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The Vorpal Tribble
2007-09-27, 12:04 PM
Ok, I always see folks going on about how undeath should not immediately mean evil and negative energy is not at its core an 'evil' power etc etc.

The arguments I tend to get into however always seem to be about fey.

Fey vs. Aberrations

One argument I always seem to spark is in regards to fey and aberrations.

In many ways they do seem to have a slight resemblance. Both tend (remember I say tend, such is not always the case) to have inhuman ways of thinking. However, even this is a misconception, as while an aberration's way of thinking may seem absolutely insane, fey thinking is rarely insane, just different or devoid of our preconceptions, especially of right and wrong.

Another thing is that if a creature is physically weird it must be, has to be, cannot be anything BUT an aberration.

Bull.

An aberration's body often stretches if not outright breaks the laws of nature. An aberration can almost never evolve naturally and most tend to be made or come from realms outside of the inner/material planes. Creatures tend to have no desire to eat them, etc. They are not of the food chain.

A fey creature, while it can be odd, still follows natural laws. Not only that, but their bodies tend to have a direct connection with nature. In other words fey and aberrations are polar opposites physically. They are however made of meat (or possibly plant).

So what if the fey creature may have the lower body of a cricket or extra eyes or a strange shell. This is not instant qualification for an aberration type. Anyone who has looked at pictures of insects, arachnids and things of the sea know that life can be pretty bizarre, but at least it follows a set of fixed rules.

-=-=-=-

Fey vs. Nature vs. Civilization

Another argument I hear is 'fey only come from natural environs'. Despite the fact that a great amount of fey creatures of legend are exclusively found in the home, this mindset continues.

Brownies, domovoi, and gremlins are good examples.

Like it or not cities have their own odd sort of ecosystem and that leaves things wide open for fey.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-09-27, 12:07 PM
Naturistic fey living in & protecting built homes?

Inconceivable!

Everyone knows urban civilization is the mortal enemy of the natural order. What's next, you're gonna suggest there's druids that safeguard cities?

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-27, 12:14 PM
Fey are very much like the spirits of some animistic religions (and actually are the spirits of some animistic religions). As most animistic religions have a spirit for everything, I don't really see why there can't be household fey.

Humans are, after all, a part of (not apart from) nature. Anything they make is also a part of nature (because there's nothing else to make it from). Well, unless they use magic, and in several settings arcane magic is a force of nature anyway.

So, I guess I agree with you, VT. :smalltongue:

CockroachTeaParty
2007-09-27, 12:24 PM
I've never heard of people comparing fey to aberrations... I mean, one group is totally awesome, and the other makes cookies in trees. I suppose if someone made a group of cookie producing beholderkin there could be some confusion, but... eh?

horseboy
2007-09-27, 12:51 PM
I've never heard of people comparing fey to aberrations... I mean, one group is totally awesome, and the other makes cookies in trees. I suppose if someone made a group of cookie producing beholderkin there could be some confusion, but... eh?
They're making little beholder shaped cookies with gum drop eyes? MMmmm. Beholder tastes like pumpkin.

Dullyanna
2007-09-27, 01:20 PM
They're making little beholder shaped cookies with gum drop eyes? MMmmm. Beholder tastes like pumpkin.

:smallconfused: But... they don't have hands. Hell, they don't even have limbs.

horseboy
2007-09-27, 01:25 PM
:smallconfused: But... they don't have hands. Hell, they don't even have limbs.

Telekinesis beam. Heck, breed one that has 10, with the main eye a heat ray.

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-09-27, 01:25 PM
I've never heard of people comparing fey to aberrations...
They're not comparing, but if anything has a weird body they say it should be an aberration. I've personally made over half a dozen fey that I've been told should not be fey but aberrations because of how they look, regardless that they have intricate ties to nature.

The_Snark
2007-09-27, 01:28 PM
There's a beholderkin (the overseer) who has a Major Creation eye ray. There you go. Cookies.

On a more related note, I agree with you. I'm also a little mystified by the iron curtain between nature and civilization, to tell the truth... Aside from scale, what is the difference between a city and something like a bird's nest or beaver dam?

Dullyanna
2007-09-27, 01:34 PM
There's a beholderkin (the overseer) who has a Major Creation eye ray. There you go. Cookies.

Yeah, but they're EVIL cookies. Anyway, the difference between man-made structures and little animal nests is the organisms that make them (And what they're made of, etc, etc).

EvilRoeSlade
2007-09-27, 01:36 PM
Everyone knows urban civilization is the mortal enemy of the natural order. What's next, you're gonna suggest there's druids that safeguard cities?

*Hits Mike_Lemmer with a giant hammer*

Nerd-o-rama
2007-09-27, 01:39 PM
I've never heard of people comparing fey to aberrations... I mean, one group is totally awesome, and the other makes cookies in trees. I suppose if someone made a group of cookie producing beholderkin there could be some confusion, but... eh?

Cookie-baking Beholders? We've got those (http://www.sigilprep.com/).

Okay, so he (http://www.sigilprep.com/Neil.htm)'s a Gauth (spoilers). Which lack the telekinesis eyebeam. Which raises many questions...

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-09-27, 01:39 PM
I (mostly) agree with you and certainly with comparison.

However, if their shape becomes to weird I might consider if they are suitable as Fey. Magical beasts with strong ties to nature perhaps?


Fey Type: A fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped.


Features: A fey has the following features.

*

6-sided Hit Dice.
*

Base attack bonus equal to 1/2 total Hit Dice (as wizard).
*

Good Reflex and Will saves.
*

Skill points equal to (6 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die.

Traits: A fey possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).

*

Low-light vision.
*

Proficient with all simple weapons and any weapons mentioned in its entry.
*

Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) that it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Fey not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Fey are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
*

Fey eat, sleep, and breathe.


Aberration Type: An aberration has a bizarre anatomy, strange abilities, an alien mindset, or any combination of the three.


Features: An aberration has the following features.

*

d8 Hit Dice.
*

Base attack bonus equal to 3/4 total Hit Dice (as cleric).
*

Good Will saves.
*

Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die.

Traits: An aberration possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).

*

Darkvision out to 60 feet.
*

Proficient with its natural weapons. If generally humanoid in form, proficient with all simple weapons and any weapon it is described as using.
*

Proficient with whatever type of armor (light, medium, or heavy) it is described as wearing, as well as all lighter types. Aberrations not indicated as wearing armor are not proficient with armor. Aberrations are proficient with shields if they are proficient with any form of armor.
*

Aberrations eat, sleep, and breathe.


P.s. The Overseer is my popcorn bitch.

The_Snark
2007-09-27, 01:42 PM
Yeah, but they're EVIL cookies. Anyway, the difference between man-made structures and little animal nests is the organisms that make them (And what they're made of, etc, etc).

Diminutive object (evil)?

And yeah, but again, the separation between mankind and the rest of the animal kingdom is what's puzzling me. In D&D, where you have intelligence all over the place (including intelligent animals, who also build nests), it really does seem harder to argue that things made by the PHB races are somehow not part of nature.

You might consider, if you were an extreme sort of druid, that civilization was an out-of-control part of nature, and thus negative. But that's different. Nobody said fey were involved only with the good part of nature.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-09-27, 01:43 PM
Also,

*Hits Mike_Lemmer with a giant hammer*
But if you're a druid, aren't you not allowed to use hammers? Use this scimitar instead. Apparently it's much more druidy, despite being based on a weapon historically invented about as far away from druids as you can get without crossing the Atlantic or the Himalayas.

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-09-27, 01:50 PM
I (mostly) agree with you and certainly with comparison.

However, if their shape becomes to weird I might consider if they are suitable as Fey. Magical beasts with strong ties to nature perhaps?
Mmm, possibly, but generally magical beasts have a different feel to them than fey.

This one fey for example I never could get folk to stop saying should be an aberration.

"The skrytinn'kanina are vaguely man-like, with snow white skin with the appearance of parchment stretched over delicate bones. Its proportions are lanky and lean, if not skeletal. Its fingers are so long and supple to be almost tentacles. Enormous eyes of a dark red color with slanted corners peer out from the sharp face with an unreadable expression. Long blood-pink ears lie close to the head with sharp points. They are at once both inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing."

Jasdoif
2007-09-27, 02:09 PM
P.s. The Overseer is my popcorn bitch....that explains a lot. I was wondering about the texture....



This one fey for example I never could get folk to stop saying should be an aberration.

"The skrytinn'kanina are vaguely man-like, with snow white skin with the appearance of parchment stretched over delicate bones. Its proportions are lanky and lean, if not skeletal. Its fingers are so long and supple to be almost tentacles. Enormous eyes of a dark red color with slanted corners peer out from the sharp face with an unreadable expression. Long blood-pink ears lie close to the head with sharp points. They are at once both inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing."How do they get aberration out of that? Confusing it for monstrous humanoid I could possibly understand, but aberration? :smallconfused:

Unless tentacles mean "aberration", in which case the giant squid would have to be misclassified too.

Starbuck_II
2007-09-27, 02:13 PM
An aberration's body often stretches if not outright breaks the laws of nature. An aberration can almost never evolve naturally and most tend to be made or come from realms outside of the inner/material planes. Creatures tend to have no desire to eat them, etc. They are not of the food chain.

I see Elans (abberations) as a natural evolution of man. Yes, they needa retitual to become one, but they did basically evolve into learning this ritual. They come from material plane.

Plus, while they do not have to eat: they do eat.
Maybe, they photosynthesis food or anorobic restorate (glycolysis). Either way, they survive without eating outside food.

Kyeudo
2007-09-27, 02:18 PM
Mmm, possibly, but generally magical beasts have a different feel to them than fey.

This one fey for example I never could get folk to stop saying should be an aberration.

"The skrytinn'kanina are vaguely man-like, with snow white skin with the appearance of parchment stretched over delicate bones. Its proportions are lanky and lean, if not skeletal. Its fingers are so long and supple to be almost tentacles. Enormous eyes of a dark red color with slanted corners peer out from the sharp face with an unreadable expression. Long blood-pink ears lie close to the head with sharp points. They are at once both inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing."

I don't see the nature connection. What kind of nature spirt is that supposed to be?

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-27, 02:22 PM
I don't see the nature connection. What kind of nature spirt is that supposed to be?

From the description, I'd guess water or ice.

The Vorpal Tribble
2007-09-27, 02:23 PM
I don't see the nature connection. What kind of nature spirt is that supposed to be?
You generally can't see the natural connection in a mere description. A Nymph is a beautiful naked woman. That doesn't exactly scream 'trees and rivers!' to me.

Anyways, a skrytinn'kanina is a sort of a 'spokes-fey' for the faerie folk. They meet with human officials and discuss things, like keeping lumberjacks away from dryad's trees, keeping trash from being thrown in the rivers. And in return the agreements made with the humans are enforced by these guys. So any fey that think they're going to be all chaotic and mess with the humans that are abiding by the agreements get punished by the Skrytinn. Often severely.

Kyeudo
2007-09-27, 02:26 PM
So its a pact spirt. Interesting. Is it based on any particular mythos?

Callos_DeTerran
2007-09-27, 02:38 PM
"The skrytinn'kanina are vaguely man-like, with snow white skin with the appearance of parchment stretched over delicate bones. Its proportions are lanky and lean, if not skeletal. Its fingers are so long and supple to be almost tentacles. Enormous eyes of a dark red color with slanted corners peer out from the sharp face with an unreadable expression. Long blood-pink ears lie close to the head with sharp points. They are at once both inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing."


Tribble, Tribble...everyone knows that if it has tentacles or something similiar then it's an abberation...or an abberation that has cleverly disguised it's creature type through unknowable and probably insane means. :smallwink:

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2007-09-27, 02:50 PM
... The skrytinn'kanina ...

It might not be the most common Fey shape, but it certainly seems further from your average aberration. The anatomy is not bizarre, just strange.

Ulzgoroth
2007-09-27, 03:44 PM
I see Elans (abberations) as a natural evolution of man. Yes, they needa retitual to become one, but they did basically evolve into learning this ritual. They come from material plane.

Plus, while they do not have to eat: they do eat.
Maybe, they photosynthesis food or anorobic restorate (glycolysis). Either way, they survive without eating outside food.
Biology does not work like that...

Did Elan develop the ritual by natural selection in favor of people who somehow or other were closer to knowing the ritual than others? If not, evolution is not a good term for their origin.

Photosynthesis doesn't work well with physics: Human-sized things burn quite a bit of energy, and don't have much surface area for solar input. Also, usually you want to have a more light-absorbing coloration than the typically pale humans of most D&D settings. You could say their photosynthesis uses magic to work despite the totally inappropriate body, but why not make the magic maintain them directly?

Anaerobic respiration is not a way of surviving without food. It burns much more food than normal aerobic respiration. What it doesn't require is an adequate supply of oxygen.

AslanCross
2007-09-27, 04:33 PM
I think the difference between a beaver building a dam and humans building a city is that humans tend to wantonly plunder the natural resources in the area to build them. Scale is one thing, but the rate at which resources are consumed makes civilization destructive to nature, at least in the traditional sense. But anyway.

VT, what particular Fey creatures have received the "should've-been-an-aberration" treatment?

Bauglir
2007-09-27, 04:49 PM
I thought the fluff said they sustained themselves directly with psionic energy? So they'd just substitute psionics for the chemical energy contained in food.

Elans, I mean.

Jasdoif
2007-09-27, 05:15 PM
I thought the fluff said they sustained themselves directly with psionic energy? So they'd just substitute psionics for the chemical energy contained in food.

Elans, I mean.Their mechanics state that they can expend a power point to negate the need to eat or drink for 24 hours. Note the "need to eat or drink" part.

Jayabalard
2007-09-27, 05:17 PM
what is the difference between a city and something like a bird's nest or beaver dam?I always liked this one

There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love Nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for the beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of man) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e., his own self-hatred.
In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate.
As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women - it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly "natural."
Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling of Nature."

Collin152
2007-09-27, 05:41 PM
Let's see... I hate abberatins, but I love both fey and all work done by the Vropal Tribble, excepting any abberations he creates. Therefore, anything I love by the Vorpal Tribble is NOT an abberation!
Case closed, watashi no tomodachi, mi amigos, case closed.

Ulzgoroth
2007-09-27, 05:53 PM
I think the difference between a beaver building a dam and humans building a city is that humans tend to wantonly plunder the natural resources in the area to build them. Scale is one thing, but the rate at which resources are consumed makes civilization destructive to nature, at least in the traditional sense. But anyway.
Please see:
-Rats, as introduced species on assorted pacific islands.
-Innumerable species of ant, but particularly the swarm-raiding army ant. Which hunts by deploying an army in a wide front that drives all animal life (including native humans) before it. And drives out all the prey around its 'nest' site so fast they seldom stay in one place for more than 3 weeks.
-Kudzu. Enough said...but the number of parallels is enormous.

The balance of nature is just what we see when open warfare grinds down to a stalemate. Beavers and humans differ in that humans have beaten the competition.

Rockphed
2007-09-27, 06:00 PM
"The skrytinn'kanina are vaguely man-like, with snow white skin with the appearance of parchment stretched over delicate bones. Its proportions are lanky and lean, if not skeletal. Its fingers are so long and supple to be almost tentacles. Enormous eyes of a dark red color with slanted corners peer out from the sharp face with an unreadable expression. Long blood-pink ears lie close to the head with sharp points. They are at once both inhumanly beautiful and deeply disturbing."

Strange Eyes? Check
Vaguely Human Shaped? Check
Being Disturbing? Check

This thing checks out as a fey. The only problem is how you described the fingers, but then ducks have more neck bones, and can do weird things with their heads. Maybe this thing has more finger bones.

Leon
2007-09-27, 07:04 PM
Also,

But if you're a druid, aren't you not allowed to use hammers?

Club is a fair approxomation to a hammer

Stormcrow
2007-09-27, 07:16 PM
heh, I'd rule a wooden carpenter's mallet could be called a very ornately carved club :P.

The Fey in the truest original sense are like the Twilith Teg (sp) in Welsh and to a lesser extend other celtic folklore. Thats how I play them. Powerful, chaotic beings who couldn't care less about mortal people or the material plane other than because it is very amusing.

Yuki Akuma
2007-09-27, 07:16 PM
Druids can use any weapon they like. It's armour that they have to watch out for.

They're just not trained to use most weapons, due to druidic beliefs (same with clerics). That doesn't stop them picking up proficiency feats later on. :smallsmile:

The thing about classes not being allowed to use weapons is a relic from second edition, when Druids would lose their powers if they tried to use something other than the very limited list of weapons they were able to use (it was also the same for Priests, as Druids were basically Priests with specific spheres).

Dervag
2007-09-27, 07:23 PM
Inconceivable!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.


There's a beholderkin (the overseer) who has a Major Creation eye ray. There you go. Cookies.

On a more related note, I agree with you. I'm also a little mystified by the iron curtain between nature and civilization, to tell the truth... Aside from scale, what is the difference between a city and something like a bird's nest or beaver dam?Scale, destructability, and the fact that the world's ecology hasn't had time to adapt around cities the way it has to adapt around the nest-building behavior of birds or the dam-building behavior of beavers.

None of which are decisive, in my opinion.