Help with Ideas for Fey

[Fallenibilis]

I'm trying to flesh out the world for my campaign i'm creating and i want to make large use of fey cause i absolutely love them, but i'm not sure about what to do i'm thinking of using two seasonal courts one based on fall and winter and the other based on spring and summer. Also i'm thinking i want to tie it back real world mythology as i can.

Basically i would like help coming up with interesting Fey concepts or places i can find unique fey for my world, also any advice for their creation and how to play them would be wonderful. Also any cool encounters i could run or modify would be cool too.

Also i would like to point out this is the first time I've attempted to DM so any advice for that would also be apreciated thanks.

Fallenibilis

 

[Ahnehnois]

Suggested reading: Fey Feature.

Also, I highly recommend watching Pan's Labyrinth for ideas on tone and technique.

My feeling is to play ambiguity heavily. Don't tell players too much about the fey world or what drives it. Whether you want to iron all that out is your call. Faries are morally ambiguous; it's a great opportunity to convey the idea that the world is bigger than the PCs.

Also, the time dilation of the Plane of Faeirie is classic, as is the entrapment aspect (see MotP).


First time DM? Don't try to do too much. Listen to the players. Be ready to change things on the fly. Do a lot of critical evaluation afterwards and really think on how things went-and do better each session.

 

[Dandu]

There's a WotC article that talks about fey courts.

tl;dr they're both barking mad.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Check out Raven Crowking's Faerie Encounters thread. He lives and breathes this stuff. In a manner of speaking.

 

[Celebrim]

I wouldn't worry so much about fairy courts and the great among the sidhe.

Instead, I'd start by reminding myself that fairy legends are legends about basically small local household gods (or at least, the conception of that which replaced the notion of small gods). Therefore, don't be afraid to make fairies somewhat mundane and pervasive. You shouldn't necessarily make fairies something you encounter walking down the street, but there should be this sense that they are everywhere if only you take the time to notice.

Bring up fairies in ordinary situations.

If the players stay long at an inn or a house of a friend, have them find that there is a brownie that lives in the attic and helps in the kitchen.

If they stay at a manor, have them find little fairies in the kitchen garden darting among the plants and playing with the servants children.

If they pass through farm land, have them find mischevious buckawns tormenting cows by riding them around or suckling them for milk.

Have fairies be essentially the pets of secretive important people like mages, wise women, or hermits. You can put a fairy in a setting anywhere you could put a house cat. You can also put one anywhere you could put a mouse, and in the same ecological role.

Have their be little soot fairies living in chimneys. Have their be little apple fairies living in trees. Liven up travel with black sprites living in blackberry brambles, or have the party catch glimpes of dryads flitting in cedar groves.Have their be little rock spirits living among the scree. Make fairies occupy every ecological niche from animals to full fledged civilizations.

The point is that if you have a fairy haunted world, then fairies aren't just monsters but both NPCs and parts of the scenary of the world. Fairies are ordinary parts of rural life, and appeasing the fairies by leaving small gifts is part of the normal reutine or rural folk and perhaps even city folk.

Now of course, in practice there is only so much color you can drop at once without boring the players. Don't drop color encounter after color encounter any more than you should populate your map with empty rooms. Low levels are an idea time for these sorts of color encounters because even your CR 1/6 fairies aren't completely trivial foes if offended or treated like monsters to be slain, but don't drop so much world exposition on your players that you harm your pacing (I'm really bad at that). Focus therefore on finding ways to use fairies as quest givers, information providers, clue givers, and so forth. Give them tasks in your story that you might other wise give to runes on the wall, books, or humanoid NPC's. They can be handy as secret observers of affairs and help you meet your quotas set by the three clue rule. I mean, think about all the times in stories when the protagonist meets some little talking mouse or worm or some such and by being friendly gets some important aid when the creature avenges itself on the crueler villains that have ruined its small neighborhood.

The big picture of the fairy world with its greater lords and politics is not something you need to immediately concern yourself with. If fairies begin to become important NPC interactions with your characters, and the PC's form relationships with them, then you can gradually start moving up the fairy social heirarchy. The thing to remember about the fairy social heirarachy is that its far vaster than the human one. It's starts down somewhere close to semi-intelligent insects and vermin, and moves all the way up to something close to deities. Don't worry too much about the deities until the players have some levels under their belts, and some notion of the vast gulf that exists between the Autumn Queen and her court and a flower fairy wearing a dress of petals and a acorn cap for a hat.

Of course, you can subvert that. That flower fairy might turn out to have been Queen Mag all along, and that's trope is something I'm very fond of.

 

[Celebrim]

Check out Raven Crowking's Faerie Encounters thread. He lives and breathes this stuff. In a manner of speaking.

Yeah, it's a great thread.

One thing I will strongly echo from RC's thread is that D&D has traditionally been very very bad at statting out fairies in a useful manner and anyone that wants to use fairies alot is going to need to be able to whip up their own unique fairies very very often. A reasonable approximation can be accomplished by starting with Grig as a template, altering their appearance and spell-like abilities to suit the theme, and giving them a level or two of sorcerer as needed. The Pixie isn't bad either though its beginning to verge into the typical problem of trying to marry too high of CR with too low of hit points. Both to me verge into 'fairy middle class land' a bit too soon, as I think a case can be made for a social order of fairies lower than these.

 

[Aus_Snow]

One thing I will strongly echo from RC's thread is that D&D has traditionally been very very bad at statting out fairies in a useful manner and anyone that wants to use fairies alot is going to need to be able to whip up their own unique fairies very very often.

That certainly matches my own experiences with gaming the fey, d20 style.

I guess I've generally gone about it in a rather ad hoc manner, now I think about it. Which is why I'm hesitant to offer much advice, I guess. May as well try though... (with fair warning, that I might just ramble! )

Perhaps it would be useful to determine the part you want "the fey" to play: A pretty/ugly/frightening/mysterious/entertaining/useful/confounding setpiece, purely for flavour? A more or less unified force, with some kind of general plan(s) or need(s)? Or, perhaps, individual beings with personal motivations? Just off the top of my head, kinda thing. I'm sure there are other approaches.

For example, if they are to be individual beings with personal motivations, thinking about said motivations could really help. In each case, is it... Curiosity? Love of games - what kind, and what if anything are the stakes? Fear - of what or whom? Sheer boredom? Vengeance - upon whom, and why? Out and out cruelty - is there a reason per se, and if so, can that situation be remedied? Thirst for knowledge - can it ever be sated? Lust for power (see previous)? Greed - for what? Lust for something/someone else? Desire to help - and if so, is there likely to be a price, stated or otherwise? And so on.

Unified forces are of course, by and large, much easier to pin down. What do we have in this case... With or against the PCs, I suppose (could be undecided to begin with). Alliances with other forces out there (conflicts too). And, naturally, there's the plan(s) or need(s) - just what is it they want, or require... A deal, contract, accord? An item, necessary perhaps for peace, closure or "completing the set", whatever might follow from that? A prisoner of war (e.g., one of the fey nobility)? Land? Resources, mundane or otherwise? Destruction of mortal folk (and/or others)? Corruption or enslavement of same? Recognition/acceptance by mortal folk (and/or others)? A new world to inhabit; a place to go now that their own realm is gone/corrupted/fading/invaded/other? A means for some of them to live on in the mortal world, in whatever form(s), now that they're disappearing as a "race"? Victory in a war against some other kind of being (maybe another kind of fey, and then again maybe not)?

Nothing wrong with the setpiece approach to fey either, for sure. It can add lots of great flavour and a bit more depth to the world your characters dwell in. Quite authentic too, in a sense, if that's really what you're wanting. Celebrim has already pointed the way there. There are some good books on mythology and folklore out there, that might be informative. I believe one or two (or more) are mentioned in the thread I linked, above.

Of course, you can have setpieces speaking directly with PCs, if in a rather dreamlike fashion. Generally, this means the fey simply present whatever it is they're "programmed" to, so to speak, and that is that. Why do they do what they do? Well, they are the fey. No more need be said, or indeed implied. They are simply forces of nature, means of communicating messages/hints/warnings, and suchlike. But here, I am stepping on Celebrim's toes, so... enough.

And yes, as I feared, I did end up rambling. Perhaps I'll come back to this, and make something more useful out of it. Hopefully...

 

[Pergentile]

*Musters willpower not to give DMing advice*
Three words: Pixie Dread Necromancer
Some freak with a fetish tortures the poor little thing and brings it to the brink of death countless times... the result? A pixie obsessed with death and a hatred of all *Insert race here, preferably the major race of the PC's*
Single most fun NPC I have ever used. Have it fly invisible above the players, then summon some zombies a few hundred feat up, and watch their jaws drop as you say "A zombie drops from out of sight above and in front of you, shattering into rotting bits of flesh and bone as it hits the ground with a sickening thud... make reflex saves."
or
"You start to notice a bump growing on *Insert NPC here*'s right arm, its a bit yellow and looks painful, and just as you notice it *NPC* explodes in an eruption of rotting vile flesh, splattering you with a painful, almost acidic yellow fluid, make a fortitude save."
or
"You find a small, helpless, black haired fairy, alone and unconscious on the Temple's sacrificial altar, it is barely breathing, and matches the description of the one you're supposed to save, do you have any healing spells left *Insert name of healer*?"

Fey really are awesome, and I wish you luck in your very interesting sounding campaign. ^^ <3!

 

[kitcik]

The Rhymer and the Ravens

Try reading this book by Jodie Forrest. An excellent fey story which could be very inspirational.

 

[Dandu]

Have it fly invisible above the players, then summon some zombies a few hundred feat up, and watch their jaws drop as you say "A zombie drops from out of sight above and in front of you, shattering into rotting bits of flesh and bone as it hits the ground with a sickening thud... make reflex saves."

Can't summon non-flying creatures in the air.