Suggestions on use of Fey in new campaign world?

[Kid Charlemagne]

I’m working on a new campaign world, somewhat based off my previous one. One thing I want to incorporate is a greater emphasis on Fey races.

How have you guys handled this in your games? Here’s what I’m thinking:

There will be a Sidhe race, and a Light and Dark Court – although I don’t want to directly take the Unseelie and Seelie courts, or even necessarily use the Sidhe name. Other good and bad Fey will gravitate towards the one court or the other.

One court will be linked with Faerie, the other with the Plane of Shadow – and I’m thinking of making both transitive planes. If you know your way around Faerie, you can get just about anywhere – but the Fey don’t like outsiders on their turf (good or bad). Both Courts access the “real world” via the same places – deep forests, etc – via the same mechanisms (Faerie Circles, standing stones, maybe other ways?). If you traipse about in the Fey Forests during the day, you may be harrassed by the good fey – at night you may be hunted by the bad ones. Normal folks wouldn’t take the chance. Even powerful folk would be reticent.

So here are the questions that come to mind:

What role should elves have with the Fey? Elves will be descended from the Fey, a result of Sidhe mating with humans. Drow (or their equivalent) would be related to the Shadow Fey, regular elves to the regular Fey. Maybe different groups of elves are closer/further to the Fey than others. Gnomes will be the result of Sidhe/dwarf interbreeding. They'll also be the main manufacturers of gunpowder, but that's another thread...!

Any ideas for cool features of Fey Lands? Stone circles, other mythical things, etc?

Any neat ideas/features for the two Courts? Like I said, I want it to be similar to the classic Unseelie/Seelie Court, but I don’t want to use them directly.

One thing I'm thinking of is having the Fey and the Yuan Ti as previous rulers of the world - fighting each other to the point where they are now minor races (at least in numbers).

I kind of like the juxtaposition of the Celtic Myth background of the Fey versus the Cthulhuesque madness of the Yuan-Ti. It also offers explanations for the existence of Monster races - creatures from prehistoric times, maybe used in the battles these two races fought over millenia.

Sorcerors will be the result of Fey blood, not dragon blood (or at least not JUST dragon blood).

As for the traditional Fey vulnerability to Iron, I used to be of the "Cold Iron is a special kind of metal" school, but a thread on ENWorld convinced me otherwise - especially via exposing me to the poem "Cold Iron" by Rudyard Kipling. Cold Iron in that aspect represents the march of technological progress, and I think I'll take that tack. Cold Iron weapons will be essentially a free "+1d6" weapon versus many Fey.

I'm playing around with the thought that certain groups may be trying to eradicate the Fey through "decommissioning" Faerie sites - laying cold iron down in Faerie Circles, toppling stone circles, etc. Possibly a church group (I'm planning on having a big, fairly monotheistic LG/LN church very powerful in the human lands - shades of Sepulchrave's Oronthon, if you've read his story hour).

This might also create dead magic zones, or other unexpected anomalies.

I've had Neil Gaiman's "Books of Magic" recommended to me, as well as Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies."

So what do you think? I'm interested in any ideas or comments.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Not much to add other than I like it.

I have something vaguely similar in terms of plot (or subplot in my case). Good-oriented clerics and druids having a hard time getting along. It brings up a lot of moral relitivism, which I noticed that one of my players didn't really look forward to having in the game (he treats the game as escapism and doesn't like having tricky ethical issues come up). In my case the cleric-druid clash is entirely unconcious on the part of the clerics. They have no idea that they're messing things up, they're honestly their to help but really only making problems worse.

 

[kenjib]

Perhaps both the surviving Fey and Yuan-Ti have visions of how the world should be and are acting on their respective plans to make it that way. Unfortunately neither of their visions include humans and the other PC races. This makes fey a group of people who are the lesser of two apocalyptic evils, but since their goals are not so immediate they might still work with mortals from time to time and for all purposes even sometimes appear to be friendly allies. It also gives them a cold unattached disregard for other people, which they might befriend at one time and then later allow their extinction when their greater goals are within reach.

The fey apocalypse is utopian, but still an apocalypse.

 

[Sejs]

*nod* I like the idea, definitly. Particularly with the Faerie realm/plane of shadow thing. Personally the way I run it mostly is that Fae are more or less the Outsiders Of Here. Demons = outsiders native to the Abyss, Devils = outsiders native to the Nine Hells, Celestials = outsiders native to the upper planes, Elementals = outsiders native to the elemental planes, Fey = outsiders native to the prime material plane. Ephemeral representations of the spirit of the world, similar to how an earth elemental embodies rocks and dirt and stuff.



Question, though - I'm familiar with the term Cold Iron, but I honestly have -no- idea how it is produced. Can anyone enlighten me please?

 

[Robbert Raets]

Awesome idea, mr. Charlemange. And I agree, Lords & Ladies is a good resource for this kinda thing

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

[BQuestion, though - I'm familiar with the term Cold Iron, but I honestly have -no- idea how it is produced. Can anyone enlighten me please? [/B]

Well, there's some debate about that. One side would say that cold iron is iron forged without benefit of fire - being basically hammered into shape from a block of pure iron that has never seen the forge. This makes it a rare and mystical thing. WoTC is apperntly taking a tack something like this for 3.5E. I used to be on this side of the debate.

The other side says its merely regular iron. Traditional folk tales of Fey in our own world don't make any distinction between regular iron and some other strangely made iron - iron nails are anethema to Fey in the short story "Cold Iron" by Rudyard Kipling, which you can read here.

(I mistakenly referred to the poem "Cold Iron" but there is both a short story and a poem by that name by Kipling. The poem is wonderful but not germane to the topic at hand.)

I've come around to the normal iron theory. In my game it will have to be wrought iron, but not steel, in order to cause damage - though the Fey won't care for steel either.