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View Full Version : Is there an in-depth D&D or Pathfinder book that covers the Fey in depth



Scalenex
2018-05-09, 12:48 PM
I always found old school Faerie Tales fascinating. They were called the Fair Folk because if they heard you calling themselves bad they would come get you.

The old World of Darkness had an entire gameline Changing: The Dreaming The latter Dark Ages book, Dark Ages: Fae I liked even more. Shadowrun made an interesting supplement on the Seelie Court.


I'd like to develop Faerie as a force to be reckoned with in my D&D setting. Ideally with blue orange morality beyond the understanding of mortals and gods alike as an unpredictable third wheel in the usual conflicts between gods, alignments, nations, and species.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality

Most of the D&D books just give each Fey creature a very short MM entry and little depth. Very little ties the various fey races together other than a general fondness for nature and pointy ears.

I'd prefer not to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to. Any good D&D sourcebooks with indepth info?

MrStabby
2018-05-09, 03:38 PM
I don't know of any great books. I do know d&d can tend to depart from mythology though so keeping the bits you like might not always be so simple.

What content are you looking For? If you want a fey world you could specify what you like as ask over at the worldbuilding page. Lots of good people there could probably write the content you want and you get to stress the parameters.

You want fluff or crunch? If crunch, what system?

Scalenex
2018-05-09, 04:41 PM
I don't know of any great books. I do know d&d can tend to depart from mythology though so keeping the bits you like might not always be so simple.

It takes some work, but I think it would be fairly straight forward to adapt any system of D&D to a fictional mythology.


What content are you looking For? If you want a fey world you could specify what you like as ask over at the worldbuilding page. Lots of good people there could probably write the content you want and you get to stress the parameters.

You want fluff or crunch? If crunch, what system?

Fluff I guess.

I was curious how other people set up their Fae cultures.

I want Fae (Fey, Faerie, the Fair Folk) to be mysterious scary outsiders that are powerful, but not so powerful and numerous that they can take over.

As I was setting up my mythology I eventually decided to override the D&D canon of cold iron and silver vulnerable creatures and modify it.

Basically my nine deities (one of each alignment) formed a fragile alliance to overthrew their tyrannical creator, Turoch. Turoch's bones fell to the earth and became iron ore. So all the gods minions are somewhat vulnerable to cold iron since their ancestral foe is the ultimate source of iron. The gods created silver to wall off Turoch's vengeful essence. Thus, silver overcomes the damage reduction of the creatures spawned by his rage.

Turoch's blood tainted the world's oceans turning them salty. A line of salt will hold off or at least weaken or annoy the Nine's minion.

My mind drifted to faerie lore, they are often impaired by cold iron and salt. I thought of maybe making Faerie the descendants of outsider minions of the gods who deserted their posts (or got mutated or lost against their will) and evolved into material creatures.

I'm not sure if I want to give them small magically warded lands, planes, demiplanes. I also want to organize them into different factions and I was curious to see what other writers have come up with.

If I don't see anything better I think I might come up with one court for the four classic Greco-Roman elements, fire, water, air, and earth and come up with a moral code and political agenda for all four.

But I want to figure out what other people have come up with before I start writing my own stuff.

JoeJ
2018-05-09, 04:56 PM
You didn't say which D&D you're looking for, but BECMI had Tall Tales of the Wee Folk (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16990/PC1-Creature-Crucible-Tall-Tales-of-the-Wee-Folk-Basic?it=1).

2D8HP
2018-05-09, 09:34 PM
Try:

Journey into the Feywild (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/233920/Journey-into-the-Feywild)

and

Heroes of the Feywild (https://www.blackgate.com/2012/02/27/feywild/)

Kaptin Keen
2018-05-10, 03:56 AM
This is almost certainly not the answer you're looking for - but writers of fluff are almost universally awful at writing fluff. If you want something that's actually good, read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Or The Broken Sword. There's also Lud in the Mists, but I haven't read that one.

GungHo
2018-05-10, 09:08 AM
Pathfinder has

Fey Revisited
Legacy of the First World
The First World, Realm of the Fey
Realm of the Fellnight Queen

Kurald Galain
2018-05-10, 04:02 PM
Some inspirational literature on the topic,

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Lyonesse, by Jack Vance
The Many-Colored Land, by Julian May

M Placeholder
2018-05-25, 09:41 AM
The Birthright Setting had Blood Spawn : Creatures of Light and Shadow, which was released as a free download by WotC. It has entries on the Seelie and Unseelie fey, and goes into some detail on the Shadow World, which was the realm of faerie until it was corrupted by the taint of the god of evil, Azrai, and also has a few adventures concerning the two courts.

AceOfFools
2018-05-25, 10:22 AM
I'm a huge fan of Exalted's take on the Fair Folk, although they are a fair bit more Cthulian cosmic horror than traditional mythology. E.g. one of the options they can take for physical form is "living song."

The source book, Graceful Wicked Masques, has some great lore, but abysmal mechanics. I found it very inspiring, particularly for building an alien, frightening Faerie.

Scalenex
2018-05-31, 01:27 AM
Try:

Journey into the Feywild (http://www.dmsguild.com/product/233920/Journey-into-the-Feywild)

and

Heroes of the Feywild (https://www.blackgate.com/2012/02/27/feywild/)

PDFs of Journey into Feywild were cheap so I bought one.


Some inspirational literature on the topic,

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
Lyonesse, by Jack Vance
The Many-Colored Land, by Julian May

I really like Neil Gaiman, but his stories while excellent don't lend themselves to RPG source material. I may have to check out the other two


This is almost certainly not the answer you're looking for - but writers of fluff are almost universally awful at writing fluff. If you want something that's actually good, read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Or The Broken Sword. There's also Lud in the Mists, but I haven't read that one.


Pathfinder has

Fey Revisited
Legacy of the First World
The First World, Realm of the Fey
Realm of the Fellnight Queen

I'll keep a look out for these.


I'm a huge fan of Exalted's take on the Fair Folk, although they are a fair bit more Cthulian cosmic horror than traditional mythology. E.g. one of the options they can take for physical form is "living song."

The source book, Graceful Wicked Masques, has some great lore, but abysmal mechanics. I found it very inspiring, particularly for building an alien, frightening Faerie.

Exalted is actually what got the ball rolling but I actually cribbed a lot of conceptsFair Folk from Exalted with non-Fae. 1) if you walk off the edge of the map you go into a nightmare realm of death (the Void). 2) there are nihilistic creatures that spawn from outside the map that try to kill people and eat souls called Void Demons and 3) Elemental magic is unstable and scary

I'm thinking of making Fae nasty and scary but not THAT scary.

JMS
2018-05-31, 06:30 PM
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?226612-3-5-The-Fey-Compendium Might be helpful, IRC