Antonym for fey?

[The Oni]

So, I'm toying with the concept of a denatured fey. Basically, they pissed off the Eldest fey lords, ended up exiled to a world that was inhospitable to fey because of all the high tech workings, and were forced to adapt to the world and effectively becoming "anti-fey." Instead of being drawn to natural places they're drawn to places of ancient lost tech (and frequent thunderstorms, because they have an electrical affinity now). They have a weakness to "elderwood" rather than cold iron, meaning wood that's either from the First World or from incredibly ancient trees on the Material Plane.

Anyway, I'm looking for a new subtype to describe such a creature (other than antifey, because that just sounds bad and wrong. Badwrong. Badong, if you will) and taking suggestions.

[Ravens_cry]

Gremlins? Not the 'don't feed after midnight kind', the 'cause unexpected problems and inexplicable mechanical failure kind'.

[The Grue]

Antonymph?

[MLMII]

"The Banished Ones"


... however if you are looking for a more generic title I'd second the suggestion of "Gremlin"

[Anderlith]

The Blighted.

If the fey represent wild growth & the natural & primal

[nedz]

Well normally you just have the Seelie / Unseelie courts. I did once create an alternate mountain/earth court which was quite dwarven — but that's not what you are looking for.

Ideas: Well perusing my copy of Roget's, which is what I normally do for this sort of question, reveals that D&D has appropriated all such terms already.

I have toyed with urban fey — figuring that cities do contain quite a bit of life, albeit not in any green sense — it is natural after all. But I only did this for a PCs back-story. Maybe the name Urbane would work for this concept. Rifting on the opposite of this could yield these words: Grouchies, Churls, Bruins, Rough, Bluntie.

[Lord Raziere]

I cast the google magics and.....

hrm, apparently the antonym for fey is "sane/natural" or otherwise referring to something worldly, normal, rational, down to earth and so on

....so I dunno, call them Cogs?

[Fable Wright]

Really, Gremlins is the term you want. It has the feel of being associated with fey, with all the connotations of being opposed to everything the fey stands for.

[shadow_archmagi]

Since Fey just means "weird" in general parlance, you're better off not looking for a word that means "mundane" (partially because these things clearly aren't mundane) and more just looking for one that means "Sciencey" since they're now machine-spirits or whatever.

As such, I offer:
Techsprites
"the Wired"
Fragmented
Ironhearted

[Jay R]

Mundane.

Given that we all now how to get around it, does the rule on length of posts serve any useful purpose?

[The Glyphstone]

Yef.

[Erik Vale]

Giant. Normally either part of the fey, or opposed, being huge, strong, slightly stupid/not charismatic, and bound by tradition compared to they fey's small/lithe, intelligent/charismatic and ephemeral nature.


If dnd based, perhaps Oath-Keepers, since fey supposedly broke a oath with Iron which is why cold iron is their aneathma [I could be wrong about which system/world though...]. The Oath-Keepers learned the secret of metal as part of them keeping their word, so the fey turned nature [i.e. wood] against them.

[SiuiS]

We call those "mortals".


Demons/Djin of the vaguely pre-Islamic bent that you'll find in British fantasy and scifi will work too. The kind of spirit referred to as a genius, for example. The genius of the lamp, the genius of electricty (read the short work "the master key" for that one).

[The Oni]

Demons/Djin of the vaguely pre-Islamic bent that you'll find in British fantasy and scifi will work too. The kind of spirit referred to as a genius, for example. The genius of the lamp, the genius of electricty (read the short work "the master key" for that one).

...Yeah, I think this is what I'm looking for. May go with genii as the subtype, since "genius" tends to be associated immediately with high IQ and not animism or djinn.

Thanks everyone!

[Sam113097]

They could be called the Fell

[LibraryOgre]

I cast the google magics and.....

hrm, apparently the antonym for fey is "sane/natural" or otherwise referring to something worldly, normal, rational, down to earth and so on

....so I dunno, call them Cogs?

"Fey" is a disused term for "slightly batty"... maybe not 100% insane, but definitely odd, usually of the "misses things that seem obvious to others" and "pays attention to things that don't make sense" variety.

It was also used to describe homosexuals for a while.

[Ravens_cry]

So is fairy, though that's generally more pejorative. 2061: Odyssey Three uses 'fey' several times.
I am surprised no one's mentioned pixies yet.
But, seriously, gremlins. It even fits their mythos. They lash out at technology due to be trapped in a such a world, yet their long exposure has also given them a certain fascination and familiarity with it.

[daryen]

To "modernize" it some, how about "glitch", "blip", or something like that? "Spark"?

To keep the fantasy link, I agree with "gremlin".

[Millennium]

Mundane.

Given that we all now how to get around it, does the rule on length of posts serve any useful purpose?

If you wanted something vaguely more sinister, you could swipe a page from Changeling and go with Banal. The stress goes on the second syllable ("ban-AL", not "BAN-al").

This isn't actually the term that Changeling uses for anti-fey, though it doesn't have a clean match for that concept anyway (Dauntain are still changelings, Autumn People are just people who are remarkable only in how boring they are, and Fomorians aren't so much into science and technology). Instead I swipe the term from Banality, the force of mundane humdrum normality that Changelings fight against, but still must use to protect themselves from even worse nasties.

It also has the advantage of a false etymological connection to the word bane. The two words aren't actually related, but they certainly look like they should be. There are all kinds of places you could go with that.

[SiuiS]

Jay R: the fact that it requires effort to get around is all that matters, not how easy that effort is or isn't. It's a conscious decision that prevents spam (in theory) by de-incentivizing push posts. At this point, if you create spam anyway, you know better and will probably get into even more trouble.

"Fey" is a disused term for "slightly batty"... maybe not 100% insane, but definitely odd, usually of the "misses things that seem obvious to others" and "pays attention to things that don't make sense" variety.

It was also used to describe homosexuals for a while.

Yeah. It came from "touched in the head" as in, literally a faerie touched you and now you're infected from birth.

Not sure on the homosexuality front though.

...Yeah, I think this is what I'm looking for. May go with genii as the subtype, since "genius" tends to be associated immediately with high IQ and not animism or djinn.

Thanks everyone!

Yay I helped!

If you wanted something vaguely more sinister, you could swipe a page from Changeling and go with Banal. The stress goes on the second syllable ("ban-AL", not "BAN-al").

This isn't actually the term that Changeling uses for anti-fey, though it doesn't have a clean match for that concept anyway (Dauntain are still changelings, Autumn People are just people who are remarkable only in how boring they are, and Fomorians aren't so much into science and technology). Instead I swipe the term from Banality, the force of mundane humdrum normality that Changelings fight against, but still must use to protect themselves from even worse nasties.

It also has the advantage of a false etymological connection to the word bane. The two words aren't actually related, but they certainly look like they should be. There are all kinds of places you could go with that.

Huh. Which is this? Changeling: the dreaming? What books?

[The Oni]

Connotations would be neat, but since these guys are fairly unobtrusive unless threatened, it probably doesn't describe them terribly well. Also they have some of the most advanced (albeit the smallest) tech of any civilization in the gameworld, so they're not especially boring either.

[Alex12]

Ironics.
Wirecrossed.
Dwarves.

[Waker]

I feel I should point out that while Fey are generally associated with the natural world, there are a subset of them which are specifically associated with civilization. Creatures like Springheel Jack, Domovoi, Redcap are all some examples of such creatures and have been statted up in several places. You could still have these creatures be of the Fey Type but have the Subtype of your making.

[Spore]

Aren't Inevitables kind of the opposite of Fey? I know, I know, the Axiomites, but how about the Modrons? Those mindless lawful machinery types.

[endoperez]

I really love some of these! Great thread, now I feel like coming up with a new project just so I could use these in it somehow! :D

Some favourites:

urbane
Slightly menacing, clearly technology/city/civilization themed instead of natural.

weird/wierd/wired
"Fey" means, among other things, something strange and otherwordly. So does "Weird". And it almost but not quite sounds as "Wired", which, again, comes with interesting technological connotations.

Genius
This was ingenous! It's used both about the people associated with techonlogy, and an old word for spirit beings. Fantastic!
As was mentioned, "genius loci" is used to describe guardian spirits of a location. "Loci" in this case being that location. Maybe these elves follow this sort of naming convention, then? Genius London, Genius Waterdeep, Genius Arfarf'Arf, Genius Brookshire and so on.


Banal, or maybe even Banalf / Banaelf / Banælf.
Banned elf. Negative connotations. "commonplace, timeworn, tired". Perfect!