who can be redeemed, and who has to be executed. They believe The Judges spend too little time attempting to reform those doing evil, and are too quick to reach for their swords.

The Bringers of Fire see The Judges merely punishing people stuck in the cogs of the machine rather than trying to fix the machine themselves.

More than a few Blessed have noted that the philosophy of The Judges borders uncomfortably close to the violent and disavoyed former Mormon belief in Blood Atonement — killing people who had sinned so that their souls could be redeemed through the sacrifice of their blood.

The Judges note that, when there is an entire faction of the Banished focused on turning people towards evil to make the world worse, it is naive to think all those people can be redeemed without shedding their blood.