AD&D 2E Fey, but Old Skool

[Celebrim]

I'm looking for something where fey are in this world... mostly. I'm not looking for feywild as its own domain per se; nor am I looking for such a structured law/court thing as seems to be the norm. I'm looking for something mythic and mysterious, challenging mentally and role-playing wise - and I want to take some veteran players who are immersed into the classic D&D fey and pull them somewhere completely different.



More for ideas than mechanics.

So, do by "this world" do you mean "the (nominally) real world" or do you mean some fantasy gameable D&D world.

A lot of the things that I would have recommended to you involve living in Fairie or at least exploring it, but the immediate recommendation for something a bit numinous and fey is Dolmenwood. That's going to be different.

 

[Moving Pictures]

So, do by "this world" do you mean "the (nominally) real world" or do you mean some fantasy gameable D&D world.

A lot of the things that I would have recommended to you involve living in Fairie or at least exploring it, but the immediate recommendation for something a bit numinous and fey is Dolmenwood. That's going to be different.

Sorry, I meant "extant within the fantasy world I have created"

From a source, I can pull from Norse, Germanic, Celtic/Gaelic. So I can play with Sidhes, and I've already introduced the party to a chap with a thick brogue who explained that the sudden appearance of four-toed goblins (as opposed to the three-toed goblins people consider normal) is a function of the world returning to magic, and "the four-toed green people, they be touched by the wee folk."

 

[Celebrim]

Sorry, I meant "extant within the fantasy world I have created"

So does this world preexist your attempts to make it more fey? It's going to increase the difficulty of giving you advice because fitting into existing world building is challenging.

In addition to Swedish and British Isles centered folklore, may I recommend you look into Japanese folklore as well, as the Japanese conceptions of Kami and Yōkai fit well into classic notions of Western fairies. Right now I don't know what to recommend to you other than reading a lot of folklore, which you can start on Wikipedia until you figure out a more narrow focus.

 

[Fenris-77]

The fey in Into the Wyrd and Wild are quite wonderfully awful. Domlemwood also has a bunch of stuff that might be useful - the fey there are along the lines of what you're looking for. Personally, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell for fey imagery and the like.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'm looking for something where fey are in this world... mostly. I'm not looking for feywild as its own domain per se; nor am I looking for such a structured law/court thing as seems to be the norm. I'm looking for something mythic and mysterious, challenging mentally and role-playing wise - and I want to take some veteran players who are immersed into the classic D&D fey and pull them somewhere completely different.

More for ideas than mechanics.

If the mechanics aren't the important part, have you considered porting parts of one of the White Wolf Faerie games?

 

[Voadam]

Necrotic Gnome does OSE, a B/X retroclone so it is fairly close to 2e, including optional advanced rules to put 1e classes and spells and monsters into a B/X framework. Things will be a little weaker than AD&D (B/X PCs have smaller HD, smaller max ability score bonuses, etc.)

Their Dolmenwood stuff is fairly dark creepy fey tinged woods, so predatory druid cult and King of the Elves type stuff. Here is a short free intro PDF.

Here is their Dolmenwood Monster Book.

From James Mishler Games there is a 10 page Fairy supplement that is only $1 Fairies Fair and Foul. Again it is Labyrinth Lord so B/X based and very close mechanically to AD&D monsters.

Here is a 116 page fairy bestiary based on the artwork of Henry Justice Ford Ford's Fairies.

Third Kingdom Games has The Pallid Fields a hex crawl in Faery, I think it could be used as an area of fey in the world fairly easily.

There is also an OSE based hexcrawl for the ruins of an ancient elven kingdom called the High Moors.

There is also Brukesian Hex Crawl a human borderland far from the capital but surrounded by a dangerous forest with cruel fey princes. There is a shorter free intro for it.

 

[cbwjm]

Into the Wyrd and Wyld also has some dark creepy fey vibes. It's another resource I'm using for Dolmenwood, haven't looked at it since a campaign a couple years ago.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sorry, I meant "extant within the fantasy world I have created"

From a source, I can pull from Norse, Germanic, Celtic/Gaelic. So I can play with Sidhes, and I've already introduced the party to a chap with a thick brogue who explained that the sudden appearance of four-toed goblins (as opposed to the three-toed goblins people consider normal) is a function of the world returning to magic, and "the four-toed green people, they be touched by the wee folk."

Ahem, this is right up what you're looking for. There is a 5e version, but this one is for OSR, so might be easier to convert.

It's more than 300 fey creatures based on folklore and mythology, rather than how they've appeared in D&D. Lot's of lore here, including fey courts.

Every single creature has a lore section like this

 

[Moving Pictures]

Thanks for the suggestions - will do some delving.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One of my most recent D&D character designs was a fighter of Fey descent. One thing I did to reinforce that aspect was to borrow a page from The Bard’s character Robin Goodfellow, a.k.a. Puck (from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), as well as other notable tricksters of legend, lore & folktales.

Namely, he goes by different names- 12-13 on the character sheet at last count. Those closest to him have learned to try not to react when he gives someone an alias they haven’t heard before.

I had thought of other options, like an unusual speech pattern. I imagined him speaking in rhymes (like DC Comics’ Etrigan) or in palindromes (I vaguely remember DC Comics’ Doom Patrol fought some villains who did this in the 1990s). I contemplated using iambic pentameter, haikus, and limericks as well. But, alas, I know my limitations. There’s no way I could do that on the fly for any length of time.