The Little People is a sourcebook on real world folklore fairies for use in Avalanche Press' Celtic Age d20 campaign setting. It does not set out to create a coherent D&D cosmology for Fey but rather to present translations of existing various Celtic fairy folklore into d20 terms.
Fairy stories revolve around the magical trickster nature of fairies often with the fairies in a morally judgmental role backed up by minor magical powers to help or to punish. These stories vary from place to place and the morals that are enforced can be contradictory, in some stories a poor woman who cannot sew is helped, in others she is punished for her lack of skill. Sometimes fairies are seen as boons to the household who will do marvelous work if properly placated, in other stories they are mischievous pests who must be warded away.
The Little People discusses fairy folklore beliefs, an overview of how fairies operate, a few quick fairy tale plots, and then the specific fairies of five countries and the d20 mechanics that apply to fairies.
While the specifics of what virtues and flaws will please or offend fairies is described, the ultimate background question of why are fairies this way is never fully answered. This format of presenting a what explanation as opposed to a why explanation for the nature of fairies works well leaving them an ultimately enigmatic supernatural force even for those steeped in their folklore.
The folklore discussion has a number of nice tidbits about the reputed powers of oak, ash, and hawthorn as well as iron, bells, whistling, and a few herbs and flowers. Many of these are only connected to fairy lore, but a few have generally applicable attributes such as carrying an acorn protecting against the effects of aging and enhancing virility.
The guide to fairy morality provides a number of useful plot hooks for fairy interactions as they are prone to punish mercilessly those who fail specific virtue tests. Some flaws that will be punished include being humorless, too serious, cruel, or being too curious about fairies and invading their privacy.
Fairy punishments take the form of “pinching” unarmed natural attacks that do not do much damage due to their small size and weak physical abilities, as well as cruel pranks, and magical mischief.
Fairies will also more directly interact with humanity by stealing babies, swapping out changelings and sometimes shapeshifting into humans and inter-marrying.
Some fairies live in a separate magical realm that is not always accessible to mortals and where time works differently. Mortals who journey there by accident or perhaps to rescue stolen babies, are often challenged by tasks and puzzles and may win back their way and babies if they act correctly and do not attempt to steal or violate fairy taboos. Others get caught up in fairy festivals and are tricked into joining a party for a night that turns into a week or even years back in the mortal realms.
As a rough guide the book advises that the smaller and more beautiful a fairy, the more likely it is to be predisposed to live peacefully with humanity if unprovoked. On the other hand, the larger and uglier a fairy, the more likely it is to be malignant and only interested in causing mayhem to humanity.
Another basic divide for fairies is between trooping communal fairies who set up fairy societies somewhat like human ones, and individual solitary fairies.
Mechanically this is reflected in different fairy templates. There is a base fairy stat block for fairies based on size and on whether they are trooping or solitary. This is further differentiated by regional and specific type template modifiers. Also there are a half-fairy template, a template for humans raised by fairies, and one for the weak and mostly powerless but unnaturally precocious changelings. After adding in the regional types there are 18 different types of fairy races that can be made (each with an ECL ranging from +5 to +8).
All fairies have glamour, fairy subtype, shapeshifting, fairy sight, and a number of fairy powers they can choose from a specific list. Glamour allows them to hide from humanity but can be overcome by spot checks, and their shapeshifting allows them to polymorph into medium sized or smaller creatures but it can fail if held too long, sometimes without the fairy noticing. Fairy sight allows them to see through illusions and the fairy subtype makes them immune to mind-affecting abilities. The polymorph description unfortunately calls it essentially an illusion, which leads to unanswered questions about the actual mechanical effects of an illusory polymorph.
Many of the fairy powers are quite appropriate, with polymorph any object only lasting for a limited duration (fairy coins usually turn back into leaves), illusions that will disappear if touched, and specific spell-like at-will abilities.
As a Celtic Age supplement, The Little People covers five lands that held Celtic peoples, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul. While there are some unexplained mechanics from the Celtic Age book they are mostly unobtrusive and easily replaced by those without the sourcebook. For instance a Celtic man gains 10 status points if others know he has a fairy wife, the Sidhe feats include beheading and Celtic spear proficiency, leprechauns have the high tolerance drinking feat, and humans raised by fairies have access to first circle druid spells along with 15 understanding points to power them.
Each area presents both general types of fairies common to the folklore such as brownies and goblins in England, and specific fairies such as Oberon and Titania or Robin Goodfellow. Only the Irish Sidhe and banshee and the purely evil Welsh Gwyllion use different base fey stat blocks from the normal fey, with the Sidhe being an impressive warrior fey race similar to elves with good stats.
Most fairies however, including powerhouse legendary individuals such as Oberon and Queen Mab, are quite frail in comparison to their station and powers. For instance, Oberon has only 27 hit points a 16 AC and a CR of 3, he would be easily chewed up by most warriors in a single round if it ever came to combat. However, part of the point of fairies is the non combat supernatural story role they play, and it is emphasized that most fairies will strenuously avoid combat through the use of their glamour and other fairy powers, punishing through trickery and pranking instead of violent confrontations, with a few notable exceptions such as the Scottish horde of Unseelie or the Red Cap.
Overall a nice little sourcebook on Celtic fairy folklore. The feeling of the character of fairies comes through and the mechanics seem suited to portraying them as the mischievous little pranksters of magic. Even for those who do not use d20, the coherent nature of the folklore and descriptions of different areas would provide a good base for fairy folklore in other games, particularly those dealing with medieval Europe such as Ars Magica, GURPS Middle Ages, or any of the Dark Ages settings from White Wolf.
