Our DM is currently running us through the Rise of the Runelords campaign and I'm playing a male Elf Wizard Enchanter (Controller subschool). I spent one of my feats on Improved Familiar to get a Sprite who refers to my character as his "Queen", which is a jab at Elves and a thematic homage to "Inferno" from Beast Wars. The Sprite acts as defacto honor guard for the unappreciative wizard.
However I'm also planning on taking Leadership with a Monster Cohort (Pixie). To reinforce this Fey retinue I'm going to splash a level in Sorcerer (Fey bloodline) seeing as that gives the character a more realized RP aspect as unwittingly being (very) minor Fey royalty. I'll be honest that the Eschew Materials as a bonus feat and the +2DC to Compulsion spells is a very good reason to pick it up too.
All of that said is there any reason the followers gained from Leadership couldn't be minor Fey (Gricks, Sprites, Mites, etc.) seeing as they won't be used in combat? I'm not seeing any specifics as to them being 'human commoner NPC' and it seems like a flavor aspect more than a Rules aspect. I'm trying to sell the idea to the DM so I'll be linking him to this thread.
I think it's a fun idea... I dunno if it's rules-legal, but I'd probably allow it as long as it didn't give you any advantage over that of the usual Leadership feat (which is already quite powerful on its own).
You don't seem to be trying to milk some obscure mechanical advantages, so I'd say yes. This is the kind of thing that every GM should encourage.
Having a familiar already is going to net you a -2 penalty on the leadership score, though if you're going for a non-combat cohort this may not matter.
As for non-combat Followers I don't see it being too much of an issue unless you're using Ultimate Campaign. If you're using UC then followers can contribute to your downtime activities, and I have a hard time imagining a group of Fey helping in the construction of an Inn.
I'm not suffering any cohort level issues related to Leadership since the character is fairly Charismatic. The Monster Cohort is approved and rules legit. I'm not sure if having fey followers would give me any particular advantage over equivalent human followers. We aren't doing downtime and they're not likely to really follow me into town since it might alarm the populace. Giant raids followed by a Fey invasion isn't going to sit will.
One of the fun things is that since Rise of the Runelords handles the concepts of the Seven Deadly Sins we were asked to pick one sin and one virtue to sort of define us. He's got a few points in both Charity and Pride since he wants to be 'the Big Damn Hero' and having an Entourage isn't helping his Ego any.
:EDIT:
Maybe an advantage if there were a circumstance bonus to Survival checks, Knowledge (Nature) if I were to ask for info from my 'team'. My DM likes to promote synergism of skills and inventive use of character history.
Yeah, that would be cool. Your DM would just need to decide what their equivalent level would be.
The easiest method is CR=level. This is the rule for Monster PCs.
But Monster Cohorts are different, and their effective cohort level is not the same as their CR. A great example is a Ghoul (CR 1) is cohort level 5.
Once your DM has decided what level equivalent each type of fey is, you could use them as followers of that level. And it really is a neat idea.
Enchanter Controller and now Fey in RotRL? As someone who went down the Fey bloodline road to start in this AP I'm guessing you heard the words "No effect" a lot in the first two books.
Not as much as you'd think seeing as this is my second character of the campaign.
My first character was a universalist wizard full of lust and greed. He (and the whole party sans his buddy the quickfooted rogue) got gibbed by one of the lamia matriarchs. He brought the heavy ordinance. This new guy in the second leg has had so many humanoids as enemies it's like Giant sock puppet heaven. The Dominate Monster special ability has saved everyone's bacon a few times now.
The effective levels of most monster cohorts make them a bad deal -- in general, you can do a lot better with a standard character of the same level. Part of the problem is that most monster cohort levels seem to be based on the old D&D 3.5 level adjustments for the corresponding monsters, even though Pathfinder ditched those adjustments for all other purposes.