Faeries

[Ghostwind]

Welcome to the Twilit Lands, where all is fey and faeries rule. This d20 guide to Faeries provides answers on the fair folk, the fey races and creatures more ancient than dragons and far more enigmatic than their sizes or shapes ever reveal. The secrets held by the fey far outstrip all the other races combined, and this book brings them right to players and Game Masters alike.

This 96-page supplement provides new rules and a new understanding of fey monsters as well as many new faeries for your d20 games. Players can learn more skills, spells, magical artifacts, and secrets from the fey, including how to play fey PCs. Meet new monsters and fey legends that cross many worlds and cultures, from Old Man Winter to the Lady of the Lake. Best of all, the world of Faerie, a world as close as a dream and as magical as its denizens, comes alive with its legends and lore for the Game Masters and can easily be linked to all d20 worlds.

 

[JoeGKushner]

So what can you expect when you buy Faeries? Well, pretty much everything involving Faeries in the campaign.

Want new races? Check. You've got stuff like the half-fey, and the deep fey. One thing that stands out here is that Bastion didn't follow the standards in race creation. For example, many races have a +1 modifier instead of +2. One race that stands out, the Faeries, have variable physical characteristics which determine what their ECL is. Comfortable playing something really powerful? Take poisoned fangs, gossamer wings and retractable claws with some spell like abilities pilled on top of that. Since you're still a first level character in terms of hit points though, it's best not to go too overboard.

New classes and feats are also covered in the first chapter. We get those who hunt the fae, as well as those who hunt the hunters, Faerie Hunter and Mortal Slayer, as well as PrCs designed to fill the niche of the Fey races like Knight of the Fey, the protectors if you will, to Fey Prankster. All of the classes are ten level PrCs and provide the GM with numerous opportunities to augment his campaign by designing specific challenges to his players.

The section on feats are Fey in nature. Insight of the Fey grants the user a bonus to resist illusion spells while making any illusion spells that user cast harder to resist. To add a touch of flavor to your familiar, take Improved Familiar to grant it the fey-born template. Some of the feats may be underpowered though. For example, Concentrate Spell, reduces the area of effect by 25% but doubles the effect of the spell. Good but uses up a spell three levels higher. Empower, a standard feat, provides a 50% bonus at a two level cost with no power reduction.

One thing I was glad to see expanded upon here are the prestige races. These are optional abilities you buy with experience points that provide different benefits and have different prerequisites. They were introduced in Oathbound and were so neat that Dragon included some in Dragon #304. There are seven new foci here, ranging from Focus of the Beast to Focus of the Hordes. The use of these prestige races will have to be something the GM decides on before allowing them as they change the nature of the character. Take Bland Creature, it costs 1,400 xp and provides a +5 bonus to Disguise checks and a +2 bonus to Bluff checks. Not overpowered in and of itself, but it's always there and doesn't require any activation and aren't lost with level loss.

In contrast to the setting and the player focused crunch, the Lore of Faerie is short. You get some ideas on how the Fey think and act, what motivates them and how they compare with standard mortals in terms of aging and sleep. The material is sufficient enough to let players not playing Fey characters know what types of behavior to engage in when meeting said creatures and the GM enough material to know how the Fey should react in many cases.

The World of Faerie however, gets numerous locations and NPCs detailed. A two page full color interior spread shows the Faerie Lands and labels each section. It's a lush illustration but one without any real depth to it. You're not going to see specific locations or up close visuals, but the overhead view is a nice point of reference. In addition to the physical locations, you get numerous side bars of importance. How about options to replace the Astral Realm with the land of the Fey? How about the calendar of the Fey or how time flows? How about the use of Gates and Doorways to move about or how distance in general is handled in this strange land? All covered.

Most will be more interested in seeing the write ups for the lands various rulers. Why is that? Could it be because they are archetypes that most people should be familiar with? How about the Green Man, Baba Yaga or Queen Titania and King Oberon? The lands start off with a brief description, a stat block that includes Distance (a Fey land notation), Regional Seat, Regent, Prominent Features, Seasons, Legends & Lore broken up into different DC checks, and the NPCs of the area. There's so much material to cover here that none of it gets up close and personal but does provide a nice overview of the lands and their rulers. Perhaps if the book does well enough well see a future supplement like Old Man Winter's Court eh?

The last chapter closes out with the Magic of Faerie and includes new spells, domains and magic items. One interesting facet unrelated to any specific magic item or spell though, is the concept of true names. I'm a big fan of the Black Company and their use of Names to overcome powerful spellcasters of that setting so always enjoy seeing how someone does a take on True Names. If the user can get a true name into a spell, it means that the target has a much higher chance of being effected by the spell in question. Rules provided enable the Gm to use this little idea as an adventure seed to find out creatures true names or to discover one's own true name.

Because of the Fey vulnerability to magic, several spells have an Iron type to them like Iron Cloud and Iron Shower, or protection against Iron like Greater Iron Ward and Iron Blight. It's a nice compare and contrast that follows along the line of providing material to hurt the Fey with as well as protect them.

One of the larger sections in the magic items write ups are the Charms. Broken up into minor, medium, and major types, charms provide different bonuses based on the type. For example, an Owl grants bonuses to wisdom while a Clover grants bonuses to attack rolls and reflex saves.

The Creature Appendix includes Doorway Guardians, Faerie Dragons and Fey Steeds in addition to Jabberworks, Satyrs and templates like Fey-Born, Half-Fey, High Fey and Shadow Born. These monsters run the range of CR 2 for the Faerie Dragon to 15 for the Greater Jabberwock.

Faeries slips up a little in the layout department. There were at least two occasions, on page 54, page 57, when the text is covered by the wrap points of a nearby object. Editing is pretty good with only one error of no space between he and has on page 72. The header font is also difficult to read sometimes. Capital S looks like G for example.

The art is good, but I question the user of the art. There are many creatures from the Fey world that are familiar to almost any reader ranging from Jack Frost to Father Time and not to see illustrations of them when there are full page illustrations elsewhere in the book is a little strange.

In addition, the power level of the Fey NPC's may not be what the GM is looking for at all. Sure, they're powerful, some of them in the CR 20 + range, but some may want them to be some form of demi-god at the very least. The stats of the NPCs are strange too. For example, despite the fact that they're using material in the book, the prestige race abilities and the new races, their CR's are not changed to reflect this, nor are their stats, which indicate to the GM that they have to be changed to account for the prestige races.

For those looking for a book on the Fey and weren't satiated with Guardians of the Wild from Dragon #304, this book is a blessing. It has lots of character oriented crunch including prestige classes, new races, feats, spells and magic items even as it presents a setting with numerous NPCs and opportunities for adventure.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

Sizing Up the Target
Faeries is a full-color, softcover 128-page book from Bastion Press. It is written by Bryon Wischstadt and illustrated by Todd Morasch, Anthony Francisco, Ben Eargle, Ginger Kubic, and Michael Orwick. Doug Kovacs produced the cover that my wife requested I note as being “very attractive” (purple is her favorite color). The book retails for $27.95.

First Blood
Throughout European history, the fey (an accepted plural of faerie) have been featured prominently in legend and song. Since many fantasy role-playing games, including DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, are drawn from such, it is no wonder that fey are a part of such games. However, the information given in Core Rulebook III regarding these mythical beings is scant, and the descriptions limited to a few of the better known of their number. Faeries attempts to fill in the gaps, adding the missing fey and their world to your fantasy campaign.

To this end, Faeries focuses first on the fey themselves. Seven new races of fey are added (bogie, deep fey, faeries, feeorin, half-fey, scath, and sprites) are added and the viability of the nymph (from Core Rulebook III) as a player character is examined. In addition, ECLs are provided for the dryad, grig, nixie, pixie, and satyr (also from Core Rulebook III).

Bryon breaks the nymph down into a racial class and the result is an interesting study, producing a complete nymph by 12th level (excepting her unearthly beauty. This is the same approach that is used in Savage Species, but Bryon extends it one step further, progressing the class logically to 20th level. By this method, the saving throws and attack matrixes are quite irregular (which will irk some people), but it does present a workable racial class. His reasoning is also sound and, unlike Savage Species, he explains the choices he made regarding at what level a special ability should be received (something I wish Wizards had done).

Because of the nature of fey magic, Faeries recommends expanding the spell lists of spellcasting classes for fey casters. This is a fine idea and certainly keeping with the feel of the setting, but I recommend DMs carefully consider the implications before haphazardly doing so. The spell lists are carefully balanced and altering things in this manner may imbalance the game, not to mention that non-spellcasters get shafted in this manner.

A total of 18 new feats are offered, and though several are aimed at fey characters exclusively, there are a fair number of generalized feats that anyone could take. There was one feat missing, however. Improved Mite Fighter has Mite Fighter as a prerequisite. While this makes perfect sense, Mite Fighter is nowhere to be found! It does appear in Bastion Press’ Spells & Magic, but for those of us without that reference, it would have been nice to reprint it here. Two new knowledge categories are also offered up (fey and folk tales).

Ten new prestige classes provide some interesting variety for those who still don’t have enough choice in their lives. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not all are restricted to fey characters. In fact, the faerie hunter doesn’t specifically require that the character be non-fey (like the fey-touched does), but it’s pretty easy to guess that such a character would be of some race other than those he hunts and slaughters.

But what if you weren’t lucky enough to be born a fey (translation: you just got this book and your DM refuses to let you create a new character)? Well, there’s always a prestige race, a concept first introduced in Oathbound (Bastion Press) and reintroduced here. By expending experience points, a character can evolve, undergoing what is called an “enchantment of the flesh,” actually transforming over time to become an entirely different being. The process is long and difficult and means a lot of sacrifice, but it is a way to become something you aren’t. Some new prestige race paths are introduced here, including the Focus of the Green, the Focus of the Hordes, and the Focus of the Fey (who could have guessed?).

As if that weren’t enough, you can also choose to take on an aspect of nature. Like prestige races, aspects of nature require a feat and result in physical changes, but unlike prestige races, these changes are not as severe and result in less powerful special abilities in exchange for equally low-powered penalties. For example, a character that chooses the Aspect of the Bird gains a +1 bonus on Reflex saves, but suffers a -1 penalty to Fortitude saves.

True to its subject matter, the book is also an extensive source on faerie lore and life. Many faeries can fly as easily as a human can walk. This causes a change in they way they view the world. Similarly, as faeries do not sleep, this is a foreign concept to them (though they do rest). Issues of this nature are addressed from a role-playing viewpoint and this adds balance to what might otherwise be a book of game mechanics.

In fact, all aspects of faerie life and the way they look at mortal lives are examined in fair detail. Where appropriate, a game effect is set apart by brackets. The laws of dealing with faeriekind are laid out, drawn from popular legend about these mythical (from a real-world standpoint) creatures. Even how their rulers are elected and typical faerie etiquette are dealt with, making this book invaluable to role-players who enjoy detailing every aspect of their characters’ lives, as well as to GMs who intend to use faeries in their campaigns.

Faerieland is a far different place from the world we know, another realm (read: plane) unto itself. A color map of the realm is provided, along with traits (in the same manner as Manual of the Planes. In many legends, time works differently in the faerie realms and a traveler may return from a single day’s stay to find that two decades have passed on her home plane. For DMs who wish to add this complexity, there is an optional rule for just such a contingency.

The seasons and holidays of faerieland are described, and optional rules are provided for using the faerie realms as a replacement for the Astral Plane. Travel times, portals (referred to here as doorways), celestial mechanics, all these topics are given full treatment. There is enough information here to run faerieland as an entirely separate campaign setting in which the faeries have adventures of their own. Even well known wanderers of faerieland (and sometimes the mortal realms) are described; Baba-Yaga, Rumplestiltskin, and others. Truly this product lives up to its claim as a book about faeries!

Of course, faeries have their own unique magics and that’s covered here as well. Magic sand, a potent new magical component increases the power of fey magic, but also has a minor random effect each time it is used. The power of true names is also documented here in game terms (and this is why they guard their true names so closely!). Even non-fey are affected by these rules, so once you’ve learned your true name, be very careful about who you share it with!

Finally, there are a boatload of new spells and magical items here, as well as a few new creatures (fey, of course) thrown in for good measure. Four new templates (fey-born, half-fey, high fey, and shadowborn) add some interesting variety to mortal creatures and could make for interesting character options as well.

Critical Hits
The biggest plus about Faeries is its usefulness in both mechanics and role-playing. There is so much information given here that it’s like getting an entire campaign setting in a single, 128-page book! Rather than presenting the fey as simply another character race option, Bryon takes the time to flesh them out and give them a history and background. Essentially, he brings the race to life. Subsequently, this provides the DM with a wealth of material on which to base adventures.

Faeries does make an effort to stay closer to the source material than some others do. The creatures are presented in the accepted d20 format and even though Manual of the Planes is not considered a “core” book, it was nice to see that the same format was used here as in the official product. Kudos to the design team for this effort!

I would also like to say that I have enjoyed the artwork in this book more than any previous Bastion Press release. It seems as though the artists are starting to develop their talents nicely now and even artists towards whose work I have felt antipathy in the past are starting to grow on me. There are some truly beautiful illustrations here that really serve to enhance the text they accompany.

Critical Misses
One thing that springs to mind almost immediately are the vast differences between the half-fey presented as a racial option and the half-fey template. Logic dictates that they should be identical, but this is not the case. In fact, the half-fey template appears to be much more powerful than the racial option (and also looks to be worth a bit more than the CR +1 would indicate. The ability score adjustments alone (every single score receives a bonus!) make it worth a CR +2. And if this one is off, the CR +1 for the high fey certainly needs to be increased!

In fact, even the templates themselves disagree! The fey-born differs mechanically from the shadowborn only in the particular special abilities each receives as they rise in level (and neither’s abilities are any more particularly powerful than the other), yet the fey-born has a CR of +3, while the shadowborn has a CR of only +1! (And I believe that the fey-born is closer to the mark.)

While we’re on the subject of templates, you have to expect that some player is going to want to use them for their character and so they should be assigned an ECL. If you can guesstimate an ECL for the racial options, you can guesstimate one for the templates. Yes, I know the original Core Rulebook III didn’t have any, but that’s going to be corrected in 3.5E. We need to keep up with the times, folks.

Even the racial templates seem to be a little off in terms of ECL. A sprite, by way of example, has balanced ability modifiers and the bonuses and penalties associated with being a small creature cancel each other out, but then they have the ability to fly, resistance to illusion and enchantment spells, low-light vision, gain Use Magical Device as a racial skill, gain a 2nd-level spell as a spell-like ability 3 times per day (in addition to two 1st-level spells (one 3 times per day and the other once per day), and gain faerie racial traits as they increase in level. Still, the ECL is only +1? This is cutting it close, I think, and should have been closer to +2 in my humble opinion.

Finally, there are a few minor editing errors that I noted (such as where the spell-like abilities of the sprite are indicated at being cast as a sorcerer equal to the feeorin’s (another race) character level). Fortunately, mistakes like this are very few and do not detract from the readability or usefulness of the book in any way. I suppose I can forgive a few small editing problems.

Coup de Grace
Ultimately, it comes down to two questions: 1) will you use most of this material in your campaign, and 2) do you feel comfortable making the necessary adjustments to the CRs and ECLs? To the first, I can only say that you really shouldn’t have any trouble fitting Faeries into your campaign world. Heck, it’s almost a self-contained campaign setting anyway! The second question, only you can answer. Perhaps you’ll think that they not that far off. I do, but maybe that’s just me.

Faeries is certainly very topic-centric, but you know that up front, so there’s no hidden surprises there. However, a lot of what is here will fit neatly into nearly any campaign with a minimum of effort, so there’s really no excuse not to have it unless your campaign just doesn’t have elves and other fey races. If you’re seeking some new racial options or just a way to torment your players, then this is a good investment.

Except for the CRs and the ECLs, the book is pretty on target as far as d20 compliance goes and the entirety of the work with the exception of the artwork and graphic content is designated as Open Gaming Content. Faeries is a very original approach to a subject that is a big part of the myths and legends that form the core of D&D, but I have to be honest and lower the playability score because it is very topic-oriented and because the ECLs strike me as needing an overhaul. It’s a good book in spite of the problems and it’s worth a look, but don’t rush right out and buy it in favor of something else that may be better suited to your needs.

To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Yes, I know the original Core Rulebook III didn't have any, but that's going to be corrected in 3.5E. We need to keep up with the times, folks.

I had nothing to do with this book but I feel this is a poor choice of words here. The SRD does not contain any reference to ECLs**. It is closed content unavailable to d20 publishers. Just because other publishers ignore that fact does not mean all of them should. I hope bastion didn't take a ding in your marks because they followed the OGL more closely than their peers. Even if bastion has access to the 3.5 prerelease, that material is only available to them under NDA. It is not OGC that they can reference. I find it unfortunate that rumors about 3.5E are being used as part of reviews of products that come out before it does. The OGL does not allow us publishers to use that material until WotC actually releases it to the SRD.

**Yes, I know that ECL appears in the MMII within one of the two OGC creatures. Still, it is utterly unexplained there. Picking ECLs correctly requires knowledge outside the OGC sandbox.

 

[GameWyrd]

Where are the illustrations? Rather surprisingly that was my first reaction to Faeries, I don’t think it’s entirely unjustified but it sounds a bit harsh. I’ll say from the start that Faeries does well enough, it’s just not a wild success.

The book begins with a character race faeries: Bogies (and there’s no illustration), Deep Fey (re-visited in full from Minions: Fearsome Foes), common Faeries (without illustration), Feeorin "noble fey" (without illustration), half-fey, Scath and Sprites. Spirits are about two feet tall - so is that a very small sprite posing on that leaf or is it a very large leaf? I might have been spoiled by publishers of Bastion Press’ quality in the past but I’ve come to expect illustrations for all new player races. There’s some good stuff here though. The common faeries are especially clever in that there’s a table of physical characteristics and spell-like abilities that you can pick entries from and add to your fey. By doing so you start to increase the character’s ECL modifier. Butterfly wings that allow you to fly at move 20ft increase your ECL by a half and natural invisibility (at will) increases your ECL by one and a half. In this way we really can produce a whole faerie host.

The faeries in Faeries are D&D in flavour; grabbing the best bits from Celtic and Russian myths and mixing them all together. That’s probably the best way to go, the Monster Manual pretty much corrupts any attempt to stay true to any "real" faerie legends. We’re told that the faeries here come from over a dozen cultures. Hmm.

It’s this grabbing and mixing that defines Faeries for me. It’s a bit of a squeeze. I like some bits; other bits – such as Santa Claus, a less than epic Father Time, Rumplestiltskin and a Queen of the Dryads at a not quite mighty 12th level – fail to win me over.

The first chapter contains plenty of new feats. The one to watch is the Evolve feat. Evolve gives faeries access to Prestige Races, a concept first introduced in Oathbound and then widely wowed at by people afterwards. Prestige Races allows a character to (as the evolve feat suggests) evolve their body up specialised advancement paths. The Focus of the Shapeshifter, for example, runs through Skinflow Creature, Boneknit Creature, Flexible Creature and to Sizeshifter Creature. The other Foci are the Focus of the Beast, Focus of the Changeling, Focus of the Fey, Focus of the Green, Focus of the Hordes and Focus of the Seersighted.

There are Prestige Classes. Bound to be. The PrCs are actually pretty good, I rather like the Faemancer and appreciate the twist wherein the fey tend to choose the latent wizard and move her into the role rather than the more typical Necromancer who forces and uses the undead into their new roles. There’s the Faerie Hunter, Faerier, Fae-Walker (perhaps related to the Shadowdancer), Fey Guardian, Fey Prankster, Fey-Touched, Knight of the Fey, Mage of the Circle and Mortal Slayer. These are all 10 level classes and I wish more of them had been illustrated.

I also like the Aspect of Nature rules. There’s a bonus and a penalty for being a fey with a close tie to a certain aspect of nature. These are similar but lesser than Prestige Races in many ways. Within the Aspect of the Plant, for example, we can find "The Ferns" which offers a bonus of +1 to Will saving throws and a penalty of –1 to Reflex saving throws. There are three large summary tables of possible Aspects, plenty to choose from.

The second chapter, the Lore of Faerie, brings together some of the common and most interesting faerie legends. The fey like music but not like it when you wear your clothes inside out, always be polite to the fey but never accept a gift from one.

It’s the World of the Faerie where I really start to pick’n’mix my likes and dislikes in the book. Faeries tries to be world neutral. It’s just hard to be world "neutral" and have Beltane on the 1st of May, or more simply, harvest in autumn. The book can be world neutral because the fey are just visitors to the material plane and that leaves the GM to use them as much or as little as she wants. FaerieLand is where the fey are really from and we get a nice Manual of the Planes style introduction to it. Normal Gravity, Normal Time (kinda), Mildly Good Aligned – because the Twilight Lands are primarily good and Between is mildly evil, Enhanced Magic and Infinite Size. FaerieLand is infinite, it has no edges but it fits on to two pages. I laughed. That just amuses me. The colourful map of FaerieLand shows the interesting middle bit where various realms meet. The chapter looks at such issues as distances in the infinite FaerieLand and doorways to and from the plane. Most of the chapter is busy with a tour of key places in the Plane and biographies of certain NPCs. There are just fewer than 30 pages of this tour, 30 pages in the 128-paged product. Nothing leapt out the section to grab me except to make my "Not in my world" list (Santa, a Half-Fey Baba Yaga, etc).

The book, for me, picks up again with Chapter Four and the Magic of the Faerie. I’m not normally a crunch fan but having a nice and long percentile table of random effects for faerie dust (okay, magic sand) is just a useful timesaver. There’s a whole bunch of new spells here. The Dream, Fey and Fey Road Domains are introduced. There’s the Summon Fey family of spells as well. There’s also a family of "Iron" spells that the fey can make good use of; Ironblight, for example, rusts away any ferrous (read: iron) objects it makes contact with. Sneaky – and that’s what you’d expect. There are magic items aplenty; lists of charms and dusts. There’s enough new magic to successfully use the fey as creatures of natural magic in your campaign, even if your campaign is already loaded with magic.

The book finishes with an appendix of monsters. It’s the templates that do best here, the fey-born, half-fey and shadow-born templates provide easy game access to nice plot hooked NPCs.

There’s plenty in Faeries, it could perhaps do with more character races but the approach that allows you to design your own common fey is a real winner, in fact, it’s a reason to buy the book. Similarly, if you want access to the campaign rocking (often in the good way) Prestige Races but don’t want to risk the expensive hardbound tome that Oathbound is then there’s another reason to buy Faeries. I just felt for every "Good idea" there was a matching "Er, I think not", for every plus there was a minus. The book does well enough on the whole; there will be something for most players and GMs to take from it.

* This Faeries review was first published at GameWyrd.

 

[Psion]

Faeries

Faeries is one of Bastion Press' general rules expansions for d20 system fantasy campaigns. Faeries provides rules and background material to add the fey races and their otherworldly realms to your campaign.

A First Look

Faeries is a 128-page perfect-bound softcover book priced at $27.95. There are few d20 publishers that use a full color softcover format, so there is little point of comparison. As might be expected, the book is thinner than a black-and-white supplement of the same price, but the price/page ratio is better than the 96-page Bastion books.

The cover is color, with a purple backdrop. The front cover picture is by Doug Kovacs and depicts a winged male faerie with a staff in his hand.

The interior is also color. Contributing artists include Anthony Francisco, Ben Eargle, Ginger Kubic, Michael Orwick, and Todd Morasch. The interior art quality varies from acceptable to very good; there are Bastion products with both better and worse on this score. It's a shame that Bastion could or did not tap Stephanie Law for this book (who worked on some past Bastion book), as she is, in my opinion, the queen of the faerie look.

One unfortunate point about the art: it seems to be used more decoratively than illustratively. There are many instances in the book where the subject matter could use a direct artistic representation to show certain elements (especially races), and there is none.

The interior text is conservatively sizes and the lines and paragraphs are single spaced, giving the book a good overall text density. The book uses a calligraphic font for headers, but it is not too difficult to read. I did notice at multiple instances of a table cell overlapping and obscuring text.

A Deeper Look

Faeries is divided into a mere four chapters, covering fey characters, lore, lands, and magic respectively. There is also an appendix with fey creatures and templates.

The characters chapter has the usual miscellany of character creation options: new races, prestige classes, feats, and skills.

There are seven fey races provided in PHB format. An interesting aspect of some of these races is that there is a list of "fey racial traits" that some races use. Basically, the racial trait list provides a number of features and abilities that the player can add to the fey creature to represent variations in the characteristics of the fey character. These racial traits all have an ECL cost attached (some of them expressed in partial points); by accepting the ECL modifier, the character gains some unusual abilities. This system is a little fast-and-loose, and with any such "point-buy" sort of system, it may take a little GM monitoring to prevent abuse.

A bit more troubling/confusing is that some of the listed races get additional abilities from this list gratis as they advance; presumably your ECL is not supposed to increase as you go up levels. This is a bit troublesome as races that have abilities that change as they advance (like some templates) are problematic to balance.

Another problem with many of the races is they use odd racial modifiers. This breaks with the conventions of even modifiers only set forth in the core rules and creates a greater tendency to min/max character ability scores.

The seven basic races included here are:
-Bogie: Bogies are troublesome, mischevious faeries serving the unseelie court. They are small and have spell like abilities and free racial trait selections as they advance.
-Deep Fey: The deep fey are a race of fey that dwell in the "underdark", adapted from the bastion monster book Minions. The deep fey is less potent than the Minions version, with less hd, low ability scores, and spell resistance, which probably makes it more playable at lower levels. The have light sensitivity, can create darkness, and have other spell like abilities.
-Faeries: These are the "common fey". They have only basic fey characteristics and some extra proficiencies in addition to any special characteristics they purchase and gain through levels.
-Freeorin: Freeorin are "noble" or "pureblooded" fey. They are basically similar to the faeries, with the addition of a few spell like abilities and other minor changes.
-Half-fey: Half-fey are the offspring of a mortal and a fey creature. They have many fey characteristics (like resistance to charm and illusion magic and spell like abilities), but no access to special racial traits. There is a minor problem in that there is a template later in this book with an identical name but which pans out differently.
-Scath: Much as the half-fey are unions of fey and mortal, scath are the result of unions between deep fey and mortals, and have some of that races characteristics (darkness related spell-like abilities and spell resistance.)
-Sprite: Sprite are very much like pixies – small fey creatures with insect-like wings. The naming is unfortunate, for "sprite" is a category of fey creatures under the core rules.

In addition to these races, the book outlines a "racial class" progression for a nymph, done in a very similar style to those in the Savage Species book, with some levels that only give special abilities instead of hit dice, with the exception that the class is actually extends beyond the abilities of the base nymph in the core rules.

Unfortunately, the execution of this nymph class is flawed. It states that the nymph only has an attack modifier stemming from its strength bonus. However, it has no strength bonus, and the formulae for the advancement of all creatures is explicit and published, so the author should know exactly what BAB the nymph has. In the follow on progression with increased HD, the author fails to follow the BAB formula there, too. This reflects a weak understanding of the d20 system and led me to look at other items in the book with a very cautious eye.

The book reprints (and identifies the source of) ECLs from Dragon #293. This took me aback a little. First off, those number were playtest numbers, and many of them are quite off; indeed, many of the numbers are changed in savage species. Second, this violated the terms of the OGL by reprinting closed content material and indicating compatibility with it.

Most of the feats are exclusive to those with fey blood. A few examples include:
-Blood of the Fey: This feat is actually for a non-fey and mimics some of the fey racial abilities. It grants +3 on saves vs. enchantment spells, as well as +2 to the DC of such spells cast by the characters. This seems a bit like a straight improvement over the spell focus feat.
-Fey Spell Mastery andFey Magic: These feats allow fey creatures to ignore spel components. The former allows the fey to ignore a cheap (<5 gp) spell component by virtue of their connection to the faerie world. The latter allows the fey to use magic sand from the faerie realm in place of any material component.
-Improved familiar: This feat gives the character's familiar the fey-born feat. Again, I feel this is a case of unfortunate naming; something like feyborn familiar would have been more precise and not have tripped over other similar-names feats out there.

There are a total of ten fey related prestige classes: faemancer, faerie hunter, faerier (adapted from Spells & Magic), fae-walker, fey guardian, fey prankster, fey-touched, knight of the fey, mage of the circles, and mortal slayer. These classes have an emphasis for or against fey. Many of them overlap a little and are similar in concept. Some of the classes (such as faemancer, faerie hunter, and mortal slayer) receive good attack bonus progression in addition to good abilities and their own spell advancement table, which may make them a little strong.

Faeries also uses the concept of prestige races, first introduced in Bastion's Oathbound setting. A prestige race is that each is a set of associated abilities, or "enchantments of the flesh". To take any of them, a character must have the evolve feat. Once the character has this feat, she may begin taking prestige race abilities at the cost of experience points.

Each prestige race listed here has four abilities included in it. Each particular prestige race or set of abilities is called a focus, and each ability must typically be taken in sequence. Each ability costs a large number of XP and the earlier abilities in a sequence are more expensive than the later ones.

An example focus is the focus of the beast. The four enchantments of the flesh are feral creature, wild creature, snouted creature, and tailed creature. A character's race colloquially becomes the adjective of the enchantment, so a dwarf with the feral creature enchantment is a "feral dwarf". A character who takes the feral creature enchantment gains a +2 natural armor bonus and cold resistance 5, at the cost of 3500 xp. The character could then take the wild creature enchantment, gaining claw attacks at the cost of 4500 xp.

The cost of these enchantment more than pays for the associated abilities, and they somewhat resemble "permanent magic items." However, the drawback of mechanics of this nature that bypass the level mechanic is that it invalidates the level mechanic as a measure of PC power.

A new mechanic introduced in this book the aspect of nature mechanic. A character must take the feat nature's aspect. A character can shift between aspects, and each aspect has a number of different "focuses." A character can only have one aspect at a time, but may have more than one focus in the aspect. Adopting an aspect costs 500 xp, as does adopting each focus. Each focus provides both a penalty and a drawback. For example, the radiant focus of the aspect of the lights provides a bonus to will save and a penalty to fortitude saves.

There are a few problems with the aspect system. First, the system just does not seem like it will be attractive to players to me. Players are not likely to pay precious xp for abilities that come linked to penalities. Second, when it discusses changing aspects, it refers to a diagram the defines how progression from one aspect to the other, but the diagram is missing. Finally, the term "focus" is also used in the prestige race mechanic, and repeating its use here creates the real possibility of confusion.

The second chapter is entitled Lore of the Faerie and lays out some basic facts about faeries and how they differ from other races. The chapter is short, and in essence discusses myths about faeries compiled from various cultures, and each has a game interpretation if that myth is taken to be true. For example, as an example, if you wish to draw a fey to you, if you use one of several listed lure, there is a 5% cumulative chance per day of drawing a fey to the location.

The third chapter is entitled World of Faerie, and defines the qualities and contents of what the book calls FaerieLand. The book uses Manual of the Planes terms for basic qualities of the plane. This is a bit surprising, as the plane format material is not open content at the time of this writing.

Details of the chapter include the physical characteristics of FaerieLand and their d20 System rules effects, and means of getting to and from the mortal worlds and FaerieLand. There are a variety of paths through and between mortal and fey worlds; entries to these magical roads are called doorways. Doorways are found in esoteric locations like stone rings, and can only be opened by specific methods. Doorways may also have faerie guardians.

A full color map of the FaerieLand occupies a two-page spread in the book, showing many regions of this strange land. Each region has a breif description including distances to neighboring regions (in terms of DCs; FaerieLand requires wisdom checks to use), the regional seat and regent, prominent features, seasons, and legends and lore. One interesting and useful aspect about the legends & lore is that DCs are defined allowing characters with knowledge of fey or folklore to know certain aspects. Fey regions may have specific sites within them.

The chapter includes a number of pre-defined and statted characters unique to specific regions or that wander between regions. This includes characters derived from myth and folklore such as the so-called "green man" or "erlking", father time, Rumplestiltskin, the Queen of Air and Darkness, Baba Yaga, and others. Most of these characters use the core rules and rules in this book to construct them vice relying on ad hoc implementations.

Chapter 4 is entitled the Magic of Faerie and covers new spells, magic items, and other special rules related to faerie land.

The new rules discuss a few sources of power derives from faerie legends: breath of life, true names, and magic sand.

Breath of life is harvested from living creatures and causes constitution damage. Breath of life may be later used to enhance spells.

True names can be used to make a target more vulnerable to spells cast using the truename. However, this section discusses how to find your own true name, but provides no good use for knowing your own true name.

Magic sand, discussed briefly earlier, has many potential uses. Fey characters with the appropriate feat may use it as a universal spell component, and they can be used to enhance spells in various ways.

There are a number of new spells, including new clerical domains. There are three new clerical domains in this chapter (dream, fey, and fey roads). However, there were two other clerical domains introduced earlier in the book (illusion and enchantment), and there is no good reason that all clerical domains could not have been included in this chapter.

The spells themselves deal with fey or features of fey landscapes, or are of particular interest to fey. For instance, there are spells for summoning, dismissing, and detecting fey creatures as well as spells dealing with fey roadways such as detect doorway.

Similarly, there are a number of fey items that are of special usefulness by or against fey. One thing of interest stuck out here: a resizing quality. This quality seems to ignore the fact that all items have such a quality under the core rules. However, if you don't like that convention, this system makes a nice alternate.

Two new types of magic items are introduced in this chapter: dusts and charms.

Charms are small pieces of jewelry and are hung from charm bracelets. Charm bracelets are magic items in their own right and can have a given number of charms (dependin on the power of the bracelet.) The charms themselves each add to one ability score or one type of roll.

Dusts are actually not unlike wands. When created, there are fifty pinches of dust, and a dust may store a spell up to 5th level. They are not, however, spell trigger items, so in fact seem a bit more powerful than wands.

Finally is the creature appendix, which contains a variety of fey creatures, such as the incorporeal doorway guardian. The classic faerie dragon (or a pretty close facsimile to it) appears here, though it is a fey not a dragon, which struck me as a little odd. Other creatures include the fey steed, jabberwock, and new "subtypes" of satyr (faun and korred).

As mentioned earlier, after seeing the breakout of the nymph class, I was worried that creatures would suffer some consistency problems. Indeed, I did catch a few. The biggest offender seems to be hp. The jaberwock, for example, seems to have its hp calculated as if its constitution were lower, and the psuedo-dragon's hp seems totally arbitrary.

Finally, the appendix includes three templates for making residents of faerie-land: half-fey, fey-born, and shadow-born. As mentioned earlier, the half-fey template here appears totally unrelated to the half-fey race earlier.

Conclusion

If you are interested in integrating some classic faerie legends or forays into a faerie realm into your game, this book is a good start. The third chapter is nicely detailed, and has some interesting and usable interpretations of many myths.

Most of the rules material is usable, but much of it is questionable. Many of the fey races seemed redundant. The customization of fey races is interesting and appropriate, but the way that new abilities are handed out to fey creatures seems like it might be a bit of a problem. Some rules like the fey aspects seem to be missing material before it can be used, and I did not find especially compelling.

Overall Grade: C+

-Alan D. Kohler

 

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Faeries is a sourcebook on the fey from Bastion Press.

Faeries is a 128-page colour softcover product costing $27.95. The book makes good use of space with font and margins good, and white space minimal. The art varies in style and quality. On the positive side, there are some superb pieces that evoke the beauty and ethereal quality of the fey excellently. On the downside, there are many fey creatures offered in the book that have no illustration and much of the art seems unrelated to the text. Occasionally, the sidebars overlap the text causing missing words and letters. The writing style is appropriate to the context - concise and clear for rules information, and more descriptive for the creatures, lands, etc. Editing seems good.

Chapter 1: Fey Characters
The first section of this chapter uses ECLs to allow players to take on a number of fey PC character races. These are the Bogie (trickster servants of the noble fey), Deep Fey (suspicious underground fey), Faeries (common fey such as dryads or satyrs), Feeorin (noble fey), Half-fey (mixture of fey and PC race), Scath (half Deep Fey, half mortal), and Sprite (half Feeorin half mortal, 2 foot fey with gossamer wings). Each race gets a number of points as they advance with which to purchase certain racial abilities - this keeps the races as varied as faeries should be but would need further playtesting to check their balance as they progress. I was uncomfortable with some of the rules offered in this section such as the use of odd-numbered racial adjustments, choice of fighter as the favored class for the Bogie (who excels in spying and sneaky behaviour), the generic use of the term faerie to cover such distinctly different fey creatures as a dryad and a satyr, and the similarity of abilities between the feeorin and the sprite with the feeorin given a +2 ECL and the sprite only +1 (despite gaining flight and invisibility 3 times a day, more fey traits, and only losing out on a lesser resistance to illusion and charm compared with the feeorin).

The next section attempts to show how other fey creatures can be presented as a sort of class rather than a race, giving them their full racial abilities when their class level reaches their ECL, with lesser abilities beforehand and greater abilities afterwards. A nymph is used as an example creature. Though the system is an interesting concept, there is a mistake in the example given, as the author gives the nymph a +1 Strength whereas the nymph only has a Strength of 10 giving no modifier. The racial traits then listed propose a +3 to Cha, +1 to Wis, -2 to Str, and -1 to Con. I was left a little bemused. ECLs for other fey creatures are reprinted from Dragon magazine #293, which I thought was closed content.

The following section proposes an expanded spell list for various classes played by fey characters (such as allowing druids spells from the arcane Divination and Illusion schools), and offers two new domains - enchantments and illusions. Three new skills are proposed - Knowledge (Fey), Knowledge (Folk Tales) and Speak Language (Fey, actually a dialect of Sylvan). Eighteen new feats are also proposed - from the evocative 'Crossing Over' (which allows reduced travel time in FaerieLand) through various enhancements to fey spellcasting and resistances to those related to prestige races and Aspects of Nature (see below).

Ten 10-level prestige classes are also offered:
* Faemancer - spellcaster whose special relationship with a fey being grants limited arcane spell and divine domain access. Benefits from good BAB, Ref and Will saves.
* Faerie Hunter - this PrC seeks the extermination of all fey, and gains bonuses to defence and attacks against fey and can craft magical items from the remains of dead fey. Good BAB, limited spell list.
* Faerier - adaptation of the PrC first introduced in Bastion's Spells and Magic, this PrC gains fey traits and can create faerie portals and trods.
* Fae-Walker - this PrC excels at travelling to and from Faerie allowing fast travel and evasion techniques.
* Fey Guardian - strong in good transformatory magic, with abilities centering on polymorphing and wishes.
* Fey Prankster - this PrC benefits from a tricky mind and luck, with an appropriate limited spell list.
* Fey-Touched - time spent in FaerieLand transforms this PrC to becoming more fey, including a longer life.
* Knight Of The Fey - patrollers and defenders of FaerieLand that uphold the laws of the Faerie Queen.
* Mage Of The Circle - uses circular diagrams to allow a choice of 3 spells to be written onto a special scroll, allowing any one of these spells to be cast using a verbal component only, at which point the spell slot is used up.
* Mortal Slayer - the mortal enemy of the Faerie Hunter and can create special fey glades that help heal fey.

One of the most popular aspects of Bastion's 'Oathbound' setting was the concept of prestige races, where a speeded up evolutionary process allows the character to gain greater 'natural' abilities at the game cost of XP and the requirement of a feat (Evolve). This concept fits well with the unusual nature of FaerieLand and the Fey. Seven Foci (each with four powers) are offered as possibilities for this "enchantment of the flesh":
* Focus Of The Beast - the character gains animalistic powers such as natural weaponry.
* Focus Of The Changeling - focuses on concealment, including chameleon-like powers.
* Focus Of The Fey - becomes more fey-like, with improved charisma, sight, and resistance to charm.
* Focus Of The Green - becomes more plant-like, allowing barked skin and regenerating photosynthesis.
* Focus Of The Hordes - becomes more goblinoid.
* Focus Of The Seersighted - gains abilities to perceive better, gaining powers such as clairvoyance and see invisibility.
* Focus Of The Shapeshifter - shapechanging and polymorphing powers.

Aspects Of Nature are a variant on prestige races, designed to allow fey creatures to take on foci related to nature and the elements. Each Aspect has five powers with accompanying bonuses and penalties, as well as changes to the appearance of the creature. Each power costs 500 XP and can only be taken once per level. The bonuses tend to be offset by the penalties with minor enhancements and restrictions to spellcasting, or minor bonuses to AC, attack, damage or saving throws which must be 'paid for', before or after the bonuses are used, with an equivalent penalty. The Aspects given are Air, Animal, Autumn, Darkness, Dawn, Dusk, Earth, Fire, Lights, Plant, Predator, Prey, Spring, Summer, Water, and Winter.

Chapter 2: Lore Of Faerie
This short chapter is presented as a treatise by an expert on fey, and presents a few paragraphs each on aspects such as movement, sleep, time, work, food & drink, social interactions, belongings, morality, laws, etiquette, and rulership (including the lands of Between (which lies between FaerieLand and the mortal world)). The most interesting section in the chapter looks at 'lures and banes of the fey' - a listing of the things that attract and repel fey with some game effects. However, most do not have any more effect than to cause an increased chance of fey being or not being in the vicinity and I would have liked to have seen some further discussion of effects of aspects such as cold iron and holy objects.

Chapter 3: World Of Faerie
This lengthy chapter presents Bastion's concept of Faerie Lands. It begins with an overview of FaerieLand (also appropriately deemed the Twilight Lands) and defines the plane in terms borrowed from The Manual of the Planes - morphic trait, gravity, time, magic, etc. These aspects are then expanded upon with further detail regarding the passing of the seasons, Celtic-style holy days, constellations, and the strange distances that exist in FaerieLand.

The next section looks at magical fey portals and roads that allow instant travel between two places and also allow access between the mortal world, FaerieLand, and Between. Also discussed are Paths, which are magically created by the land itself, based on the strongest desire within the group, to lead them to their desired destination. It also discusses the dangers inherent in leaving such a path and the means of leaving FaerieLand.

A colourful two-page spread gives a map of the regions of FaerieLand and the next section gives a brief overview of these regions and interesting sites and NPCs to be found within these areas. It also includes information on legends and lore about the region, the main population centre and regent, as well as its distance in FaerieLand's odd measurements of distant, nearby, or remote. A few of the strange NPCs that wander FaerieLand are also statted out and given a general background and appearance. A quick check on stats showed the number of spells per day for a 19th-level human sorcerer had been muddled with the number of spells known to give a larger variety of spells than should have been available and some error with the number of skill points available, though the main stat block clearly showed how the individual stats had been worked out, which was a nice touch.

We learn about the Unseelie Court or Slaugh who live in Between, the Sisters Three who perform divinations in the their Sea Cave at the base of the Cliffs of Madness, the Fungal Forest in an underground area of FaerieLand, the Land of Eternal Spring with its faerie rulers Queen Titania and King Oberon, whilst the Land of Eternal Winter holds the legendary Old Man Winter and Jack Frost. The bizarre Sands Of Time lie in a remote part of FaerieLand, and contain time dunes created by the use of fey roads and portals - these magic sands can be used as a wild magical power source by the fey.

Chapter 4: Magic Of Faerie
This begins by looking at power sources for fey magic such as the magic sand mentioned above, breath (which is extracted (normally fatally) from mortal lungs to power their dark magic, and True Names, which are hard to discover but can be used against targets to enhance magical attacks against them.

Nearly seventy new spells are provided including spells that are able to create fey portals and roads, and befriending the guardians used to protect them from mortals. There are spells for detecting, controlling, summoning and dismissing fey beings, spells that use cold iron (which we learn here can do greater damage to fey, though this is not mentioned in Chapter 2) and spells that create mischief such as sleepless curse, laughing gas, faerie dance, and fool's gold.

A variety of magical items and special qualities are discussed, from magical items that resize themselves with the owner's size, to plant armour and cold iron weapons. Charm bracelets can hold up to eight charms and the power of the charms described here seems to allow an abuse of the limits to worn magical items with some pretty powerful effects available. There is also a discussion on the manufacture and uses of magical dusts. Other magic items from minor items such as the fan of dusting to major artifacts such as the sword, Foul Feyslayer, are also described and priced.

The Creature Appendix
This appendix introduces seven new creatures that can be found in FaerieLand and elsewhere - magical Doorway Guardians, Faerie Dragons (a sub-family of the pseudo-dragon), fey steed, Greater and Lesser Jabberwocks (variant fire dragons) and two types of satyr - fauns (with the legs of a deer) and korred (with the legs of a goat). There are also four templates - Fey-born (normal creatures born in FaerieLand with a +3 CR), Half-fey (fey crossbreed which, though having practically the same increased abilities as the fey-born template, only receives a +1 to CR - ??), High Fey (mystical fey that are the epitome of their race, with breath weapon, damage reduction, fast healing, spells, SR 12, various other spell-like abilities, and significant increases to saves and abilities - yet only receive a +1 to CR), and Shadow-born Creatures (normal creatures born in Between, these creatures gain dark magics that can be used to plague their enemies.

The High Points
Faeries gives a wealth of possible ideas for developing fey and Faerie in your own campaign and I feel that the book works best as a grab bag of ideas from which one might want to pull a few gems that suit your setting. The lower-powered stuff here generally works the best - I liked the Aspects of Nature (though more for NPCs than PCs as the penalties are probably off-putting to players), some of the Faerie Lore tidbits, as well as the fey portals, roads and paths, true names, and the resizing magical items. Interesting sites and characters from the gazetteer section can also be pulled apart to form your own concept of Faerie or even integrated into a standard campaign setting in most cases with a little work. I was also pleased to see the Faerie Dragon in all its glory (though the open status of its source must be somewhat in question).

The Low Points
A regular annoyance for me with Bastion Press is over-powered rules and Faeries is no exception to this - the charm bracelet is probably the worst offender. However, Faeries has a number of seemingly unbalanced or non-standard rules, particularly in Chapter 1's race and prestige class sections, and where the CRs of the templates in the Creature Appendix do not corroborate in comparison to each other. I found the presentation of information to be fairly average, important information such as the effect of cold steel being strung across different chapters - even the chapters themselves could have been better organised to provide a more cohesive understanding of Faeries. Another petty annoyance for me is the attempt to present for a generic world - I thought this was going to be impossible in Faeries, but somehow the hodge-podge of legends and lore from different cultures creates a sort of literary brown soup when reading through the whole of the gazetteer.

Conclusion
With a plethora of ideas yet weak in rule presentation, Faeries seems best used as an ideas generator for creating your own Faerie rather than a grand overview of Faeries and FaerieLand that it seems intended to be. Its usefulness as a grab bag of ideas is enhanced by its overall lack of cohesion and the rather wide cultural backdrop used to create the gazetteer.