The Lords and Ladies [2e/3e]

[Heliomance]

3rd ed D&D shows a deplorable lack of love for the fey. It seems the dev team focused far more on things like undead and dragons, and provided very little in the was of fluff or crunch for what I think is one of the most interesting monster groups out there. I'm told 2e had a lot more info on the fey, but I unfortunately only got into gaming a couple of years ago, and so I have none of the 2e material. Could anyone who remembers the old stuff or has good ideas for new stuff chip in? I may turn this into a homebrew project at some point, but for now I just want to gather information.

[shadzar]

By fey do you mean things of a fearie/dryad/nymph creature type nature? Or some keyworded thing?

[The Rose Dragon]

Well, 2nd Edition had a lot more information on most monsters, given how each monster got at least half a page for its description (not stats, that was the other half).

Also, did you consider getting Faery's Tale Deluxe? It's awesome.

[Heliomance]

By fey do you mean things of a fearie/dryad/nymph creature type nature? Or some keyworded thing?

By fey I mean creatures of the fey type, just as there are creatures of the outsider type, or the construct type, or the undead type. The concept of the seelie and unseelie courts is fanastic, I think, and it's something I'd really like to see more of. Faery's Tale isn't so much what I want - it's about fairies, not faeries. Fairies are the cute six-inch tall things at the bottom of the garden. Faeries are alien beings of power and glamour. Pratchett put it best:


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.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.

The Beautiful People, the Sidhe, the Lords and Ladies, call them what you will. The reason why humans feared the dark. The reason you hung horseshoes outside the door. The reason no farmer would destroy a faerie mound. The True Fey.

[The Rose Dragon]

The good part about Faery's Tale is that it's highly flexible. Hell, you can play gods given flesh using the rules and no one would bat an eye.

There is also Changeling: The Lost and Exalted whose Fair Folk are more like Fear Folk.

[Optimystik]

Wasn't this whole cold iron nonsense we have to deal with in 3.5e due to fairy lore? That's all the nod they need imo.

Anyway, 4e may be the fey revival you've been looking for, I'd check that out.

[The Rose Dragon]

Why do you refer to it as cold iron "nonsense"? It is a very important piece of fae lore, after all, since most fae are immortal barring a cold iron weapon or a more specific bane like a church bell.

[Heliomance]

Wasn't this whole cold iron nonsense we have to deal with in 3.5e due to fairy lore? That's all the nod they need imo.

Anyway, 4e may be the fey revival you've been looking for, I'd check that out.

There's a major problem with that idea.

It's 4e.

*ducks*

[The Rose Dragon]

If you want to have the Fae as antagonists, go with Changeling: the Lost. If you want to have them as the protagonists, go with a heavily modified Exalted or Faery's Tale Deluxe.

[Heliomance]

Those are good ideas, but what I'd like the most is implementing more fey stuff into 3.5, it being the system I know the best.

[The Rose Dragon]

Did you try The Vorpal Tribble's awesome stuff? He has a lot of fey out there. Just do a search in the Homebrew forums on "fey" for the posted The Vorpal Tribble.

My advice is to get better acquainted with other systems. Unlike what some may believe, D&D is hardly the end-all be-all answer to all your fantasy RPing needs. It cultivates a very specific type of campaign barring house ruling, and fear of fey is hardly in it.

Unless you send a horde of these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/leshay.htm) on pre-epic characters, that is.

[ghost_warlock]

If you're just looking for D&D fey monsters or ideas for monsters, you should be able to get ahold of OOP 2nd edition Monstrous Compendiums as .pdfs fairly easily.

I don't remember there being all that more of a focus on them in 2e compared to 3e, but it's been years since I really looked through most of those books. Well, I still flip through some Dark Sun and Ravenloft stuff from time to time - not many fey that I can recall on Athas and the fey you'll find in the Domains of Dread are definitely of the 'melt your face' variety...

[Mavian]

Back in the day wizards did some stuff with Fey in 3.0, which should be easy enough to update to 3.5

Fey Feature Archive (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/fey)

[Devils_Advocate]

Why do you refer to it as cold iron "nonsense"? It is a very important piece of fae lore, after all, since most fae are immortal barring a cold iron weapon or a more specific bane like a church bell.
Doesn't "cold iron" describe... ordinary iron (which is cold to the touch)? Or did the original lore have it as an exotic material mined deep underground that had to be "forged at a lower temperature to preserve its delicate properties"?

[The Rose Dragon]

Doesn't "cold iron" describe... ordinary iron (which is cold to the touch)?

I'm not saying D&D is doing it right, but no. Cold iron is not "ordinary" iron. Most iron in faerie tales is cast, that is, melted and cast into a mold to be shaped. Cold iron is harder to work with, as you don't melt it but simply heat it and hammer it into shape.

Also, most items are not even iron, but steel.

[Lycanthromancer]

This webcomic (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/) has a wonderful take on The Fair Folk (and has awesome justification for 'cold iron,' which isn't what you'd think it is at all...though it is perfectly in line with Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, which is another awesome read), which is probably the exact flavor you want. It also describes why certain types of flowers hold them at bay, and why Latin is anathema to them. (The fey pop up around 2/3 through the comic, so you'll have to do some reading to catch up to that point.)

As for information on The Land of Faerie, I'd look at the Manual of the Planes. It has alternate planar arrangements that include Faerie, the Plane of Shadow, and the Spirit World. It's only a small part of the book, but it has great flavor to it.

[Haven]

Try looking into the Planescape supplement "Planes of Chaos"; if I remember correctly, Arborea was all about fey influence. In fact, you know the eladrin (fey PC race) from 4th edition? In 2nd edition, the eladrin were the "incarnation" of CG, that is, they were to CG what demons were to CE and devils were to LE. So you'd probably get a lot of info on them in there (I haven't read it, but the "fair folk" idea would totally fit into Planescape, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it turn up).

[Heliomance]

This webcomic (http://www.rhjunior.com/totq/) has a wonderful take on The Fair Folk (and has awesome justification for 'cold iron,' which isn't what you'd think it is at all...though it is perfectly in line with Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, which is another awesome read), which is probably the exact flavor you want. It also describes why certain types of flowers hold them at bay, and why Latin is anathema to them. (The fey pop up around 2/3 through the comic, so you'll have to do some reading to catch up to that point.)

As for information on The Land of Faerie, I'd look at the Manual of the Planes. It has alternate planar arrangements that include Faerie, the Plane of Shadow, and the Spirit World. It's only a small part of the book, but it has great flavor to it.

I read that comic. Its take is indeed awesome.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[The Tygre]

So... once more, my powers are called upon. I knew the day would come, the day when all my D&D-reference librarian skills would save us all.

The Complete Guide to Fey (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Fey-Scott-Kennan/dp/0976314215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243456169&sr=8-1)
Faeries (http://www.amazon.com/Faeries-d20-Fantasy-Roleplaying-BAS1010/dp/1592630014/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b)
The Little People: A d20 Guide to Fairies (http://www.amazon.com/Little-People-Guide-Fairies-Celtic/dp/1932091068/ref=pd_sim_b_5)
Encyclopedia Divine: Fey Magic (http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopaedia-Divine-Magic-Dreaming-Reverie/dp/1903980305/ref=pd_sim_b_8)
Songs of the Sidhe (http://dicefreaks.forumz.cc/viewforum.php?f=13&sid=7f6068ae9915c0a11a97e0f03a32b222)

WARNING: Get ready for a lot of cheesecake art. Not that I think you'll mind.

[-Cor-]

There's a major problem with that idea.

It's 4e.

*ducks*

Your strict adherence to your preconcieved notions of how things are and always should be aside, 4e appears to be right up your alley in the realm of powerful and awe-inspiring fey. Pick up the 4e Manual of the Planes at a chain bookstore (they'll let you read them there without buying them usually) and read the Feywild section.

Or, if you have a DnDInsider account, go download some of the Feywild content from the Dungeon and Dragon magazines. There's a really good one on a Fey city called Mithrendain (I may have spelled that wrong).

[The Rose Dragon]

Your strict adherence to your preconcieved notions of how things are and always should be aside, 4e appears to be right up your alley in the realm of powerful and awe-inspiring fey.

I'm not Heliomance, but I am of the belief that if I am to shell out money to a game and actually play it, it should give me more than numbers and dice rules. I can have that in backgammon; I don't need it in an RPG.

[Haarkla]

Check this out: Fey Constructor Matrix.

http://www.dndadventure.com/ftp/toolsdl_fey_matrix.zip

[-Cor-]

I'm not Heliomance, but I am of the belief that if I am to shell out money to a game and actually play it, it should give me more than numbers and dice rules. I can have that in backgammon; I don't need it in an RPG.

I don't understand why you quoted me to say that.

I think I agree with you, if you mean that the creators of a system should provide at least some basic flavor to go with that system. Just as long as I can modify it as I see fit.

[GolemsVoice]

I think you actually CAN do alot of stuff with what is given in D&D. The group I play with recently had a huge adventure in an enchanted forest (really, it's hard to find forests that aren't in Faerun) with druids and rangers and giants and green dragons and all that woody stuff. In the course of this adventure, we had some run-ins with feys, and what I realized is that it's not so much about the actual crunch that you use, but about the feeling your players get.
It's important, and mind you, I had player perspective, to let your players feel that those are not just feys, like undead, constructs, dragons.... but that feys have their own rules. Let them see that their motives are entirely different from those that motivate most beings, let them get a glimpse of complicated systems of power, domains, and courts, that no human could ever hope to understand. Make it clear that these creatures are not simply the magical version of an ecologist movement. They don't have to be nice, they don't want to be nice, but, who knows, they MAY help you.

[rayne_dragon]

Ars Magica is another game that has a lot of info on the fey and IMHO does a great job on the whole. I believe you can download older editions for from from the Atlas Games website. I know they have at least one book devoted to the fey, plus just looking at the core rules can give you ideas for how to refluff 3rd edition stuff to fit a fey character.

I can't recall anything in 2nd edition giving more detail to fey than any other kind of creature, but I'm not aware of everything published for it. I know there's a few third party books published for 3rd though... I can't recall the name though.

[Tyrrell]

Ars Magica is another game that has a lot of info on the fey and IMHO does a great job on the whole. The second and "fourth" edition (really third) Faerie books for ars magica (Faeries and Faeries, revised) would be great D&D resources. Both books are at least 1/2 adapted pre-victorian faerie stories made to fit into a game setting. the rest of the book has rules for ars magica Faeries which are really pretty adaptable into D&D as well (the mechanics are completely different but many of the concepts could slip right in).

The fifth edition Ars Magica Faerie book (Realms of Power:Faerie) is a brilliant piece of work but it is all about making faeries really work in Ars Magica and, as such, isn't going to be as helpful to your D&D game.

The fourth edition Faerie Tales book is a set of Faerie themed adventures for Ars Magica. Ars magica adventures are, as a rule, quite different things from D&D adventures so this one also will be of limited use.