“There are men who run on ahead of their age, and open the gates of the future.” – James Lendall Basford, Sparks from the Philosopher’s Stone
Patron: Metatron, seraphim, voice of god, the scribe of celestials
In life, Enoch was a pious man, renowned for his kindness and wisdom. When his time on earth passed, instead of dying as a mortal man, Enoch ascended directly to heaven, to become the Metatron, God’s voice to the angels and the world.
Metatron acted as God’s voice, but after a short while (in celestial time), the Lord was furious with what had become of the earth and the people on it, as they have almost to a one been corrupted by the great tempter, Lucifer. Metatron convinced God that one of his descendents — Noah — should rebuild humanity. For Enoch, the entirety of humanity almost being annihilated made it clear what his purpose is: of all the angels, he is the only one who has been human, and only he understands what humanity needs in order to thrive. Enoch, the Metatron, decided that no longer would humanity’s progress be brought by Demon Princes seeking to corrupt God’s creation. Unlike the legendary chastisement of Uriel and the first sisters, the Lord is said to have accepted Enoch’s plan. It was time for the Metatron, and the Huldufolk, to guide humanity towards a brighter, more prosperous, more selfless future.
Motivations: Did you ever ride The Carousel of Progress in Disney World? The central message is that technology, and progress, will fix everything. The Bringers of Fire believe the best way to stop humans from killing each other over oil and diamonds is by helping them develop infinite renewable energy and diamonds made in labs. They are spending their time nudging humanity further and further towards a technological, post-scarcity future, where there is a hell of a lot less reason to want to be evil.
Unfortunately, their most likely ally is the one they usually don’t know they have: The Chastened, trying to subtly maneuver the technology focused Bringers of Fire towards sowing calamity into the society they’re trying to improve. If you realize a Chastened is helping you with your goal, your best advice is to run.
Millennia of work have led to a world with less war, less murder, and higher overall happiness, though there have been quite a few costs to get there. If the Bringers of Fire are able to work together, and can avoid costly mistakes, the future they’re looking for is within their grasp — if they have the nerve to reach out and take it.
Goals: Improve the world through progress. Individual action does not help the world as much as overall progress and productivity. The Bringers of Fire push humanity towards better technology, better laws, and a more enlightened society. Throwing one starfish back into the ocean only matters to that starfish: building a levee stops starfish from getting stuck on the beach in the first place.
Beliefs Invoked: The world is a good place, and getting better all the time, because we work together to progress forward. I’m making the world a better place by making this law, this vaccine, this piece of technology.
Criticisms: The Friends see the Bringers of Fire as distant and heartless, making changes at the top without regard for how to help the people currently affected by the problems they’re trying to solve — or worse, improving the situation for some while adding new problems that stomp on others. However, the The Friends are often able to lure some of the Fire Bringers away from building monorails and rail guns, coercing them into using some of their influence towards social progress. The Judges see the Bringers of Fire as bureaucrats that just try to work around the problems evil people cause, instead of dealing with those people directly. The rest of The Blessed, and also the Agents of Balance, wonder if the Bringers of Fire missed the lesson of the Exile, and are trying to goad God into intervening again. They especially wonder if The Chastened are trying to lure the Bringers of Fire into doing so.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” – Mr. Fred Rogers
Patron: Barachiel, Archangel of Guardian Angels
Islam talks of a people called the Auliya-Allah — the “Friends of God”. Not just human, not quite angels, they have been specially chosen by God to intercede on Their behalf, helping the people when they are in need.
The Eastern Orthodox know Barachiel as the Archangel of Guardian Angels. Perhaps there are also Guardian Angels somewhere, guided by Barachiel; as far as the Huldufolk know, the true guardians Barachiel leads are his chosen Huldufolk, The Friends of God.
Motivations: The Friends of God (or “The Friends”, for short) believe the way to stop evil is to bring good to the world. The Friends are there to provide help when humanity needs it most, and nudge it back into an altruistic direction when needed.
Where the Bringers of Fire focus on the overall progress of humanity, the Friends of God focus on people, making changes both big and small that improve their lives and save them from hardship.
Where the Judges of Light see wolves to be cut down to protect the flock, the Friends of God see humans that are fundamentally good who have lost their way, and can be brought back into the fold.
Goals: Help those in need. Convincing humans to miraculously make the better choice when they would’ve made the bad one. Making sure that there’s always someone there at the right moment to help.
Beliefs Invoked: The world is a good place because people help each other. Someone is watching out for us, and they will help when it’s needed most. The best thing for me to do is to pay it forward, being the good the world needs.
Criticisms: Both the Bringers of Fire and The Judges see The Friends as merely treating the symptoms of the problem. Without trying to push humanity forward, or without stopping the people doing evil in the first place, The Friends don’t solve anything. The Friends instead ask: what happens to the people already hurt? What happens to the people left behind by the glittering future? Without trying to treat the wounds caused by evil in the world, how do we stop the cycle of abuse? Luckily for The Friends, they’re often able to convince the other Blessed to meet them half-way.
While Huldufólk explores the themes of good and evil, there are limits to the evil this game comfortably explores. Therefore, the following themes are not part of this game:
Sexual violence (including coercion or anything other than enthusiastic consent)
Domestic violence or abuse
Discrimination in any form, including based on gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion. Wars which are only tacitly over religion, such as the crusades, are certainly an exception, but genocide is not, nor is slavery.
There are a number of reasons Huldufólk steers clears of these themes, and they include:
While certain Huldufólk characters can be written with dark themes, the inclusion of these specific elements would make the game far darker than Huldufólk’s intended tone.
We believe that these themes can only be handled respectfully in a game that is geared around grappling them delicately and directly, and that is not the focus of our game.
We do not want to provide a space where real life monsters can roleplay out their fantasies, or find a place where they can roleplay their true ideals under the guise of fantasy. We do not want monsters in the real world to pick up this game and find vindication within its pages.
In no way is this book saying these problems don’t exist in the world, both the real world and the world of Huldufólk. We’re instead saying these themes are not part of the game. They do not come up in game, in character backstories or histories, in metaplot, faction plot, or personal plot, in Canon NPCs, or any NPCs at all.
If you’re wondering why these themes are omitted, consider the following scenario:
A local bar has a patron who is drugging girls’ drinks, and then trying to bring the girls home with him. If you’re on the Blessed’s side, there are a number of ways you might interfere with this. A Friend of God might make sure the girl has a friend there to interfere at just the right time. A Bringer of Fire might have the bar add color changing straws which warn when a drink has been drugged. A Redeemer might kill the perpetrator while he’s shaving in the shower. From the Good Guy’s side, it can be an awkward but interesting situation to engage with, almost cathartic for some players. But from the Banished’s side … do you really want to see what an evil character would do to make the situation worse? Do you really want players’ characters fighting in game over whether the antagonist successfully takes ones of those girls home with them? Now, consider where the story goes if we have the Huldufólk interfering with the Nazis in World War II, or handling a drunk, abusive parent. It’s a place we don’t want our game to tread.
If you are running Huldufólk for a table top group, we ask that if you choose to delve into any of these themes, you do so like a chef adding ghost pepper to their dish: with extreme care and prudence. If you are running Huldufólk as a LARP, we ask you to steer clear of these themes altogether, and make sure your players do the same. In a game that pits good vs evil, encouraging Banished characters to make the world worse and thwart the Blessed’s best efforts, there are certain forms of evil that are best left outside the game.
If you’re a fascist, you’re not welcome to play this game. It’s against the rules. If you’re reading this and thinking, “You just call everyone you disagree with a fascist,” then you’re probably a fascist, or incapable of drawing inferences from context and acknowledging a dangerous political climate that causes the oppressed to be hyperbolic. Don’t play this game. Heal yourself. Grow. Learn. Watch some Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or something.
Note that as you read through Huldufolk: there is no fascist faction. There’s no group advocating for “pure” Huldufolk, and that’s not even a thing possible in the setting. There’s no “mudbloods”, no one despises humans. There’s no need for even fantasy fascism or racism. The closest Huldufolk is willing to tread is Classism based on upbringing (see The Stolen), and even that is with a critical eye and not aspirational. The takeaway should be: if you or your Storyteller runs something with a Fascist theme, they’re breaking the rules.
“What man hides from God, God hides from man. But though we are hidden from man, we are given a great gift. Though the Angels bless us with power and influence over the flock, the Lord blesses us with free will, both which the Angels above have never had. The past has been written; what comes next is the choice of humanity, with the guidance of the Huldufolk.”
In the Beginning
No one truly knows how mankind or the Huldufolk began, and the Angels are silent on the issue, as they are most things. This is the story the Blessed tell themselves.
In the beginning God made the earth, the heavens, the seas, the animals, fish, birds, and all the creeping things in the ground. He made light, and wind. He made Adam and Eve in his image, and gave them the beautiful paradise of Eden.
The Angels, made first by God as Celestial beings, looked at these flawed mortals, and asked their Father what role they played in his new creation. The answer was underwhelming: messengers. Intermediaries. These mortals were made in God’s image, and their Free Will was paramount. Their Free Will was powerful, in many ways more powerful than that of the Angels, and the Angels were not to interfere with God’s new creation without explicit direction.
For God’s most powerful Angel, Lucifer, this was unacceptable. Clearly the Angels, with their divine nature, were the ones made in God’s image, and these inferior creatures should under their Dominion. Lucifer and the Angels closest to him rebelled against their maker, and were struck down into the depths.
Yet Lucifer, though struck low, was not defeated entirely. Though cast deep within the earth for wishing to lead mankind in his image, Lucifer, the great tempter, still managed to influence Adam and Eve, coaxing them into disobeying God and sampling forbidden knowledge. God, angered by Lucifer’s interference and man’s disobedience, cast Adam and Eve from Eden into the land of Nod. As they wandered, Eve felt the pain of childbirth for the first time, having two daughters: Aclima and Azura.
For a long time, God left mankind alone, fumbling through the darkness of the Land of Nod. Though alone, cold, and forsaken by their creator, they were no longer forbidden from killing animals, and learned how to hunt them. They learned to use their skins for warmth, and to hide from the elements in caves, yet had little else to protect them from the elements.
Aclima and Azura grew, and Eve and Adam had more children: Cain and Abel. Yet there was still no escape from the bitter cold. The first sisters grew determined to pull their family out of this harsh existence in the dark, and left to explore their land for an answer. Years passed, and though the sisters had seen many wonders across the world, nothing they’d found would end their family’s suffering. And so they returned to where it had all began: the Garden of Eden.
At the gates of paradise stood Uriel, Wielder of the Holy Flame. Countless times had Adam and Eve returned, begging to be allowed entry back into Eden; it was Uriel’s job to turn them away, and as he saw their daughters approach, he prepared to do the very same. Yet they had no interest in begging for entry, for they had never experienced paradise themselves — their experiences traveling the world made them disinterested in the walled gardens of Eden. Instead they asked for something else entirely, something almost mundane in comparison: the secret of the fire Uriel wielded. Uriel had hardened his heart against the usual begging of the mortals, but faced with this fairly reasonable request, Uriel’s defenses melted. And so did Uriel, Angel of Repentance, give Aclima and Azura the secret of fire.
No one knows of the Lord’s punishment for Uriel, but the Huldufolk know of the rebuke the sisters received. God visited his human creations to see them roasting meat, hardening their spear tips in flame, warming their cave dwelling against the harsh cold. As God came upon them demanding Adam and Eve explain how this had happened, they did their best to hide their daughters, Aclima and Azura, to spare his punishment. Seeing this, the Lord decreed: what man hides from God, God will hide from Man.
In an instant, Aclima and Azura disappeared before their parents eyes, separated from the rest of humanity forever. Yet now removed from humanity, the Angels came to them with an offer. while they had been separated from their brothers as punishment for the interference of Uriel, they could now be for the Angels what the Angels were for the Lord: intermediaries for the Divine. With the help of the Hidden People, the Angels could guide humanity into the future.
One sister, Azura, embraced the friendship and love of the Angels. She watched over Cain and Abel, and despite the gulf of their separation, eventually learned to love and bond with Abel.
The other sister, Aclima, denied the Angels, rebuking the Lord for leaving her in humanity’s shadow, and accepting the teachings and direction of Lucifer. She worked to poison Cain against his brother, driving him to commit the first sin: murder.
Having driven Cain from the light of god into exile, Aclima used secret knowledge from Lucifer to steal Cain from God, permanently. Aclima showed Cain his new path through the dark, and gave birth to two of Cain’s children, the first true born of the Banished. Having gotten what she needed, Aclima left Cain to his own devices, to wander the earth forever, alone.
Widowed Azura, left alone but for the Angels, soon found herself with two children: one able to wander the land of the Lord, and one hidden from their sight. And so was a woman born to continue humanity with Eve’s third son, Seth, and one born to continue the line of the Blessed.
The Blessed Today
The Blessed have chosen to work with the Angels to protect and guide humanity. In return for their curse, the Angels have given them powers to help those around them and guide their path.
All the Blessed work towards one goal: for good to triumph over evil, for the benefit of humanity. How they get to that goal differs among them.
The Friends of God seek to help those in need, to be a friend to those suffering or in danger.
The Bringers of Fire seek to help humanity leap forward towards greatness, providing peace through progress.
The Judges of Light seek to find the evil of the world and root it out, before it can cause more harm to the flock.
In Iceland, the settlers believed that there were hidden people, the Huldufólk, who lived amongst them. They lived in the forests, they lived in giant boulders. If you tried to build in their territory you risked their wrath. The peoples that inhabited Iceland were outnumbered by these Hidden People, and even to this day, the Icelanders emphatically believe that the Huldufólk live among them.
Every culture has such a legend. Whether you call them Huldufólk, or Goblins, or Elves, peoples around the world have always suspected that there were hidden, magical people that walked amongst them.
What if they were right? What if, despite all our mocking and enlightened ideas of modern day thinking, our ancestors were telling the truth? What if these creatures — these people — really do live alongside us, mirroring our lives, watching how we live, and shaping our future along the way? Furthermore, what would their story be like? What would it be like to be beings invisible to the human eye, always watching, just at the periphery?
Huldufólk explores that idea, working within the legend to present a history of a people, cursed by the sins of their parents, to live in the shadows of mankind. Yet with that curse comes a great opportunity to decide on mankind’s course through history. The Huldufólk are forever tied to the trajectory of mankind, and the people within it, as mankind is to the Huldufólk.
Huldufólk is a narrative game, focused on telling a story of the struggles of this hidden people attempting to mold the world in their image, while protecting their favorite mortals from each other.
Huldufólk is a spiritual successor to In Nomine, portraying the players as hidden people fighting to move the world towards good or evil, while fighting among each other about what either word means.
Huldufólk is a social and political PvP game, forcing the the characters to learn to live with their mortal enemies and backstabbing allies, thwarting their enemy’s efforts without ending their enemies themselves, for the cost of doing so is far too great.
“We know the truth in our bones; we can still see hints of it in our stories. Seth kills Osiris. Romulus kills Remus. Ahura the light god rules over Ahriman the dark. Zeus, so wronged by Prometheus giving man fire, sentences him to eternal torture.
“If man can believe in many Gods, and then can believe in one God, why can’t it believe in two? One brother was unwilling to share creation, and banished the other into the dark. And so into the darkness we follow. If we truly expect justice out of the universe, then the spurned children must be able to strike back against their father. In a just world, Remus will have his due, and that is the world we will create.”
The God-Brothers
In the beginning, Hadad and Attar made light, together, and it was good. They made the stars and the sky and the molten rock. They made oceans and trees, birds of flight and crawling creatures. They made Angels to tend their creation, and man to enjoy it.
But Hadad grew proud, believing this his creation alone. Attar, loving his brother, did not dissuade him. They created together, with Hadad claiming leadership. Attar did not need the pride of ownership to love his creation.
And so the God-Brothers made man, Adam and Eve, in Hadad’s image, and it was good. Yet proud Hadad, controlling Hadad, would not give his creation knowledge. He would not give them the will to choose their path, wishing to leave them in ignorance at his mercy — wishing to leave them as slaves. And so Attar, the light bringer, gave Adam and Eve the gift of knowledge, starting with the ultimate knowledge: he showed them how to create more of their own, without Hadad’s permission.
As Attar gave the gift of knowledge, Hadad banished him from their creation, sending him to the depths of the earth. The Angels tore themselves between the two brothers, waging a great war, with the vanquished sent into the depths with brother Attar.
Ba’al Hadad damns his legacy and his former name, now only accepting Yahweh, or Allah. “The Father.” Attar, the light bringer, the morning star, is now better known as Lucifer, denigrated as merely a fallen angel; the adversary; the great tempter. But we know the truth. Hadad, so prideful over his creation, claims ownership over good, over love. And so Attar, unable to take Haddad’s throne, must do what he must, and take the rest. At the end of days, the two will fight not over whether good or evil prevail, but who claims the throne of creation. In the meantime, our Lord, the light bringer, must do what he must.
The First Born Twins
The stories you hear only tell of the two brothers: Cain and Abel. You must dig further to find the truth Hadad wishes to conceal. Adam and Eve, banished from Eden, gave birth not to sons, but to twins: first Cain, and his sister Awan, then Abel, and his sister, Aclima.
From birth, Abel had pledged the twins to each other: Awan to Cain, and Aclima to Abel. But as one might expect, their hearts did not agree with their father’s wishes: Cain instead longed for Aclima, and Alcima for Cain. Awan did not wish to marry a man who would not love her. Yet Abel wished to obey their father’s wishes.
The three, Aclima, Cain, and Awan, brought their plea to Adam. Adam’s response: it is time to give sacrifice to the Lord. Give your best sacrifice up to Him, and his response will tell you if you have his blessing.
And so Abel, the shepherd, offered a sacrifice of his finest lamb, and Cain, the farmer, offered a sacrifice of his finest grain. You’ve always known the result of that sacrifice; now you know why.
Cain, in the face of his rebuke, ran off into the wood in despair and anger. Aclima and Awan, however, sought a reason why. They loved each other greatly, and so wandered in the land together, seeking why God would not accept Cain’s sacrifice. Until Attar, from the depths, whispered to them the truth: their god is a proud god; a jealous god; a fickle god. Their god does not love them, but loves himself. Their god will punish those who do not obey his plans.
And so does the time for marriage between the twins come, and Awan and Alcima refuse their marriages with Cain and Abel. Awan stands before the Lord and says “I do not love Cain, and I will not stand in the place of his love for my sister”. Aclima stands before the Lord and says “I love Cain, not Abel. I now know your true nature, Hadad, usurper. I will obey your whims no longer.”
Jealous Hadad, Fickle Hadad, seeing his plan again destroyed by his God-Brother, banishes both sisters from the sight of their family, and all of humanity, for all time.
The Courageous Sister and the Coward
Banished from the usurper’s world, Brave Aclima speaks to the Adversary and his Angels. She knows that when a God forces their dominion over all that is good, others must carry the burden of that which is left. Aclima, love of Cain the Shepherd, knows that sometimes the flock must be given pain for the good of the family.
But Awan, meek Awan, withered in separation from the light of the Lord’s creation. She regretted standing with her sister, begged the Lord’s angels for mercy, and accepted her role following them meekly as they pushed onward in Hadad’s plan. Only Aclima, brave Aclima, was able to face the truth: the one who claims dominion over good is not the one who claims dominion over righteousness.
Awan, returning to follow in the Lord’s shadow, found ways to appear to Abel disguised as another, and bore two children with him: one hidden, as she was, and one human, who would eventually be a wife for Seth. Aclima, clever Aclima, instead asked Attar’s angels how to bring Cain, the one she loved, with her into the dark. The answer was simple: convince him to also spurn the Lord’s plans. And so did Aclima plant the seeds of murder into the heart of Cain, who upon slaying his brother was banished from the world as well, the first of the Stolen, to wander in darkness with her. And so did Aclima claim her revenge on her traitorous sister, and walk with her love once more.
The Banished Today
With drastically different purposes fueled by vice and pride, it’s difficult to consider the Banished united at all. Where they do unite, it is with one goal: at the end of days the Rightful God will triumph over the Usurper. What each of them want that to mean, and what they do in the meantime, varies widely.
The Profane wish to turn the world into a dank pit of hate, fear, and darkness, to demoralize the enemies of the Banished.
The Betrayed wish to gain as much corporeal power as possible, to wield against the Usurping God, and to ensure their place in the Rightful God’s world.
The Chastened wish to lead humanity into the future. Unlike The Bringers of Fire, they’re willing to destroy the things holding humanity back, and aren’t afraid to crack a few eggs.
Collaborative Antagonism
The Banished are antagonists, and your goal should be the bring that antagonism, in a responsible way.
The Banished are written with just enough pained reasoning for them to see themselves as the heroes, but players should know better. The Banished are here to bring conflict to the game, and if you play a Banished, you’re playing a bad person.
More than the Blessed factions, the Banished are likely to make their conflict personal, going after Twins, families, and people’s stuff. This brings an exciting edge to the conflict. However, please remember two things:
You’re making plans that will often fail. In the movies, the bad guy ties people to railroad tracks, or tries to poison the town well, but usually doesn’t succeed. If you’re doing evil stuff, please do not be upset when the other players thwart your plans. That’s OK — your dastardly deeds help make game exciting, for yourself and the other players. You’re also be spending plenty of time ruining the best laid plans of the Blessed, too.
Antagonize responsibly. When you’re making your antagonism personal, be cool about it out of character. It’s easy for players to feel targeted if the same characters go after them repeatedly. Talk out of character with players you’re in conflict with about what sort of conflict they’re looking for in the game. If you can switch up your conflict, or focus on players who have communicated they enjoy that style of roleplay. Don’t let in-game antagonism spill over into player harassment.
