So... what do you do with fairies?

I have a druid who is immune to "nature's lure", and a bard who needs to do some counter -songing. I'd like to have some sort of encounter with a fey who uses music to enchant the party, but I don't know WHY the fey would do that.

What do fairies, pixies and satyr's want anyway? As far as I can tell, if they get their hands on some adventurers, they'll make them cavort and frolic with them. With just about any other creature I can figure out some need that pushes the beast into interacting with a party (creature needs food, needs habitat, is competing for something, needs the party to do something for it etc.), but since fairies and what not spend their whole lives dancing in faerie rings or having tea parties or whatever, they don't seem to have any real needs that would make them DO anything.

Is there any way to make these creatures interesting?

Lizard Lips said:

I have a druid who is immune to "nature's lure", and a bard who needs to do some counter -songing. I'd like to have some sort of encounter with a fey who uses music to enchant the party, but I don't know WHY the fey would do that.

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Mischief, they find it funny and amusing. Don't make them deadly, make them self entertaining.

Crothian said:

Mischief, they find it funny and amusing. Don't make them deadly, make them self entertaining.

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Exactly. You know those players you encounter once in a while who seem to do random things because they find them amusing (I steal his underwear!)? Just base your characterization on those players.

Well, grigs and pixies are neutral good, so the encounter is unlikely to be maliciously motivated.

However, "needs habitat" and "needs party to do something" could be combined.

Let's say that, centuries ago, the king of the sprites and the king of the nearby human kingdom made a compact, that recognised the fey's sovereignty over the forest, and denied humans the right to hunt and chop wood within its bounds.

And let's say that over the years, the humans have all but forgotten the compact, and just remember that the woods are 'haunted'.

And let's say that in the last year or so, a band of woodcutters have begun chopping down the trees of the haunted forest. Their precautions against the 'evil spirits' have served to protect them from direct action by the fey.

Enter the PCs, who are in the forest for some reason. The sprites see a group of humans without the 'evil spirit' protections, and initially seek revenge for the fallen trees. (Cue encounter to showcase druid and bard.)

Once the mistaken identity problem is recognised, the fey cease attacking... but the PCs are still in violation of the compact by trespassing on fey lands. The sprites demand service in penance - the PCs must stop the woodcutters' incursions.

Perhaps one or more dryads have already been killed by the tree-felling; by the terms of the compact, the human king (whoever currently holds the throne) is responsible (while everyone's forgotten it, the original contract can be found in the palace archives, and is still binding), and must either provide for the dryads' resurrection, or turn over those responsible, or else his first-born child is forfeit. Perhaps the employer who provided the woodcutters with their anti-fey protections knew about the compact all along, but needed dryad oak for the construction of some device or other, and will take steps to thwart the PCs from carrying out their task.

-Hyp.

I eat pixies for breakfast!

Pictsies eat babies for breakfast.

Fairies leave changeling sociopathic murderers.

Hobgoblins lame horses and spoil food. (For fun.)

Most fairies aren't opposed to the taste of chicken. Or human flesh.

"Come out to play, lady. Come out to play."

"Won't you play with us, lady? We'll all have lots of fun."

"So much iron, lady. Why don't you eat and drink with us? We'll have such a good time."

"Hee hee hee! You fell off the cliff! You can't fly? Your legs are broken? Where are your wings? You have to have wings, everyone has wings!"

"Hee hee hee! This hurts! Hee hee hee! Want to know what hurts more? This! Hee hee hee!"

Think of the cruel "fun" a small child has with insects or small animals.

I love two descriptions of fae I've read, not nessesarily linked to D&D fae, but interesting anyway.

The first is that fae are almost completely alien to our mindset, and anything we percieve them doing is only our attempt at rationalizing something that we simply can't make sense of. The way they doing things is just similar enough to things we can comprehend to completely screw with our perceptions.

In this sense, fae are completely unpredicatable, even to the point that you can't predict that they'll be predicatable. They might suddenly start doing things you'd expect. But then later they won't. And in either case, you won't really know why.

They might be mischievious one moment, then deadly serious. Utterly focused on honor and duty and responsibility and agreements, then tossing them all aside on what seems to be a whim, only to pick them up again later, and then twisting them somehow. They'll go for weeks, doing everything in their power to pamper you, take care of you, help you in every way, be your servants, then betray you at a moment's notice without any cause at all. Make you fabulously wealthy today, then torture your family members for kicks.

Any explanation attempted for any of these acts is automatically wrong, no matter what the explanation is. Because the real reason is litterally beyond comprehension, and things that are beyond comprehension... can't be comprehended.



The second description of fae that I've read was suggested by Terry Pratchett, and may be a little closer to D&D fae then the above. In this version of fae, faeries are basically self absorbed superstars. Think all the glamour of hollywood, the self absorbtion, the firm belief that everything really does revolve around them. Like the above poster suggested, in this case, they're like small children... small cruel children with phenominal and scary magic powers.

It's not that fae particularly care for trees (other than dryads and other "bonded" fairies)... it's just that the forest is a great big playground full of toys...

And you're a toy.

Lizard Lips said:

What do fairies, pixies and satyr's want anyway? As far as I can tell, if they get their hands on some adventurers, they'll make them cavort and frolic with them.

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Classically, Satyrs have an entirely different idea about what 'frolicking' is all about and they don't seem all that picky about gender, either. They're also Neutral, so piping the party to sleep and stealing all their stuff, plus painting them all blue is not out of the question.

Dryads are the same way, though they are much more goodhearted. Since another word for Dryad is 'woodwife', she may wish to sire a child on a handsome young warrior come to her grove, or she may fall in love with him and not want him to go.

Pixies, though very kind, are also going to be extremely playful. They may think nothing about using their memory loss and illusions to get people completely lost in the woods. They may gift them something for their trouble later, but will see they come to no real harm.

Now, if you want to depart from some of the common D&D depictions the other descriptions in the thread can provide a great deal more peril to the party, and much greater reason for such creatures to trick the group into terrible danger all because the fae may find it funny or amusing.

I suggest the following:

1. Read Terry Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies".

2. Get "GURPS Faeries".

Historically, "faerie tales" were horror stories. They were strange, alien creatures with incomprehensible taboos and mores with little in the way of human empathy. They rape women, steal children, and leave only tears. Even the best of them will get enraged if you are less than polite than them.

Faeries are not strange-looking humans. They are alien life forms. Play up on that.

Raven Crowking has a great article, called Faerie Encounters, on this site. It is required reading for anyone who wants to include fey in their campaign. I can't recommend it highly enough.