D&D (2024) Monster manual Fey video up

[Warpiglet-7]

...OK. You're welcome to bag on it all you want, but I liked alignment when it was a more important part of the game.

I liked holy swords and evil artifacts…and the notion of good and evil in the universe being something real.

You’re actually not alone in that…but that does not change things. Run the game you want or find a good group. I sat out 2e, 3.5 and mostly 4e and now face a choice again.

But I digress…back to the topic at hand…

 

[Bae'zel]

Some people still believe in faeries and I agree that it's kind of odd how much they've been ignored. Goblins having a fey origin has always been a part of my lore. On the other hand cryptids like bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster and their many variants might qualify as monstrosities.

Are Trolls and Ogres Fey too? They are pretty integral to most world myths, or their equivalent stand-ins anyway.

If goblins are Fey, I’d personally house rule Trolls and Ogres as well.

 

[AlViking]

Are Trolls and Ogres Fey too? They are pretty integral to most world myths, or their equivalent stand-ins anyway.

If goblins are Fey, I’d personally house rule Trolls and Ogres as well.

Yes they are as far as I'm concerned and have been as long as I've cared. It matters because characters sometimes go to the feywild. Gnomes originated from the feywild but left it behind long ago.

 

[Reynard]

Are Trolls and Ogres Fey too? They are pretty integral to most world myths, or their equivalent stand-ins anyway.

If goblins are Fey, I’d personally house rule Trolls and Ogres as well.

One of the issues is that in much of western folk lore, everything supernatural is either divine, infernal or of faerie. And the lines are blurry. And the contributions of different traditions intersect and overlap and contradict.

Therefore, it is best if we mostly leave folklore out of it and let D&D have its own taxonomy. Whether an ogre is a fey or a giant or a monstrosity will matter in the context of the story, it won't matter much in the context of play.

 

[cranberry]

Fey get a whole Shakespheran play about them. We really arguing Fey don't have massive chops in western mythology?

No, we are arguing that the other monster types are cool too, and deserving of special attention.

 

[Reynard]

No, we are arguing that the other monster types are cool too, and deserving of special attention.

They got it. Before the fey. What are you on about?

 

[Yaarel]

Are Trolls and Ogres Fey too? They are pretty integral to most world myths, or their equivalent stand-ins anyway.

If goblins are Fey, I’d personally house rule Trolls and Ogres as well.

Also, @Reynard.


For concepts inspired by British Isles and France folkbeliefs, I would normally associate Fey. So, like Gnomes (!) and Goblins are Fey, Ogre would be too. Some Dragons too. (Maybe the snake-bat-wolf Dragons be Fey, while the snake-eagle-lion Dragons be non Fey.) The Faerie is a distinctive otherworld, "somewhere else", which is how D&D 2024 seems to characterize the Feywild.

But for concepts inspired by Scandinavia as well as inspired by other animistic areas of the world, they would normally associate the Ethereal Plane. The Troll are "invisible" (huldr) but are very much part of this world, the Material Plane. D&D represents the concept well enough with the "Border Ethereal", where creatures of ether can observe, move thru, and magically interact with the creatures of matter. It is moreorless identical with how the D&D Ghost is a creature of ether. Sotospeak, the Troll is the "ghost" of a particular mountain − or any other feature of nature, there are many different kinds of troll. The Scandinavian Giant is likewise ethereal. (D&D Giant ≈ risi, rise. D&D Troll ≈ þurs, tuss. Both are kinds of jǫtunn, jutul.) The souls of the features of nature are ethereal.

Maybe it is possible to talk about the "Fey Ether" and the "Shadow Ether", where creatures of natural life comprise the Fey Ether, while creature of Undeath such as Ghost comprise Shadow Ether. Both are present within the Border Ether and can interact with each other normally, as the observe and "haunt" the Material Plane.


Note, when medieval Britain read the Pan-Euro literature, including the folkbeliefs of classical Greece, the British versions of these Greek beings, including "local deities" such as Satyr and Dryad and even cosmic deities − were interpreted to explicitly be Fey creatures. In Shakespeare, the fairy queen Titania (titan) is an other name of the Greek deity, Diana. In Chaucer, Pluto/Hades is a fairy king. And so on. (There are numerous fairy courts, each with its own government.)

At the same time, D&D can also have inspirations from the Greek originals, including Satyr and Dryad, that are Celestials.

 

[Remathilis]

No, we are arguing that the other monster types are cool too, and deserving of special attention.

Aberrations (Lords of Madness), Undead (Libris Mortis, Open Grave), Dragons (Draconomicon, Fizbans), Giants (Glory of the Giants) and Fiends (Fiendish Codex) have all gotten whole books dedicated to them. Show me the fey book before you cry about equal time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Aberrations (Lords of Madness), Undead (Libris Mortis, Open Grave), Dragons (Draconomicon, Fizbans), Giants (Glory of the Giants) and Fiends (Fiendish Codex) have all gotten whole books dedicated to them. Show me the fey book before you cry about equal time.

Witchlight.

 

[Reynard]

Witchlight.

Isn't that just an adventure. it isn't a Fizban's for fey as far as I know.