Fey

[Seharvepernfan]

Do they age? Do they procreate? Do they just spring from nature?

Does anybody know of any official info on this?

[Karl Aegis]

You kill them so they can't procreate. They make unseelie fey and half-fey if you don't murder them immediately.

[Th3N3xtGuy]

Best info I found is from 4th edition's Feywilds book. But they always have been obscure info wise.

[Sian]

given that 4e terminology and 3e terminology aren't nessesarily the same, for the purposes of 3e its not worth the ink used

As far as i remember, the only Fey race that have been stated with age categories is Killoren in Races of the Wild, and taking them as an average fey race when it comes to this, they turn old but they never turn Venerable, and can live indefinity should they choose so (and stays clear of murderhobos)

[Flickerdart]

Do they age? Do they procreate? Do they just spring from nature?

Does anybody know of any official info on this?
Fey have offspring - half-fey, feytouched, etc are proof of this. There are numerous references in this article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a) to two fey parents having fey children. As for ageing, this has never been explicitly stated, but another article (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030411a) sheds some light on this. In fact, just read all of the Fey Feature articles - they will help you immensely.

[Seharvepernfan]

For my setting, I'm trying to figure out why they exist, what created them, what they do, how they live, etc, but I can't seem to find anything. I'm left with a vague feeling they just spring from nature full grown to...idle around all day (not that I have a personal problem with that :smalltongue:).

[Flickerdart]

For my setting, I'm trying to figure out why they exist, what created them, what they do, how they live, etc, but I can't seem to find anything. I'm left with a vague feeling they just spring from nature full grown to...idle around all day (not that I have a personal problem with that :smalltongue:).
The Fey Feature article series linked above also covers motivations of the fey.

[Bad Wolf]

I think all but the Killoren spring from nature. But they can have children with other races, so they have reproductive systems of some sort...

[MonochromeTiger]

For my setting, I'm trying to figure out why they exist, what created them, what they do, how they live, etc, but I can't seem to find anything. I'm left with a vague feeling they just spring from nature full grown to...idle around all day (not that I have a personal problem with that :smalltongue:).

As a general question, what kind of fey (or fae) do you want?

If you want to go with mythology there are many different ways you could go from the fey being amoral otherworldly creatures from a time and place before the rise of other races, immortal, hedonistic, and possessing a twisted and sadistic sense of humor. Like anyone else they could breed, they had their own personal motivations and thoughts, and they could die.

A different aspect would be nature spirits, basically the "they spring from nature full grown" acting as guardians or rulers of the untamed wilderness. Usually when that origin is used they have a very mercurial attitude, going from good natured and welcoming to aggressive and unforgiving at any perceived threat to themselves or their domain.

[Seharvepernfan]

A different aspect would be nature spirits, basically the "they spring from nature full grown" acting as guardians or rulers of the untamed wilderness. Usually when that origin is used they have a very mercurial attitude, going from good natured and welcoming to aggressive and unforgiving at any perceived threat to themselves or their domain.


A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or some other force or place.

Material plane outsiders (insiders?) is basically what I was going for.

I looked through those articles. They are mostly about the seelie/unseelie courts which is pretty specific.

Does mythology talk about where they come from or why they exist?

[MonochromeTiger]

Material plane outsiders (insiders?) is basically what I was going for.

I looked through those articles. They are mostly about the seelie/unseelie courts which is pretty specific.

Does mythology talk about where they come from or why they exist?

It's a bit difficult to nail down to be honest. Multiple cultures had myths of the fae with their actions and behavior changing depending on which culture is telling the story. The usual treatment is "they're here, they're threatening or mysterious, beware". Some, such as Irish and Scottish mythology will throw out a bit more info but not much.

Given your preference for nature spirits have you considered a living world situation? The world they're on having a soul of its own, nature (including humanoid civilization, people are part of nature and so are the things they make) acting as a part of its being and fey serving as both a means of regulating itself and interacting with the life it brought into being?

[Jowgen]

The info on fey is quite strewn about. Most published Fey creatures have at one point or another been confirmed to procreate, and pure-blooded Fey creatures are frequently described as ageless; although neither of these can be seen as a general rule.

There is the optional Plane of Fey in the Manual of the Planes, the fluff of which strongly supports that Fey are ageless. In standard setting canon, Titania and the rest of the Fey Pantheon don't have a fixed realm, but instead move about the Neutral-Chaotic Upper Planes. The Fey-Satan known as the Queen of Air and Darkness has her realm in Pandemonium.

The origin of Fey is rather shrouded in mystery. The earliest/oldest race of Fey are arguably the Leshay (http://unfadingones.tumblr.com/leshay), which could quite possibly be the common ancestors of all modern Fey and Elven races. The fluff on their racial origin is the closest I've ever found to a semi-satisfactory explanation as to where Fey as a whole originate.

[Psyren]

Pathfinder has a fey-focused gazetteer splat (http://paizo.com/products/btpy8xeb?Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-Fey-Revisited) - I'll check mine when I get home.

[atemu1234]

The info on fey is quite strewn about. Most published Fey creatures have at one point or another been confirmed to procreate, and pure-blooded Fey creatures are frequently described as ageless; although neither of these can be seen as a general rule.

There is the optional Plane of Fey in the Manual of the Planes, the fluff of which strongly supports that Fey are ageless. In standard setting canon, Titania and the rest of the Fey Pantheon don't have a fixed realm, but instead move about the Neutral-Chaotic Upper Planes. The Fey-Satan known as the Queen of Air and Darkness has her realm in Pandemonium.

The origin of Fey is rather shrouded in mystery. The earliest/oldest race of Fey are arguably the Leshay (http://unfadingones.tumblr.com/leshay), which could quite possibly be the common ancestors of all modern Fey and Elven races. The fluff on their racial origin is the closest I've ever found to a semi-satisfactory explanation as to where Fey as a whole originate.

I find the Leshay at least moderately fascinating.

[Seharvepernfan]

Given your preference for nature spirits have you considered a living world situation? The world they're on having a soul of its own, nature (including humanoid civilization, people are part of nature and so are the things they make) acting as a part of its being and fey serving as both a means of regulating itself and interacting with the life it brought into being?

Well, here's what I have on my setting so far:

alien crystals came to the world eons ago, and brought magic with them, their purpose unknown
magic suffused the ancient world, which was warm and inhabited by massive reptilian beasts (dinosaurs)
the magic led to some becoming intelligent and morphing them (or allowing them to morph) into dragons
a meteor hits, like earth (though somewhat less devastating, as dinos still exist in some parts of the world)
dragons have to stay away from each other and hibernate for very long periods to survive
this gives mammals a chance to evolve

fey are a result of magic acting on nature, most of the core fey (faeries, dryads, nymphs, satyrs) are just sylvan fey, there are fey of other terrains/biomes, as well as elements (djinn, efreet, dao, marids), and alignments (angels, eladrin, demons, etc)
faux cromagnons and neanderthals bred with some of the fey to get the standard races (but still exist themselves)

I decided to condense the cosmology to just the material plane planet (though it exists in a universe, I just have no plans for other planets), a spirit world, and probably the shadow and ethereal planes (not sure); all three mirror the material world
and I'm getting rid of the outsider type, making all outsiders fey (they were too strong as is), though the "outsider" fey are more powerful and might have additional traits
there are no gods either (some creatures are called gods by some folk, due to their power, and might even be worshipped, but they aren't D&D gods)
clerics are faithful to concepts

At the moment, I'm thinking that the spirit world is separated
the sky is good aligned, and is home to cloud palaces of angels and what not
the surface of the spirit world planet is enhanced nature, with fey (typical fey) roaming around, maybe with dire animals and giants (not sure yet), with some sections having their own traits (deserts/volcanoes being fire dominant, arctic areas cold, oceans water, etc etc)
and the underworld, the "underdark" of the spirit world, being hell, basically, with shadows and fire and evil - fiends


I wanted to keep most of the outsiders and fey, but I still don't know why they exist or what they do (the afterlife is a mystery; people who are raised from the dead have no memory of it, only vague feelings, and you can't get there

no elemental planes, no positive/negative energy planes (need to figure out where those energies come from)

In regard to your "living world" idea, how might the fey react towards people? Would they attack you just for going somewhere? I'm sure burning down a forest, or excessive clearing will get them to attack you, as would killing too many animals. Maybe mining a mountain or fishing an ocean is like clearing a forest, but what could you do to a desert that would anger the fey?

What do they do when they're not fighting someone? How do they come to be?

[MonochromeTiger]

In regard to your "living world" idea, how might the fey react towards people? Would they attack you just for going somewhere? I'm sure burning down a forest, or excessive clearing will get them to attack you, as would killing too many animals. Maybe mining a mountain or fishing an ocean is like clearing a forest, but what could you do to a desert that would anger the fey?

What do they do when they're not fighting someone? How do they come to be?

Taking an example from a friend's setting that went with the living world approach, the attitude of the fey generally reflected common views on their environment and its inhabitants. Most fey in the wild acted on survival of the fittest due to the life around them acting off of that, gathering those that interest them to their "herd" and reacting with hostility if their territory is put at risk. Fey closer to humanoid settlements acted more civil, being more openly social but still rejecting any laws or standards that they didn't like and being much more manipulative than their more direct counterparts. For desert fey they were hostile almost by default, they only really let up if someone earned their respect via surviving their attentions and that of their home, and that could potentially be worse because the fey may decide to try and keep the individual.

For her setting the fey's motivations alternated between instinctual and working towards some goal such as nudging a civilization towards another as a kind of population control via war or ensuring a species breed more often to prevent an unplanned extinction.

As for where they came from her view was that the first fey were born directly from the things they most closely related to, dryads from trees for instance, and were extremely powerful. After the first fey they would then be able to breed between themselves and various creatures producing both less powerful pure fey and half fey creatures. But given the tone she wanted in her setting they were very possessive of a potential mate and tended to try and collect anything or anyone that appealed to them.

[MyrPsychologist]

The Fey exist because the fey exist. Mythologically speaking there isn't the most...concise agreement about their origination. Make one that is most appropriate for your setting.

They're old. Older than man. But they don't all serve a real purpose. Some fairies are kind and helpful to those they meet while others are evil and wicked. Some are just downright pointless and more of an annoyance than anything else.

The real consistent factor is that the fey serve themselves. They have their own goals and whims and typically do things to continue and advance their own desires. The problem is that their desires are very weird and alien to mortals because of how completely different they are. They're immortal beings of innate power. Logic to them is very different. Typically, the fey are often associated with concepts like protecting nature. But other beliefs are that they are just old and driven out by man. Some say that they left the realm of man (the mortal plane) for one near ours, the realm of fairies. Accessed through special circles or other places where the boundaries are thin. It is believed that this is why they are so territorial and protective of their realms and courts.

[Milo v3]

Fey are basically just "native outsiders, from Ireland and Greece". Or maybe just elementals with the native subtype.

[Psyren]

Here's how they work in PF:

In Golarion, Fey come from the First World, which is kinda like the Feywild from 4e. It's described as a "rough draft" of the Material Plane, a prototype/alpha that the gods abandoned once the real deal entered beta testing. The defining characteristic of the First World is that it is extremely verdant and natural - because the gods never ended up focusing on it, it has little to no civilization, and thus the fey that call it home have strong ties to various aspects of nature.

The current rulers of the First World are a circle of super-fey demigods known as the Eldest. Most fey in both worlds generally serve their designs, wittingly or unwittingly. They are described in ISWG, range from neutral to evil, and are capable of granting spells/domains.The lack of good among them also explains why most fey pranks range from vexing and capricious at best to actively malicious and harmful at worst.

Each of the major fey variants represents an aspect of nature - e.g. Dryads represent the reliance of the natural world on large trees and forests, without which the planet would become a barren wasteland. Gremlins meanwhile represent nature's tendency to break things down and recycle them, which is why they are constantly ruining manmade works.

[Bronk]

Do they age? Do they procreate? Do they just spring from nature?

Does anybody know of any official info on this?

Here are a few places to find information about the Fey races in 3.5 besides their monster manual entries…

The Manual of the Planes talks about the ‘Plane of Faerie’ where the Seelie and Unseelie courts exist, and suggests some stats for making members of each court.

A different version of the courts is found in Dragon 304, with different suggested stats for the fey folk.

The Queen of Air and Darkness, leader of the Unseelie Court, is presented as an intermediate goddess in Dragon 359.

The Fey are presented as one of the ‘creator races’ of Faerun in ‘The Grand History of the Realms’, creating lesser fairies and ruling the ‘realm of Faerie’ to the present day. They also portaled in the first elves.

In addition, some of the monster entries mention fey society a bit. Dryads (MM) might form a ‘grove’, attracting other fey and protectors to the area, specifically ‘Oaken Defenders’ (MM4). Thorns (MM3) are described as ‘warriors of the fey realms’. Verdant Princes (MMIV) are tyrants that lead other evil fey. LeShay (ELH) are epic level immortal fey that claim to be remnants of a great society that was destroyed in a cataclysm in a previous multiverse. The Silthilar (LoM) are aberrations that used to be fey, remnants of a fey race also destroyed by cataclysm and could only survive by altering themselves beyond recognition.

So, in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, the fey are often encountered alone, but there is a greater society of them out there somewhere, maybe more than one, and there used to be more. The Seelie and Unseelie courts definitely exist in general 3.5 lore, in some fashion, and some sort of Fey plane officially exists in the Forgotten Realms setting as well. However, there is no indication that any particular fey you might encounter is clued into any of that.

Fey life spans are usually not delved into, and one of the articles in that WotC ‘Fey Feature Archive’ even lists that as an option left over for the DM to decide on a case by case basis. As far as I know, only the LeShay and Silthilar are specifically called out as being immortal. Dryads are linked to their trees, so you would think they would be mortal, but another monster’s description, the splinterwaif, suggests that they might be deranged dryads whose trees were cut down and used as lumber. Redcaps get more powerful as they age, with no time limit given. So, if you meet a nymph in the woods, she might be a local yokel or have millennia of memories and be clued into a greater fey society. It’s all very frustrating, and I wish the fey had their own book!

[Th3N3xtGuy]

Material plane outsiders (insiders?) is basically what I was going for.

I looked through those articles. They are mostly about the seelie/unseelie courts which is pretty specific.

Does mythology talk about where they come from or why they exist?

In the Planar Manuel there is a suggested place called the Plane of Fairei where Fey originally came from or live.

[daremetoidareyo]

Fey, as far as 3.5 is concerned, is a paraphyletic grouping, (think of the group called reptiles: turtles, snakes, lizards, alligators, none of them except snakes and lizards are at all closely related). Features are shared, but the source materials for fey are drawn from a bunch of different mythological lines, where they served in different narrative capacities. Anyways, the common features as I see them are below.

Looking at how elves are considered to have ambient fey ancestry and elves represent a distillation of "the arts." Greek and roman mythological creatures are dumped into "the fey," and from their members we see that they are representations of human facets that deal with beauty, natural cycles, and attraction: satyrs, nymphs, dryads, nyads. The yuki no onna and the spirit animals are also dumped into fey, where again, they represent a facet of "purity" regarding spirit or what we-as-humans expect of animals. From the western European traditions we get faeries, leprechauns, gremlins, oberon, tatiana, puck, and redcaps, all of whom have a mischief, greed, and lust components. Many of these are associated with plants and mushrooms, which we see represented in some of the other fae creatures in dnd.

All of this is wrapped up in the idea that these nature spirits have a monarchical feudalized system with courtiers and representatives that deal with a dreamlike realm where they reign supreme.

So, considered the motley mythological ancestry of this group, what you can do is a few things:

When the world was born, concepts like art, music, beauty were not invented yet, but the gods craved them. They created the fey from pure truespeech, words of creation so powerful that they formed their own flesh from the dream realm. Beings of pure conceptual power, they readily seduced all the sentient beings that appeased their sensibilities. These pairings produced children that represented more concise aspects: beauty fae + tree = dryad. beauty fae +ocean = nymph. Balance + artisan = gremlins purity fae + animal = spirit animal, hoary foxes, etc. Lust + mortals = satyrs. This goes on to explain why the fae are as polamorous breeders as humans, dragons and devils. The court in the dream realm is a fight for balance behind mortal ideas.

Another option is to treat fey as manifestations of existence itself to defend that existence against the gods. Like the planets and the raw magical stuff of the planes have the capacity to create sentient beings to defend against "abuse" as the universe itself sees it. This explains why there can be fey related to technology, to magic, to psionics, to animals, to plants, or music.

Another option is that the fey are beings of dreams and that any manifestation of them on the realm is a collective hallucination. This makes figuring out who or why the fae exist a real conflicting thing. Perhaps the fey are weak avatars of a superpowerful mad god trapped in the dreaming, whose abstruse mechinations are sometimes oxymoronic.

[Spore]

Fey in folklore are either personified emotions (boogeyman etc.) so they likely spawn from strong emotions. Other fey are embodiments of nature (Dryads) and it wouldn't feel outlandish for them to spawn from untouched parts of nature. But of course a strong emotion in the wilds is sexuality so I can see them born from sexual contact as well.

[illyahr]

I've always viewed fey in the same family as elementals or outsiders. Outsiders are manifestations of spiritual forces, elementals are manifestations of physical forces, and fey are manifestations of emotional/intellectual forces. Outsiders are intent, elementals are result, fey are the action between them.

If you took a CG outsider and tried to make a bridge from them to an earth or wood elemental, you would get a dryad as the bridge.

[lytokk]

Haven't read through the whole post but just going to write in my thoughts before I forget. I've alwyas thought the fey to be ageless, but not birthed from nature. I remember reading something a while back (can't find it, will edit if I do) regarding how the fey came to be. Something with Demons who escaped from the abyss but instead of wreaking death and destruction made a home for themselves on the material plane. Sure, they may still sow chaos, as its their nature as chaotic beings, but a little less evil (barring the unseelie fey).
Some of the evidence to support this is the fey's vulnerability to cold iron, same as demons, their chaotic nature and somewhat of a demonic appearance by most of the fey (albeit tempered by nature). Cold Iron is the strongest piece of evidence as the reason demons are vulnerable to it is that it is supposed to be part of their home plane.
This is all evidence I've read and some of it may have been strewn together from multiple sources, but it is how I do it in my campaign setting.