Fey

Note: The Fey race may only be selected by spending a Greater Award!

Please be sure to refer to the Notes on Fey Lore Sources and Clarification section for important information regarding fey lore outside of this page. Quite a lot of information on fey lore is oversaturated with 5th edition content that is not considered canon in the Arelith AU, and it can be difficult finding the information that is. 

Introduction

The mysterious creatures known as “Fey” hail from a strange and otherworldly plane known as the Plane of Faerie. Fey come in all manner of shapes and sizes, and their mysterious nature gives the denizens of Faerun excellent reason to be cautious and superstitious of Fey nonsense.

The Fey race is divided between two opposing factions called the Seelie Court of Summer and the Unseelie Court of Winter. These courts each represent the good and evil aspects of this race. Likewise, these courts are each governed by their own royal monarchs: Queen Titania and The Queen of Air & Darkness. The following will discuss a brief overview of this lore to utilize when role playing around or as a Fey character.

The Seelie Court

"A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place." - Monster Manual, pg. 295

The Seelie Court of Summer represents the pure manifestation of beauty or perfection. While the Seelie court fey is considered as good or virtuous, sometimes their games may go too far for the average mortal to handle. These games, or pranks, can often lead to unforeseen or unintended consequences for the mortals they play with. Despite these innocent intentions, many mortals are still drawn to Seelie fey for their unending joy and benevolent, cheery attitudes. Seelie fey enjoy good relations and are welcome among various nature-oriented races such as Elves, Firbolgs, and Forest Gnomes as some of these races are distantly related to the Fey race.

The Seelie court is led by the supreme leader of the Fey Race, Queen Titania. She rules alongside her consort, King Oberon, and a handful of other faeries serving as deities to many of the goodly fey. The court itself is never in one place, and frequently moves between various planes such as Arvandor, the Beastlands, and others.

Seelie Fey on the Archipelago of Arelith are most often represented in the form of Sprites. These Sprites include fey like Grigs, Petal, Nixies, and Pixies. (Pixies and Petal being the closest to the Arelith representation of Seelie Fey)

Most fey speak Sylvan, Common, and may know other languages. On Arelith, they gain a bonus animal language.

Please note that fey will not automatically know ancient or dead languages. If you would like your fey to know one of them, please take the appropriate class levels.

The Unseelie Court

“The Queen is truly only a husk of a being, utterly corrupted by the ten-faceted Black Diamond, an artifact of vast magical strength and ineffable evil… Wretched beyond any hope of her own physical death, the soul-dead Queen is driven to destroy what she herself once was, to drive the Seelie Court and the deep sylvan races down into darkness and destruction, leaving only the shells of their bodies remaining.” - 2nd Edition The Complete Monster Mythology, pg. 125

The Unseelie Court of Winter is said to be the exact opposite of the Seelie Court. Where the Seelie represents the purity of nature, the Unseelie court represents a macabre mockery of this perfection. The fey of the Court of Winter is each some form of twisted or deformed nightmare. While many of these creatures are the hollowed husks of their fairer brethren, it should be noted that many fey are deceptively beautiful like their Seelie cousins.

Unlike their Seelie cousins, the Unseelie fey delight in the torture and pain of the mortal races. Generally, the Unseelie fey will seek to enslave or play harmful pranks on the ‘lesser races’ to injure, steal, maim, or kill with sick delight. If given the chance, an Unseelie fey will even seek to subject other fey who do not share their views to the same fate. The Unseelie Court is commonly at war with other fey for this reason.

The Unseelie court is ruled within the plane of Pandemonium by an equally dark and fickle monarch, the Queen of Air and Darkness. It is said that the Queen of Air and Darkness was once the sister of Queen Titania, but was corrupted by a black diamond. Regardless if this legend is true, every Unseelie pledges unyielding fealty to this Queen to acquire her favor, though this often proves more disastrous and dangerous than it is beneficial.

On Arelith, there are but a few common Unseelie fey such as Quicklings, Winterlings, Shaedling, and Spriggan.

Like their Seelie Cousins, Unseelie fey on the Archipelago of Arelith speaks Sylvan, Common, or other languages. They, also, gain the bonus animal language.

Please note that fey will not automatically know ancient or dead languages. If you would like your fey to know one of them, please take the appropriate class levels.

The Story of Queen Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness

Most fey, regardless of allegiance, know the mythic story of Queen Titania and her lost sister, the Queen of Air and Darkness.

The tale takes place in the land of Ladinion, a deep sylvan land of prehistory, where the Seelie Court presided on the shores of Lake Cym Glas. To the south of this land, the dwarven people discovered a large, ten-faceted black diamond within their mountain as they mined. The dwarves, believing that this wondrous gem would make for a lovely gift, brought it to the Court. Unfortunately, that day, Titania had been swimming in the waters of Afon Bhlu, a nearby river. Instead, her sister took this gift for her. It is unknown how, but it is suggested that the gem was magical and corrupted Titania’s sister.

So, the corrupted goddess would steal the gem and other treasures of Titania's court, leaving a streak of fire and smoke in her wake. Soon after, the mountain exploded, killing the dwarves, and sending a poisonous cloud across the land which sickened the faerie people. The faerie was forced to take flight across the planes and abandon their land.

While this is an ancient legend among the fey, most renditions of this story discuss the black diamond, the Queen’s greed, Titania's mourning, and the corruption spread to the faerie people.

Summary provided by The Complete Monster Mythology pg. 117

More about the Plane of Faerie

"The Other Plane of Faerie is a land of soft lights and cruel desires, the home of powerful elflike beings that care little for mortals other than as playthings and prey. It is a country of little people with great desires. It is a place of music and death." - 3rd Edition Manual of Planes, pg. 210

The Plane of Faerie, in itself, is an enigma and oddity in the Faerun cosmology. Despite functioning like an Outer Plane, the Plane of Faerie connects closely with the Material Plane. Like the Shadow Plane, the Plane of Faerie mirrors the Material plane with a Faerie version. In this way, travelers to the realm of Faerie do not need to cross the Astral plane to enter it.

The Faerie plane is sheathed in eternal twilight and is both a place of deep beauty and macabre horror. Many natural groves and flowered fields dot an orange hue, a beautiful landscape. It is here that the Seelie make their homes, filled with laughter and play.

Outside of these pockets of paradise is a land that has been corrupted and tangled with sharp brambles or syrupy fens. These are the territories that the Unseelie claim to hunt their prey in.

Cold Iron

Cold iron is iron that is mined deep underground and forged at a lower temperature in order to preserve its delicate properties. This metal is known mostly for its effective use against fey creatures. It isn't exactly known why it is so effective against fey, but scholars theorize it is because the process of making it keeps it closer to its more natural state than other smelting processes.

Roleplaying Tips for the Fey Race

“The difference between the Unseelie and Seelie Fey is the difference between a dagger in the night and a poisoned flower. Nothing good ever comes of dealing with Fey.” - Common Human superstition

In the Forgotten Realms, the Fey race is treated with very reasonable caution and concern among most races. Even among races where Seelie fey are generally accepted or welcomed, dealing with a fey is considered to be a complicated and possibly disastrous affair.

This is with good reason. Despite their intentions, life, and death are considered just two sides of the same coin for the Fey. Death is seen not as an end, but as a personal journey, as it is in reality only a new beginning for the dying Fey.

Therefore, the Fey do not fully understand the many plights of other races and their mortality. Furthermore, Fey are one of the most long-lived races as they enjoy extremely long lifespans which cross several centuries or millennia. They have seen many empires both rise and fall. The affairs of mortals are largely unimportant to the capricious Fey. As such, the Fey generally remain aloof to the affairs of mortals unless they see an opportunity for entertainment.

Seelie Fey may be focused on the affairs of nature, other fey, or specific things that peek their whimsy, while Unseelie Fey may be focused solely on sewing strife and playing messy mind games or pranks on mortals.

Players seeking to play an Unseelie or Seelie Fey should consider that their character is most likely an extremely old, near-immortal creature and will have that long-lived mindset when it comes to other races. That means that this mindset may be more alien-like or even creepy than it is actually childish. (Note, if you are RPing your Fey as a pixie, this is less applicable, as pixies live up to 300 years.) Naturally, we expect players to make this distinction in their roleplay as roleplaying minors of any race is prohibited.

This may be an entirely new experience for you, and it is encouraged to do thorough research before making your Fey character.

Notes on Fey Lore Sources and Clarification:

• The Feywild is a 5th edition concept and not canon in Arelith AU. The Feywild is not a synonymous term with the Plane of Faerie/Faerie. The Plane of Faerie is what it was called from the 1st to 3.5 edition. Please do not refer to the forgotten realms wiki page as it consists mostly of 5e lore.
• Because it is difficult to find 3rd edition information on the Fey Race, players can find Arelith-approved information on the Fey Race at the following link: https://forum.nwnarelith.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=11156&p=92089
• Please consider Eberron or Greyhawk lore as an inspiration point, and not fact, as our setting is based out of Forgotten Realms.
• We feel it is important to make the distinction between Fey and Pixie. A Pixie is a kind of Fey that cannot be evil or Unseelie. They are a class of Fey called sprites- all of which are NG/TN/CN. When you pick 'pixie' as a race, you are actually picking 'Fey' as the race. There is no 1:1 analogue of Pixies in the Unseelie court.
• It is encouraged to use only 2nd edition or 3rd edition books for official lore references on fey. Please keep in mind that 1st edition and 2nd edition books may not be set in the Forgotten Realms setting as Forgotten realms only became popular to use as a setting in the 1980s around the time of 2nd and then later 3rd edition of dungeons and dragons was published. If you aren't sure about a TSR/WOTC book, you can always ask about it!
• If you have further questions or need more information than what was provided, you can contact someone on the Arelith Writing Team via pinging them in the Lore Channel of the Official Arelith Discord or by posting in the Arelith Forums.

Creating New Character On Arelith

Prerequisites

• Greater Award
• Lightfoot Halfling base race
• No longer restricted to Good alignment.
• Non-lawful alignment required.

Abilities

They retain some abilities of their halfling base race:

Good aim: +1 racial bonus to attack rolls made with throwing weapons.

Small Stature

Fey:

STR -4, DEX +4, CHA +4

Greater Skill Afinity Hide: +4 Hide

Exceptional Skill Afinity Move Silently: Move Silently +4 Hide

Bonus Feat: Winged Character

Spell Resistance 16, does not increase through levels

+10 DC tracks see Investigate#Tracks

Spell-like Ability: Charm Person (10 minutes cooldown)

Spell-like Ability: Invisibility (10 minutes cooldown)

ECL +3

Base race: Lightfoot Halfling

Appearance

Fey use down-scaled Elf models with transparent or non-transparent wings attached.

Notes

Bonus language: Animal language, Elven, Sylvan

Feys do not require to drink or eat to survive

Starting city: Cordor or Skal

External Links

• Guide to Fey in the Arelith Forums