Elphame

Songs of the Sidhe by David Ross

There are countless tales of blissful lands buried away in the deep forests of  the True Otherworld. Although the way is known to be perilous, so too is  the destination known to be the very image of perfect beauty and endless  joy. Many a young dreamer or seasoned adventurer has left behind the mundane realms to seek this ultimate reward. The way is hard to find, and once it is found, the hero must defeat or evade beasts, trolls, dragons, and cruel fey witches. Along the way, treacherous, diseased gremlins haunt dark passages with dangerous traps. But at last, the hero finds the welcoming courts of Elphame, filled with lovely fey dancers, wondrous feasts, and the promise of dreams come true. The court denizens include gray jesters, huldrefolk, nymphs, daoine sidhe, joystealers, and quickling and sprite servants.

But the beauty of Elphame hides a dark side. The fey revelers are ruled over by the huldrefolk, fey whose beauty is hollow in every sense of the word. Many of the dangers in approaching it are orchestrated to attract powerful and impressionable mortals. The monsters are paid for their services with sacrifices and treasure by the huldrefolk rulers. The fey here take the love, friendship, and affection of mortals and give nothing back but empty semblances of pleasure. The faerie food here is insubstantial; though it seems the most glorious fare that any visitor has ever eaten, it provides no sustenance. Due to the magical nature of the food, visitors slowly starve without ever realizing it. At the same time, the shallow and meaningless pleasure erodes the memory of what earnest emotion means, until visitors are empty husks forgetful of the world they left behind.

Elphame alters the effects of Ladinion’s entrapping trait. Every day that visitors spend enjoying the courts’ attractions, they must make a Will save (DC 10 + number of consecutive days spent in Ladinion). Those that fail their save suffer 1d4 points of Wisdom drain and do not notice the progress of any disease they may be suffering. Provided that their bodies do not give out from starvation before their souls give out at 0 Wisdom, mortals become fey with no memory of their former lives. Transfiguration produces a huldrefolk if the mortal had 10 or higher Charisma; otherwise, it produces a mite afflicted with leprosy or slimy doom (50% chance of either).

A few desperate mortals come to Elphame despite knowing its true nature. They blame their suffering on love and memory and seek only a place where they can leave such things behind. These souls are ripe for the picking, and the huldra nobles do not waste the effort fooling them. They simply provide exactly what the poor fools want. Queen Vae, ruler of Elphame, appears to be sweet, charming, and vapid to most beings below her in station, but she is a consummate liar and one of the greatest illusionists in Faerie. She is renowned among the fey as the greatest beauty of the Unseelie Court.

Rot, pain, and waste hides everywhere in Elphame, just out of sight. Without Vae’s illusions, one can see the green of her palace is densely littered with the bones of her victims. Shadows hide pools of ash filled with corpses and outcasts carrying deadly contagions. Behind closed doors, fey courtesans feast on the withered corpses of their former guests.