Fey

[Rystil Arden]

Vilas are actually the most common types of fey in my culture. There are several types of them too [I guess the term is somewhat less than strictly defined, as some of these types differ substantially] and they are always female.

BTW: As one of the board's resident fey experts - how would you define fey and what creatures would you list as fey?

I'm flattered to be called a fey expert, but I'm just more of just a fey fan who's done lots of amateur research. I define fey as creatures with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or some other force or place, not including the outer planes, which have outsiders instead, or the inner planes, which have elementals. So you could have a bloodthirsty fey spirit of war, for instance, or a fey house spirit (domovoi). As for which types of fey I generally use, I oft use sidhe, dark sidhe, sirens, fey elves, faeries, sprites, and various nymphs (see my nymph entry in Encyclopaedia Altanica http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2193091&postcount=6).

 

[Mouseferatu]

[shameless]

If you're interested in more material on fey, keep an eye on Lions Den over the next couple of months. We have something in the works--albeit still a little ways off--that will not, I think, disappoint.

And no, I can't say more right now.

[/shameless]

 

[Roman]

Interesting - so all fey do seem to be humanoid to a reasonable degree... at least so far.

 

[Tonguez]

Um this doesn't necessarily make sense in English (so please forgive me if some terms are mistranslated) but in my culture an interesting distinction is made between Fey (and similar) and other Spirits (including ancestors and deities) thus:

The world we experience is made up of three levels
1 the physical
2 the psychic (mind, emotion, thymos)
3 the spiritual

All things proceed from the spiritual realm, take on form in the Psychic realm and manifest in the Physical realm. Fey are 'psychic' phenomena which spontaneously manifest from the thymos (essential nature) of a thing. Hence Fey are associated with dreamlike 'psychic' states, have mutable forms (though tend to mimic natural ones), and are neither mortal nor divine.
Fey are freewilled and mortals with the requisite skills and authority (ie Preists) have the ability to invoke fey and install them as guardians and caretakers. My cultures equivalent of dragons (Tanifa) are also psychic phenomena and usually associated with Protection.

 

[Gez]

Outsiders of Here.

Yep, that's the way I understand them. They're somewhat related to outsiders and elementals, in the way that they are created as embodiment of their environment. They're a personification of nature, just like an archon is a personification of lawfulgoodness and a fire elemental is a personification of fire.

By nature, I don't necessarily mean the "mossy trees and cute li'l butterflies" vision of nature that D&D often seems to have. I mean it as the world. They're personification of their environment -- which can be affected by humanoids. That's why you'll have urban fey (personification of cities) or creatures like the ragewind (personification of a battlefield).

One could say they are Insiders as opposed to Outsiders.

Also, they have in common a mischevious attitude and a total lack of long term memory. They live in the Now. Contrarily to outsiders that will plot things and stuff, they'll just care about carping the diem and doing what they do. If a fey witness the death of a loved one, she'll weep for a whole day. On the morrow, she'll still be sad, but less. After a week, she won't remember exactly why she was sad. Just faint impressions, a few memories, and a feeling of loss. After a month, it'll be completely forgotten and she'll be back to normal.

So they may seem uncaring and heartless to mortals who still remember. But they aren't, their grieving was sincere. It's just totally forgotten.

 

[Estlor]

From a purely folklore sense, fey are natural beings from the Other World that dwell in the borders (i.e. where something is neither one thing nor another). Fey are fascinated with humans and human behavior, but because they are alien and strange, their manifestation of human behavior is often twisted and over-the-top, making them seem odd. The thing about fey that keeps them interesting is, traditionally, there is no such thing as "seelie" or "unseelie," fey are amoral creatures that can be your friends so long as you follow "the rules" but become your enemy if you do not. There is always a bit of mystery around them, but because they are the personification of the natural world, there attitudes and behaviors are usually clues as to their true nature.

One thing of note is in most folklore, the fey have no power over Christianity. This is usually the side-effect of Christian monks recording old folk tales, modifying them in a way to make them less pagan in nature. Almost every Christian reference in a Celtic tale about the fey is a later addition.

In the D&D sense, a fey is an "outsider" of the natural world, a personification of the sometimes good sometimes not uncaring sense of the world around you. Because of this, the folklore definition of fey creatures expands to include lots of mythological beings and purely fictional creations.

 

[Stormborn]

One thing of note is in most folklore, the fey have no power over Christianity. This is usually the side-effect of Christian monks recording old folk tales, modifying them in a way to make them less pagan in nature. Almost every Christian reference in a Celtic tale about the fey is a later addition.

I agree, but to expand a bit: One of the later explinations of the fey, that tie to Christianity, is that they are the 3rd part of the forces of heaven. A group that neither fell with Lucifer in the rebellion nor sided with Michael in the War in Heaven. They were exiled, but not sent to a place of punishment. They continue in a place between worlds, which was orginally a territory of Hell and thus they must pay a tithe to Hell to keep it. From which you get stories/songs like Tam Lin. There orginally celestian nature means that sometimes they act demonic, other times angelic, depending on the "rules" (as was said previously) that they follow. And almost without exception they do follow some set of rules.

Now apply this to the DnD world. If the Demons/Devils were servants of the gods that rebelled, and perhaps then even had a split in their own ranks between C and L, and the various good outsiders are the ones who continue to serve the gods, then the Fey could be spirits that remained neutral in that split. Some of them might carry on their ancient duties of guarding nature, but others may no longer care about allegiances to beings that generally ignore them, so the behave as they wish, but bound in part to their "programming." Place them in a setting with lots of Divine Conflict and you have a perfect set of allies/enemies/patrons/foils for the PCs depening on their own allegiances (and in this case allegiance superceeds allignment, not evey LG being is on the same side after all, less so for other allignments.)

In asian mythology there is the idea of the kami, manifestations of a place, thing, creature, or idea. Fey in western folk lore aren't exactly that, but have some of the same connections. They might be used as such in a campaign.

 

[gizmo33]

In asian mythology there is the idea of the kami, manifestations of a place, thing, creature, or idea. Fey in western folk lore aren't exactly that, but have some of the same connections. They might be used as such in a campaign.

This is where I start from with fey. The kami and their equivalents in other folklore systems all seem based on the concept of animism, which is the "manifestations of a place" et. al. mentoned by Stormborn.

I would say that any creature with magical tendencies, who dwells in an "other" place but not clearly one of the "outer planes" as they can be identified in DnD. The creature would be immortal, intelligent, and probably very humanoid. Demons wouldn't qualify IMC because they are outer-planar and originate from the Abyss.
Many creatures in folklore (trolls, kobolds, merfolk) that could be classified as fey IMO lose that classification according to their descriptions in DnD.

Real world folklore/mythology can be difficult to classify because folklore isn't as hung up on classification as DnD is. I think that the "fey-like" attributes that people recognize comes from concepts of animism that are carried forward into different mythological systems (ex. demons are not always "outer-planar" in Medieval folklore). I would classify jinn as fey, even though DnD makes them elementals. I'm on the fence IMC with oni/ogre magi (anyone know their origins in folklore? Were they originally servants of the Celestial emporer?) and also ancestor spirits - where I would classify with the Domovoj of Roman's post. Perhaps I would say that if an ancestor spirit exists as a collective (such as the Domovoi and brownies - a single creature representing many ancestors of a particular clan or locale) then the creature is a fey, whereas if the creature represents a single ancestor, then that creature is a ghost or outer-planar creature/"petitioner" (in DnD terms)

My rule of thumb used to be that if a creature showed up in myth where female versions of the species served as benefactors for a hero, then that creature qualified as a fey (ex. jinn). But dwarves of Norse folklore IMO are fey, and they don't qualify. While the giants of Norse folklore aren't fey IMO, and giantesses are known to marry/assist deified heroes/gods.