Fey in 5e DnD

I have long been of the opinion that the Fey are the most interesting and underrated group of potential NPCs and enemies in DnD, and so far I haven't been impressed with them in 5e.

So, I'm working on ideas to flesh them out more, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

My own thoughts regarding using the Feywild and Shadowfell, and expanding Fey lore in dnd can be found here: www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/story-lore/2776-the-fey-a-lore-thread

For some thoughts on tweaking some options in 5e mechanically, check out this Web DM video: https://youtu.be/s-Z2RDNn1sY

I definitely agree with the notes about Dresden Files' Fey, although I don't use the Summer/WInter=Seelie/Unseelie dichotomy, personally.

I love the idea of taking non-fey monsters and adding the Fey type to them. Displacer Beasts, Nilbogs*, most or all Hags, Dopplegangers, Were-creatures, Blights, Centaurs, possibly Minotaurs, and many others can easily be Fey.

*Nilbog make great fey goblins, and adding some fey traits to hobgoblins and bugbears helps flesh out a fey goblin kingdom.

I also like to let the Feywild and Shadowfel bleed into the Material Plane a lot more, sometimes overlapping depending on season, time of day, etc, so your Fey descended races live in realms and communities that feel different, and their immigration into a new area can actually cause that area to become closer to the Fey, leading to strange places out of Labyrinth in the middle of a city, and entire Gnome communities hidden in places that are only there if you know how to find them, like something from Harry Potter.

I want to figure out Fey subraces from some existing races, as well, though I haven't quite figured out how. Dwarves, for instance, I would love to have a Fey-influenced subrace for, as well as maybe Halflings, and perhaps a more explicitly Fey gnome subrace.


But how do you use the Fey in your games? What do you hope comes in the future in 5e for the Fey, and what do you want even though you don't expect to ever see it officially supported? Do you have any homebrew monsters or races you'd like to share that are Fey or tied to the Fey?

Any ideas for more directly Fey associated subclasses for classes that don't already have them, like the monk, sorcerer, ranger, or barbarian?

I enjoy exploring the alien aspect of fey. Else they're in danger of simply becoming funny-shaped humans.

Likewise, the fickleness of time in their realm, running fast, slow, backwards and if at all.

Also the menace that comes with the alien. Goblins as, 'funny/naughty/nasty ugly midgets', for me, is missing a trick. Same goes with elves, sprites, pixies, pooka, nymphs, erlking and so on - they should all be strange, a challenge for adventures who will find using a human-model of emotion and rationality thwarted when applied to them. Not 'bwhahaha cackle horns, firey eyes and a moustache' evil, rather just dangerous.. like a curious chainsaw or whimsical jar of anthrax.

“There was something about the eyes. It wasn’t the shape or the color. The was no evil glint. But there was…

… a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said: And the choice is not yours.”

- Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

Click to expand...

The fey plane is central to my settings.

First and foremost, feywild is a spirit realm comprising spirits. It overlaps the matter of the material plane, yet has no matter in itself. When people pass thru a portal from the material plane into the fey plane, their material body remains in the material plane. Depending on the method of transit, the body may sleep, or dissipate into a kind of vaporous suspended animation, or even cease to exist. In many cases, the absence of a material body means it is impossible to return to the material plane, unless there is magic to recreate a material body.

(In my near future setting, the fey plane is cyberspace.)



As a spirit realm the fey is the aspect of the ethereal plane nearer to the plane of positive energy, thus a place of healing, vibrant life, and wellbeing. Oppositely, the shadow is the aspect of the ethereal plane nearer to the plane of negative energy, thus a place of energy loss, decay, and despair.

Both overlap the material closely. A building in the material realm appears clean and artistically splendid in the fey plane, but in disrepair and spookily gloomy in the shadow plane.

I love the idea of Fey and Faerie. This is something D&D really needs to expand on. Add some archfey like the demon lords and archdevils.

For courts, I’d have a summer/seelie and winter/unseelie courts of eladrin. I see these less as good and evil so much as warm and passionate vs cold and aloof. All are equally neutral with a chaotic slant.
These serve alongside spring and fall subcourts, along with other courts of dark fey. Such as fomorians and their cyclopian guards. The rulers of Underfaerie.

I like the idea of fey as "alien twists on the familiar." The fey influence nature, which by definition influences humanity. But the fey, in turn, are influenced by humanity. They're cultural mimics. The noble fey of legend operated in courts and had Lords and Ladies because that's how noble humans behaved.

Yet the fey aren't human, and everything they do has at least a subtle alien twist to it (and usually not that subtle). They have a twisted idea of honor, a twisted idea of kindness, and so forth.

Like the more human-looking fey, fey culture--or at least Seelie culture--should look human at a distance, but the closer you get to it, the more you realize something's way wrong.

(Anyone who's read any of my Mick Oberon novels probably thinks this sounds familiar. )

I love the Fey and have tried to use them a lot in my games.

I did set up the Summer and Winter Courts, but I also set up the Wild Court, who are essentially the Faerie who don't want to get caught up in the war between Summer and Winter.

As for stats... I tried to create some Fey before, and it ended poorly. What I've gone with so far was actually much more story based, similarly to how people might use the Gods and Archdevils. We were doing some off-screen emails and people were having to deal with them in a story sense instead of a mechanical sense.

Other than that, hags and dryads (usually home brewed and given wider abilities and spells) are my big uses. Actually, that is a thing, I'll often use Fey to deliver curses and abilities that don't really translate into mechanics. For example, stealing a player's shadow and part of their life force for stealing from them, or turning a player into a sentient burlap doll.

And I think that sort of strange magic plays into the Fey, they don't play by these mythic and steady rules, they play by storybook logic.

Until we get some really solid fey creatures (and I like the idea of turning some non-fey creatures who should absolutely be fey into fey) I think that is going to be mostly where they live in my games. Not as combat encounters or even mechanical challenges, but as story challenges where things are just going to get a little weird.

The way I envision the Fey is that they are often fascinated by the lives of mortals, but never concerned about them.

Essentially, within the Feywild there's this pervasive life force that flows through everything - the plants, the animals, even the land itself has a level of consciousness. And any true Fey can sense this, and to them it's what defines a creature as being truly alive. If something or someone lacks that, as all denizens of the material plane do, then they're just a fascinatingly intricate kind of pseudo-life.

As a result, they view mortals as the equivalent of soap opera characters or videogame NPCs. A Fey might become immensely obsessed with the fortunes of a particularly fascinating mortal, might be highly invested in their success or failure - but ultimately they 'know' that this isn't a 'real' person, and the idea of having to be concerned for their well-being or treat them with kindness simply wouldn't occur to them.

MarkB said:

The way I envision the Fey is that they are often fascinated by the lives of mortals, but never concerned about them.

Essentially, within the Feywild there's this pervasive life force that flows through everything - the plants, the animals, even the land itself has a level of consciousness. And any true Fey can sense this, and to them it's what defines a creature as being truly alive. If something or someone lacks that, as all denizens of the material plane do, then they're just a fascinatingly intricate kind of pseudo-life.

As a result, they view mortals as the equivalent of soap opera characters or videogame NPCs. A Fey might become immensely obsessed with the fortunes of a particularly fascinating mortal, might be highly invested in their success or failure - but ultimately they 'know' that this isn't a 'real' person, and the idea of having to be concerned for their well-being of treat them with kindness simply wouldn't occur to them.

Click to expand...

OMG...

Faerie's treating us like Waifus....

ROFLOL

doctorbadwolf said:

I love the idea of taking non-fey monsters and adding the Fey type to them. Displacer Beasts, Nilbogs*, most or all Hags, Dopplegangers, Were-creatures, Blights, Centaurs, possibly Minotaurs, and many others can easily be Fey . . .


But how do you use the Fey in your games? What do you hope comes in the future in 5e for the Fey, and what do you want even though you don't expect to ever see it officially supported? Do you have any homebrew monsters or races you'd like to share that are Fey or tied to the Fey?

Click to expand...

Huh . . . My megadungeon has a massive cavern connected directly to the Feywild, and is populated by the beasts from Borderlands. Though I tied them explicitly to the cavern, it never occurred to me to make them Fey - not even when I was deciding what type to label the Shock Skags and the like that clearly aren't beasts; I made them monstrosities, when now I clearly see that they should be Fey.

doctorbadwolf said:

I want to figure out Fey subraces from some existing races, as well, though I haven't quite figured out how. Dwarves, for instance, I would love to have a Fey-influenced subrace for, as well as maybe Halflings, and perhaps a more explicitly Fey gnome subrace.

Click to expand...

I remember 4e's book on the Feywild . . . No, I think it was the Underdark book . . . that described the Feydark and included some subraces in it. That might work as inspiration.