On The Fey

"Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren’t go a-hunting

For fear of little men"

-The Fairies, William Allingham

“Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. 

Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. 

Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. 

Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. 

Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. 

Elves are terrific. They beget terror." 

-Lords and Ladies, Terry Pratchett

I'm a big fan of Irish mythology, and specifically the stories of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the race banished to live beneath the hills and in the otherworld by the arrival of humans in Ireland. However, they still appear as if from nowhere to pal around with heroes and to work magic.

I think that the Fair Folk make great antagonists precisely because they aren't bound by conventional morality, or often logic or sense. They can be reasoned with, however they have only the vaguest grasp of "reason" to begin with. They are often godlike in power, and yet have a single weakness that can be discovered by luck or diligence. They are a nice way to keep the whole adventure feeling a bit weird, and wacky, and a bit more like a fairytale.


The Fey of The Orrery

The Fey, like all non-Draconic species of the Orrery, came from the outside. More accurately, they fell from the stars. The first of the great impacts that caused (or were caused by) the movement of the earth from wherever it had been, to its current position at the centre of the Orrery. Theirs was certainly the impact that caused the great Ice Age, that blanketed the earth in ice and snow, drove the Dragon Kings into hibernation, destroyed the Empires of the Naga, and forced the Kobold tribes to delve deep into the earth's still warm core.

They Fey arrived in the form of crystals of various sizes, shapes, and hues. Some of these can still be found today. When such a crystal is shattered, a Fey spirit appears, and is then considered to be at large in the world. The Fey cannot be readily combated, except with Iron (Iron is the friend of mortals since it is the only metal which is mortal itself), which will repel the Fey (Steel will not do, since the making of Steel is its own magic, and magic belongs to the Fey), and even then it is more likely to drive them off than injure them.

The Church has mixed feelings on the Fey. They are felt to be a general force for wickedness in the world, and the Fey clearly have no immortal souls being functionally immortal already, however they are clearly not demons either and so no corruption may befall a man for simply having dealings with the Fey. All in all, it is best to ignore them, and hope that they fade from the world.

The Fey Folk

The Fey don't necessarily need to look like anything in particular, their physical forms in the material world are largely a result of fashion and caprice. They will often ape the latest human styles and fashions  that they are aware of; always giving themselves the appearance of the highest station of society that they know of. This can lead to some interesting examples of misunderstood fashions, mismatched styles, and clothing centuries out of date.

That said, the Fey do not often appear as completely human. Although mostly appearing as humanoid, they see the human form as terribly boring and too lacking in fins/claws/feathers/tails for their taste. Generally, they have a few distinguishing characteristics in common. They generally have skin and fur in bright primary or secondary colours (lots of blues, reds, purples, greens, and the like), usually choosing a single colour theme, the single exception being their large eyes which will be completely black. They will also generally glow with light of their colour (the Fey have no need for stealth or subtlety, if they are seen at all they want to be seen). They will, unaccounably, mostly have incredibly large ears, triangular and the size of a short sword. They also have curious abhorrence for noses, claiming the bulbous protuberances spoil the beauty of their faces, preferring instead small unobtrusive snake-like nostrils (although some prefer neck gills of various degrees of featheryness).

Just missing the Hylian Ears and Baroque coat

 People generally do not have dealings with the Fey folk, if they can help it (and for good reason, see:Elves). However, if they do, they universally find them somewhat... odd. They have a love of jokes, and riddles, and parties, and if any one of these things is spoiled (giving a riddle away, spoiling the mood of a party, telling a joke they do not get) they are likely to become wrathful and dangerous. They are also prone to hunting animals and humans for sport, or to serve them at one of their great feasts (much like Dragons they take a great pleasure in eating and drinking despite having seeming no need for them). They often will grant favours for people willing to do mundane, but seemingly inexplicable tasks for them ("Go fetch me a glass of seawater, don't spill it mind" "Say hello to the next jackdaw you see" "Here is a glass flower, wear it as a sign of my favour and I will come to your aid whenever you need me"). They are renowned as liars, although those who have come into contact with them more frequently say that this reputation is more likely the result of misunderstandings (Fey statements are often interpreted in obscure ways, like the Delphic Oracle), or the different perception of time by the Fey (when your life spans millennia "Right away" can mean in a decade or so, and "I was just there" can mean a century or more).

Magic and The Fey

The Fey are creatures of magic, and all magic belongs to the Fey. However, it is best not trying to get the Fey to teach you magic, as they will only know one way to teach you. The Fey do not cast spells, they speak to the world and the world listens. They sing the songs the hills know. They can read the words that are written on the sky. The way that they know how to teach you a spell (and a human body is only hardy enough to handle one such spell, of the lowest potency), is to carve it on your heart. To make it part of you they will sing it into your soul so that it will become you.

It is far more useful, for students of magic, to find from a Fey that such an effect or other is possible. Now, all things are possible, but the Fey (if you can understand their idiosyncratic approach to things) know exactly how possible, and how hard you have to push at the world to make it happen. Dealing with the Fey is a science in and of itself, both in the understanding of them and the handling.

The Otherworld

The fey seem to flit between this world and another shadow of this world. A fairyland if you will. The crossing places can be obvious, a giant glowing portal for instance

Like this

Or they can be subtle, a ring of mushrooms or flowers

Or this

They can be portentous such as an entrance to an ancient barrow, or monolithic standing stones

Like this totally unfamiliar structure

Going down into that creepy tomb would be a totally great idea!

Or as unassuming as a large oaken wardrobe... The point is the otherworld is the thickness of a shadow away. These weakened points in the world tend  to be associated with weird happenings (a haunted forest, a hill on which the sun always seems to shine, a lake sacred to an old forgotten god).

Generally, the first impression upon entering the otherworld is that it is identical to the world you left, generally no transition is noticed, however it is always twilight in the otherworld. However, the further away from these gates that you step, the weirder things get, almost as if around the entrance more reality seeps in. The geography stays identical for at least a mile about, but then gradually begins to diverge until you are walking across utterly unknowable chessboard landscapes. Many minds have wondered what would be seen in  the place of the ruins of a Naga city or tomb in the otherworld, that such a view could answer many puzzling questions about the nature of the world. However, there has never been an entrance to the otherworld found near enough to one of these sites... yet.

All sorts of fantastical creatures inhabit the otherworld, unicorns, jabberwocks, Questing Beasts, elemental spirits, and cats (that last is not too surprising, cats get everywhere). As well as the Fey in their own demesnes, hosting great balls, fulfilling strange rituals and protocols, hunting the most dangerous game of all... rocket tigers. The further you go into the otherworld, the more you are bound by fairytale laws and logic, the less the nature of the Fey seems alien and more of a reaction to their environment.

Additionally, all spells and chaotic magical effects grow exponentially the longer one stays in the otherworld (such effects do not last after finding your way home however). Lawful magics tend to fade in potency the further in to the otherworld, and mechanisms of natural philosophy fail or break down.
 

Elves
The Fey sometimes take a shine to humans and spirit them away to visit in the otherworld, or use them as slaves, or for some other bizarre purpose. In every case, good or ill, these poor unfortunates come back changed. The magic has gotten into their blood. This is what people mean when they speak of Elves. Elves have much of the inherent magics, as well as the capriciousness, of their Fey kin.

Elves can be made by other ways as well, sometimes the Fey will take on a form that allows them to interbreed with mortals, and that begets a weird changeling child. A dalliance with a roguish stranger who disappeared with the morning leads to a swollen belly, and a not quite right babe nine months later. Or a foundling child dumped on the doorstep in the middle of the night. These children of the two worlds grow up somewhat strange and isolated, somewhat apart from their fellows. They age slowly, and often display small unusual elements, such as a sharpness of ears, or different coloured eyes, or just a sense of oddness about them. Although the Fey never raise these children themselves (there are no Fey children, and they would not know entirely what to do with them), they often visit their offspring later in their lives.

Elves can also be created if some poor unfortunate soul manages to find one of the Gems from the meteorite. Whilst these gems are precious, mysterious, and valuable to arcanists, those who deal in them know better than to touch them to their bare skin. For then a transfer may occur, when the soul of an imprisoned Fey may leap across into the body of the poor unfortunate. In this case an amalgam is made of souls, the Fey and the mortal. This is one of the few times a Fey might be conventionally killed (although there is some debate about that), as the Elf is still a mortal being capable of being slain.

The Meteorite

The Fey do not know where they came from, or what they did before arriving in the Orrery, or more accurately, near every single one of them has a different story:

What does this Fey say? (d20)

1. The Fey were cast out of Heaven after declaring themselves more powerful than God
2. The Fey are old Gods, cast down by the new Gods and exiled to the mortal plane.
3. The Fey are from a very technologically advanced race (all magic is simply misunderstood Natural Philosophy), the meteorite was a spaceship and their crystals were hibernation pods
4. The Fey didn't arrive with the impact, they have always been here, they just don't care for Dragons
5. Hiding inside gemstone filled space rocks is terrible comfortable, I think everyone will be doing it in a few years
6. The Fey are Angels, sent from Heaven to instruct Humans in the right way of living.
7. The Fey are Demons cast out by the War in Heaven and on Earth to tempt Humankind to do wrong.
8. The Fey are refugees from the tithe of Hell imposed on Heaven in the wake of the Great Defeat.
9. The meteorite was a space prison for all the most horrific criminals of a great Galactic Civilization. Except me of course, I was wrongfully imprisoned for a Crime I didn't commit
10. Time is circular, and the Fey are the spirits of all those left at the End of Time (the Crystals are soul-fossils).
11. The Fey are Gem-Based superheroes with a penchant for musical numbers, fighting against a great space Empire, we came here to save the world.
12. The Fey are actually computer servitors for a very advanced spacefaring civilization. The forms they project are holograms and force-fields, whereas the otherworld is a projection of their intranet. They are at a bit of a loose end without users to give them instructions.
13. The Gems inside the meteor are congealed magic, the Fey are true expressions of spells. The spells Wizards know are larval forms of the Fey.
14. Magic, as you know it, weakens the barriers between worlds allowing terrible outsiders in, Fey magic strengthens the barriers (that's why we make Elves, for more magic to get cast). Fey show up anywhere the walls of the world get weakened like a magical immune system.
15. The meteorite was all that was left of a dying world. That world had spirits for all plants, animals, streams, and geological forms. Only the deepest stone spirits are left.
16. The Fey were great Wizard Kings of a far off planet, one of their number grew evil but was killed by a last alliance of the greatest of them. Then they found that he was not dead, but immortal and banished to space, they created gem containers to brave the void and find and destroy his great space pyramid.
17. The Fey were the original inhabitants of this planet, forced out by invading Dragons, they summoned the meteorite to destroy the hated invaders.
18. The otherworld is a parallel dimension, the Fey did not fall with the meteorite, the gems simply allow a crossing to be made
19. The Fey exist inside the minds of all humans, they are brought into this world by fears and dreams. The gems are crystallized thought and only cluster around the impact crater because it is a source of ancestral fear to mammals.
20. I honestly have no idea, it doesn't seem that important really.