Creature Feature: The Kelpie

If the tales are to be believed, Scotland is lousy with Kelpies. It's one of the most widespread mythical creatures: We have rivers, lochs and coasts all over the place, said to be haunted by a Kelpie.

Hippocampus and fish, Fantasy animals (1596–1610)
by Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt. (public domain via Rawpixel)

Often there's not much of a 'story' to go along with The Kelpie, wherever it might appear. They're usually a cautionary tale, a warning to steer clear of dangerous rivers, strange horses, strange men. The 'classic' Kelpie ploy is for it to appear as a horse at the side of a river, waiting for someone who needs to cross. When they do, the horse kneels down, inviting its victim to climb onto its back. No sooner have they done so, than they find themselves stuck fast to The Kelpie's back. It takes off into the river, dragging the victim down with it. Some variations have The Kelpie as a kidnapper, taking the victim to The Otherworld. Others have it as a murderous beast which consumes its victim, leaving only their lungs, which float to the surface in evidence of their fate.

I have come across a few stories that stuck out though:

Taming The Kelpie, which I heard on the excellent House of Legends podcast, read by Daniel Allison. It's a beautiful take on The Kelpie as not so much a malevolent force but a primal, essential one. In the story, a poor ploughman loses his plough horse to old age during a rough Winter. Without his horse, he's left destitute, unable to make a living. But through a series of favours he performs for a Hag, he gains the means to tame a Kelpie, securing his livelihood indefinitely. But he cannot bare to see such a creature - magnificent and wild - bound to his service, and releases it.

"The Kelpie" in Peter Berresford Ellis' Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths And Legends treats the creature as a singular being: The Kelpie, Each-Uisge, lord of the deeps. He's very impressive, but also gives off vibes of a conceited Fey Prince. In the story, The Kelpie falls in love with a mortal woman, and kidnaps the heirs of every Chieftain to bargain for her release to live with him in his domain under the sea. Understandably, she is not keen on this deal, and with some magic of her own tricks The Kelpie during the Saimhuin festival.

Then there's a couple of legends around The Stone of Morphie in Kincardineshire, which I read about in The Lore of Scotland by Westwood & Kingshill (never far from my desk). This is an origin story for the stone, suggesting it's all that remains of the House of Morphie. The Lord of Morphie had somehow managed to bind a Kelpie to his service through an enchanted halter, and forced the beast to drag the heavy stones which were used to build his castle. One of his human servants, took pity on the Kelpie and removed the halter. The Kelpie, now free, took off to wreak havoc and revenge on The Lord of Morphie, destroying his castle.

So these were some of the inspirations for writing "The Water Horse" as a Legend for Legends of Alba. I ran an early version of this in D&D 5E and it was a really memorable set of encounters, with a satisfying final confrontation and resolution as one of the Player Characters got to decide the fate of The Kelpie. So this is the updated version intended for use with Legends of Alba.

***

The Water Horse

The torrent owes nae debt o' thanks

Fir bursting free it's shackled banks

Augurs

1. A crumbling broch, flooded with silt grey water. Youngsters, drunk on salvaged whisky, plunder the treasures of Brightstone (see below), ruined stronghold of The Trueanvil clan.
2. A raging grey river blocks the way. The Kelpie, as a silver-haired lord, offers to calm its flow for a safe crossing: A trap. D6 Silt Bogles lurk in the shallows.
3. A woeful stonecarver bargains with a grumpy mare, overburdened with salvage from Brightstone. He carries the iron bridle that once bound The Kelpie, broken and irreparable by mortal craft.
4. Horses graze by a silted riverbank, The Kelpie among them as a silver-maned stallion. Any who sit on its back become instantly stuck as The Kelpie carries them off to its domain.
5. Druids from the nearest Stronghold, marooned in their boat as Silt Bogles torment them from a driftwood skiff. The druids know of a secret entrance to The Kelpie’s domain.
6. The Kelpie, as the trampling river, floods the Legend Hex. The river spreads, flooding one hex per day, towards the nearest Stronghold, to be dragged down into The Kelpie’s domain.

Cast

The Kelpie, Each-Uisge, Vengeful Shapeshifter

C25, Trampling hooves [M], silken voice.

Toiled for centuries in service of The Trueanvil Clan, now hates all mortals.

Silt Bogles, misfit subjects of The Kelpie

C10, Silt clod [R]

Launch ambushes from the river, retreating if they lose the upper hand.

Oskar Trueanvil, Woeful Stonemason

C10, fine clothes

Released The Kelpie out of pity. Regrets it.

Treasures of Brightstone

D6	Item	Tainted by
1	Whisky barrel	Greed
2	Golden cup	Sorrow
3	Exquisite cloak	Hubris
4	Carved idol	Guilt
5	Restorative tonic	Cruelty
6	Clan brooch	Avarice

***

If you've read this far, you might be wondering where the Silt Bogles came from. Bogles are a specific type of thing in Legends of Alba and might even get their own post some day but they're in the category of Weird Little Guys that I like to feature in adventures. Some goblins to The Kelpie's Jareth .

Till next time!

Some Intentions for 2026

I'm not really one for New Year's Resolutions but I am one for the practise of goal setting. I try to set up my life so that time is spent doing the things I want to do. I've got a few streams of hobby activities on the go and balancing them all is a big challenge that I constantly struggle with (second only to the far greater challenge of finding and/or making time for hobbies at all). So in this post I'm just going to lay out some things I want to do:

Tabletop/RPGs

• Keep the local groups going
• Schedule more ad-hoc tabletop games
• Learn a new game
• Keep developing Legends of Alba
• Put something on itch.io (for free/pay what you want)
• Run a game at Tabletop Scotland

Writing

• Get back into The Writing Habit
• Blog weekly
• Submit a portfolio to Uni of Glasgow

Mini-Painting

• Clear WIP
• Paint a Frostgrave warband
• Paint my Rascaltown Goblin
• Paint Krethusa

So that's step one: Intentions set. As with most things in life any plan is better than no plan and this is a sort of a plan. While I'm writing these here in part for some accountability - it'll be interesting (hopefully!) to look back on this post at the end of year and see how things have held up - I'm also very much just laying out my thoughts as they sit in my head just now. There's a good chance I've forgotten something important. There's a good chance one or more of the things above won't seem important a few weeks from now. So another intention is that I don't want to give myself too hard a time if things don't work out or my intentions change. We'll see how we go and try to have fun because that's what hobbies are for.

Till next time!

Inspiration: The Buried Giant

Kazuo Ishiguro's mythic fantasy tale takes place in an imagined past, in which a strange mist has settled over the British Isles, causing everyone to lose their memories. The story follows an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice who set out from the safety of their underground village in search of their adult son. Dangers await them in the form of monsters and strange folk roaming the wilds. They also find allies in a Saxon warrior named Wistan and in Sir Gawain, the last knight of King Arthur's court. Axl & Beatrice's journey to reach their son's village leads them to discover the true nature of the mist itself, and puts them in the position to bring about an end to it. As they come closer to achieving this, we are invited to consider along with them what it means to remember and to forget, to hold on and to let go, to persevere and to resign.

I loved this story. Ishiguro’s clear and simple language leads you confidently through the tale. There’s a care and gentleness to his storytelling which (as with Never Let Me Go) does nothing to detract from the hardship or distress of the events being described. He also tackles the mythic fantasy genre as faithfully and yet innovatively as his treatment of the Kafkaesque in The Unconsoled. Much of the world is discovered by characters asking questions of one another, lending a dream-like quality to the landscape as it emerges from the mists. Characters are met along the way who seem familiar and yet are not decisively revealed as a new or returning character, hinting at the narrative warping of stories told and retold through oral tradition till they are written down at last. This occurs even between characters in the story, with both Wistan and Sir Gawain recalling memories of Axl himself that might not quite align but equally could both be true. Archetypes too are well used, with Knights, Hags and Ogres simultaneously subverted and permitted to resonate with their forebears in every story that’s come before. Achieving this balance of the vague yet evocative is extremely hard to do without plunging an exciting tale into the realm of inconsequential, disjointed nonsense - and it’s struck perfectly here. 

A key component of this balance is the anchor of Axl and Beatrice throughout. One of the most compelling elements of their journey is the early-asked question of whether love can exist without the anchor of memory. They are tested by doubt and fear throughout, and when presented with the path to dispel the mist and regain their memories, have quite different views on whether they should. It is telling on both their characters that Axl, afraid to confront their memories since they seem content in their present, refers constantly to his wife as ‘princess’ while Beatrice, desperate to remember what’s been lost, no matter what it is, calls Axl ‘husband’. Axl, though fearful of the past, still lives firmly in it. Beatrice meanwhile, though suffering far more from the physical frailties of age, shows perhaps a greater strength here.

They do however have faith in their promise to one another, not only to find their son, but in their commitment to one another. This, together with their moment to moment kindness to one another, account for some of the most touching scenes in the book. In the face of their fading memories, Axl and Beatrice’s love learns to live in the active present and potential future.

As a shadow to this love at the centre of the story, there is a pervasive sense of ending. The faded grandeur of Sir Gawain, the frailty of Axl and Beatrice themselves, the giant cairns that loom from the mist: It’s a story that is saying goodbye. Goodbye to the last remnants of magic in the world, goodbye to the Britain that came before Britain, perhaps even a goodbye to life itself. Somehow even this darker element landed for me as a life affirming one because even with the sense of loss, there is one of acceptance and dignity. There's a natural order of things at work here. Standing in the way of that, clinging on to what should be let go, can only lead to the wasteland. The ending, though ambiguous (perhaps even because of its ambiguity), has stuck with me since I finished reading. It’s one that I truly hope does not fade into the mists.

Till next time!

Inspiration: The Northman

I watched The Northman recently. It was fantastic, and I've been thinking about it a lot. Before I say anything more about it: Spoilers ahead. With that out the way, here’s 10 things I remember from the film:

• An active volcano
• Longships on a rough sea, returning with treasure
• Mystic seers in firelit barrows
• Warriors empowered by beast spirit rituals
• Björk as a Hag!
• Death-shinty?!
• A sword that can only be drawn at night or at The Gates of Hel
• A battle for that same sword with a SKELETON THAT COMES TO LIFE
• Bloody vengeance!
• A valkyrie riding into the gates of Valhalla

Powerful stuff! And nothing in that list would feel out of place in Legends of Alba. Watching the opening, which shows longships approaching a coastal hill fort, felt just like seeing through my mind’s eye when I’ve been thinking about the game. It was an exciting moment, because so much of it is still only in my head, I’m always glad to discover things that already exist that I can point to and say, “it looks like this”:

Hrafnsey, from The Northman

So it was inspiring for game design reasons, but I also loved how it went about telling its story. Norse mythology feels like pretty well-trodden ground (maybe more so in games than films) and often you’ll get straight-up retellings of the Norse myths, maybe even characters from those myths will feature to add authenticity. The Northman isn’t an original story either (I understand it’s based on the legend that inspired Hamlet). Where I think the film shines narratively, is in taking the values and beliefs behind the tales it draws from, and telling its story with those ideas at its foundation.

It’s a revenge tale. There’s catharsis and you’re encouraged to feel it alongside Prince Amleth (the protagonist) as he reaps bloody vengeance. But it also doesn’t shy away from the hollow non-life of a character like that. He cannot truly live until his tragedy is avenged. But what life remains for him after that?

Along the way, there is the suggestion of an answer to that question, a path opens up that could lead Amleth to a resolution, if not to happiness. He meets his equal in Olga, whose sorcery(!) proves a match to his might. She gets an awesome line which I am probably going to misquote but it’s something like “You can wound a man’s body. I can break his mind”. She’s a great character and together they make an excellent team. They go on to forge a relationship based on companionship, respect and trust. It was an unexpected but welcome thing to see in a film like this.

But this is also a story about VIKINGS seeking a warrior’s DEATH in BATTLE! And it makes a point of glorifying this belief, as those who held it might have. Amleth’s visions - of being carried off on horseback by a magnificently fierce-looking Valkyrie, to where he is awaited in Valhalla - look incredible. But the film also (I think) shows the stubborn and wounded-masculine side of this fantasy. Towards the end he and Olga, now pregnant with their unborn twins, are bound for escape. A future together in Orkney. A fresh start. But Amleth, still not done with the old vengeance, dives off the boat and swims ashore to face the final showdown. He chooses to secure a good death at the cost of a good life. It’s tragic, it’s vainglorious, it’s idiotic.

I’m spending a lot of time just now poring over old myths and folklore, along with anything I can find on Scotland’s pre-Christian history. It’s tempting to look back on the beliefs of that time as being more virtuous than those of today. This was Before Capitalism, after all. But thinking about the ideas in The Northman, it seems just as likely that there were equally stupid and toxic beliefs back in ancient times too. Good to keep perspective I think.

So that’s The Northman. What an absolutely smashing film from two years ago.

That’s all for just now, till next time!