Helpful Elves and Pinkie Swears

While my players were adventuring through the Grimmlands, I wanted to do things that were a bit more unusual than the standard “Kill the Monster, Take its Treasure” type of encounters.  Most of the antagonists they ran into were based on the darker versions of the original Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm.  That’s all fine and well, but still was not what I was looking for.

After much thought, I came up with a pair of somethings that I felt fit the setting pretty well.

The first was the Curse of the Helpful Elf.  In many fairy tales, elves are like little helpers – milking cows, fixing shoes, doing chores and so on for an older couple or down-on-luck craftsman.  But the party’s elves – well, if you’ve been reading the other stories in this blog, are anything but tiny Keeblers just trying to make people happy.  They are full bore, ultra-violent combatants who hack and slash first and speak with dead later.  So… this is what I did to them…

Every day the elves were in the Grimmlands, they begin to feel a strange compulsion (Will save DC15 + 1/day).  If the save failed, then that elf began to act out that compulsion.  He started developing an attraction to one of the "traditional" elven occupations (shoe-making, baking, toy-making and house-cleaning).  The influence was subtle at first, one of them begins to notice the footwear of the other PCs for example.  As the compulsion grows, one of them might secretly steal the boots and make repairs to them while on watch in the camp at night.  Eventually, he sneaks into nearby towns and seeks out a cobbler he can secretly "work for" at night.  Raven could exhibit the same symptoms but as applied to baking or toy-making.

Each time the elf failed the save, he lost one rank from his most highly developed skill and gained it in his compulsorily occupation.  This transfer of skill ranks continues until the compulsory skill is maxed out for the elf's level. This progression can be halted for 1 day/2 caster levels with the application of a Break Enchantment spell.  Once the Compulsory skill reached its maximum rank, the elf loses all class levels and becomes a Helpful Elf – a 1 HD Fey who exists only to perform their chosen Craft or Profession skill to the exclusion of all else.  Once this happens, the only way to reverse it is through the use of a Wish or Miracle spell.

The second thing I wanted to do but never got the chance to use was having the characters meet some small child and through a little bit of sneakiness on my part, get one of them to agree to a “Pinky Swear”.  This would have effectively placed them under the effects of a Lesser Geas spell with a caster level equal to their level.  The idea would have been to play it off as if it were no big deal, just making a promise to a child for example and then BAM!  The spell kicks in, forcing them to keep their word, even if the agreed upon promise was something impractical or ridiculous.  A Double Pinkie Swear would have the effect of a full-strength Geas spell.