Fey Alignment

Songs of the Sidhe by David Ross

As the fey’s concern is for their own visceral bonds rather than the lofty ideals of many mortal cultures, the fair folk can seem utterly amoral as a whole. They often see mortal views of alignment as pointless artificial constructs. Unlike a mortal, a fey’s alignment rarely affects its fate after death; concern for her afterlife thus factors little in a fey’s worldview. Some fey go so far as to ignore alignment completely. However, even then, a fey always has an alignment just like any other creature.

Fey are more apt to define what is ‘right’ by what is in accord with their bond. Since they have a wide variety of ideas on that topic (though the issue often gets colored by the concept of the Great Cycle), any given fey’s notion of what is right likewise varies widely from any other fey’s.

As a whole, fey are equally likely to have any alignment. Mortals commonly mistake fey for having similar ethics and morals thanks to their perception of some fey’s particular facet of nature. For example, a fey that encourages family structures may be mistaken for good aligned even if it nothing of the sort. In truth, most fey’s morality and ethics are prone to exceptions, even more so than those of human. Even for the fiercest adherents of the Great Cycle, who worry for the needs of nature as a whole before all else, the needs of the ideal nature rarely lines up well with any one alignment (or indeed the beliefs of other fey). Accordingly, fey of any alignment can be found in every court of Faerie.

Occasionally, a fey believes that the best thing for nature is a strong infusion of a particular alignment. For example, the little-known Prince of Submission feels that if more sentient beings submitted to the orderly goodwill of Lawful Good, nature would not be as threatened as it is, and could function more efficiently. Fey like this seem at first to be like any mortal devoted to an alignment ideal, but there is an important distinction -a fey with faith in an alignment generally sees that alignment as a means to an end, not as an end unto itself.