D&D General How to design fairies without them looking like tiny humans with bug wings?

Bird Of Play · Sep 5, 2021

So, I'm trying to (partially) avoid the anthropocentrism of DnD, where every species from ogres to trolls to fairies to giants to goblins is just a not too wild variation of the human shape.
I mean, I'm ok with elves and dwarves and gnomes looking a lot like humans, but I'm trying to avoid applying this to every other species that DnD describes as humanoid. I'm trying not to make any creature they meet a semi-sentient or sentient copy of the human race, unlike what the DnD manual implies.

For example, it's easy to make trolls sufficiently less humanoid by picking something like Skyrim's version of trolls.

But I have a hard time with giants and, even more so, fairies/feys.

Does anyone have any idea how to make fairies less humanlike? I really want to avoid the whole "tiny human with wings". I would have liked to make them like insectoid people, but then I decided I couldn't because I already have a tiefling npc who's halfbug and leads a hive of humber hulks (who, too, are kinda like insectoid people, even if with buglike intelligence). So, i think the insectoid trope is well and used already.

I also can't make them look like light spirits since that would be more of an aasimar/celestial thing?

I'd really appreciate some ideas!

Doug McCrae · Sep 5, 2021

Little Cthulhus.

Thunder Brother · Sep 5, 2021

The kodama from Princess Mononoke (and broader Japanese mythology) might be a good reference point for a different take on "fairies" and forest spirits.

Scars Unseen · Sep 5, 2021

Insect really does seen like the best fit (see: Berserk, Lost Children Arc) unless you want to go abstract. You could make fairies something akin to the lure of an angler fish, a visible luminescence that draws the unwary toward a predator that perhaps lies just out of phase with the prime material, devouring them without a trace. It would be an interesting spin on tales of people following fairies and never being seen again.

Yaarel · Sep 5, 2021

Fairies pretty much are anthropomorphic.

In Scotland, they are normal humans.

In England, Shakespeare has them be human youths, from newborn to say 19. They are mostly normal size human children. Maybe the younger they look the more powerful they are. The monarchs are toddlers. Shakespeare mentions altho human size, they can shrink. They are made out of spirit so can shrink like angels can, but only to about the size of a thumbnail rather than dance on the head of a pin.

By Victorian Era, fairies are often depicted shrunk.

But fairies are humanoid.

If you dont want to have humanoid, you dont have to have fairies.

The Scandinavian equivalent of a fairy is a troll, who are humanoid, but whose families are mix of beautiful and monstrous members.

To avoid anthropomorphism maybe make the trees and animals themselves be magical?

Bird Of Play · Sep 5, 2021

Yaarel said:
If you dont want to have humanoid, you dont have to have fairies.

Hard disagree here.

Fairies could be insectoids, could be plantlike, could be actually just made of light, or could be like those kodama that got mentioned here.

In fact, kodama would be a great idea to use!! My problem is that I threw so many weird and/or unsettling creatures to my players, that this time, for once, at least when it came to fairies, I wanted something that doesn't look like a nightmare. They already faced a particularly grotesque-looking lich, a much more disturbing version of illithid, an ugly half-orc freak.... I want to throw something "cute" at them this time.

MarkB · Sep 5, 2021

Aside from insects, fairies as plant-creatures that look like flowers until they move can work pretty well. I know I've seen this done well in a couple of films, coming off as creepily non-human, but I can't remember titles right now.