Which Fae would join in an organized war?

[Anastopholies]

I'm currently doing a homebrew D&D campaign. In it the BBEG is using multiple rituals that are fed by magic from the Feywild, effectively killing that section of the feywild. In response the two courts are going to wage war on the material plane with the fae-like idea if we kill enough of them it will probably stop or we'll eventually kill the one responsible.

I don't think all the fey would join because their... well fae. Would Mab/Titania's orders supersede that or would their armies consist of only a few types of fae?

What are your opinions?

[quindraco]

I'm currently doing a homebrew D&D campaign. In it the BBEG is using multiple rituals that are fed by magic from the Feywild, effectively killing that section of the feywild. In response the two courts are going to wage war on the material plane with the fae-like idea if we kill enough of them it will probably stop or we'll eventually kill the one responsible.

I don't think all the fey would join because their... well fae. Would Mab/Titania's orders supersede that or would their armies consist of only a few types of fae?

What are your opinions?

I believe every fey in this list an independent entity - no one in this list answers to anyone else in this list:

Baba Yaga, Mother of All Witches
Hyrsam, the Prince of Fools
Neifion, the Lord of Bats
Nintra Siotta, the Princess of Shadow Glass
Oberon, the Green Lord
Jack, the Prince of Frost
Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness
Titania, the Queen of the Summer Court
Verenestra the Oak Princess
Kannoth, the Vampire Lord of Cendriane

So at a minimum, if Mab and Titania were both on board with doing a thing, those other demesnes might or might not participate. Also of potential note are non-Fey in the Feywilds - the "Feydark" is filthy with Fomorians, who are not likely to do anything other than wait for Mab and Titania to be distracted so they can attack. Finally, it's likely some associated deities may have an interest here - e.g. Mab has allied with Auril in the past, and the Raven Queen probably has as close as she can come to an opinion on what's going on.

[gloryblaze]

I believe every fey in this list an independent entity - no one in this list answers to anyone else in this list:

Baba Yaga, Mother of All Witches
Hyrsam, the Prince of Fools
Neifion, the Lord of Bats
Nintra Siotta, the Princess of Shadow Glass
Oberon, the Green Lord
Jack, the Prince of Frost
Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness
Titania, the Queen of the Summer Court
Verenestra the Oak Princess
Kannoth, the Vampire Lord of Cendriane

So at a minimum, if Mab and Titania were both on board with doing a thing, those other demesnes might or might not participate. Also of potential note are non-Fey in the Feywilds - the "Feydark" is filthy with Fomorians, who are not likely to do anything other than wait for Mab and Titania to be distracted so they can attack. Finally, it's likely some associated deities may have an interest here - e.g. Mab has allied with Auril in the past, and the Raven Queen probably has as close as she can come to an opinion on what's going on.

Depending on whether you use lore from previous editions, many of those archfey do have relationships/allegiances to one or the other major fey courts. For instance, Oberon is usually Titania's on-again-off-again lover/consort, while Hyrsam was characterized as Oberon's son (maybe with Titania, I don't recall). So they both might be inclined to ally with Titania/the Summer Court, depending on the present state of Titania and Oberon's relationship and Hyrsam's relationship with his (step?) mom.

Similarly on the QoA&D's side, I believe but do not recall for sure that Jack Frost is connected to the Winter Court in some way, while I believe it's explicit 5e lore that Nintra Siotta was formerly a Winter Court archfey but was exiled by the QoA&D for some reason, so she probably would explicitly not go to war on behalf of the Winter Court and might even join their enemies out of spite.

[Lunali]

Depending on whether you use lore from previous editions, many of those archfey do have relationships/allegiances to one or the other major fey courts. For instance, Oberon is usually Titania's on-again-off-again lover/consort, while Hyrsam was characterized as Oberon's son (maybe with Titania, I don't recall). So they both might be inclined to ally with Titania/the Summer Court, depending on the present state of Titania and Oberon's relationship and Hyrsam's relationship with his (step?) mom.

Similarly on the QoA&D's side, I believe but do not recall for sure that Jack Frost is connected to the Winter Court in some way, while I believe it's explicit 5e lore that Nintra Siotta was formerly a Winter Court archfey but was exiled by the QoA&D for some reason, so she probably would explicitly not go to war on behalf of the Winter Court and might even join their enemies out of spite.

You've more or less illustrated the opposite of what I think you intended. Each entry on the list has their own motivations and may or may not join in a war for a wide variety of reasons.

As for the original questions, I would say rather than only having a few types of fae, you would likely have almost every type, with varying portions of each group showing up. You likely wouldn't get all of any group, but you would probably get some of every group, how much of each depending on the overall personality of the group.

[Catullus64]

I can't see why a Fairy Queen should have too much trouble assembling an army.

It's your setting, so of course what you say goes. But I've always thought it strange that D&D Fey are all but universally aligned as Chaotic (at least, they have been since the nine-alignment thing started). To me, in terms of reference to folklore and myth, fairies are very much Lawful beings, who only come across as chaotic and unpredictable because of how different their laws are from those of mortals. But fairies in stories are always constrained by all sorts of laws about how they can and cannot act, whether it's being not allowed to harm someone with a circle drawn around them, or having to tell whoever catches them the location of their treasure.

I would imagine that a fairy society might have all sorts of complex structures that oblige different creatures to fight on behalf of each other on different occasions, for different causes. I can imagine that a Fairy Queen would be masterful at managing and manipulating all of these webs of ritual and custom which bind the fair folk.

[gloryblaze]

You've more or less illustrated the opposite of what I think you intended. Each entry on the list has their own motivations and may or may not join in a war for a wide variety of reasons.

As for the original questions, I would say rather than only having a few types of fae, you would likely have almost every type, with varying portions of each group showing up. You likely wouldn't get all of any group, but you would probably get some of every group, how much of each depending on the overall personality of the group.

That was the point, though. The post I quoted made it seem (to me at least) that each of those fey was entirely independent and unrelated to the others, but based on my understanding, they have a complicated web of relationships such that Titania or the QoAD doing something is likely to have repercussions on some or all of them. For instance, I think it's relevant that since we know from the OP that the QoA&D supports the war, Nintra Siotta probably would not.

Similarly, Titania joining the war makes it more likely that Oberon would join than if she hadn't (unless the DM decides that they're having a fight or something, but even then, that gives us useful setting information—if the DM decides that Oberon isn't part of the conflict, then the players know that probably he's on the outs with Titania, so they might decide to go on a quest to help repair the relationship by giving him the perfect idea for a date or gift or something. Then maybe he joins the fight against the BBEG)

[Lunali]

I can't see why a Fairy Queen should have too much trouble assembling an army.

It's your setting, so of course what you say goes. But I've always thought it strange that D&D Fey are all but universally aligned as Chaotic (at least, they have been since the nine-alignment thing started). To me, in terms of reference to folklore and myth, fairies are very much Lawful beings, who only come across as chaotic and unpredictable because of how different their laws are from those of mortals. But fairies in stories are always constrained by all sorts of laws about how they can and cannot act, whether it's being not allowed to harm someone with a circle drawn around them, or having to tell whoever catches them the location of their treasure.

I would imagine that a fairy society might have all sorts of complex structures that oblige different creatures to fight on behalf of each other on different occasions, for different causes. I can imagine that a Fairy Queen would be masterful at managing and manipulating all of these webs of ritual and custom which bind the fair folk.

I would say that this is part of the failings of the alignment system, but it does make sense to a point. I would class fae as fairly heavily chaotic but absolutely bound by their word and various other laws that they are incapable of breaking. In cases where they have a choice of behavior, they are chaotic, but because of the prevalence of situations where they are forced to behave a certain way, their overall behavior is neutral.

The question is what do you use to gauge alignment? If it's by how likely they are to keep their word, they are absolutely lawful. If it's by their overall behavior, neutral. If it's their behavior when they have a choice in their actions, chaotic.

[Catullus64]

The question is what do you use to gauge alignment? If it's by how likely they are to keep their word, they are absolutely lawful. If it's by their overall behavior, neutral. If it's their behavior when they have a choice in their actions, chaotic.

I would say that a creature whose nature compels it to obey certain rules and customs, even when it doesn't want to, is Lawful in alignment. D&D devils don't always want to honor their contracts either, but have to, and nobody seems to dispute their characterization as lawful. Though of course, D&D doesn't play into the rule-bound nature of fairies as heavily, which I think is a great shame.

[Seclora]

Fae are a splendid example of why alignment is a terribly oversimplified way to describe a creature. The Fae are five days into a game of Risk in which battles are resolved by counting vowels in a random word from the Byzantine Legal Code and the whole thing started as part of an ongoing game of Truth or Dare. It's not Chaos; its Calvinball.

All Fae are bound by innate laws and cannot break them without dire consequence. However, few of these laws make a lick of sense to humans and the consequences range from seemingly petty to unthinkably horrible, and the Fae do not distinguish between the two ends of that spectrum, some would rather be unmade than go without the ability to taste cherries, even if one of those is clearly survivable. Yet, losing that love might do as much to destroy that Fae as having them unexist simply by redefining their self, and therefore very real, image, and that can be significant for beings whose primary division fundamentally boils down to pretty v. not-pretty. It's all very lawful, and complete chaos at the same time. They're just as inhuman as an aberration, and equally dangerous in practice.


Any given Fey could join any given side at any given time, depending on whether they were interested in being involved, which favors had been called in and in what order, and what they stood to gain by being involved. Oberon might oppose Titania because he promised he would protect a child who is now part of the army she opposes, or he might take her side because a grove of trees he passed by that one time was very pretty and they're threatened by dark magic. Perhaps Baba Yaga offers to help Mab by cajoling a troop of Red Caps to join her army, but also offers a charm to the enemy general because he returned something that was stolen from her when he was a child. The Armies of Air and Darkness and the Legions of the Summer Court wouldn't be made up of certain kinds of Fae, they'd be made up of every imaginable kind of Fae, and they'd be disorganized, unruly, and they'd leave in a month if not reminded of constantly of the stakes.

[Unoriginal]

The whole "Fae are bound by rules/their word" trope is not a part of D&D 5e's lore.

You can't say it's a failure of the alignment system when it isn't part of the game.

*Some* Fae are bound by limitations due to their nature (ex: the Redcap needs to dip their hat in blood to exist, the dryad dies if her tree dies) or to curses (ex: the Quickling), but that doesn't make them any more lawful than needing to eat makes an human lawful.

Most Fey are chaotic and loving it. Doesn't mean they can't be bossed around by an Archfey.

To answer OP's question:

Redcaps, Meenlocks, Lampads, Oreads, Yeth Hounds and Formorians (who aren't Fey but still inhabit the Feywild) would love a Queen-approved all-out war against the Material Plane. Many Eladrins, Blink Dogs and Sprites would join as well. Satyrs could be made frenzied enough they'd go on rampages. Hags would engage in war profiteering as much as they can.

Pixies, Boggles, Korreds, Naiads, Alseids, Darklings and Quicklings probably wouldn't like going to war, but their rulers can enforce their cooperation.

[Lunali]

I think the alignment makes more sense if you interpret alignment differently. Instead of lawful meaning obeying rules or codes, it means making plans and following them. By this token, chaotic means reacting to situations as they come.

By that metric, I would say the fae are chaotic. Even the ones that make plans typically do so as a reaction to the situation, making plans that will give them potential advantages when reacting to situations in the future.

[kazaryu]

I'm currently doing a homebrew D&D campaign. In it the BBEG is using multiple rituals that are fed by magic from the Feywild, effectively killing that section of the feywild. In response the two courts are going to wage war on the material plane with the fae-like idea if we kill enough of them it will probably stop or we'll eventually kill the one responsible.

I don't think all the fey would join because their... well fae. Would Mab/Titania's orders supersede that or would their armies consist of only a few types of fae?

What are your opinions?

honestly, imo, i'd take the opportunity to not have the war be fought in any traditional manner. for one, they're fey, they don't think like mortals, they don't have the same limitations as mortals. and 2, they don't have the same motivations that drive most mortal wars. So there's no reason to assume they'd wage war in a way that looks anything like that to mortals. it makes more sense to me that, rather than fielding armies at all, they'd do things that are individually pretty easily within their power. start a meenlock infestation (or 5) within some major cities. Send a pestilence to major farmlands. replace certain plants with more deadly/malevolent versions. perhaps they have magic of their own to steal the life from sections of the material plane back to the desecrated sections of the feywild. if the section they're trying to heal happens to overlap with a mortal city.....oops.

[Chronos]

Very few fey would join an organized army.

A great many of them, however, would join a disorganized army.

And remember, the leaders of the Fey (whether we're talking about the Two Queens or any of the other high ranks) got to their positions by being very, very good at getting other fey to do what they want, even allowing for the fey tendency to be unpredictable. Humans might or might not know what buttons to push to get quicklings or pixies to do their part, but Titania absolutely does.

[Seclora]

honestly, imo, i'd take the opportunity to not have the war be fought in any traditional manner. for one, they're fey, they don't think like mortals, they don't have the same limitations as mortals. and 2, they don't have the same motivations that drive most mortal wars. So there's no reason to assume they'd wage war in a way that looks anything like that to mortals. it makes more sense to me that, rather than fielding armies at all, they'd do things that are individually pretty easily within their power. start a meenlock infestation (or 5) within some major cities. Send a pestilence to major farmlands. replace certain plants with more deadly/malevolent versions. perhaps they have magic of their own to steal the life from sections of the material plane back to the desecrated sections of the feywild. if the section they're trying to heal happens to overlap with a mortal city.....oops.

Very Much This. Lesser Fey enact violence, Greater Fey enact Calamity, and Least Fey enact inconvenience. Sure, a Quickling can kill a human, but they could also leave your boots in the Queen's bedroom, making the king suspect you're sleeping with his wife in the exact same amount of time. In a day, they could kill hundreds of people, or make a tyrant kill thousands. A kelpie that entrances a prince does more harm to a kingdom than one that charges an army, and a few bad harvests ruins an empire.
War is hell, and Fey are not fiends.