“Fantasy 3381975” by Stefan Keller from Pixabay, slightly cropped by Mike

This month’s Blog Carnival is being hosted by Pitfalls & Pixies, and the subject is all things Fey.

I’ve never been very satisfied with the way D&D handles Fey. There was not enough information in AD&D to run them properly; they seemed to be just dressed-up humans, or monsters like any other (just a little smaller than usual). 3.x did a somewhat better job, but still didn’t provide enough information on setting, society, or politics, at least not in the core rulebooks.

As a consequence, Fey have only played a significant role in two of my campaigns.

A Tale Of Two Campaigns

When I was growing up, I read a lot of Enid Blyton’s fantasy short stories – things like the Wishing Chair. One of these collections focused on the Small Folk – I forget the name of it. But I drew on memories of those stories and a dozen other fairy tales to create the Fey for my first campaign. And promptly locked them away in their own plane – one with limited windows for transition to the Prime Material Plane, a place where Fey could only exist for a short period of time due to the presence of cold iron – which was iron that hadn’t undergone a particular heat-treatment during the refinement process to drive out impurities.

Of all the Fey, only Elves had unlocked a way to survive on the Prime Material Plane in an ongoing way. Elvish Forests were a kind of compromise between the reality of the Fey Plane (“The Land Of Two Shadows”) and the Prime Material Plane. But some aspects of the reality from whence they derived remained, and these ultimately manifested in the separation of Elves into Light Elves and Shadow Elves (often mistranslated as ‘Dark Elves’ or Drow). But this was so long ago that the Elves themselves had forgotten their origins (if you want to read about Elves in this campaign, you’ll find more information in He Once Was Elves, in which I recycle some of my old notes into the basis for an interesting (and modern) NPC for my superhero campaign.

In play, however, I kept running up against questions for which this limited development had not prepared me, and so shelved the Fey in my campaigns for many years to come.

That changed with the creation of the Shards of Divinity campaign. Although I’ve mentioned that campaign numerous times in passing – a snippet here and a snippet there – much of it remained hidden from the players, and so went unreported in these pages. For this article, I’ve decided to reveal many of these secrets for the first time, acknowledging for the first time that the campaign is dead.

It started dying when Stephen Tunnicliff passed away; although I thought that the campaign could continue without him (and it did, for more than a year), all the fun had gone out of it, and several attempts to rejuvenate the campaign had failed. It’s now been years, and I have zero enthusiasm for restarting it, even though the focal player (the whole campaign was a Star Vehicle) has indicated a couple of times that he would like to do so.

Without players, there is no campaign. Without a GM, there is no campaign. Each side of the game table holds the other hostage. And so the campaign is dead.

For readers of Campaign Mastery, however much they might sympathize with this situation, or even regret it on my behalf, this is hardly all bad news – because it lets me reveal the secrets within the campaign that were being held back because the players had not discovered them yet. And the Fey are at the heart of it all.

Fee image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay, subtle green aura by Mike

A Snapshot History of the Shards Of Divinity

The creator of the universe did so for two reasons: first, it was an act of creation, which was his hobby and greatest pastime. He had already created lesser beings simply for the company they would bring, for he was also extremely lonely in his solitary existence, which was the second reason. Where he had come from, he had no idea; one moment, he wasn’t, and the next instant, he was. He often communicated his enthusiasm for the project to these lesser celestial beings, not realizing that – like many older siblings – they resented his affections being transferred to his youngest creation. In a jealous rage (they were very petty and child-like), they tore him to pieces; but, at the last, he protected his creation by infusing all of existence with fragments of himself, giving the world magic.

The Angry Ones, his children, then turned their animosity toward the universe that had stolen their father’s affections, blaming it and its inhabitants for everything, and attempting to destroy it so that the shards of their father could be liberated and he could be restored, and everything would be as it was before this vile creation had come between them. They really had quite a limited understanding (despite their near-omnipotence), and that was married to the petulance of a three-year old.

The last creations of the Creator, the Dragons, rose up against the Angry Ones and, by manipulating the shards of Divine Creation around them, and sacrificing their own Independence from those Shards, they were able to imprison them in a planar construct and eject that reality from existence, and thought the matter settled. Some few amongst Dragonkind argued that the Angry Ones were as capable of survival as the Creator, and that the universe should be prepared for their potential return at any cost; others felt that protecting and shepherding the lesser species that he had created, and so protecting his legacy, were more important. This dichotomy of perspectives caused a split amongst the previously-unified dragonkind, one that grew until the kin were sundered.

The quickest non-draconic race to advance were the Elves, followed by Dwarves, then Halflings, with Humans the slowest to progress. The Dragons instructed the Elves in how to draw upon the Shards of Creativity to cast spells even while their own internal debate was unresolved but coming to a head. Chromatic dragons told selected members of the royal family about the Angry Ones, information that the Metallic Dragons had been shielding the lesser races from. One princess of the royal house proved receptive to the chromatic perspective, and the seeds of the rebellion that would become known as the Drow were sewn.

Meanwhile, the primitive humans had begun imagining supernatural beings who made the sun rise, the plants bloom, and to explain various other aspects of the world around them, and the power of belief joined with the presence of the Shards of The Creator to spawn the Gods. In some ways, these were as primitive as the humans who invented them, in some they embodied the best aspects of the humanity to come, and in others, the worst. These gods were forced to formalize religious practices amongst the humans and select spokesmen as intermediaries because every time a human invented a fanciful story, their reality flowed like water.

The Angry Ones returned, leading to a pitched battle. The disagreements between the branches of Dragonkind led to the schism between draconic kin, but the Elves fought by their sides and together succeeded in once again driving the Angry Ones out – at the cost of the lives of (almost all) the elder Dragons. The Elves became the tutors of the youngest Dragons, inverting the relationship between the two, and becoming the heirs to the mission of the elder Dragons – to protect and nurture the world against the return of the Angry Ones. But they could only pass on what they had been taught, and so much lore and expertise was lost. Not even the most skilled mage of the modern day can hold a candle to the skill and power of the Elder Dragons of yesteryear.

The valley which was the cradle of human civilization was, unknown to them, the crown of a volcano, and eventually, it awoke. They fled even as lava destroyed everything they had known, destroying what they thought of as an endless garden where life was easy. They met Elves for the first time as rescue parties were dispatched from the Elvish Forests. The survivors of the different tribal city-states scattered and founded new Kingdoms. Slowly, the cosmopolitan reality of the modern world built up as multiple species (mistakenly called “races” by some sources) learned to live together.

That’s the history of the world of the Shards Of Empire campaign in a nutshell. One of the races with whom contact and political connection was eventually made were the Fey, which is why all this is relevant to today’s article.

Fairy image (licensed for Editorial use only) by JL G from Pixabay, a hint of shadow added by Mike

A world of illusion made reality

Before I can describe the Fey as they were used within the Shards campaign, though, I need to take a brief side-trip into game metaphysics and the resulting house rules.

The world of Shards was a world in which imagination created or transformed reality. Illusions, so long as they were believed by those who beheld them, were reality, but with each interaction with an illusion, subtle differences to what would have happened in reality made that perception more uncertain; eventually, it would fail.

This was a deliberate game-balance concept (amongst other functions) – it meant that there was a down-side to being highly intelligent, and in particular to being a mage. Elves shared the problem, since they were innately sensitive to the minor flaws in the illusions that revealed their true nature – and that common connection was where the concept of ‘Elves being the first Wizards’ came from.

The Problem With Warlocks

One of the great problems that most people ignore is ‘How does magic work?” This is a subject that I discussed in one of my very early posts here at Campaign Mastery, A Quality Of Spirit – Big Questions in RPGs. Clearly, this is a question that I had answered for the Shards Campaign, but it was a solution that held implications for several races and classes. One of the classes most affected was Warlock.

I’ve always had a conceptual problem with the Warlock class. There are very few interpretations of how the character class works that don’t cheapen and undermine Wizards, and Wizards are one of the iconic standard classes in D&D. Wizards are restricted and bound to their spell-books and require processes for the creation of new spells, the recording of spells into those spell-books, and the memorization of spells from those spell-books. Warlocks do their thing with none of those restrictions or liabilities and don’t give up much of the power or effectiveness of the Wizard in exchange. What’s more, they get an Eldritch Blast that Wizards don’t.

The Shards solution to the big question of what Magic was also solved the Warlock problem: All warlock powers were illusions.

In AD&D, there was a specialist subclass of Wizard with its own unique spell list, called Illusionist. For Warlocks in Shards, instead of banning the class outright (as I usually do), I rejigged Illusionists into Warlocks. Any spell on the Wizard list that mentions Illusion or that can be considered an Illusion was downgraded in power for everyone except Warlocks. All the other spells were downgraded for Warlocks but not for anyone else.

But we never got the opportunity to really explore the implications, because the Warlock in the party dropped out after a single session. It would have been fun watching him create ballistae and bridges and whatnot out of thin air, laying enemies low with Eldritch Blasts, only for anyone not actually killed to rise unharmed when someone broke the illusion, while the Wizard in the party fought to perpetually fail his saving throw to see through the illusion.

Image by Dina Dee from Pixabay, mirrored, rotated, and sky background added, by Mike

Fey Sources

One of the primary sources I used for the Fey in Shards was Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist. His research for this book went back to a lot of the original sources, un-prettied up for modern fairy tales (hence the title), and it proved invaluable. I added to that some material from the TORG fantasy realm, Aysle, and a number of lesser sources, and supplemented these after the core concepts were in place with some relevant 3.x supplements such as ‘Fey Magic’.

So if some of the following seems familiar, that’s probably what you’re recognizing.

Masters of Illusion

The Fey in Shards were the true masters of illusion. Where normal characters got a saving throw to see through normal illusions, while some classes and races could automatically succeed, when it came to Fey Illusions, most people got no save at all, and those who would normally succeed automatically only got a save – and a difficult save at that. Now put such Fey in an environment where Illusions become reality… they could literally work Miracles – so long as you believed in them.

With Fey, everything was always about Perceptions. The glass is always half-something, but whether that’s full, empty, black, white, or pink, is up to the Fey. And they excel at the playing of diplomatic, social, and political games (there are those who would say that they excel at playing games, full stop!)

The Fey Realm lies in a pocket plane that is difficult to access save at points where the barrier between the worlds is thinner, marked with Fairie Rings by Energy Vortices connecting the realities. They were emplaced in this environment by the Dragons to provide a last line of defense against the Angry Ones, and everything about the Fey stems from that fact. The Dragons were fairly certain that if the Fey were ever needed in their last-line-of-defense capacity, the reality beyond the Fey Realm would be not be something they wanted to preserve; at the heart of the pocket plane that the Elder Dragons created was the largest single Shard Of The Creator that remained, and the limited size of the Realm meant that there was a higher concentration of Creative Force there than anywhere else in existence. This force leeched into the Fey and everything else within the environment, and made them what they are today.

The dichotomy within the Dragons also manifested in the mindset of the Fey. It started as the difference between supportive love and tough love, and simply intensified from there. You have one side that is trustworthy and honorable and enlightened, and another that considers itself superior to all others, is absolutely ruthless, and cares only for what all those inferiors can do for them – whether that’s to entertain them as playthings or perform menial functions as slaves. There is no middle ground; the Fey Realm is a place of absolutes.

These two factions contend endlessly for control – but there are conditions that must be met before any challenge for the Throne is permitted. So long as the faction in control avoids those triggers, it stays in command. There is a professional civil service that is drawn from the best of both factions and that serve for life or until voluntary retirement; the faction in command appoints new members to the civil service and rules on promotions, but there are limits on how far an individual can advance in one step. The rules of the Civil Service were set through negotiation between the two factions with the legendary Rainbow Dragon, last of its breed, as arbiter, and were a combination of powers each side insisted on having and limits that they wanted to impose upon the other side – even if it meant that they had to abide by them, as well. It takes unanimity between the factions to vary the laws that emerged, and that is such a rare event that the Fey use them as markers to divide epochs.

Challenges may take any form desired by the challenging faction, within limits defined by the nature of the triggering condition. These rules are so arcane and obscure that only the Civil Service know them all. The most senior civil servant from each faction must agree on the restrictions that are relevant, and how they apply to the current situation. The challenger then chooses a confrontation – usually a game or contest of some kind – that both these adjudicators agree is within the rules that they have identified as relevant, adding any scoring regulations as tradition demands – and as they see fit.

Such Challenges can be anything from shape-changing to a chess tournament to hunting some fell beast to poetry recitals to puzzles of logic. The assumption which enables these to represent a valid contest for the transition of power is that they abstractly simulate challenges that might befall the Fey at any time, and the winner is the faction whose philosophies have therefore demonstrated a greater capability for dealing with the problem. Of course, the abilities and temperament of the opposition are a key consideration when choosing the form of a challenge, and this fosters a grudging respect between the two factions. And both sides do anything and everything they can think of to cheat, short of breaking one of the Greater Rules that result in immediate disqualification of the challenge.

Fey are divided into ranks which function like levels within a character class. Creating and maintaining an illusion is an act of will, but there is a difference between the singular application of will required to create something (or the appearance of something, which is the same thing to the Fey) and the continual concentration needed to maintain that illusion – even when sleeping – without being distracted or unable to function. (There were a whole raft of game mechanics devoted to handling this).

Fey are born with an inherent base level in these ranks, a birthright that is determined by averaging the current ranks of the parent Fey. However, above 16th rank, Fey are sterile with respect to their own kind and must mate with a human of appropriate gender. This immediately limits the offspring, since Humans are far more limited in capacity to wield Fey illusions than the Fey are (their Wisdom Bonus provides a surrogate equivalent level). What’s more, Fey are rarely fertile more than two or three times in their natural lives, and none can predict when or if they will have a future opportunity for progeny. They have to grasp the opportunity whenever it presents itself.

This ensures a diverse gene pool and a regular turnover of leadership within each faction, and means that experience and expertise – which the Fey earn through the crafting of Illusions – are the primary means of promotion through the ranks of their faction.

It also becomes relevant when scoring certain forms of contest; convincing two Fey of rank 15 is as important and useful as convincing three Fey of rank 10. Most Fey do not belong to either faction exclusively; that is a philosophic choice that need only be made upon reaching Rank 10, in order to progress further in Fey Rank. It should also be noted that while one faction is distracted by the necessity of ruling, the other is free to practice and scheme, ensuring that there is a regular turnover of ruling faction. In particular, ruling factions may seek to bring on challenges at times when they consider themselves dominant and likely to win any challenges; these opportunities cannot be refused by the rival faction or the conditions for a challenge will be reset as though they had lost the challenge, and they might need to wait decades for another chance – or it might happen next week.

Ambassadors from the Court are drawn from the Civil Service, producing a continuity of relations with other races, especially Humans, who have grown powerful enough to threaten the Fey should they ever unite against them (there is an unsubstantiated rumor that all Warlocks are actually half-Fey, which means that to some extent the attitude of Humans to Fey depends on the reputation of Warlocks – rising and falling depending on factors completely outside Fey control).

A little thought will reveal the byzantine nature of the politics that result from these circumstances and realities. These conditions are mirrored on a smaller scale on a dozen or more estates, each of which appoints a number of delegates to the Unseelie Court. A perpetual conundrum is whether or not to risk conceding local authority in order to send your most capable representatives to court, which in turn elevates your faction’s chances of successfully challenging for the rule of the entire Realm.

This, of course, only scratches the surface and hints at the exotic strangeness of the Fey. But it’s a foundation for others to build upon within their own campaigns, and provides an example of how Fey can be integrated into a campaign while still respecting whatever sources the GM has at hand. The results are sure to be different in every case, and that, too, is part of a fascination with the Fey that only deepens, the more you read about them.

“Fantasy 4192529” by Stefan Keller from Pixabay