Fey / Fey Ancestry Lore Question

[SpikeFightwicky]

Howdy folks,

I have a burning question about current lore (or at least... as far back as this goes. I don't recall if it started in 4e or not):

So... the elves of the PHB and any humanoid that came from the Feywild in MPMM have Fey Ancestry, which gives advantage vs. charm saves/ending the "charmed" condition. PHB elves also have the addition as part of their Fey Ancestry that they can't be magically put to sleep. However, none of the actual Fey creature-type options in MPMM have anything to do with a resistance to charms or magical sleep. Checking all published Fey stat blocks (I count 48, including the "Fey Spirit" from the summon spell -> behind Ooze at 23 and Celestial at 26 - ), none have "resistance to charm" or "immunity to magical sleep". 8 have immunity to charm. This includes 4 from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, the Yeth Hound (MPMM), the Dusk Hag (Eberron), Fey Spirit (Tasha's summon spell -> of which 3 other "Summon" creature types have immunity to charm as well) and Trostani from Ravnica (who is also a "boss" level creature so it's kind of expected).

So it seems like if the majority of Fey creatures, including all character options to play as Fey type creatures, have no special association with resistance to charms (or anything to do with sleep effects). Some have general Magic Resistance, though. The DMG has an info blurb on the Feywild, though it doesn't mention anything about ancestries, etc... Per capita, more celestials are immune to charm, but the Aasimar (and new Ardlings) don't get any resistance to it. What lore am I missing that links Fey creatures to being extra resistant to charms?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Howdy folks,

I have a burning question about current lore (or at least... as far back as this goes. I don't recall if it started in 4e or not):

So... the elves of the PHB and any humanoid that came from the Feywild in MPMM have Fey Ancestry, which gives advantage vs. charm saves/ending the "charmed" condition. PHB elves also have the addition as part of their Fey Ancestry that they can't be magically put to sleep. However, none of the actual Fey creature-type options in MPMM have anything to do with a resistance to charms or magical sleep. Checking all published Fey stat blocks (I count 48, including the "Fey Spirit" from the summon spell -> behind Ooze at 23 and Celestial at 26 - ), none have "resistance to charm" or "immunity to magical sleep". 8 have immunity to charm. This includes 4 from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, the Yeth Hound (MPMM), the Dusk Hag (Eberron), Fey Spirit (Tasha's summon spell -> of which 3 other "Summon" creature types have immunity to charm as well) and Trostani from Ravnica (who is also a "boss" level creature so it's kind of expected).

So it seems like if the majority of Fey creatures, including all character options to play as Fey type creatures, have no special association with resistance to charms (or anything to do with sleep effects). Some have general Magic Resistance, though. The DMG has an info blurb on the Feywild, though it doesn't mention anything about ancestries, etc... Per capita, more celestials are immune to charm, but the Aasimar (and new Ardlings) don't get any resistance to it. What lore am I missing that links Fey creatures to being extra resistant to charms?

Its a trade off to not getting a feat at first level?

[SpikeFightwicky]

Its a trade off to not getting a feat at first level?

I'm looking for the lore/fluff reasoning. Like, why does descending from Fey creatures give you resistance to charm when most Fey creatures don't have resistance or immunity to it.

[solidork]

Theres no actual answer that will make all of this make sense, because it doesn't really. If it bothers you, you won't break anything by throwing charm resistance/immunity on a bunch of the fey monsters.

If you aren't changing things, I'd probably go with one of these:

1. It's a diminished form of full magic resistance.
2. It's a resistance that developed over time or was granted by the gods to help them survive in an environment where there was lots of enchantment magic.
3. It's a novel trait that arises consistently from the intermingling of fey and humanoid bloodlines, or whatever process turned them from fey to humanoid.

[Psyren]

A lot of feywild creatures like to charm people and the elves got fed up with it and left.

[KorvinStarmast]

A lot of feywild creatures like to charm people and the elves got fed up with it and left. + a few here. :smallsmile:

[follacchioso]

The Feywild is a plane of extreme emotions, where all sensations, sensory and physical, are heightened. Love, fear, excitement, bitterness, all these emotions alter the landscape like the weather in the Prime Plane.

As such, spells designed to alter emotions such as Charm are less effective on creatures from the Feywild, which are more used to extreme emotions and more likely to resist them compared to humans and other races.

In the lore, it could be hypothised that the Feywild is inspired by legend and traditions on changelings, fairies, leprechauns, and similar creatures. These, in reality, have a root in human psychiatric disorders - which were explained by superstition instead of science.

[Unoriginal]

Howdy folks,

I have a burning question about current lore (or at least... as far back as this goes. I don't recall if it started in 4e or not):

So... the elves of the PHB and any humanoid that came from the Feywild in MPMM have Fey Ancestry, which gives advantage vs. charm saves/ending the "charmed" condition. PHB elves also have the addition as part of their Fey Ancestry that they can't be magically put to sleep. However, none of the actual Fey creature-type options in MPMM have anything to do with a resistance to charms or magical sleep. Checking all published Fey stat blocks (I count 48, including the "Fey Spirit" from the summon spell -> behind Ooze at 23 and Celestial at 26 - ), none have "resistance to charm" or "immunity to magical sleep". 8 have immunity to charm. This includes 4 from Mythic Odysseys of Theros, the Yeth Hound (MPMM), the Dusk Hag (Eberron), Fey Spirit (Tasha's summon spell -> of which 3 other "Summon" creature types have immunity to charm as well) and Trostani from Ravnica (who is also a "boss" level creature so it's kind of expected).

So it seems like if the majority of Fey creatures, including all character options to play as Fey type creatures, have no special association with resistance to charms (or anything to do with sleep effects). Some have general Magic Resistance, though. The DMG has an info blurb on the Feywild, though it doesn't mention anything about ancestries, etc... Per capita, more celestials are immune to charm, but the Aasimar (and new Ardlings) don't get any resistance to it. What lore am I missing that links Fey creatures to being extra resistant to charms?

Elves didn't start out as Feywild denizens, they originally literally came from the blood of Corellon, and they were chaotic entities who shape-changed while traveling the universe until they lost the privilege and ended up as humanoids in the Feywild, which a large amount of them then used to cross into the material plane.

As mentioned by peopleabove, since the Feywild is home of a lot of charming beings, it's not a strech to say an echo of their original shapeshifting allowed them to be adapted to the perils of their new plane, however temporary their stay was (note that some of the Elves who stayed in the Feywild ended up becoming full Feys).

As for the sleeping thing, I think it is a remain of their once-divine nature.

I know the fact Elves can't be paralysed is due to a blessing from Dorastin, Demon Prince of Ghouls, though. As thanks for the elven gods saving his sorry behind from his demonic rivals.

[Willie the Duck]

I'm looking for the lore/fluff reasoning. Like, why does descending from Fey creatures give you resistance to charm when most Fey creatures don't have resistance or immunity to it.

I know you want lore, but it's going to include rules and previous editions.

Fundamentally, I think it goes back to AD&D (looking at Chainmail, oD&D, B, BX and BECMI, these benefits don't appear, only ghoul-touch immunity), where Elves got "a 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells." The reasons were cryptic -- possibly something Tolkien related (for all the 'D&D is more swords and sorcery than Tolkien' that Gygax kept suggesting, the PHB races clearly had a lot of his energy in them), possibly because they were likely to interact with the faerie denizens of the world -- and those creatures tended to have lots of charms and sleep spells. Looking at 5e dryads (also: the absence of nymphs entirely), it looks like some of those spells were excised in the general trend to make creatures have fewer abilities. Regardless, a lot of the fae folk used to have lots of charm spells, and elves had resistance to them (maybe to make them better fey ambassadors).

I think that's what's going on with being fey-descended in 5e -- you grew up amongst these charm spells that maybe the creature stat blocks don't always have, but thematically are still a big part of them. Therefore you have developed a resistance to such things.

[KorvinStarmast]

-- you grew up amongst these charm spells that maybe the creature stat blocks don't always have, but thematically are still a big part of them. Therefore you have developed a resistance to such things. The simplest answer. :smallsmile: