Viridia doesn’t look appealing at first glance, but there’s reason to doubt the official story. It’s not clear that Scrame actually killed and ate her, or why he’d randomly stick an elf ruby into his eye unless that was planned with Viridia.

What is clear that Gemelda and friends refused to seriously listen to Viridia, and didn’t give her time to come to terms with what had happened, or seriously entertain the reasonable theory that a mature system needs destruction as well as creation.

Viridia-in-the-sword provokes bloodlust and mayhem, sure, but if you don’t like that, don’t pick up the sword of bloodlust and mayhem. Her expressed personality may be extreme, but it may just be what she thinks people looking for swords want to hear. Give her time and a more subtle Viridia may emerge.

Gracenotes: Gemelda et al were already in Stanengist in the second meeting in the stillmist, so other elves had to rip Viridia’s emerald out of her chest somehow; if Viridia helped put her ruby inside Scrame her tiny body must have looked weird; Gemelda sounds like a tradwife and Viridia sounds pretty trans; you might think parasites are disgusting but they can be pretty great; maybe Gemelda was fine with feudal rule back in the day; you can’t quote Quentin Tarantino without swearing; the main threat to a sentient sword is the boredom of not being used; you should startle your players by having her talk to them.

The problem with saying the blood mist was karma for humanity is that precisely because humans are bastards, they didn’t feel any guilt. What’s more likely is that bloodlings are natural demon-part scavengers, and when huge demon wars happened, the bloodlings were overwhelmed and decided to triage everyone, including elves and other non-humans.

The blood mist is a network that learns, and at times individual bloodlings can fail to merge back. The more kind-natured ones would be horrified at what they’d accidentally done.

While Merigall probably had an early part in working out what was happening, and elves and dwarves probably helped, the Rust Brothers had every interest in maintaining the blood mist. What probably tipped the balance was Krasylla.

Gracenotes: let’s be nice to Erik Granström, bloodlings are here to clean up demon dandruff, Pyronax was merely the first survivor of the blood mist, I like how it’s ambiguous whether the narrator or aunt Ethel spilled beer on the baby and whether that was bad or hilarious, the blood mist doesn’t affect dwarves because the blood mist is a plant, a bloodling confused by a prepper cult gone bad, bloodling vampires, bloodling villages, elf and dwarf nerds unite, an elf-bloodling hybrid, a party of anti-Rust Brother guerillas.

Demons probably like the colour red, and it looks like mog is all about gluing demons and other things together, but we really don’t know. The best clue to demon nature is ether: it might be something like oxygen that demons need to manufacture, but it’s more likely to be food, that enterprising demons can work around, but you need to be able to make on-site if you’re going to invade. Also, demons are probably inherently conglomerations.

Gracenotes: kinky Merigall, Zytera knows more about mog than anybody else, unless they really don’t, sorcerers high on their demonic supply.

If you’ve got a good reason, or you stick to the diplomatic quarters, or you’re a guest-worker, you can come to Maidenholm. As well as many statues of the Shardmaiden in the grand temple, the town sprawls haphazardly; exactly how many people still live here is up to you.

The other half to the island is home to sea-elves, who probably don’t look like stereotypical mermaids. When above-ground, they live in a tree-village by a loch.

Gracenotes: good place for a murder, tame demons you can practice fighting against, Neyd built the Shardmaiden a garden, a proper rabbit-warren of streets and mismatched buildings, woe betide an attacking navy not looking out for attack mermaids, the unique way a Ravenlands University is funded, many Shardmaidens?, what if mermaids were in fact penguins with otter fur, oh and they swing through the trees, buildings rearranging themselves like the Terminator.

So you’ve got a bit of the Shardmaiden’s heart glued to your forehead. It should be able to tell you things she knew, and help you get help from your sisters. Being a Maiden Druid is about being part of a network of likeminded Elvenspring.

Gracenotes: does the shard change colour?, not all mystical visions are important or even useful, seriously, read The Dark Is Rising, what if elves are actually robots?, can you damage a shard?, real-time accurate communication makes Maiden Druids scary commandos, pigeons aren’t just fire and forget.

She went to an island to learn about earth, where she sung the humans to Ravenland (probably as a mermaid). Giving birth to Elvenspring required sharing her body with a baby, and understanding what it’s like to have children. So she suspended her consciousnes, with each of her heart’s shards learning from her children. One day she’ll be back.

Gracenotes: mother, maiden and crone, Neyd invented Ents, if the Shardmaiden did commit suicide, Maiden Druids are plagued by gloomy thoughts, taking ordinary names and making them elf names by adding -iel to the end continues to be funny, the shards can talk to each other.

There are no elf-dwarf hybrids, so why are there half-elves? Half-elves aren’t just tweaked elf-bodies, but they’re not that different either. What makes them different, at least from an elvish point of view, is that they’re mortal, with the problematic but potentially useful drive that humans have; so they were designed to have humans’ excessive fertility dampened down, and a better culture encouraged. Absent that elf guidance, though, Frailers may well get murdery.

Gracenotes: maybe demons don’t belong because they’re not humanoid, intensely-kinky elves, the Shardmaiden did it, half-elves don’t go bald, humans are Tories.

Elves don’t die, so aren’t restricted by age, and keep their numbers in hand so there’s no struggle there either. Elves Gone Bad are probably self-limiting also.

If you’re immortal, though, you need to actively manage your memory: remember, fade, or forget, or, in a society, note. That includes forgetting current visitors or politics if you don’t care. This influences elf language.

The end result is that elf villages are beautiful, and therefore it’s hard, but interesting, to make elf PCs work.

Gracenotes: elf punks, elves with tails or more, if all elf names end with “iel” then “Derekiel” is the funniest elf name ever, elves are all about colour, can elf memories be forged?, there’s living stuff everywhere in an elf village, elf fighters are scary, elf rogues are nails also.

Elves like surprises, and the best surprises are other elves.

The best way of explaining contradictions between the Bitter Reach and Raven’s Purge is to consider that the Bitter Reach is written from the perspective of Ferenblaud, whose big ruby didn’t shatter when it landed, so of course his instinct is to subjugate everything that moves.

Sidenotes: Mard the Freak, Neyd split herself up into many elves to explore Ravenland.

The elves had no want for slaves, but if they did, why was there no attempt to restore the status quo? Why can Stanengist seal the nexus for good, which includes no sneaky “opening another nexus” takebacks?

Nebulos’s original circlet was reforged into Stanengist, and immediately used to enslave the orcs. That created a single ruler of the land, which inherently attracts demons, but also fatally repels them if they don’t know any better.

Stanengist is expanded like the other ancient artifacts, notably adding a help me Obi-Wan, you’re my only help mode so other PCs can interact.

Sidenotes: Kalman Rodenfell was there and it was his decision, which Iridne disagreed with violently. When the PCs find Stanengist, some of the rubies should have fallen out, to increase the scale of “what have we found? there’s more rubies?”.