Using Fairy Tales to Create Fantasy worlds and RPG Quests.

             Nearly all ideas which fantasy writers have had have come from fairy tales, for many of these stories are thousands of years old, derived and altered over generations of human history. The stories tell of how to reach fairy land, of strange monsters and magical wizards. Many of the stories also talk of grand quests as will, even so it is interesting to note that what makes a folktale is the fact that it tends to be about normal rather then larger then life figures. Folktales are after all the hopes dreams and fears of the normal people of an area, it is this perhaps more then anything else that makes them useful for getting ideas for fantasy settings. For a fairy tale can help writers and game masters create interesting human settings, letting them know how the people of a region live. Fairy tales also remind us that life in a medieval fantasy realm was not always easy, for these tales tell of horrible famines and dark witches. Think of the fear that people within the dark ages lived, now imagine if the things they feared had been real. Fantasy worlds are truly fearful places just as fairy tales can be.

            There are of course different stories of various quality the Grimm’s fairy tales are of course the most popular of the fairy tales, however this does not make them the best for creating fantasy worlds. Certainly many of their stories describe and interesting relationship between gnome like creatures and mortal men, however it would seem that many of these stories have been greatly altered, to be less fantastical. However they are very good at getting ideas for life and some such as the King of the Golden Mountain have many interesting facets which a fantasy writer would be able to use. Further as these tales are so will know they provide a certain amount of instant connection for fantasy writers.

            Russian folktales are typically very dark, but with their peasant weddings, and strange wizards they are among some of the most interesting stories to use in the creation of a fantasy world. In one particularly dark tale a soldier is returning home when he makes friends with a man, who later turns out to be a vampire. The soldier is forced to kill this vampire to save a village, but to do so he must burn the creature which turns into swarms of maggots, rats, and other creatures to attempt to escape. This story shares a common theme with many other Russian tales, the difficulty in killing evil, for even in death those who follow evil return to attack their killer, and should they succeed in summoning horrors great enough they will be able to return to life.

            Welsh and other Celtic folktales are very interesting because they explain fairies and other magical phenomenon in great detail, perhaps just as importantly these stories can often tell of how the Celts came to build their worlds. These stories then can give you valuable insight into how people would talk about the settlements within your fantasy world. For the true value fairy tales can provide to fantasy worlds and role playing games is in their ability to help you understand the way a people would live and react both in a fantasy and in historical settings.