Jürgen Hubert

Hello! My name is Jürgen, and I translate German folk tales. Folk tales are, essentially, another oral storytelling tradition like tabletop role-playing games, where stories are told by amateur storytellers for their audiences. There are some important differences, of course - tabletop role-playing games emphasize group storytelling, as well as (usually) serial storytelling involving the same protagonists, which are largely absent in traditional folk tales. Nevertheless, I’ve often noted that they share the same overall “chaotic energy” of more formal story structures in art and literature, and indeed both folk tale storytellers and role-players often have similar ideas. In the 19th century, German folk tales received a lot of scholarly attention. Numerous early folklorists inspired by the Brothers Grimm collected folk tales from specific regions and published them together with added commentary elabroating on the historical, cultural, and folkloric context of the tales. I’ve been reading through a lot of these collection in recent years, and this has given me an idea for a new type of metafiction: Imagine that you are a folklorist, and have researched folk tales featuring specific supernatural creatures. Then you publish them as a collection, adding your own scholarly commentary to the basic tales you have collected from the locals. Only both the folklorist and the folk tales aren’t from Earth, but from a fictional, D&D-type fantasy setting, and the supernatural creatures in question really do exist in that world. So the folklorist in question could not only write about the folk tales themselves, but also compare and contrast the perception of the “common folk” (as shared in those tales) with what is known by other scholars and the latest “scientific knowledge” about these creatures. A good example of this kind of metafiction can be found in assorted Elder Scrolls lore books - my favorite being “Ancient Tales of the Dwemer” where the editor constantly snarks about the shoddy scholarship of the original author - and this kind of snarking absolutely shows up in 19th century folk tale collections as well. What do you think of this concept? Do you think this might sell? And do you have any suggestions for improving this concept?

I am currently running a “dungeon delving” campaign (in the Ptolus campaign setting), and one of the characters has decided that she wants to get some side income by carving chess sets out of monster carcasses they have come across and selling them. This is novel enough that I feel I ought to develop some further plots from this. So, any ideas for: the kind of people who might buy such chess sets what kinds of shenanigans might develop from something like this - supernatural or otherwise?

And now you have introduced a new generation of #ttrpg players to the existence of this game. You fiend!

My players characters are currently exploring some truly ancient underground ruins of a sunken city (the setting is Ptolus, if it matters), and the PCs are trying to find the sites of some temples of various gods to explore.

Next up on the list are temples of ancient gods of knowledge and magic, and when I searched for thematically appropriate monsters to populate them, I came across Nothics. They have a pretty good base concept, but I need some more ideas to make exploring a ruin filled with them interesting. Things I am looking for in particular include:

• D&D lore about the Nothics (this doesn’t have to be from 5E)
• Ways of personalizing them and their environment, emphasizing how weird and creepy they are
• Variant stat blocks that might make encounters with them more interesting
• Creatures that might co-exist with them

But feel free to throw any ideas you have out here - I am still in an early brainstorming phase!