This has been bothering me for a long time. Fae seem to be poorly done, in most settings. They're either this saccharine meme of sparkles and rainbows sprinkled with randumb, or just so far removed from lore as to hardly merit the label "fae" so much as "low level encounter cannon fodder".
I don't want system specific mechanics. I want lore and metaphysics. What makes a Fae a Fae? How do you classify them? What traits are common among all of them? What are their origins? Do they reproduce? Do they have souls? (What is a soul?) What's the deal with Cold Iron? Are Yaoguai fae? Yokai? Yakshas? Do they have factions? Politics? What are their agendas? What's a changeling? Why bother making one? Do they socialize with those glamour or do they just hang out under rocks somewhere?
I'm looking for better answers than "lol randumb" or "batshit crazy". I also don't want them to be saccharine. Eldritch abomination is not a bad way to go, but go too far with that and it becomes "batshit crazy" again.
I've been working on this for awhile but I've hit a block. Maybe /tg/ can get me unstuck. I'll post what I have to follow.
>>46625839
Fae as popular understanding and compilation is a result of 17th century onwards attempts to bring local folk tales and remnants of native religions into various digestible published forms. Quite a few as we understand them today were solidified in poetry and stage plays, and the 'source' materials/tales for all but the most popular are nearly impossible to find if not completely out of any record and long out of living memory.
So the term 'fae' is either best used for gaelic mythologies with some very specific characters and archetypes or as a broad term for 'largely unrelated folklore creatures from northern europe.'
There's such a great deal of variance it is an almost impossible distinction to make, let alone when you try and hammer a square peg into a round hole by involving entirely other cultural mythologies that are more codified and structured.
Oh yeah and the iron thing is because of industry > monsters, with some ties to Christianity and blacksmiths having powers to combat the devil by various traditions.
What is a fae? Whatever the narrative dictates.
Lets start with origins. Notice I posted a cyclops in the OP.
Folklore gives many explanations for the origins of fae. The most common seems to be "they're ghosts" or "spirits". Except it would be kind of lame to classify them all as undead. Another explanation is that they're demons from hell. Well, that's also lame. Druidic animus nature spirits? Well, that's getting close to something more like an elemental. Treants and dryads and such are sometimes associated with fae, but there are also fae legends (particularly if you include Asian mythology) which clearly have nothing to do with nature. So that doesn't quite work for me either.
So here's the one that stood out. Fae are neutral angels. Those who wanted no part in the rebellion against heaven, but also did not want to fight against it. Now they're stuck in the twilight- rejected by both light and darkness.
Twilight. Yes. That fits Fae to me. And in Greek mythology, during war between titans and Olympians, the cyclops were a third faction. Once servants to titans, then imprisoned by them, then liberated by the Olympians, but still not one of them. They are a neutral faction. As are the hecatonchieres.
And in Asia, the celestial bureaucracy routinely rejected spirits who wished to become gods. But perhaps they did not wish to serve in DiYu either. So they just roam the world, doing their own thing. Yaoguai means "freakish spirit". Freak. Reject. Something strange.
So, here's something I'm still puzzled about... does a neutral angel (or, to use a gnostic neutral term that isn't judeo-christian centered, "archon") have a soul?
>>46625839
The way I classified fae in my setting is that they're essentially halfway between spirits and mortals. They have physical bodies, unlike spirits, but they're have innate magical abilities, various supernatural traits, and are either immortal or extremely long lived.
>>46625839
Read a series called the Dresden Files. Besides being a damn good read, it's steeped in lore of all kinds.
>>46625957
>Whatever the narrative dictates
This is precisely what I find insufficient about current lore. I'm aware the variance is extremely high. I intend to account for that.
>>46625974
Continuing on. Do angels have souls?
Well first I guess I should define what a soul is. Lets start with "free will", and for fantasy purposes add on "capable of magic".
Do Angels have free will? Depends on your source. Lots of theologians say it was necessary for the rebellion. Others say angels are an extension of a divine host- that hte term angel literally means "messenger" and can only be thought of as an extension of divine power. Perhaps the rebellion was caused by angels acquiring free will, or separating themselves from the divine host? Perhaps that will became corrupted by a different sort of host- an opposer.
Personally, I think its more interesting to have entities with no free will exist alongside those that do. It makes the setting more interesting in that regard. And the need for a divine host in order to maintain existence is a characteristic that seems interesting to have in archons.
So what about fae? When they became neutral, they necessarily must have cut themselves off from their divine host. But without that to sustain them- their immortality, their power- what would become of them?
They needed some other sort of power. Not magic, for they did not yet have souls, and even men cannot sustain themselves as beings of pure magic. And not faith- the power of the divine- obtained from the devotion of men- for that is the host they sought to remove themselves from (including the corrupter- the opposer).
If the world is made of souls, magic, and faith... all these things are forms of knowledge and decisions. What metaphysical component remains?
Consider this answer, which is the premise I want us to work with. What if fae are powered by the unknown?
I have a (woefully incomplete) writeup of how to insert D&D's fey into the AD&D 2e Planescape cosmology (as opposed to their canonical niche of "there is a Seelie Court and an Unseelie Court, and who cares what they actually do?"), but it requires prior knowledge of the setting and its cosmology.
It was also written to fill one of the setting's empty niches and design spaces rather than written with the Fair Folk in mind specifically.
Should I post it, or save it for a Planescape General thread?
>>46626018
Elaborate Please.
>>46626001
From whence cometh such power? Seems like the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither. A bit sueish... a bit sparkly...
>>46626071
Consider the power of the unknown...
Unknowns come in three varieties.
1) Known Unknowns
2) Unknown Unknowns
3) Unknown Knowns
Known Unknowns are secrets and mysteries. Things you are very aware you do not know. Maybe nobody knows, but there's probably an answer.
Unknown unknowns are the things to which you are totally oblivious. The questions you never even thought to ask. This is why we fear the darkness- the terror of the unknown is that we don't even know what it is we NEED to know.
Unknown knowns are noted by logical necessity, but the examples are little peculiar. Basically, I think this would just be dreams and subconscious. Things you're aware of but aren't really aware you're aware of them- like the hum of your refrigerator, or the answers to questions you've never been asked, never once thought about, but apparently know the answer to.
I think there's a lot of potential here. For instance a universal trait of fae could be the ability to act on metagame knowledge (unknown knowns). The power of dreams and the logic and weirdness of dreams seems very Fae like to me. And trading in secrets and mysteries also seems very fae like. As for the unknown unknowns... thats where things get more eldritch horror-terror like. Giving fae both aspects of being harmless as a dream, yet as disturbing as the nihilistic abyss.
Call the unknown unknown the umbra, and the other two penumbra, and you've got an interesting feature for fae metaphysics.
What else can we define from this?
>>46626147
I'd be interested to poke through it, sure. I know *some* about planescape, but not a lot though.
>>46626149
I've also got an idea for fae reproduction.
Archons/Angels/whatever are born when somebody dies and goes to heaven, right? (Well debatable based on your theology, but lets go with that rather than the boring petitioner approach). But nobody really dies and becomes a fae. There's no divine host to offer salvation. Only the madness of the umbra and the mysteries of the penumbra.
So fae are really just the unknown incarnate in this theory, right? So the thing that kills them... is knowledge. The classic "I don't believe in fairies" kills them. Or at least reduces their ultimate power source. The more our world becomes modern and the more we have explored the wonder out of everything, the more the fae die. Conversely, the more supersition and mystery they create, the greater their power and number.
So then I had an idea about fairy rings. Large fae "bud off" into a cluster of smaller fae, which grow larger as the unknown grows larger. When they're fully grown, they bud off again. If they need to, they can form a ring and rejion to become more a more powerful single entity.
If you kill them with violence, they don't really die. Where would they go? Hell? Heaven? They're rejects to both. So they just get cycled back into he unknown. Since all fae are just sorta budded off one another anyway, they sorta lack individuality in teh normal sense. It isn't dying to bud off anymore than its dying to be killed. So when one dies, the rest all grow a little bit bigger. Kill enough, and they might end up in some sort of abominable amalgamation with too many eyes and limbs. Killing a nest of fae starts off as stomping helpless sprites and ends by fighting a eldrtich terror. Even then it doesn't die. It just goes wherever the nearest fae after that is.
You can't kill the unknown with a sword.
So what's the deal with cold iron?
>>46626149
>From whence cometh such power? Seems like the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither. A bit sueish... a bit sparkly...
They kind of are, or were. Being inherently magical beings, they need magic to exist, and magic has been weakening over time, so in modern times they're mostly found in places with strong ambivalent magic (intersections of leylines and other sites of magical power, ancient forests suffused with nature magic, etc.).
>>46626264
Very well.
As per the 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane, all of the Inner Planes, all crystal spheres of the Prime Material Plane, and most demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal "surrounded" by the Border Ethereal. While not quite a plane of its own, the Border Ethereal is the metaphysical "hinterlands" of a given area outside of the Astral or Outer Planes.
The Border Ethereal is a dreamlike "spirit world" that reflects the area it overlaps. It is full of protomatter (varicolored fog that serves as the omnimental base of all matter and energy, seeping in from the Deep Ethereal proper), earthbound ghosts, magical energies, and whatever ethereal structures its natives have built.
Unfortunately, the Border Ethereal receives virtually no spotlight whatsoever in Planescape products, which is a shame. The "spirit world" reflection of a regular mortal world is fantastical enough, but what of the dreamy, misty reflection of the Quasielemental Plane of Mineral or the Positive Energy Plane? Faeries seem like a decent species to fill that niche.
~BEGIN~
Faeries (also known as "fae," "Fair Folk" or "sidhe") are the immortal spirits of the many Borders Ethereal, just as elementals are the brood of the Inner Planes and outsiders are the children of the Outer Planes. Like elementals and outsiders, the fae are ageless, have unified body-souls, and have no need for food, drink, or sleep (although they can engage in such activities if they so desire, and often do).
Their homes in the Borders reimagine the environments of the "regular world" into fanciful wonderlands. In the case of the Inner Planes' borders, these are often more welcoming and habitable and reminiscent of a Prime world's wildernesses; envision a baobab-tree-palace in a sunlit savanna in Fire's border, or a forest of sweet rock candies in Mineral's border.
The Fair Folk are born either from the energies of the various Borders Ethereal, or from sexual reproduction. They are divided into three categories:
>>46626388
1. The *Summer Court* (also known as the Seelie Court), mostly LN leaning towards LG, ruled by the immortal lord known as the Summer/Seelie Empress. They are tied to the Borders Ethereal of the planes of Earth, Fire, Positive, and the Borders Ethereal of the planes that connect them (Magma, Mineral, Radiance).
2. The *Winter Court* (also known as the Unseelie Court), mostly LN leaning towards LE, ruled by the immortal lord called the Winter/Unseelie Empress. They are linked to the Borders Ethereal of the planes of Air, Water, Negative, and the Borders Ethereal of the planes that connect them (Cold, Vacuum, Salt).
Both Summer and Winter faeries have the instinct to gather up raw elemental energies from their associated planes, bring them into the Deep Ethereal, and mix the energies with other elements to produce various kinds of protomatter.
3. The *Wyldfae*, mostly CN, led by no immortal lords in particular. They are connected to the Borders Ethereal of the Prime and of the Deep Ethereal's many demiplanes. A Wyldfae's instinct is to gather up the myriad types of protomatter from the Deep Ethereal, transport it into the crystal spheres of the Prime Material Plane and into the demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal, and use the multifarious protomatter to create mountains, lakes, forests, deserts, tundras, and even mortal bodies.
The various Borders Ethereal must have a peculiar sense of humor, because the sidhe's duties are *already fully automated by the Borders Ethereal*. Energies pass from the Inner Planes into the Deep Ethereal on their own, and protomatter likewise automatically flows from the Deep Ethereal to the Prime's crystal spheres and the Deep's demiplanes, with only the occasional "logjam."
>>46626398
Consequently, the faeries are free to pursue their other driving instinct: *having fun*. The Summer and Winter Court fae have fun with their whimsical and fanciful politics and intrigue under the laws of their empresses, while the Wyldfae live capricious and carefree lives. Only rarely must the Fair Folk organize themselves to troubleshoot a "logjam" by manually ferrying energies and protomatter. Some graybeards posit that it was not always this way; these scholars say that after the vaati-obyrith war died down, the sidhe convinced themselves that they could afford to slack off, and that their collective belief reshaped the Borders Ethereal to accommodate this desire to pursue more leisurely activities instead.
Fae can come into conflict with planewalking adventurers in the same ways faeries do in just about every other setting: entanglement in otherworldly political gambits in the case of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, or extremely intense flights of mischief and curiosity for the Wyldfae. Of course, the Great Wheel loves setting up conflict between its many peoples, and there are many sidhe-related clashes that adventurers might be dragged into or willingly participate in:
>>46626406
1. Wait a minute. Some Inner Planes have been unaccounted for! The paraelemental planes of Smoke and Ooze and the quasielemental planes of Lightning, Steam, Dust, and Ash are, in fact, contested territory, because they are caught between the "main" planes associated with each court. The Borders Ethereal of all of these planes spawn both Seelie and Unseelie fae. Consequently, both courts believe that those Borders Ethereal are *their* territory, and that it is *their* job to troubleshoot any of those Borders' "logjams."
Since the Age before Ages, these two courts have butted heads in the "War of Six Borders," which is sometimes a literal war with armies and grand battles, and sometimes a more nuanced and subtle conflict with cutthroat negotiations in lavish ballrooms. The Fair Folk sink a considerable amount of resources into this clash, yet unlike the Blood War, the sidhe of both courts still consider one another to be friends and coworkers to be respected, for each side knows that its counterpart still plays a role in the flow of the elements.
>>46626421
2. The archomentals, genies, energons, mephits, and other natives of the Inner Planes posit that *they* were originally the ones in charge of safeguarding and troubleshooting the flow of elemental energies. They assert that the faeries had somehow usurped this role, and that the fae, as non-elementals, have no business interfering with the Inner Planes and the Borders Ethereal. The fae consider such allegations to be preposterous screed, and are deeply offended by this libel.
So it comes to pass that the two sides are locked in a war with one another even when they really should be on the same side. A level-headed person might consider the Summer and Winter courts foolish for warring both with themselves and with the elemental denizens of the Inner Planes, but the fact that they have kept up for so long while still having more than enough time to have fun with their own politics and intrigue is a testament to sidhe resourcefulness.
3. Some crystal spheres of the Prime are crafted by gods. Certain demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal are woven by powerful spellcasters. The Wyldfae are a stubborn lot; they believe that whenever a "logjam" related to crystal spheres or demiplanes occurs, it is *their* job to resolve it and to shape protomatter into environments and mortal bodies... even in deity-wrought crystal spheres and spellcaster-created demiplanes. While some divinities and spellcasters appreciate the help, there are those who take offense to a third party "playing god" in their own dominion, effectively loosening the original creator's own hold on that crystal sphere or demiplane.
This is why divine powers and demiplane-making spellcasters sometimes come into conflict with the Wyldfae, in what the faeries call "Wars of Genesis." In the case of gods, the Divine Compact prevents deities from directly slinging mojo upon such lowly creatures, so divinities fight with proxies and servitors instead.
>>46626431
4. The Wyldfae have discovered a most unusual species! Lurking within the Deep Ethereal and the Borders Ethereal of many Prime crystal spheres is the terrible race of magitech-slinging, mind-controlling wizards known as the khen-zai or the ethergaunts! Their reports claim that these expansionist philosopher-wizards hold a grudge against all the mortals of the Prime Material Plane, believing them to threaten both the philosophy and preservation of the ethergaunts, and so their eerie civilization has seen fit to inflict genocide upon as many crystal spheres as they can.
These khen-zai are on indifferent terms with the Wyldfae, for the Fair Folk threaten neither the ethergaunts' philosophy nor preservation, so long as the sidhe do not obstruct their passage through the Border Ethereal. The Wyldfae are fine with this; their duties do not change whether the Prime remains the land of mortals or becomes the territory of the khen-zai, does it? Many an adventurer with a vested interested in the Prime, however, would like to persuade the Wyldfae to preemptively block the passage of the ethergaunts... but how can they all be persuaded to do so?
As a final note, the chant holds that the Seelie Court has a mobile vacation-fortress-realm that shifts between the Outer Planes of the Beastlands, Arborea, and Ysgard. That same chant posits that the Unseelie Court likewise has a vacation-fortress-realm in the third layer of Pandemonium, Phlegethon. These match up with the respective courts on the good-evil axis, but why would such lawful faerie courtiers be comfortable in planes aligned with chaos? No other basher has set off to investigate these realms and returned; could you be the first?
~END~
This writeup is far from complete. The main parts I am missing are:
1. How the faerie mindset and cultural norms work, and how to best integrate themes of "belief is power" (and by extension, truths and lies) and clashes of philosophies.
2. Outer Planar relations.
The 'fae' are simply the people who came before us. When we arrived on these isles they retreated underground and later fled west.
They themselves are invaders, having arrived here centuries ago and fought the fomorians who in turn fought the nemedians and the fir bolg.
They fear iron because we brought it with us and it was superior to their copper and bronze weaponry.
Some of them used to be gods but with the coming of the true god and his son they have been reduced. We enumerate them but do not worship them.
They are said to have strange powers and some live on even though they died. I am not sure if these are different people using the same names or that those people have bargained with the devil.
This account is true at the time I have given it, 537 years after the emergence of our lord.
>>46626071
>This is precisely what I find insufficient about current lore. I'm aware the variance is extremely high. I intend to account for that
One of the advantages for fae is that their nature is nebulous; between games there need not be any such connectivity.
As a GM or loremaker, you should devise your own fae as fitting to your own setting, personalise them as to how you see fit, tell your own tale of the the courts and the wilderness, the factions and politics.
Trying to pin down and define fae is only going to lessen their effect. Do it yourself, have a hand in crafting them for the ground up in as much detail as needed.
You can map out each function and feature of their heirachy, or you can make it up on the spot when it comes up in play- you can use storybook logic or cold methodology. Contradictions are perfectly fine.
If YOU don't want them to be "lol randumb" or "batshit crazy" or saccahrine, then YOU make your fae the way YOU want them to be. Only you can make the fae as to how you have them envisioned in your head.
Unless you're specifically asking for inspiration, in which case you need to tell us about your setting that you're putting these fae into, or alongside.
>>46626594
>Do it yourself
Anon, just what do you think I'm doing exactly? Are you under the impression I'm trying to pass a law dictating how fae shall be depicted henceforth by everybody everywhere? :P
>you're specifically asking for inspiration
Yes. The primary idea I'm working with is the idea that fae are the unknown incarnate. What metaphysical implications does this give rise to, in addition to the ones I've already spelled out?
>>46626648
I tend to link my fae into the setting I'm working on rather specifically; that means in order to personalise fae to YOUR setting, you actually need a setting first.
Unless these are free-standing fae and you're running a whole game in the feywilds and the court.
tl;dr please elaborate on where you're shoving these fae. Putting fae in a space opera will result in very different fae from a modern game compared to a stone age neolithic game.
>>46626715
I'm... not really sure what parts of the setting are relevant per se.
Its flexible in terms of tech level. I have one continuos meta-history that alters based on the actions of my group. We've done games in reniassance, industrial, modern, and I offer as far back as stone age and as far forward as interstellar space (interplanetary being a different era). I do intend to fluff the fae as aliens in the space age. The very word "alien" implies unknown.
Magic is a thing. Its common enough that peasants are aware its exists but rare enough that only aristocracy have seen it or possess it. At the end of the renaissance mages accidentally the laws of physics and almost the universe. Thus magic is banned internationally. Witch hunts basically drive magic to near extinction, making it an arcane practice rather than an open science. The industrial era begins shortly thereafter since the middle class was already deprived of magic and a shitload of aristocracy just got murdered on account of it.
As far as religion goes, the currency of the divine is faith, and that is poisoned by knowledge. Thus prayer can never cause any effect that could be measured or be used as definitive proof. For the most part religion resembles real life, in that there are polythesitic and monotheistic factions and schisms within major religions and lots of political intrigue and corruption. Angels and demons cannot take material form and more or less only exist in the minds of the faithful and in the netherworld, which clerics can astral project themselves in, but its not really clear if its actually a thing or just a lucid dream.
The world is mostly human with various near-human offshoots also existing, including homo-neanderthalus (trogs) and homo-florenesis (pygmies).
>>46625839
>What's the deal with Cold Iron?
I don't know if it's true or not, but I remember reading that this was because iron was a much better metal to use than the natives in Scotland, who used bronze or something.
Now, the term for that type of native was a Pict.
And they took massive damage from iron.
So iron would kill the picts. Or pictsies if we're being derogatory.
>>46627029
Nah, the Picts survived well into historical times and developed into an iron-age culture, before being Christianized and later absorbed by the Scots Gaels who invaded from Northern Ireland and became the modern Scots.
And the Picts themselves are likely to have had "little people" stories, as ideas of fairies and spirits were pretty universal to the insular Celtic cultures of the isles, as well as common in greater northern Europe.
>>46626887
Before we can answer where fae souls come from, is there magic in your world, are there gods, where do MORTAL souls come from, and how does all that tie together?
Where do faerie cats fall in here?
>>46625839
In my setting, the Fae are the precursors to human civilization, a culture of magical beings far more primitive and savage than anything that humans can come up with.
Think society minus empathy. Crimes in such a society might be "Disregard for Beauty", while murdering and eating some other intelligent being because you were hungry is a perfectly acceptable act, because you gotta eat.
Basically, a society where instinct is the moral center, and the only unjustifiable act is an act without justification.
>fae
*fey
Fae is not a real word.
>>46627794
You know all words are made up, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy
>A fairy (also fay, fae, fair folk; from faery, faerie, "realm of the fays") is a type of mythical being or legendary creature in European folklore, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fae
>Adjective
>fae (comparative more fae, superlative most fae)
>Alternative spelling of fey (etymology 2)
>Noun[edit]
>fae (plural faes)
>Alternative spelling of fay (etymology 3)
>See also faerie
>>46626887
So... how would you like fae to intersect with this world? Live in a parallel dimension, in the fae lands, or be hidden in private places that people can just stumble upon?
