Fey World / Courts [potential spoilers]

[Rickmeister]

I've been pondering over the summer court/winter court thing and I'm trying to bundle the resources found on the forum.
There is soo much here, and I kinda have lost my way...

People that have done additions / changes /..., would you be so kind?
My group is currently at a certain tomb in book 4, but after this halfway point, I would like to start emphasizing more on the changes in nature/births/... I want them to feel the land is changing, and for this I require a bundle of information :)

So far, I have:

Seelie / Summer court
Led by Oberonn and Titania
> The happy fey, up for tricks and fun... Those wascaws!

Unseelie / Winter court
Led by Queen Mab
> The evil fey, want to grab power...

Wyldfae
> Puck?

I would put the BBEG in the Winter Court, trying to influence these lands.. But why? Does she want to rival Queen Mab?

Your two cents?

[Rethgryn]

Have you read anything of another RPG called Changeling the Lost? While it is a modern day horror RPG, It has great material and ideas that could be adapted to the fey in DnD.

Changeling the Lost is about normal people who were abducted from our world and taken to Arcadia by the true fey who mutilated and tortured them into taking on a fey seeming. While they were gone, the true fey left behind clones called "fetches" who stole their lives. The Changelings escaped and organize themselves into Seasonal Courts for mutual aid, comfort, and defense against the true fey and the loyalists who want to take them back.

The four seasonal courts have a defining emotion and a certain role to play. While there is no explicit Seelie / Unseelie line, the True Fey are like the Unseelie and the Changelings are like the Seelie. The Summer Court are the warriors, their signature emotion is wrath. The Fall court are creepy scholars and occultists, their signature emotion is fear, The Winter is Sorrow and they are the stealthy types whose philoophy centers around not being seen and leaving no foot prints, while the spring court's emotion is desire and are the healers and poets of the changelings and are all about rebirth, renewal, and being free. You could use them in a DnD game just fine. Maybe in Golarion there are seelie and unseelie versions of the four seasons.

[Hassy]

BBEG screams summer. Also, I prefer to think of summer as chaotic and winter as lawful. The fey aren't generally so concerned about morals.

There's a similar thread here that I can't currently link to (mobile).

[GM_Solspiral]

Orthos' thread gives you most of what you need in the background. He also refers to 2 other threads that are great

[DundjinnMasta]

I would actually put the KM BBEG in the realm of the Summer Court previously given her history. If you replace some of the First World stuff with a heavier Fey influence then you could have her been a consort of Oberon and cursed by Titania. It could be a revenge/power struggle against the Queen of Summer!

[Orthos]

What the last three said. N pretty much screams Summer. I had her lover and would-be benefactor be Oberon, Titania's consort, and her trying to use him to usurp Titania being the catalyst for her original downfall. Oberon may be anti-monogamy - normal for Fey, Titania herself is probably no better - but his loyalty is still to his queen, not any of his other lovers.

Summer vs. Winter are very much NOT Good vs. Evil. Fey morality doesn't work like that, at ALL. It's very askew from mortal morality. Fey are typically classed as Chaotic because they're so alien from us that they don't fit into the normal alignment grid the way most other things do. Chaotic vs. Lawful is closer, but not quite 100% there.

It's more Creation vs. Destruction. Summer represents growth, birth, creation, and life. Winter is death, destruction, decay, and entropy. (And before you ask "Why not just have/help Summer win then?", allow me to steal a line from Harry Dresden: "Overwhelming growth is great. Especially if you're an Ebola virus.")

Here's my thread as mentioned if you'd like to have a look =)