Today's blog post discusses Jason Bulmahn's take on fey, as presented in W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. Check it out, then post and let us know how YOU think fey should be treated!
I was actually thrilled when Monster Manual IV had some evil fey in it, and I have often thrown spriggans, red caps, and quicklings at my PCs, to the point that they don't really think of fey as frolicking nature sprites anymore, they tend to think of them as "those demented extra dimensional freaks."
I tend to see fey as aspects of nearly everything to do with nature, from benign, whimsical aspects like sprites, to things as powerful and fearsome as thunderstorms.
If there was one thing I wished to see more of in D&D it would be the clash between Seelie and Unseelie fey. I'd love to see more about this, especially since the seelie may be the "good guys," but they can't be entirely trusted, but compared to the unseelie . . .
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I have always viewed fey as a representation of uninhibited human nature. How would you act if you had no sense of responsibility, no conscience, etc.? Obviously, different fey represent different aspects of this exercise. I am reminded of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the novel by Susanna Clarke, in which a fey lord's behavior very much represents power without conscience. His priorities are about being adored, throwing parties, and remembering his cruel victories over his enemies.
I'm actually a fan of evil fey myself. One of my few accepted pieces to dragon was an ecology of an evil fey.... which took some doing, because the editor in charge didn't seem to like fey any more than Jason seems to in his blog post.
Probably will never see print now. Well, hopefully wizards will like it as much as Wes did. Anyway, I love evil fey. Splinterwaifs and redcaps were two of my favorite additions in the more recent WotC Monster Manual volumes, and fey are one of the first monsters I check for in the new ones as they come out. I loved Chris Wissel's adventure featuring fey (Wingclipper's Revenge... the issue isn't in reach at the moment and I don't remember the number) largely because of its excellent use of fey.
Unfortunately, many of the better evil fey are gone with the elimination of the later monster manuals ... Shadar Kai, redcaps, splinterwaifs.... sadly gone. Back in - the quickling, featured in Tome of Horror... that at least is a good thing, as I love the quickling.
Anyway, fey creatures always had lots of room for expansion and it will be curious to see how Jason uses them, especially with his stated distaste.
Is there an intention to introduce some new fey? I'd like to see that, not just evil ones, but the traditional good but sometimes sneaky, tricky and cranky fey also.
- Ashavan
Unfortunately, many of the better evil fey are gone with the elimination of the later monster manuals ... Shadar Kai, redcaps, splinterwaifs.... sadly gone. Back in - the quickling, featured in Tome of Horror... that at least is a good thing, as I love the quickling.
The Shadar Kai concept is definately one tied to D&D and its quirks, but surely Red Caps, being "traditional" fey can be "reimagined" for Pathfinder/Paizo, without loosing too much of what makes them fun for D&D.
Ah, Red Caps . . . I can still remember my step son laughing at them, a few rounds before he and his sister were down to negatives with only my friend, playing the party cleric, left standing to ward them off . . .
They're all Leprechauns -- with a mean streak.
Sinister little buggers ... keepin' people up all night making shoes and what.
Fey can be much like children: some are strongly associated with innocence and whimsey. In the right context, destitute cannibal faries can be absolutely terrifying.
And benign fey can be equally useful as villains. While there's nothing wrong with a daemon as a foe, a creature that is exemplary and composed entirely of evil, whos fangs drip the blood of the innocents. But I've always found hound archons, sprites, and gold dragons to add an extra layer of depth.
The Shadar Kai concept is definately one tied to D&D and its quirks, but surely Red Caps, being "traditional" fey can be "reimagined" for Pathfinder/Paizo, without loosing too much of what makes them fun for D&D.
Ah, Red Caps . . . I can still remember my step son laughing at them, a few rounds before he and his sister were down to negatives with only my friend, playing the party cleric, left standing to ward them off . . .
Goodman Games has reinterpreted them in one of the Dungeon Crawl Classics. Very nasty customers.
And I agree that JS&MN is a great fantasy novel, especially for looking at a non-cutesy (but still somewhat traditional) fey.
Yeah, but there have always been stories of fey that are decidedly evil, not just capricious. Red caps being a good example. Plus I can see the "good" ones not having enough frame of reference to realize that they might be causing harm or trouble.
Unfortunately, many of the better evil fey are gone with the elimination of the later monster manuals ... Shadar Kai, redcaps, splinterwaifs.... sadly gone. Back in - the quickling, featured in Tome of Horror... that at least is a good thing, as I love the quickling.
The Shadar Kai concept is definately one tied to D&D and its quirks, but surely Red Caps, being "traditional" fey can be "reimagined" for Pathfinder/Paizo, without loosing too much of what makes them fun for D&D.
Ah, Red Caps . . . I can still remember my step son laughing at them, a few rounds before he and his sister were down to negatives with only my friend, playing the party cleric, left standing to ward them off . . .
Yes, redcaps could be redone... though I actually did LIKE what wizards did with them. Splinterwaifs.... that I don't know.
- Ashavan
The Shadar Kai concept is definately one tied to D&D and its quirks, but surely Red Caps, being "traditional" fey can be "reimagined" for Pathfinder/Paizo, without loosing too much of what makes them fun for D&D.
Ah, Red Caps . . . I can still remember my step son laughing at them, a few rounds before he and his sister were down to negatives with only my friend, playing the party cleric, left standing to ward them off . . .
Goodman Games has reinterpreted them in one of the Dungeon Crawl Classics. Very nasty customers.
And I agree that JS&MN is a great fantasy novel, especially for looking at a non-cutesy (but still somewhat traditional) fey.
Really? Which one? (and who wrote it?) I like the Dungeon Crawl Classics line and that's actually enough of a push that I might pick it up (at least as a pdf).
- Ashavan
True...
Does anyone else have a problem with the concept of urban fey btw?
Not at all! In fact, some of the more famous/recognizable seelie fey were house sprites who lived in a building. They would do little things for the family who lived there in exchange for a bowl of milk at night. Many of them were very social and if deprived of interaction with people, they would go crazy.
I love love love fey. I think that they can start a lot of different plot lines just by being in the setting. They can affect a commoners life in many terrible and beautiful ways and still be a challenge to adventurors when played smart.
I love that even the good ones aren't really good. Their allegiance is to themselves only and nothing can change that.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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It's about time someone used Fey as the evil, unpredictible little buggers they are!!! I love the concept of an otherworldly being without our sense of Right and Wrong, with no human conscience at all. Totally without remores, inhibition, or sense of decorum. Nothing for them is out of bounds. They're above it all, or it goes right over their heads.
I love the folktales of people lost in the woods stumbling upon a rings of toadstools. They get stolen into Faerie never to be seen from again or re-emerging in a time long past their own. To imagine seeing all the loved ones you knew dead and buried or old and moved on after your "death."
Fey can be downright nasty if you want them to be.
One of the interpretations I've always found useful for fey is to associate them with emotion. Typical, good-aligned fey are more oriented around love (enchantment/charm) and happiness. Sometimes you can have one of these folk be misguided in some way...or more prone to trickery and practical jokes that can be unintentionally harmful to a party of heroes.
But I also believe there's another set of fey. A darker kind which champions the emotions of fear, greed, jealousy, anger, and malice. These are the kind of fey that steal away babies...lead people astray in the forest and eventually to an untimely death...or bring down curses and bad luck upon those they feel have slighted them. They delight in inflicting psychological trauma upon those they hate. And they're the stuff that parents use to frighten their children to make them behave.
So, all in all, I like the direction you've gone, Jason. And I think there's probably a useful parallel that could be drawn with the "sin magic" from the Runelords with the good and evil fey. That's the direction I'd love to take them as a DM. So bring on the evil sprites, nymphs, and dryads. Whether they're presented as the wrath of nature or the puppet-masters of baleful charms and curses, it's all good.
My two-cents,
--Neil
One of the interpretations I've always found useful for fey is to associate them with emotion. Typical, good-aligned fey are more oriented around love (enchantment/charm) and happiness. Sometimes you can have one of these folk be misguided in some way...or more prone to trickery and practical jokes that can be unintentionally harmful to a party of heroes.
But I also believe there's another set of fey. A darker kind which champions the emotions of fear, greed, jealousy, anger, and malice. These are the kind of fey that steal away babies...lead people astray in the forest and eventually to an untimely death...or bring down curses and bad luck upon those they feel have slighted them. They delight in inflicting psychological trauma upon those they hate. And they're the stuff that parents use to frighten their children to make them behave.
You know, all through this thread I've been trying to put my finger on what fey actually are, and why they aren't just humanoids, or outsiders, or whatever else. I think that your emotion explanation actually really helps what I've been trying to put my finger on.
Urban fey actually kind of bothered me, not because they didn't exist in folklore, but because the knee jerk "fey are a force of nature" definition was harder to use with them. But now that you mention emotion, I can put together a more convoluted, but I think kind of consistant, explanation for what they are.
Fey are primal beings tied to natural things, intensified with emotion. When they want to bask in the beauty of nature, they do so to the exclusion of all else. When they want to bask in passion, they are pretty, er, single minded. When they are bent towards violence they are worse than the most twisted serial killer.
Primal beings tied to raw emotion. I know its kind of abstract, but abstract works for them, I think.
Director of Games
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Truth be told, I have actually found fey from the later books to be much more useful than those in the MM. You just cannot tell your groups that they are facing off against a nixie without getting snickers. Hmm.. maybe it is just been the people I have been playing with.
Anybody else have similar experiences.
That said, I really like a lot of the ideas floating around on this thread. We have been kicking around some ideas for urban fey around the office for a while now, but none of them have seemed to stick... yet.
Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
I think Fey could be made to be very, very bad indeed;>
Truth be told, I have actually found fey from the later books to be much more useful than those in the MM. You just cannot tell your groups that they are facing off against a nixie without getting snickers. Hmm.. maybe it is just been the people I have been playing with.
Anybody else have similar experiences.
That said, I really like a lot of the ideas floating around on this thread. We have been kicking around some ideas for urban fey around the office for a while now, but none of them have seemed to stick... yet.
Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
I also prefer the fey from the later books, and to be honest, the lack of them is part of what has me really kinda depressed about the switch to OGL for paizo products. I use the monster manual, but I really enjoy a lot of the creatures in the later books more... this is especially true of plant creatures (most of the ones in the SRD are outright boring) and fey.
- Ashavan
You know, all through this thread I've been trying to put my finger on what fey actually are, and why they aren't just humanoids, or outsiders, or whatever else. I think that your emotion explanation actually really helps what I've been trying to put my finger on.
...Fey are primal beings tied to natural things, intensified with emotion. When they want to bask in the beauty of nature, they do so to the exclusion of all else. When they want to bask in passion, they are pretty, er, single minded. When they are bent towards violence they are worse than the most twisted serial killer.
Primal beings tied to raw emotion. I know its kind of abstract, but abstract works for them, I think.
Yes. That's exactly how I spin them. Exclusively focused on the primal energy around a particular emotion (or maybe two). Mercurial minds, very little conscience with regards to their actions, just totally absorbed in whatever emotional energy is motivating them at any given moment. This is why non-fey humanoids are so often awe-struck, frightened, charmed, or manipulated by the fey. The emotional overload of these otherworldly beings just wreaks havoc with the more limited emotional capacity of non-fey. Hence, they're the stuff of legends, folk-tales, and...yes, nightmares...especially when they're also so magical in nature, as well.
But one additional thing I tend to do with fey is that I don't just associate them with nature (i.e., the forest). There are plenty of examples of fey or fey-like creatures becoming attached to a place or locale, natural or otherwise. So, fey-like elves or sprites could take up residence within the walls of a cobbler's shop or home and creep out at night to busily stock his shelves with the finest made shoes in town...or, they could just as easily haunt an ancient manse with terrible curses and pitfalls prepared for those who dare to disturb it. Are they ghosts? Not quite. But malevolent magically-minded sprites? Oh, yes...and they should frighten you just as badly. ;-)
--Neil
They're all Leprechauns -- with a mean streak.
Sinister little buggers ... keepin' people up all night making shoes and what.
Actually, the leprechaun with a mean streak is called a clurichaun. According to some folklore, they are drunk leprechauns that love to torment farms with their practical jokes. While not quite the murderous redcap, they are still mean and foul tempered.
Fey run the gambit of power and temperment.
The list people are examples of fey from folklore. Some have made it into various d20 products.
Banshee or Bean Shide(In some stories the banshee was a guardian. Her screams warn of danger and did not foretell death)
Bean Nighe (the "washer-woman" version of the banshee)
Boggart
Brownie
Cait Sidhe (fairy cat)
Clurichaun
Cu Sith (fairy dog)
Erlking
Far darrig (The red man, he was said to cause nightmares)
Glaistig (refered to as half human half goat, she sometime protect herders and sometimes attacks travelers with rocks)
Grimlins
Kallikantzaros (very goblin like)
Kelpie
Leanan Sidhe (fairy lover)
Leprechaun
Menehune
Mogwai (Chinese evil spirit)
Redcaps
Sluagh (Spirits of the reastless dead)
The Wild Hunt
Anyone who thinks Fey are all fairies, has never really studied Scottish or Irish folklore. Even house fairies could turn dark if ill treated or not shown the respect they deserve.
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I have always been disappointed with how little effort has been put into making fey a viable encounter choice. The last few years has seen a little more done with them (unique or evil fey in the last MMs, Eberron having a fey-inspired plane), but earlier on fey were just "fancy bugs" for the most part. Some thoughts:
-Continue to create new fey to represent different aspects of the natural world (yes, that should include urban fey as well as perhaps planar fey ...?)
-Continue to delve into different myths and legends for tales of different feykind; Oriental Adventures only scratched the surface of asian fey, and there are many other resources as well
-I agree with an earlier post that it would be nice to see some Seelie/Unseelie concept brought to bear; perhaps have fey races that are mercurial enough to switch from one to the other due to natural influences (lunar phases, seasons, etc)
Just a few thoughts...
I think Fey could be made to be very, very bad indeed;>
Why, what ever could you mean?
heheheheehehehheeheeeheeheheheheeeeeee!
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I tend to consider fey beings as "elementals of nature/life force", and as such they can be benign, evil, simply uncaring, representative of positive feelings and negative ones.
A really good d20 supplement in this regard is the "Complete Guide to Fey" by Goodman Games, that gives templates and archetipes to build both good and bad fey - and guidelines for the various courts.
OK--just had another idea for a monster submission to pathfinder: Chinese fox-fairies, very similar to Japanese kitsune. Sometimes evil, sometimes a benevolent if treated right, but always dangerous--a bit like a CN succubus, I suppose. (I call dibs, and will follow up with a proposal as soon as the Pathfinder monster submissions path is opened up.)
Two comments on D&D images and uses of fey:
1. We tend in contemporary Western society to view untrammelled nature as a good thing, and therefore in D&D the nature spirits that protect nature are also labeled as good. We are also profoundly influenced by Tolkien's portrayal of elves as good and miss the undertones of peril that he conveys when mortals venture into lands controlled by powerful elven enchanters. We need to get back to a more medieval view of nature as both source of key resources needed for life and something to be feared--and fey as a sort of adversary in this process--to be fought or placated, not trifled with. Read a little Celtic folklore, and you'll get the idea. Fey are in a certain way minor local deities, spirits who have supernatural powers and control certain sites or features on the local landscape. Ordinary people know not to cross Usheen's Bridge after midnight or to enter a fairy mound when invited in. They leave milk and bread for the brownies so that their home will not be visited with misfortune. They're canny enough not to be deceived by the leprechaun's gold--look what happened to old Seamus O'Leary in the next village over. And if you go deep into the forest by yourself, you're liable never to come out again, or to return greatly changed many decades later when the fairies have tired of you.
2. Contemporary images of "fairies" as cutesy little girls with wings (and perhaps our use of the term as a pejorative for gay men) have completely overlaid the original concept of a strange, eldritch otherworld that can be reached by venturing far from the known paths of civilization--in wild reaches or inside the mounds and monuments left behind by peoples no longer remembered. This has been a progressive evolution--the powerful and otherworldly Tuatha de Danaan in early Irish literature (and their counterparts in the Welsh Mabinogion) reveal faeries as beings of godlike power, demigods who live in a world separated from our own by a thin veil. The evil side of this community of magical beings is represented by creatures like the Fir Bolg, or the germanic Grendel, or the Trolls that inhabit medieval Scandinavian literature. By early modern times, faeries begin to be diminished--the Tuatha and their ilk disappear, and we are left with the various minor fey, who are still perilous and capable of great mischief, but not as awe-inspiring as their forebears. Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the beginning of the end for the faeries--mischievous they are, but they can be rationalized away as the products of dream and fantasy. Peter Pan, I think, marks the replacement of the grim, otherworldly, maliciously magical beings with the innocent and childlike ones.
A dryad or a band of pixies can be fearsome enemies if played well. And PCs, especially human and dwarven ones, are usually viewed as the enemy by fey, automatically. Human society is generally lawful and believes in taming, civilizing, and harvesting nature--fey are diametrically opposed to this. They may not march out in a big army and whoop the humans, because that's not their style or their strong point. But they will certainly fight tooth and nail with the resources they have available to prevent logging, hunting and trapping, etc. And this means visiting all kinds of unpleasant misfortunes and accidents on those who are behind such abuses of nature. Fey are the consumate eco-terrorists, if they were alive in our world, they'd be spiking trees and blowing up dams, and forest service rangers and logging company executives would regularly meet with strange accidents.
You can't run fey in the sort of melee slugfest or battle arcane that we typically run in D&D. Fey are more prone to hit and run, to do things to screw with their adversaries without moving in for the kill, and to use their spell-like abilities to befuddle, annoy, or mislead their opponents until they give up and go home. I recently ran an adventure for my nephews and nieces that involved the PCs being hired by a frontier baron to investigate a series of mishaps that have stopped work on his new castle. His serfs attribute them to evil spirits of the forest, but he is skeptical and wants to find out what's really going on. Needless to say, I taught them a few lessons with a splinterwaif and a very prank-happy grig, before they were induced to serve as go-betweens in negotiations between the forest denizens (backed by a gnome druid-illusionist) and their original employer. If they try to back out, I'll have to sick a band of pixies on them. (There's a reason why Otto's Irresistable Dance is an 8th level spell).
For inspiration on running creepy, anarchist, or eco-terrorist fey, read Henry Glassie, "Irish Folktales," look at Brian Froud and Alan Lee, "Faeries," and read two of my favorite books Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia" and Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang" (not about fey but about eco-terrorists and a hippy utopia, respectively, and very useful inspiration for thinking about how those dedicated to preserving untrammeled nature might look at the world and deal with nature's despoilers).
It's not all about Good vs. Evil. There's all kinds of good adventuring to be done that plays on the Law vs. Chaos conflict.
I have to agree with Ben Taggart's representing them as having no conscience. I also do the Pint sized hippie thing, just remembering that the Manson family were hippies too. Add a Tim Burton/M. Night Shamaylan style of imagination and you've got my image of fey. Wild and fanciful mixed with equal parts dark and dour.
Peruhain is correct about how many people thing of fey.
Most fey in folklore had a duality to them. Each could be seelie and unseelie. For example, some tale describe the banshee's wail as causing death or ill fortune. In others it warned of danger, allowing someone wise or brave enough to overcome and survive the threat.
If you think about the fey in D&D, there is plenty of opportunity to add a dark aspect to them. Both dryads and sirens were known to steal men away and the satyr was the personification of masculine passion.
This duality make fey unpredictable and adds an air of danger to them.
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I have great fun with a brownie sorceror villian in my campaign, who useshis familier for a mount... the first time the party met him they were camping fo r the night, he rode his cat familier next to the fire, and while the rogue who was on watch was petting it, the brownie cast enlarge on the cat and told it to attack...
this was just because their fire was over the bolt-hole of his house at the time mind you.and he was getting smnoked out of his tunnels
Today's blog post discusses Jason Bulmahn's take on fey, as presented in W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. Check it out, then post and let us know how YOU think fey should be treated!
Fey are underrated as villains. In the old folk tales they were often very scary, and its really only the bowdlerized versions that Disney spouts off that makes them seem otherwise.
I recently used a fiendish nixie very effectively as a villain in a first level adventure. Long ago I used an unseelie satyr serial-rapist as the monster in a Ravenloft campaign, and that worked too.
I really enjoy fey, partly because I enjoy the range from beautiful water ladies who delight in tempting men into the water to drown them all the way to the nasty troll-like warrior types. I don't equate fey with pixie--so they've never had the negative stigma against them. If anything I've always found them a bit creepy. Same with druids.
If anything I like that the fey are being cast as a major antagonist of the setting as it flavors things nicely. I like the struggle between settled city life and the needs of the living wild to push out the invaders. Reminds me of Princess Mononoke.
If there's anything I would suggest, I would like to very much retire the whole tired seelie/unseelie court structure. I would much prefer something more tribal in feel rather than feudal, with clan leaders that meet in wilderness gatherings to feast and to work out their disagreements.
I would also like to see nature magic be explored in greater depth in Pathfinder. In most settings fey are left completely unexplained, unlike elementals, demons, celestials, etc. who usually have strong ties into most cosmologies. It would be nice to see them worked in a bit more thoughtfully, given reasons for being what they are and doing what they do. A little bit of deep musing on them might come up with something quite fresh without straying into weirdness.
Even typically good Faeries make excellent villians. Yup, I said good Faeries. Consider the eco terrorist Faerie. They can keep their overall good nature until you harm the forest, then they go crazy attacking in a mob to swarm and hopefully destroy all that harms their natural home. Let them snicker after the party gets their collective butts handed to them by tiny-sized eco terrorists.
Personally, I'm very fond of fey, particularly the lumpy, un-pretty ones.
I'm of two minds, oddly enough. I've always been fond of a sense of whimsy in my fantasy as well as the creepy and the eldritch. The thing is, I can see whimsy and eerie, enchanting and frightening as part of the same story. Different aspects of related beings and plot threads. That's why one of my favorite movies has long been 'Labyrinth,' with its lumpy, twisty, weird, comical fey-type goblins, led by a great and terrible sidhe-esque master whose moods are mercurial and dangerous.
Seriously, (and I may be just echoing what others here already said,) I think that the problem with fey is one of stigma. They've been portrayed as soft, delicate, harmless goody-goods for too long, while their more dangerous and/or ugly aspects have been forgotten.
In D&D the problem is compounded by other creature-types stealing anything fey-related that doesn't look like a pretty girl since before there were creature-types (see goblins and kobolds.) The tradition was continued by giving fey the weakest creature type in the book ever since 3.0.
People used to be /afraid/ of the fey. They called them "Fair Folk" and other reverent honorific names because they didn't want to offend them and risk being killed, kidnapped, or worse. They had rituals and customs all designed to avoid crossing the fey, attracting their attention, or turning one that liked your household into something nasty.
So to heck with the stereotyped and pigeonholed fey of D&D. Give us the whole folkloric spectrum. I'd like to see a return of the great and terrible aspects to the fey inherent in folklore. They weren't all of them bad all of the time, and some of them were whimsical. But as a whole, they weren't to be trifled with.
People are probably gonna disapprove, but the recent film 'Pan's Labirynth' is quite a good inspiration for any one looking to make fey a little disconcerting. Until right at the end of the film your never quite certain of what the Faun is gonna do or whether he really is the helpful figure he claims to be. And the cannibal creature with eyes in its hands somes up, for me anyway, what the Unseelie court is all about!
Also, you make it sound like I /really/ need to see 'Pan's Labyrinth' as soon as I can. :)
I like the concept of fey as somehow being a reflection of unbridled human emotions -- some fey are happy, joyous, carefree beings no matter what -- some fey are evil, cruel, and vindictive little buggers no matter what
As for fey's tie to nature for me that is more of a reflection that fey are inherently magical and are drawn to deep, mysterious, magical areas.
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Fey run the gambit of power and temperment.
The list people are examples of fey from folklore. Some have made it into various d20 products.
Banshee or Bean Shide(In some stories the banshee was a guardian. Her screams warn of danger and did not foretell death)
Bean Nighe (the "washer-woman" version of the banshee)
Boggart
Brownie
Cait Sidhe (fairy cat)
Clurichaun
Cu Sith (fairy dog)
Erlking
Far darrig (The red man, he was said to cause nightmares)
Glaistig (refered to as half human half goat, she sometime protect herders and sometimes attacks travelers with rocks)
Grimlins
Kallikantzaros (very goblin like)
Kelpie
Leanan Sidhe (fairy lover)
Leprechaun
Menehune
Mogwai (Chinese evil spirit)
Redcaps
Sluagh (Spirits of the reastless dead)
The Wild HuntAnyone who thinks Fey are all fairies, has never really studied Scottish or Irish folklore. Even house fairies could turn dark if ill treated or not shown the respect they deserve.
I converted several of these for a free online OGL supplement that I may or may not finish writing.
By the way, your last comment was spot on.
I like the idea of handling fey exactly the way Heathansson described how he thought elves should be in the "Am I gonna' hate elves" post. It's good stuff as far as fey go. You're never really safe with them. They aren't your friends any more than magic or nature are (and with them the two are never far different)--that even treating with them is dangerous for mortals. I really like that take.
Here's an idea I really like!
Tell me what you think.
For an interesting twist I had an idea. What if each god has their own faerie court? Have them be native outsiders, like genies, elementals, demons or devils, but like the Roma (erhem...gypsies) they wander from plane to plane absorbing the local alignment, culture, and traditions and melding them with their own. That way they could embody unbridled emotion and the nature ones could still be the typical pixies and whatnot--but then you could have other fae who have come to live in the realms of Lamashtu, or Asmodeus. Yikes. Most of the familiar core pixie types would probably hail from the realms of Desna or Erisil--but they'd all be like these untrustworthy vagabond wanderers whose loyalties are in actuality closer to the fae of an enemy realm then they are to the divine keepers of the domain where they hold their courts. I really like this.
Peruhain touched on something interesting, as usual. There are creatures in every mythology I can think of that behave the way the fey do in Celtic folklore, eg. Japanese Fox Spirits, Wanjina in Australian Aboriginal mythology and a heap of other little buggers. To me it seems the thing they all have in common is that they are inhuman and amoral, and enjoy tricking people for fun or for gain. Then again they might help you if they feel like it. So I like the idea of them all being CN or CE.
They are also in most cases shapeshifters, or at least appear in a wide variety of forms. So maybe rather than being tied to nature, they are more like spirits of confusion and madness who deliberately decieve or mislead because that's what they are born to do. They usually live in lonely areas because they enjoy the chaos of nature and they don't play well with others, not because they are nature spirits. Perhaps they spring up spontaneously as a manifestation of chaos in the world?
I'm having a hard time saying what I mean here, but I'm trying to get across that perhaps they work the way gods work in standard D&D: Their existence is somehow linked to the existence of humans and other intelligent races, almost like they are born from our primeaval fears and insecurities. They are a mirror of our darkest vulnerabilities. If there were no people (or orcs, or whatever) for them to trick then they wouldn't exist.
Another idea I just had is to use folklore theory to explain them. I think it's generally agreed by folklorists that fey and evil spirits are often the gods of the previous faith who were in a way demoted by the newer gods of a region, eg. Cernunnos had horns so the Christians gave the devil horns.
You could say that the fey are actually old gods, and when their worshippers died out they dwindled and became fey. They were left with few or no memories of their former status and a burning desire to mess with people's heads (as Gods are wont to do).
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We have been kicking around some ideas for urban fey around the office for a while now, but none of them have seemed to stick... yet.
Jason Bulmahn
GameMastery Brand Manager
I read the Spiderwick chronicles to my kids (children's lit, small hardback books with nice illos) and they are chocked full of great ideas for urban fey. The 'goblins' have little pieces of glass and metal stuck into their mouths for teeth. The hobgoblin has a mouth full of baby teeth he's purloined. They eat people's pets and live in a junkyard.
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I've never been the biggest fan of fey. Every time I use one in a game, there tends to be a quiet undertone of giggles and cheap jokes. Today, for example, when discussing this very blog post, we came upon the idea of chatting about the fey that play a part in W1: Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale. Within seconds, Wesley Schneider called out that I like "pretty, pretty princesses." Suffice to say... you can see why I don't like fey.
Your re-imagining of fey sounds interesting.
I don't seem to get your point about the necessity to reimagine fey, though. If fey are mistaken for "pretty pretty princesses" (i.e. seelie court?), your solution is to create a new version of unseelie fey?!
I think that especially clichés like the above mentioned one leave room for surprises... E.g. if NPCs in your campaign world think similarly about these "pretty pretty princesses" (= harmless?): Wouldn't these princesses develop a pretty tough side after some time? According to Darvin they didn't stand a chance otherwise...
Anyway, just a few thoughts of mine...
Greetings,
Günther
Hmmm...it turns out, after some discussion with my wife, that there's a key weakness with my take on fae. Namely they're not outsiders. If they were these planar critters like genies or elementals who wander from plane to plane serving courts affiliated with the various gods (which I still love, darnit!) they would be outsiders.
The description of the fey descriptor in the MM says they are bound to nature or to a certain locale and have powers that dervive from that place. So yeah, keeping that requirement that they be native and bound to certain places or aspects of the material plane, I'll rework some things and see what I can come up with.
Maybe here's an idea that just occured to me. Maybe they entered the prime material plane a long time ago in a mass exodus from the planes, and have since begun mating among mortal races (bringing to mind the changeling myths) enough that they have become racially diverse and native to the material. Perhaps, like half-dragons, fey are not super defined in terms of who or what they choose to bear children with--creating some fey lineages with strange hybrid features like horns, goat-legs and the like. Perhaps the reason for courts is more that they are so different. They come from these myriad clans from different planes from ancient cultures used to rubbing shoulders with celestials and demons. So this ecclectic method of resolving disputes and governing themselves has resulted as a de facto kind of heirarchy. The most personally powerful form cliques to direct the activities of those who are less powerful--so it keeps something of the original feudal system, but more organic and tribal and less based on privilege. Something like that?
I also like the idea that the original dispute that drove them from the planes was that they tried to create cultural pure zones there, and violently displace the outsiders who tried to expand into their home areas. What if that is why they decided en masse to abandon their planar homes and go to the material plane where they wouldn't be bothered? And now, after so long living in peaceful enclaves here--history is repeating itself. And they are ticked off! For one thing, if they choose to leave the prime plane, there are even fewer, less pleasant possible destinations--the elemental planes? the astral? the etherial? Many fae might see the prime plane as their last stand and so are fighting furiously for every scrap of land.
I do like the idea that in Pathfinder, fey are predominantly dwellers of the deep wilderness, and in direct conflict with the demihuman races. It seems like there's this fundamental struggle over the same land and resources--and that ultimately there's no coexistance there:
Either the forests will stay these scary, wyrd places where humans and their ilk can never go--or else the fey will be wiped out and scattered.
It's one of those great themes from history, of civilizations displacing each other and of high cultures that can't share the world but have to exist at the expense and demise of other cultures. I also like the idea that though fey culture might seem scary and savage, that in areas where the fey have been cleared out, that there are all these sad, beautiful ruins that show that while they seemed irrational and insane, that they were really also very advanced, interesting, and valuable.
There's something bittersweet and kind of personal about that.