Takyris said it best, really.
People are afraid of dragons and monsters ('aberrations'). They come and eat them, maybe steal the princess and kill some cattle. Then the knight in shining armour comes along, kills the dragon, marries the princess, and the world is as it should be.
The knight in shining armour will usually have much more work to do if he deals with the fey. Fey are terrifying because they are everywhere, but you cannot see them anywhere. You never know what they will do next.
Maybe you have offended them without knowing because your cow ate a pixie's favourite flower, and the next you know, your son's hair has turned white and he refuses to eat, growing sicker and thinner by the day. Your trusty old sword from your days in the army hangs there, but what do you do with it? Who do you attack?
You may go to a priest to get your son exorcised. He may even agree, without payment, because he is a good man. The next morning, when he tries to preach, he panics because his entire congregation seems, by fey illusion, to be made up of demons of his worst nightmares. Not a single candle in the temple will stay lit, and the incense stinks like nothing ever smelled before. Your son, cured the day before, has gone missing. Later that day, he is found drowned, his expression enraptured, in the local pond. And, throughout the village, curses multiply.
Within days, you have a terror reigning in the village that even the fiercest wyrm could not have produced.
The fey are a menace, because they get much more involved, on every level of society. Because they are difficult to understand, and thus to deal with. Because they see the world differently. They are unseen, yet there. Astride between the worlds of the natural and the supernatural, between the living and the dead[1].
They are not 'the things that cannot be', but 'the things that may just about be'. Their world is there, overlying our own. Yet few can reach it or perceive it, let alone, deal with it. They are frustrating, unlike aberrations where your mind just gives up: fey manage to seem natural and supernatural at the very same time; that drives one crazy much more than just 'accepting' that something is unnatural.
They are the true horror, the horror of the unseen and the unknown, more certain to drive you to despair and insanity than any aberration or allip could. Even while they might actually be trying to help you. They are also the personification of dangerous attraction, of giving yourself to their music and charm and beauty with untold consequences.
Unlike aberrations, they are not revulsive. Fey are extremely beautiful. Aluring, even. And that means that there is usually a trap involved. Even more terrifying is that the fey do often not mean it to be a trap. The nymph may really like that mortal, never mind he cannot breathe under water; she just forgot that and is truly sad. They enjoyed the mortal's company in their dance. They do not perceive time as we do, and do not understand that the mortal is devastated at having found out that a century has passed since he entered that dance.
Fey are, in a word, subtle. A foe, even a friend, who leaves your wondering is worse than one who poses a direct threat. With the Tarrasque, you know where you are at. With a gang of invisible pixies, there is no telling what might happen next. In D&D terms, they are appropriate for a much lower-level group than the Tarrasque, but even an epic group could have trouble figuring them out, and putting an end to their machinations. Sword and spell are of no use; you need to play their game, and that means, first of all, finding out who the other players are and what the rules happen to be.
It all runs down to the fear of the unseen. Present fears are less than horrible imaginings, goes the saying. And the horrible imaginings is exactly what the fey are.
[1]Originally, though this is not taken up much in D&D, 'fey' actually means 'fated to die', or 'close to death' (according to the OED).
People are afraid of dragons and monsters ('aberrations'). They come and eat them, maybe steal the princess and kill some cattle. Then the knight in shining armour comes along, kills the dragon, marries the princess, and the world is as it should be.
The knight in shining armour will usually have much more work to do if he deals with the fey. Fey are terrifying because they are everywhere, but you cannot see them anywhere. You never know what they will do next.
Maybe you have offended them without knowing because your cow ate a pixie's favourite flower, and the next you know, your son's hair has turned white and he refuses to eat, growing sicker and thinner by the day. Your trusty old sword from your days in the army hangs there, but what do you do with it? Who do you attack?
You may go to a priest to get your son exorcised. He may even agree, without payment, because he is a good man. The next morning, when he tries to preach, he panics because his entire congregation seems, by fey illusion, to be made up of demons of his worst nightmares. Not a single candle in the temple will stay lit, and the incense stinks like nothing ever smelled before. Your son, cured the day before, has gone missing. Later that day, he is found drowned, his expression enraptured, in the local pond. And, throughout the village, curses multiply.
Within days, you have a terror reigning in the village that even the fiercest wyrm could not have produced.
The fey are a menace, because they get much more involved, on every level of society. Because they are difficult to understand, and thus to deal with. Because they see the world differently. They are unseen, yet there. Astride between the worlds of the natural and the supernatural, between the living and the dead[1].
They are not 'the things that cannot be', but 'the things that may just about be'. Their world is there, overlying our own. Yet few can reach it or perceive it, let alone, deal with it. They are frustrating, unlike aberrations where your mind just gives up: fey manage to seem natural and supernatural at the very same time; that drives one crazy much more than just 'accepting' that something is unnatural.
They are the true horror, the horror of the unseen and the unknown, more certain to drive you to despair and insanity than any aberration or allip could. Even while they might actually be trying to help you. They are also the personification of dangerous attraction, of giving yourself to their music and charm and beauty with untold consequences.
Unlike aberrations, they are not revulsive. Fey are extremely beautiful. Aluring, even. And that means that there is usually a trap involved. Even more terrifying is that the fey do often not mean it to be a trap. The nymph may really like that mortal, never mind he cannot breathe under water; she just forgot that and is truly sad. They enjoyed the mortal's company in their dance. They do not perceive time as we do, and do not understand that the mortal is devastated at having found out that a century has passed since he entered that dance.
Fey are, in a word, subtle. A foe, even a friend, who leaves your wondering is worse than one who poses a direct threat. With the Tarrasque, you know where you are at. With a gang of invisible pixies, there is no telling what might happen next. In D&D terms, they are appropriate for a much lower-level group than the Tarrasque, but even an epic group could have trouble figuring them out, and putting an end to their machinations. Sword and spell are of no use; you need to play their game, and that means, first of all, finding out who the other players are and what the rules happen to be.
It all runs down to the fear of the unseen. Present fears are less than horrible imaginings, goes the saying. And the horrible imaginings is exactly what the fey are.
[1]Originally, though this is not taken up much in D&D, 'fey' actually means 'fated to die', or 'close to death' (according to the OED).
