House Fairies!

[I'm A Banana]

So, there's a grand tradition in myth and folklore about fairies livin' under your ovens. Domovoi and brownies and booka and all that.

How have you used these critters in your games? What good ideas do you have for using them? They aren't the best combat antagonists, probably, but what kinds of stories and plots have involved these lovely little spirits, and your heavily-armed adventuring group?

I ask because I'm knee-deep in a side-plot about a domovoi who has had his broom stolen, and I'm not sure what I want to have stolen his broom. Who would want to annoy a house fairy like that, and attack him in the middle of a (fairly peaceful) village? And how can the adventurers help out? I figure getting a handle on how others have used the critters might help me think about 'em in a new way.

So, whatcha got?

 

[Nytmare]

I've never actually gotten around to using them, though I had been toying with the idea of including them in my current game.

As for your side-plot, was the act made against the Domovoi, or against the owner of the house?

Could it be that the broom thief was doing it just to cause mischief, or get revenge for something against the people who lived there?

 

[Nagol]

I use them occasionally -- mostly as backdrop.

In an Ars Magica campiagn I ran, the PCs managed to seriously piss off the local nobles by driving their house faeries away.

The question really becomes why was the broom stolen? What value could it have to another? Was it the material it was made from? Was something caught in the brushes during a sweep? Does the broom have some form of exploitable connection to something/someone else?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Nytmare has some good questions. My answer would be that it was done by another fae to cause trouble, because they were bored, or because they needed a broom of their own!

EDit: Nagol also has some good ideas/questions.

 

[scruffygrognard]

I used a few fairies/sidhe in Pendragon... along with a giant or two.

 

[Celebrim]

So, there's a grand tradition in myth and folklore about fairies livin' under your ovens. Domovoi and brownies and booka and all that.

How have you used these critters in your games?

They exist in my game world, but they have never to my knowledge interacted with the PC's (nor for that matter, has anyone ever chosen to play a house fairy, though one player is toying with the idea of playing a fairy nursemaid). The basic problem here is that they are very shy of strangers, and will basically interact only with the head of household and their heirs. And they aren't usually much in the way of interesting foes.

The closest I've ever come to using it, is for my game for my little ones (non-D&D, but fantasy), the 'haunted house' in the neighborhood is actually occupied by house fairies. Since the players are playing child characters, the oppurtunity to interact is higher.

Otherwise, it's rather like paying a lot of attention to mice and sparrows. Everyone understands these creatures are out there, but they aren't generally something central to the plot.

I ask because I'm knee-deep in a side-plot about a domovoi who has had his broom stolen, and I'm not sure what I want to have stolen his broom. Who would want to annoy a house fairy like that, and attack him in the middle of a (fairly peaceful) village?

There is a wicked witch that needs the broom of a fairy in order to create a broom of flying?

 

[gamerprinter]

Well if you consider the whole witches fly on broomsticks trope, understand that the origins of that concept is that fairies fly on twigs and broomsticks - witches being an Elizabethan concept taking the old women who dealt with fairy folk and having them deal with Satan instead.

A fairy's broom is most likely a device it uses for flying.

Who'd steal a fairy's broomstick of flying? Why, another fey being no doubt, probably a meaner, more dangerous sort - or a witch for that matter. (Also hags have affinity with witches do they not? Why not a hag of some sort...)

 

[SteelDraco]

There's a part of my setting that includes them, as the whole region is run by fey. A magical disaster led to a rift to the fae realms, and a group of fae nobles came through and started playing at nobility, ruling the (mutated) humans in the area.

In that region, most homes have a house faerie. They're spoiled creatures because they're spies, and people don't want them reporting bad things that will get you dragged off in the night and murdered by druids (who act as intermediaries for the fey nobles) or the greater fae, which is far worse. The house fae aren't that bright, though, and have pretty simple desires. The region's rebels kill any house fey that they can, just in case.

I like a previous poster's idea about something getting stuck in the broom, personally. That's where Id go w your idea. They're covering up a crime or something that the fae has already "cleaned up".

 

[kitsune9]

Never used.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Great idea for an adventure!

I had fairies "kidnap" the younger sister of player characters years ago, because they misunderstood her complaints about home life -- she wasn't getting the attention she craved after the birth of a new baby -- as abuse, and took her away to live with them behind a nearby waterfall in the woods.

I ask because I'm knee-deep in a side-plot about a domovoi who has had his broom stolen, and I'm not sure what I want to have stolen his broom. Who would want to annoy a house fairy like that, and attack him in the middle of a (fairly peaceful) village?

It depends on the village, but someone who wants to drive the residents away. Maybe there's a treasure/gold/oil buried nearby, or the villagers have claim to land that the villain (the rotten new baron who's not the man his father, the old baron was) wants.

So they frame the town drunk or mean old man or other peripheral figure for stealing the broom. The town's ruin is either the fault of the fairy or, if someone investigates before everyone leaves, this peripheral figure that the villain assumes no one will listen to or believe.