Beware the Fae (or at least the Quickling)
15 Jun 2011 3 Comments
in Gaming Tags: fae awareness month, fairies, Gaming, Mark S. Deniz
You nasty little beast!
“O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs,
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,
The traces of the smallest spider’s web,
The collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams,
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight,
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O’er ladies ‘ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail
Tickling a parson’s nose as a’ lies asleep,
Then dreams, he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she—”
— Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene IV
In light of KV Taylor’s desire to dismiss the myth that the Fae (fairies) are Tinkerbell type characters, dispensing goodness the world over (even though Tinkerbell herself was not too friendly to mortals upon their arrival in Neverland – but that’s for another post), I decided to discuss the darkest of the Fae in the gaming world – the Quicklings.
The Quickling has been a favourite of the D20 canon of monsters, featuring in all but one of the versions of the various game systems available. The ideas behind the Fae have changed during the versions but the overall concept remains the same.
The original Quickling
In saying this, however, I have yet to meet one in my 26 years of playing various RPGs (on and off this is, and very seldom of late) so regardless of whether they are a favourite of the D&D creators, nobody running games that I have been involved in thought them as interesting as I do.
In truth in the gaming world of D20 or Dungeons and Dragons or even D&D (as it is affectionately known) the fairies are generally a goodly bunch, albeit a little mischievous and occasionally wicked (too many to name and describe here), it is the Quicklings that are the epitomy of that which casts a deep dark shadow over the D20 fae.
My inclusion of the above speech from Romeo and Juliet, is in regards to the opinion that Quicklings are Brownies that have been corrupted by The Queen of Air and Darkness, also known as Queen Mab. Brownies have various names in folklore but are seen as a helpful fae in D&D, cleaning homes while the owners are away or sleeping (perfect!). This doesn’t mean that the Quicklings are responsible for messing the homes back up – if only that were the case. No, Quicklings involve themselves in much more sinister deeds and ally themselves with all sorts of nefarious characters.
Not wanting to get into the technical details of the Quickling (as in game mechanics), they are rather weak and an easy kill, that is if you can catch them. It is here where the Quickling’s strength lies, as they are incredibly small and incredibly fast and their speed pretty much makes them invisible to the human eye.
I only used a Quickling in a game once, although he appeared to the characters much later than expected, as he had made sure to keep himself at a distance and out of sight (see above) whilst helping his chosen master, a black paladin. The characters when eventually put into a situation where they had to deal with the Quickling found him impossible to catch, deal with or subsequently kill. He was a menace for two or three sessions before he finally made a blunder, falling prey to his own ego and being caught by the party’s sorcerer. The sorcerer was not aware of what the Quickling was, however, (being as my groups were used to the not using of out-of-game knowledge) and was tricked into believing he was a Pixie, thus enabling him to go free. However, he plagued them no more, as after being caught by the heroes once he was aware that there was a risk of this happening again. Ignoring his pledge to the black paladin, he left the campaign and returned to the Sylvan lands to tend his bruised ego, before his return to the realm, some two hundred years later.
As mentioned earlier, the idea with Fae Awareness Month was to remind us that the Fae aren’t really the loveable, helpful creatures that some would have you believe but usually have a hidden agenda, one which as well as benefitting the giver, almost certainly has unwanted side effects for the recipient. The Quickling is a step beyond the Fae in that the Quickling is very rarely in a mood to help and will only do so for its own gain and to the detriment of goodly beings (rather than helping for a price). They have a deep hatred for their Brownie kin and will generally attack their cousins on sight.
The modern Quickling (aka a bit naff)
Taken at face value the Quickling is one of the less interesting Fae, as its role falls into a classic fantasy trope of pure evil. In reading the descriptions in the various monster manuals, it has no redeeming qualities and is utterly without morals or remorse…that is if you want to read that way. I see the Quicklings as the black sheep of the Fae family, misunderstood and mistrusted, leading to deep seated resentment for their failure to be accepted as true Fae but rather described as deformed and twisted Brownies.
If you’re worried about the Fae and their tricky deals and offers of help then you best hope to god you don’t come face to face with the Quickling.
Nostalgia gets a talking to–The Dark Crystal review
06 Jun 2011 2 Comments
in Reviews, Films, Fae Awareness Movies Tags: fae awareness month, the dark crystal, jim henson, Mark S. Deniz
(written by Fae Awareness Month team member, Mark S. Deniz)
Coming back to a loved childhood film always leads to an interesting dilemma in terms of reviewing. This is due to a question of comparing quality versus nostalgia. However, this is not an issue if the film itself holds the standard we remember from our youth, which we can only tell if we take that step back from our emotional attachment to it.
The Dark Crystal is a film that demands the step back from nostalgia…
The film itself is standard epic fantasy fare, in that there is a prophecy that an unwilling hero must achieve to save the world from destruction, there are clear examples of good and evil and there are impossible obstacles to overcome on the road. The Dark Crystal also has several little interesting elements that keep it interesting enough for those tired of the same old, same old.
An element that cannot be escaped is the fact that all the characters we are watching are muppets, lacking in facial expressions and unable to allow us to empathise with them, in fact the worst of these are the two Geflings, the ones that really need us to feel for them, which makes it hard for us to fully engage with the story.
I mean, we are watching muppets here.
In fact Henson gets carried away on more than one occasion, concerning himself with his creativity, giving us several scenes where there is absolutely no plot at all, just masses of strange creatures wandering around in the land. It can be argued that this is to give us a sense of just how alien the world is but I disagree. The whole speech (read info dump) in the beginning tells us enough so that we don’t really need to see creatures aplenty.
There are several aspects of the film that make me wish there was actually a dreaded remake on the cards, as I think The Dark Crystal has an interesting enough promise and with ‘live’ actors could be made that much more than it proves to be.[1]
Take Jen for example and imagine his character being played by a budding young star (much as Haley Joel Osment was in The Sixth Sense) and then realize how much we would be able to feel for his strife, his doubts, his quest.
Granted the Skeksis and the Mystics would need to be CGI but give them commanding voices and you could be looking at a whole other monster/creature. In truth the Skeksis and the Mystics were actually passable in the film, it was the characters around them that made the suspension of disbelief a hard hard task. I mean Aughra, the Podlings and the Landstriders, as well as the aforementioned Gelflings are so obviously muppets and muppets do not a serious film make.
Going back to those tropes,I found them a little hard to swallow in terms of the clarity of good and evil, the absolute black and white of it – the Mystic leader dies whilst imparting knowledge to Jen, a peaceful talk followed by a peaceful slumber. The Skeksis leader dies in a typical snarling rebuke to those wishing to take his place, snatching his staff from those ready to take over before he has taken his last breath. This is followed by the rest of the Skeksis (who are dwindling in number) fighting it out for the right to be the next emperor. Again there is an argument that due to the Skeksis and the Mystics being two halves of a same being, that it is easier to see the Mystics as absolute good and the Skeksis as absolute evil. This is somewhat contradicted when the two beings come together as one again and they seem almost as benign and righteous as the Mystics were on their own, thus eradicating the Skeksis from existence.
I want to like The Dark Crystal much more than I do, I want to like it more because I loved it when I saw it at the cinema all those years ago, because I liked the idea of every time one of the Mystics died its corresponding Skeksis died (and vice versa, for the reasons already mentioned), because I like my epic fantasy – I mean who is not in love with George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series at present? There is much nostalgia in the film but I have many more films from my youth that hold that nostalgia and quality balance better. Fantasy was always a tough ask for those in the film industry and it has pretty much suffered and limped along until Peter Jackson decided to film Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic, thus showing what a fantasy film could actually look like.
So forget your Ladyhawke, forget your Hawk the Slayer, forget your Krull and ultimately forget your The Dark Crystal, as nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake is a tough ask.
[1] (My editor informed me that a sequel, rather than a remake is to be made)
