Book of Spirits

The Book of Spirits is a diegetic book in Society of Rafa on the spirits surrounding Kahal and Terida as written by Rafas, healers, of past and present. This bibliography highlights many of the sources that inspired the Book of Spirits. We plan on writing a second bibliography focused on the setting later. This article will of course make most sense read in parallel to game materials. For those who have not yet read or played Society of Rafa, here are a few main terms:

• Kahal: The main setting. It is small minority-majority village of mainly Avodai folk.
• Avodai: An ethno-religious group often persecuted by the dominant Lumdai culture. Jewish culture and history are a main inspiration for the Avodai.

In writing the Book of Spirits, we took inspiration from wide-ranging, mostly Jewish folklore across time and place. We also integrated folklore and ideas from other cultures. The format of the Book of Spirits with a source text and additional commentary is inspired by the Talmud. The Talmud records Rabbinic debates in regards to the implementation of Jewish law. Later Rabbis also added their own commentary to the Talmudic discourse.

We thought this format apropos for three main reasons: 

1. Differing interpretations give storytellers flexibility in creating scenarios
2. This encourages players to add their knowledge and stories to the in-world book
3. Tabletop roleplaying, like the Talmud, is an evolving set of stories and rules

In this annotated bibliography, you will find our original sources for the creatures that inhabit Kahal with a short synopsis of our sources. As with any good fantasy, we modified the creatures to fit our setting, game philosophy, and whims. Misunderstandings, our own and historical, make great lore.

Since this is a fantasy game, not a scholarly paper, our sources include Wikipedia, academic books, and everything in between. I did not always seek out referenced primary sources. Not all details of our inspirations are cited due to my shoddy note keeping. For more information, we encourage you to read the original books and articles.

Please note: while most of our spirits come from Jewish folk traditions, most modern Jews do not know many of them.

Background Terminology 

We use the following concepts frequently throughout this bibliography. 

Jewish Communities

Jews have lived across the world and built differing communities and traditions. In this bibliography, I mention Jewish communities a folktale originated where relevant. In writing the Book of Spirits we primarily used Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Mizrachi sources with some references to Ethiopian Jewry. While I have no folklore sources from the Indian and Kaifeng Jewish communities, I still included them to show the diversity of Jewish life. All the Jews on our team are Ashkenazi, so there is an Ashkenazi bias to our knowledge base.

Ashkenazi Jews

Jews who lived in Eastern and Central Europe starting in the eighth century.¹ Traditionally, Ashkenazi Jews spoke Yiddish, a language with elements of German, Hebrew, and Aramaic

Sephardic Jews

Jews whose ancestors lived in the Iberian Peninsula, but were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. They immigrated to Amsterdam, North Africa, and the Middle East. Traditionally, Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino, a blend of Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese and Arabic.²

Mizrachi Jews

Jews whose ancestors lived in the Middle East, such as Yemen, Iraq, and Iran, starting in Late Antiquity.³

Beta Israel Jews

Ethiopian Jews, who lived in Ethiopia for at least fifteen centuries. Traditionally they practiced non-Talmudic Judaism and developed their traditions separately from the rest of the Jewish world.⁴ 

Indian Jews

There are three main Jewish communities in India: Bene Israel, Cochini, and Bagdhadi with differing histories. The Cochini Jews were one of the first Jewish communities in India, starting to arrive possibly as early as King Solomon’s time.⁵

Kaifeng Jews

Jews who have lived in Kaifeng, China for more than 1,000 years.⁶

Jewish Texts 

These are some of the important Jewish texts we reference in the bibliography. 

Tanakh

The Jewish Bible. Contains the Torah (Five Books of Moses), Prophets, and Writings. 

Talmud

A collection of rabbinic teachings written between the first and seventh centuries C.E. It is divided into the Mishnah, a collection of formally oral Jewish law and the Gemara, rabbinic commentary on those laws.  

A page of Talmud contains a passage of Mishnah, surrounded by debate around its meaning and practice. There are two Talmuds: the Jerusalem Talmud, written in what is now Israel, and the Babylonian Talmud, compiled in Babylonia which is now Iraq and parts of Syria and Iran. As the Babylonian Talmud was compiled later, it is seen as more authoritative.⁷ 

Midrash

Midrash are interpretive stories that explain the deeper meaning of the Torah. The Midrash Aggadah is a compilation of Midrash from 200 to 1000 CE. There are also midrash throughout the Talmud. Jews have continued writing midrash through modern times.⁸

Zohar

The Zohar is one of the main books in the Jewish mystical Kabalistic tradition. It was likely written by Rabbi Moshe de Leon among others.⁹

The Spirits of Society of Rafa

Categories of Demons and Spirits

In Hebrew, spirits or demons are called Shedim (Sheyd, singular). A spirit without a physical form is called Ru’ah, which also means soul in Hebrew. Sephardic Jews would call evil spirits terms like la beuna djente, the good people and los mejores de mozotros, the best among us, in Ladino to assuage them from doing harm.¹⁰ 

We chose to use the English word “spirit” to describe the fantastical creatures of Kahal since it does not have evil connotations. We wanted the spirits to have their own motivations, which may conflict with human needs, but they are not inherently evil. While there are plenty of evil demons in Jewish folklore, many could be helpful if appropriately bribed. Stories tell of demons getting a fair hearing in Jewish courts. Demons even practiced Judaism and would attend services.¹¹ There is also Jewish angelology and demonology, but such a framing did not fit the setting we wanted to build. Some of the “spirits” might be better called fantastical creatures as they are not sheydim or ru’ach.

Capped Jesters 

We based Capped Jesters partially on demons from Ashkenazi legends of Kapeliushniki or Shretelekh who would milk cows at night. If you stole or burnt their caps, they would become your slave. There is a Talmudic story where a demon is brought to a Rabbinic court over a broken barrel of wine.¹² Emek ha-Melekh, published in 1648 Amsterdam, mentions demons called Lezim, which translates to jesters, who trick people on route. Later the name was also used for demons who throw household goods like a poltergeist.¹³ We combined these similar demons into the Capped Jester, pulling from their name from the English for Lezim and their titular caps.

Delphini

The Midrash in Shemot Rabbah 43:7 calls mermaids delphini in a story about a King who finds his wife sleeping with one.¹⁴ The characterization of Delphini in Book of Spirits is also inspired by Mami Wata from African cultures, a mermaid-like goddess, who has healing powers.¹⁵

Estries

Estries are one of the spirits that we changed the most. Estries exist in Ashkenazi folklore, though they are likely originally from broader German and French culture. The estrie is often portrayed as a vampiric witch or demon who takes female form. She lives in the community and drinks the blood of humans. She can change into birds and cats if their hair is unbound. If a human injures an estrie, the estrie must eat some of this person’s bread and salt to live.¹⁶,¹⁷

In the Book of Spirits, we portray Estries as bird people who can take human or bird form. Since Avodai is a vegetarian society, they must eat meat instead of blood, which puts them outside the stricture of the community.

Evil Eye

The Evil Eye was a common belief across the Jewish world and beyond. The evil eye is when a person’s envy or greed enables spirits to cause illness and misfortune to others. Therefore, people should be careful with their speech and thoughts in order to not cause unintentional harm¹⁸. One of the ways to project against the evil eye is by wearing amulets.¹⁹,²⁰. You can also treat the evil eye through amulets or other treatments often including sugar and garlic. 

I cannot find my source for the two shadows, though I read about them in one of the sources included in this bibliography. The discussion of good and evil inclination originally comes from Genesis Rabbah 9:7. The “evil” inclination is not evil in the traditional sense, rather pointing to our base drives like pleasure and physical needs, such as eating and sex.²¹ These can be very good things when properly managed, but lead to evil when left unchecked. If we just do good deeds without caring for physical needs, this is not a good thing. Enjoying a good meal helps us celebrate holidays.

We connected the two shadows and the evil eye to create a pathway for the evil eye to impact others without involving other spirits.

Fire Salamander

In Talmud Chagigah 27a, it is said that a salamander extinguishes a fire by walking through it and that its blood can protect a body part from fire.²² Fire Salamanders are also a real species found in Europe. They are black, yellow-spotted salamanders, who are toxic and can live up to fifty years.²³

Neither the legendary or real fire salamanders can blow fire, but how could we resist adding that embellishment?

Fire Spirits

Fire Spirits are based both on Arabic Jinn and an Ashkenazi folk belief that fire is able to hear everything and understand human speech. In the Mlawa region of Poland, Jews believed that a hearth could speak and communicate the will of G-d.²⁴

The story we wrote for the Avodai Hareva Festival that features the Fire Spirits is meant to be reminiscent of the Book of Esther and the holiday Purim, where Esther convinces King Ahasuerus to not kill the Jews as suggested by his advisor Haman. Or more accurately the King let the Jews defend themselves, unable to rescind his previous order. ²⁵

Frog Scholars

In Legends of the Jews, there is a story about Rabbi Hanina finding a frog in a silver dish. As he fed the frog, it grew larger than an entire room. In thanks, the frog offered Rabbi Hanina a wish. Rabbi Hanina asked to be taught the entire Torah. Therefore, the frog wrote out the Torah and the Rabbi swallowed the papers, learning the entire Torah and all 70 animal languages. The Frog also gave Hanina and his wife medicinal stones and herbs. The frog turned out to be a shapeshifting son of Adam and Lilith.²⁶

Giants

In Jewish Folktales from Morocco, Marc Eliany explains how each of his grandparents had different storytelling styles. Particularly his Grandma Esther would make her stories entertaining to teach lessons.²⁷ I took inspiration from this to add Rafa Aviel’s grandmother as the originator of some of their tales, including those of giants.

The story we included in the Giant chapter was inspired by a Talmudic tale where Og, the last giant, wanted to destroy the Israelites. He lifted a mountain to drop on them. Instead, G-d caused ants to dig away the center of the mountain, which buried the giant.²⁸ There was another early 20th century tale of Og riding a mountain-sized unicorn to save himself from the Great Flood.²⁹ The other main basis of Jewish giant myths are the Nephilim from the Bible, but these were not our primary inspirations.

Ghosts, Dybbuk, and Gilguls 

There are many differing Jewish traditions about what happens after death from the World to Come to reincarnation. In general, many modern Jews like to say we focus more on doing good in this life than in what happens in the afterlife. Here we will only address the folk beliefs used for inspiration in Society of Rafa. 

There are a few different types of ghosts in the Book of Spirits:

Ghosts

In Medieval stories by Eleazar of Worms, ghosts talk to one another, study, and pray.³⁰ There were Ashkenazi traditions for interceding with the dead at a graveyard using wax and wicks.³¹ Eating meals with ghosts of passed family members of course was partially inspired by Day of the Dead practices in Mexican and Spanish cultures. We also loved the gossiping ghosts in the novel Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett and the portrayal of eating meals with passed family members in Mooncakes by Suzzane Walker and Wendy Lu, which happens to portray a mixed Jewish and Chinese family.

Dybbuk

A ghost that possesses a living person.³² Only Rabbis can exorcize a dybbuk, but most mainstream Rabbis would not and at least by the 19th century most mainstream rabbis thought “possession” was just mental illness. Hasidic rabbis did continue the practice, which involved “threats, curses, and promises.” Since a dybbuk leaving through the throat could strangle a person, a spirit should leave through a pinky or little toe.³³  

Gilgul 

A soul reborn as an animal or inanimate object. In Jewish Folktales, Sadeh tells the story of Gehazi the Dog, a human who was reborn as a dog as penance because he resurrected a dog against the Prophet Elisha’s instructions³⁴. Issac Luria described stories of  souls of sinners trapped in rivers. Drinking from such water was dangerous.³⁵ 

Gosiek

A gosiec or koltuny or plica is a tangle of hair caused by a parasitic demon that can cause illness according to Ashkenazi folk medicine. They also can be helpful and cure headaches and erysipelas as long as you give into its demands. Therefore, you should not remove it or do so carefully by burning one hair at a time.³⁶

Guardian of the Pages

Starting from the 17th century, Jewish folklore contained a demon called Shomer Dappim, Guard of the Pages, who injures people who leave holy books open.¹³ A superstition claims that you should close holy books so devils and demons cannot steal holy knowledge for nefarious purposes.³⁷

Heartworms

Ashkenazi Jews used to believe in hartsvorem, a worm-like demon said to live dormant in the human heart. When provoked, they cause fatigue, nausea, and gastric issues.³⁸

Heavy-hearted Spirits

Ketev Meriri is a demon that according to Midrash, is most active during the mourning period during the month of Tamuz, commemorating when the Second Temple was destroyed.

There are two main depictions of this demon. In one, it has goat horns and wings. In another, it is covered in hair and scales and has one eye piercing its heart. It rolls around and, should a person see it, they collapse.¹³ For the Book of Spirits, we chose the second depiction.

Hoopoe

Hoopoes are real birds who live across Europe, Africa, and Asia.³⁹ There are several legends in regards to the Hoopoe in Jewish tradition. In one, they protect King Solomon from the sun with their wings. The King then gifts them with golden crowns in thanks. Poachers then started killing Hoopoes for their crowns. The birds ask for King Solomon to return the gift and he replaces the golden crowns with a crest of feathers. In the game, we decided to keep the golden crowns.

In the Talmud, the Hoopoes protect the shamir worms, who help cut stone for building the Temple.⁴⁰

As a symbol of protection, we thought the Hoopoe would be a good icon for a healers’ society, so we prominently included in the game’s logo.

House Gnomes

House Gnomes are based on Ashkenazi folk beliefs of Shretele, Laptitut, and Lantukh, sprites who live in the chimneys, under beds, or under covers. They will help out around the house for a fee. They also cause fat or vodka containers to never empty.⁴¹ A house gnome becoming a cobbler was inspired by the story “The Little Shoemakers” where small men helped a down on his luck cobbler complete his work.⁴² I also remember a similar story from a Jewish children’s book of my youth.

Lantook

Lantukh, Shretele, and Lapititut often have similar characterizations in Ashkenazi lore. Sometimes they seem to be the same creature, a mischievous sprite who will help out around the house for a fee. Other times, they seem to be different. We decided to divide them into two separate spirits, the aforementioned House Gnomes and the Lantook. 

For our Lantook, we chose the characterization from A Frog Under the Tongue. According to Tuzewicki, Lantukhs have long tongues and chicken feet and live by damp places or riverbeds. They like sleeping with human women but also attend services to repent on Yom Kippur.⁴³

We added a rivalry between the House Gnomes and Lantook to add to the world building. 

We also gave Lantooks more of their own culture, having them live in nomadic walking houses (that look like Baba Yaga huts) traveling between four different, seasonal villages.

There are human societies who historically lived in different villages seasonally to take advantage of different resources available to them. One example is the Wampoanag in our native Massachusetts, United States.⁴⁴

Note: While we did use this migratory practice to add depth to Lantook society and differentiate their culture from non-migratory House Gnomes, Wampanoag and other Native Americans are part of living human cultures. Please do not portray the Lantook as pseudo-Native Americans. Native Americans are not “spirit-like” or “inhuman” or “savage” or “mystical” etc. Differing land use practices do lead to misunderstanding and conflict between humans in the real world. White settlers used these misunderstandings as one way to steal land from Native tribes across the United States as part of an ongoing genocide. ⁴⁵

Phoenix

The Phoenix, a bird reborn from its own ashes, is common across folklore traditions. In Jewish texts, the phoenix exists in biblical, rabbinic, and apocryphal sources. In Genesis Rabbah 19:5, Rabbi Yannai and Rabbi Judah ben Simeon debated about the nature of the Phoenix’s rebirth. Rabbi Yannai believed that it burned leaving a small piece to regrow, while Rabbi Judah believed that it decayed before regrowing.⁴⁶ 

Rainbow Air Serpents

Rainbow Air Serpents are based on Chalkydri from the apocryphal Second Book of Enoch that have a crocodile head, body of a lion, and twelve wings. They sing at sunrise with phoenixes to lead birds in songs of rejoice. The Book of Enoch was written either by a Jewish or early Christian sect.⁴⁷ 

Sea Goats

In The Legends of the Jews Louis Ginzberg wrote that sea goats have the following inscribed on their horns: “I am a little sea-animal, yet I have traversed three hundred parasangs to offer myself as food to the leviathan.”⁴⁸ As both Sea Goats and Delphini live in the water, we decided that the Delphini would care for and shepherd the Sea Goats.

Shapeshifting Fools

A dominant trope in Jewish folktales were demons who shapeshifted into animals and people to play tricks on humans.⁴⁹ We are unsure if there was a distinction between these shape shifting demons and Kapeliushniki, Shretelekh, and Lezim that we grouped as Capped Jesters. For the sake of storytelling, we decided to separate them out, but called them “Fools” as a parallel to “Jesters.” 

We quite frankly attributed some of the darker, more malevolent elements into the Shapeshifting Fool entry. While Society of Rafa is an optimistic work, life has light intertwined with dark and dark intertwined with light and we did not want to glaze over the difficult aspects of life and folklore.

Toilet Spirits

In Jewish folk belief, demons inhabited unclean and abandoned places, including outhouses.⁵⁰.The spell against Toilet Spirits, “On the head of a lion and on the nose of a lioness we found the demon named bar Shirika Panda. With a bed of leeks I felled him, and with the jaw of the donkey I struck him.” is actually from the Gemara.((Arielle Kaplan, “Meet Judaism’s Demons, Spirits, Witches & Ghosts,” Hey Alma, published October 28, 2020, https://www.heyalma.com/meet-judaisms-demons-spirits-witches-ghosts/.)) We included toilet spirits for humor.

Unicorns and Other Horned Creatures

Are Unicorns in the Bible? Probably not. The Tanakh does mention Re’em, which later Christian translations, including the King James translation, called Unicorns. Scholars are in agreement that the King James Bible translators emphasized poetry over accuracy. The actual translation is probably Wild Ox or rhinoceros.⁵¹

In Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends by Getrude Landa, Og the giant wanted to be let on the ark, but Noah would not let him because he was a demon. Noah did want to save the unicorn from the Great Flood, but he could not find one.  So Og brought a unicorn the size of a mountain.The unicorn could not fit in the Ark, so Noah attached its horn to the vessel. Og rode the giant unicorn to save himself from the flood.²⁹

The Kirin in this entry (Qilin in Chinese) comes from Japanese and Chinese mythology.  We chose the Japanese transliteration. In Chinese tradition, they often have antlers, mains, cloven hooves, and bodies shaped like deer, ox, or horses. We could not help but add them because they appear at the imminent arrival or passing of a sage. Such a creature fits perfectly into a culture dominated by scholars.⁵² A horn in all the horned creatures being a symbiotic creature was our own creative addition.

The Ny’olir Avodai mentioned in this entry in the Book of Spirits are meant as corollaries for Ethiopian Jews. 

Uninhabited Homes

Tuszewicki discusses Ashkenazi folk beliefs about building on uninhabited land and moving into abandoned houses. For building on a new plot, sources mention waiting at least a year, burying a coin, sacrificing a cock, and/or organizing a feast for the demonic inhabitants. For abandoned homes, you have to worry about disturbing ghosts and demons. Therefore, you may take measures such as leaving bread and salt or putting up amulets.⁵³

Vegetable Folk and Animal Plants

The Midrash Tanhuma describes Adne Sadeh, a man-like creature that G-d created before Adam. The man had an umbilical cord attached to the earth. Adne Sadeh was very long lived and only died in the Flood.⁵⁴

There are Medieval legends and illustrations of both geese growing out of trees and sheep growing in plants. Some believed that geese grew from barnacles in the far north. In Jewish sources, the Zohar mentions that Rabbi Abbah saw geese growing from a tree.⁵⁵ The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary was a legend of a lamb connected to a plant by umbilical cord. There are also Jewish stories of a lamb plant called Yehuda as early as 436 CE.⁵⁶

It only made sense to have Adne Sadeh raise barnacle geese and vegetable lambs. 

Water Serpent

There are sea serpents and water dragons across cultures. In Jewish tradition, the most famous is the Leviathan of the Bible, who is said to eat Sea Goats.⁵⁷ The characterization of Ny’olir Avodai and their neighbors believing that water serpents are the soul of the water comes more from other cultures. Japanese and Chinese sea dragons are water gods.⁵⁸

Werefolk 

The werewolf is a common theme in Jewish folklore and pop culture. Writing in the 12th century, Rabbi Efraim Shimshon claimed Benjamin, the son of Rachel and Jacob in the Bible, could turn into a wolf. Rather than harming werewolves, Rabbi Ephariam quotes an unnamed source stating that you should scare him with a firebrand.⁵⁹ 

In 1920, H. Leivick, a Yiddish folklorist, wrote a poem about a rabbi turned into a werewolf as an allegory about pograms.  Pop culture has many examples of Jewish werewolves, from movies such as Wolfman (1941) and An American Werewolf in London (1981)  and  the song “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah.”⁶⁰

Wind Spirit

The Wind Spirits are very roughly based on Ebajalg from Estonian folklore, which are malicious whirlwind spirits⁶¹ and the general concept of elemental spirits across various cultures. In our spirits, they are somewhat akin to the Fire Spirits.

Ziz

The Ziz is a giant bird mentioned in Psalms 50:11, who protects smaller birds. It said that it will be one of the three courses along with the Leviathan and Behemoth in the messianic banquet. My favorite story is that it accidentally cracked its egg and flooded sixty cities.⁶² Some images and stories portray the Ziz more as a hippogryph, with a bird head and lion body. 

Citations

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