Creature Types, Fey (the fair folk)

A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped.

Songs of the Sidhe by David Ross

Fey are the dominant life-forms in Faerie, although they are not as numerous as animals, plants, or vermin. All fey have a bond of some kind to an external force. Most are clearly bonded to nature generally or to some specific part of it; even those few fey who do not at first appear to be nature-bound (such as zeitgeists) are commonly thought to share in it indirectly.

The precise qualities of a bond vary from individual to individual, race to race, and world to world – dryads die if parted from their trees, while satyrs merely have a knack for encouraging reproduction in other creatures. In nearly all cases, keeping in touch with nature in whatever way suits them can give fey power in a number of ways. In turn, nature may depend on fey for the way it functions.

In some cases, nature exists only by the work of the fey and would fall into ruins without their influence. Gods of nature or other primal entities might play a similar role, but in general these are less effective than the fey because they lack the fey’s reach or aptitude.

In an ecology like this, removing the spirits behind it ‘be they fey or gods’ would be like pulling the soul from a body, quickly killing it. Without guidance, the natural world would quickly lose cohesion and might even unravel into its component elements, energies, and alignments.

On a smaller scale, killing a dryad might likewise kill her tree. If a Faerie Lord of Summer like this were murdered, his world would simply not experience summer until a new fey took up the Lord’s mantle. In Ladinion, many of the mightiest fey (particularly archfey) have this type of bond. If such an archfey dies, his realm may soon collapse into a tempest of churning climates, terrains, and magical forces until it finds a stable equilibrium with its surroundings.

In other cases, nature depends on the fey for its efficiency but not its function. Without guidance, things become unhinged and degrade but do not fail altogether. For example, if a patch of marsh depends this way upon an enclave of local fey, the extinction of the enclave might cause the bog to suffer chronic dry spells or frequent population imbalances (causing food shortages, plagues, or extinctions).

Elements, energies, and alignments can become unbalanced or misplaced. If such an archfey of Autumn were dethroned, that world’s autumns would still occur, but would also be fraught with some unseasonable weather and other problems until a new archfey claimed the portfolio of Autumn. The majority of Ladinion’s fey have this style of relationship with the environment.

In still other cases, nature derives only its supernatural elements from fey magic. In a case such as this, a mountain without the oread bound to it ceases to manifest her beneficence or her capriciousness, but does not otherwise change or degenerate. If an evil and vindictive Queen of Winter of this sort were slain, her world’s winters would remain as normal, but they would no longer reflect her wicked spite (perhaps those who do not placate the Queen would no longer tend to be killed by extreme weather). The regions of Ladinion with the lowest fey populations, such as where Fomorians and linnorms rule, often demonstrate this independence from fey bonds.