I would recommend Perrault's (pronounced "Puh-row" ... like H.Ross for those of you old enough to remember him) fairy tales as well; they were THE word in faerie tales at the time.

http://www.angelfire.com/nb/classillus/images/perrault/perra.html

Many of them have little morals at the end which might be used as clues or magical incantations for the player characters in your adventures.

Well, there it is. Let's go. Before doing anything, I want to mention that werewolves, mythologically and in media, are a very, very diverse lot. There is virtually no "classic" werewolf pattern. What I am going to try and portray here will be the "Holywood Werewolf" template of the last few years. In order to not disallow other ones, assume that this pattern is simply one "species" of werewolves. Others might exist. They surely do, in fact, in the Grimm Lands. All imaginary beasts exist somewhere in the Grimm Lands. For more information and ideas, check out http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurWerewolvesAreDifferent in TvTropes.

Werewolf

Some men are wolves to other men, and some men are just being way too literal. Enter "Werewolves", men and weman who are cursed with the burden of turning into vicious, predatory monsters when the moon is full. They have a taste for human flesh. "Lycanthropy", the so called "Werewolf disease", is highly infectious, but can only be transmitted through the vector of certain bodily fluids. Blood, sex fluids, saliva, and breastmilk, basically(Plot seed: Think Romus and Remulos). Since most people are usually not keen on sleeping with a person who can at any moment turn into a raging animal-man, and since blood infusion was not all that common in 18th century Germany, that means that most werewolves are turned into such by being bitten by another werewolf.(Either that or they are the children of werewolf mothers, technically, but I don't really see that happening in the gloomy reality of the Grimm Lands). Upon being bitten by a werewolf, one should immedietly make an 8th grade Luck test to see if catch something nasty(Note that the bite need not actually cause you any real Wounds. "Just a scratch" can and usually WILL transfer the disease, just because Drama has more sway in the Lands then logic. And Drama is a *****.). If you succeed, you are fine. For now, that is. There is no such a thing as developing an immunity to lycanthropy. If you fail, well, you suck because the disease is almost completely incurable. Learn to live with it. The first symptoms are many and subtle, and might include a sudden hunger for raw meat, weird rushes of energy, very slightly improved sense of smell, and quiet unwolfy dreams about killing people. While in this stage, werewolves can be cured with a careful administration of the ever so famous Wolfsbane plant(H-4 6th grade, failures might result in poisoning), known for blooming during autunm and for being very toxic. The second stage begins the next time the infectee is exposed to the light of the full moon, and lasts pretty much forever since it can no longer be cured. Second stage lycanthropy, IE being a werewolf, carries with it a number of advantages and disadvanteges. First for the good news: You gain a permanent +1 to Seek(Sniffy sniff) and to Muscle, as well as an assortmant of minor "Wolfish" personality traits. If you are a girl, you can be pretty sure that at a certain point someone will try to make that aweful joke about bleeding from your genitals. I hope you are very happy now. The bad news: touching anything made of pure silver will cause you to immediatly suffer one burn Wound, and very soon you are going to be very hairy and prowling the countryside looking for blood. Under the light of the full moon, a werewolf needs to make a Pluck test every minute in order to stay in human form. The test begins as 5th grade and the difficulty rised by one with every minute passing. This is a good time to tell your friends/lover/cat to hide and stare at your palms in terror. Once you fail, it takes about a minute of visually horrifying and excruciatingly painful transformation shots for you to actually become a monster. Increase Pluck, Muscle, Scrap, Scamper, Hide & Seek by one, reduce Luck by three, and treat all Classroom traits as zero. Werewolves are not really good at maths. They are too busy eating people. An exception can be made to Boy Scouts or 4-H if the narrator feels generous(Don't rely on that often). Your Stature increases by one, becasue, as the Grimm Lands put it: "Conservation of Mass? What Conservation of Mass?". Also note that you look kind of like an anthromorphic wolf, only possibly with very amusing proportions, since, well, it's just like that. Don't argue. Personality wise, you are not quiet yourself right now: You hunger for meat, and human meat is best, followed closely by beef. Virgins are said to be particularly sweet, if you are into this whole "Werewolves as a metaphore for puberty" thing going on lately. Your main motivation for doing stuff in the next few hours is going to be "Hungry". Go chomp some poor peasents in a psaudo romanian village or something. You will transform back to your human form about 8 hours later, with the rise of the sun. If your narrator is very twisted(The heros are nine years old, you sick wretch), you will probably be completely naked, and probably covered in blood/bile/generic "gore". You will have only blurry memories of everything you did last night and a throbbing headache. Unless you drink a lot, it should not be too difficult for you to do the math(You are not busy eating people right now, right?). Time to gather your belongings and maybe wangst a little.

The End. Go kill people. Shoo. Bad doggie.

..........................................................

So...? What do you think? Someone wanna stat out Little Red now?

The first step in designing a Grimm character is desiding how mad she would be. All things of the Grimm Lands are a bit "off", and everybody has it's dangerous quirks, but some characters are still basically "good" while others have become utterly evil.

What do you think will fit better with Little Red?

Here's a couple that ought to be good (Not sure why I thought of them...):

Abraham Gabriel, the Master Thief.

Abraham has come far since the incidents of his famous story, but since the Rotten King's rise to power, and his creation of monsters that are terrorizing the countryside, he's developed a dual career as a Master Monster Hunter! He has a great hatred of the Rotten King, who wrecked his homeland. For this reason, he formed the Ferret's Nest, gaining quite a few apprentices.

Mr. Dark.

Like Jack, Mr. Dark is a composite being, in this case, the incarnation of just about every version of the Bogeyman. Like Melusine, he feeds off fear, and is the power behind the Rotten King's throne.

The idea of creating a new "Ultimate Evil" big bad is interesting, but such an operation should be only done with care and thaught. This is a big change to the reality of the Grimm Lands.

Who is behind the Rotten King? Who is Melusine?

Changing the big bad will probably change the entire tone of the saga. That's not a bad thing, but it could be a challenge. If you want a big bad to represent the adult world and its banality, try something like the Factory, a sentient and thoroughly malevolent manufacturing facility that produces nothing but misery and corruption. It could be located on an island out in the sea dumping toxic waste, in a checkerboard kingdom polluting the sky, or even in a wide clearing in the Great and Awful forest destroying trees to fuel its dark engines. Mr. Dark would obviously be the embodiment of childhood fears, and would probably live in a ruined castle within the Great and awful forest, or in a decaying fortress at the edge of the world. If the dangers of refusing to grow up are the main theme, than a twisted Peter Pan would work well as the main blackgaurd. Neverland could be located outside the Grimm land's proper(second star on the left...) or as an island in the sea. For those who just want to give their players the heebie-jeebies the rotten king works well. You could even twist him further by giving him occasional lucid moments where he begs for death, or reveal that Humpty Dumpty died when he fell of the wall, and the rotten king is some sort of malevolent force, as Captain Sparrow suggested, like the King in Yellow, the Red Death or Mister Dark puppeteering his body to his or her own ends. For campaingns focusing mainly on adventure the standard fantasy Dark Lord would work, but he should be hiding a secret twist, like he's really a kid from the real world who went through complete estrangement and can no longer go home.

On another note, I'm suprised no one has mentioned The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack . The series is warped, twisted, disturbing and absoulutely delightful, everything a Grimm game ought to be.

gothmog26 said:

We just started an Oz section of our campaign! I am not sure where our GM is going with it, but it seems pretty neat thus far.

He had us each write down a couple of stories/fairy tales that we would like to see incorporated into the campaign and he has it all mapped out. The Land of Oz has worked out very well thus far.

RhinoBarbarian said:

Heres one idea that I thought would be rather great.

If any of you have read "A series of Unfortunate events" would know about the sinster Count Olaf. Olaf is a greedy, cold-hearted, demanted, twisted, evil and yet creative mastermind. Who also is very fond of theatrical art. Would know that he would be great for the grimm lands. After have read a few of the books...Up to book 7 out of 13. I was thinking maybe one could use Count Olaf as a jester for The Rotten King.

Count Olaf could create traps or decive the players from their paths. Though Count olaf could also maybe lure the kids for his own will to over throw the rotten king. His plans are normally so great that ever step has a precaution.

Another Suggestion I thought of would be if all the characters happen to be a nerd type. You can do a Harry potter setting. Bring in the world of wizardtry. Or maybe just let the players find there feet to the Hogwarts school of wizards. It could take the kids to a whole new different place where they meet characters from the book and brush up on there magic.

I'd discourage a benevolent magic school. We already have the League if you want to teach the children magic, but magic shouldn't be easy for the main characters to get. It's your game, though.

I think was was Jack that mentioned that the characters in the Wizard of Oz are merely a fraction of the actual characters from the series. If you want some really twisted and weird characters look at some of the latter books, such as

Bungle the Glass Cat: The Glass Cat is transparent, except for its green emerald eyes, its hard ruby heart, and its pink brains. The brains look like a collection of marbles and can be seen working in the cat's head.In personality, Bungle is almost stereotypically catlike: cool, reserved, isolated, and extremely vain. Through its incessant prowling throughout the Land of Oz, the Glass Cat acquires intimate knowledge of its complex terrain; and it is sometimes willing to exploit this knowledge to the benefit

The Chiss: The Chiss resembles a porcupine, but is the size of a ten-bushel basket and has the ability to shoot its quills from its body. It apparently does not have the ability to grow new quills, as it must gather up its quills and put them back in its body after firing them.

Kalidahs : Kalidahs are vicious predators which roam the Land of Oz. They have bodies like bears, heads like tigers, and claws long and sharp enough to tear a lion in two. The Cowardly Lion, like most creatures in Oz, is a afraid of the Kalidahs.

Scraps, the Patchwork Girl: She is a living doll made from a patchwork quilt stuffed with cotton. She wears a patchwork skirt and apron, and red leather shoes with pointy toes. She has silver button eyes sewn on with black thread to create the pupils. Her hair is brown yarn done in braids. She has thin golden discs for ears and also golden fingernails. One of her cheeks is yellow and the other red, her chin blue, her forehead purple and her nose bright yellow. She has a red felt tongue, and pearl teeth.

Umb : Umb is the king of the Magical Mimics of Mount Illuso. Since Umb regularly changes his shape among a range of foul choices (like all Mimics), a physical description has little point. (He might choose a bear's body with an owl's head, or a gray ape with cloven hooves and a human head.) In personality he is tough and brutal, and as evil as any of his subjects. He has little skill in magic, though, and in that craft and in sheer cunning malice he is overshadowed by his wife, Queen Ra.

and my favorite:

Princess Langwidere: Princess Langwidere has thirty heads that are interchangeable on her neck. Instead of changing her clothes every day, she simply changes her head. The heads are kept in a bejewelled boudoir known as her "cabinet". All are described as being very beautiful, running through all combinations of hair and eye colors (except for gray hair and red, tired eyes), skin tones, and even noses of different shapes to represent different ethnicities. Langwidere generally spends every waking moment of her life admiring whichever head she's currently wearing in a large mirrored hall, and "changing" heads whenever she wants to adopt a new look.
When Dorothy Gale met Langwidere, the Princess curtly told Dorothy that she was boring and stupid, and dismissed her. Then, after closely inspecting Dorothy's face, she changed her mind and said that Dorothy should stay so that Langwidere could take her head and add it to her collection, offering Dorothy one of her less attractive heads in exchange. Dorothy was indignant at this and refused; she was then imprisoned by the Princess's guards until she consented to Langwidere's demands.

All of these and more can be found at:

oz.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Oz_Book_Characters

Upon a massive Chessboard, the clockwork kingdoms of Red and White are locked in an eternal conflict. Mechanical walking fortresses, armed with a thousand weapons, rooks charge forward straight into the enemy lines. Cunning bishops, tall and thin, raise the moral of the pawn hordes with dread battlesongs.

Queens made of the most delicate arcane mechanisms, their bolt and cog faces hidden behind beatific alabaster masks, waltz across the battlefield, swinging mighty blades in a chaotic dance of death.

The Alchemist said:

Makes enough sense, though I don't like the idea of them flinging lightning bolts around. Perhaps magically "reviving"(reconstructing?) fallen warriors(remember, they are all arcane clockworks, they literally break to pieces when "slain")

The Alchemist said:

In my fevered imagination, I see the pawns as skeletal, mechanical soldiers, carrying all manners of arcane explosives and a steam-punkish gun, as well as swords and axes. They wear uniforms that look a bit like WWI uniforms and a bit like middle ages armor. It's all pretty wacky. Of course, they die by the dozens.

The bishops are very tall, thin, and creepy, and their mechanical shells look like a strange mockery of priestly robes. They carry long staves through which they channel their battle magic.

The rooks are walking mechanical fortresses, with dozens of guns and other weaponry, shambling behemoths of the battlefield.

The knights are clad in ornate armor and carry massive lances, and ride flying clockwork dragons(that spit magical fire!)

The queens are tall and beautiful, with masks of eternal tranquility. They carry two blades and dance across the field, slaying all who stand in their way.

The king is incredibly obese(yes, being a mechanical construct, he was actually built round and fat and cumbersome. why? None know). He sits on a steampunk throne with many spider legs, and moves slowly across the field of battle, shouting orders and hiding behind the protection of his queen and the rooks.

The pawns should just carry swords. Guns are unnecessary, and make pawns too dangerous. Explosives, too. Pawns' one advantage should be numbers.

Sounds good with the Bishops.

Rooks: Again, Grimm is mostly medieval, with some clockwork technology. You're free to do what you like in your own game, but I think we should stick to crossbows. This ain't D&D.

The dragons should spit acid. Acid is a lot more effective against metal constructs than fire (which would have to be super hot to have any effect).

Sounds good with the Queens.

I don't think the king should be obese, because it seems like a pointless addition to a perfectly good concept. It just makes the thing more unrealistic, especially if you just cop out and say 'nobody knows'. Otherwise, good, but a few more ideas: As long it is even remotely possible for the king to escape combat, he is invulnerable. However, if he is surrounded, he must immediately surrender. If the chess pieces are commanded by a mortal, said mortal must take his place, as one cannot lead remotely.

To say the truth, it's all based on a couple of drawings by a friend of mine. Most of the ideas don't make sense at all in the Grimmlands. The core is good, though: an eternal war between inhumane forces who don't even understand why they fight(or that another possibility exists)

The Alchemist said:

The trouble with the conflict is that just before the king is captured, the Grimm lands seem to intervene. Sometimes the other pieces slow down, granting the King their speed the minute he is threatened (Check, in other words), sometimes the fortresses move to protect him (the Castle move), and sometimes...the King deanimates. At this point, the mantle shifts to another. Sometimes it's an unfortunate mortal, who may be leagues away. It doesn't matter, the battle shifts to his location. Sometimes, children are called, to collectively take the King's place. It's as if the Grimm Lands don't want their little game to end.

Also, I think the chess pieces should actually be sentient, and have collective personalities (very cardboard ones, of course). Usually, the kings are vain, having lives too long in a land where they are the smartest. The Queens are ruthless, and live to serve their king. The Knights are much like the Queen. The Bishops are murderous and fanatical. The Rooks are very, very stupid, little more than animals. The Pawns are really the only nice ones, simple and gentle. The Grimm Lands seem rather amused by the Pawns, forced to rush into a conflict which they, deep down, know makes no sense. Each Pawn still has the same personality, naturally, and the same goes for the other piece types.

All the pieces are still bound to follow orders, and to remain in the great game. The plot of a story could center around trying to free the pieces from this. Though now that they do not fight, what is there to do?