Fey

Dragondeep is the home to a myriad of magical creatures, not the least of which are considered ‘fey’ such as fairies, sprites, elementals, and demonic entities. In general the Fey are not looked upon with great love by almost anyone, because of their chaotic nature. Some enjoy more social outlets but most of the true Fey range anywhere from disturbingly annoying to outright evil. They still arrive through both Briar Portal and Mossgate, and have been doing so for at least twelve thousand years.

The magic that these creatures use is akin to a ‘dark psionics’ – the naturally occurring forms which don’t use spell-magic or other types, spout a kind of innate power that can only truly be used by them. Even strong psionicists that have studied Fey admit to being baffled as to how to exactly qualify their magic. Most of the Fey cannot use spell-type magic, but those who can, use it to terrible effect.

Portal Arrived Fey

The smallest of the Fey are merely wisps, tiny glowing firefly-like animals which are not intelligent but do seem to bear ill will to anything that comes close to them (this may simply be ‘territorial as hell’ but they definitely seem to bear a grudge). Wisps tend to live in watery, swampy areas. They cannot communicate and their life cycle is undocumented. They ‘feed’ on magical energy, which is fine in their area of the world, since almost everything is magical there. They are often eaten by frogs, fish, birds or small predators, evidenced by the spoor left over that still glows.

Sprites are next, bearing a resemblance to large, humanoid-bodied dragonflies (over six inches long) but glowing in a variety of glittery colors. They bear a strong affinity to forests and glades, and have an amount of earth-type magic. They are of animal intelligence, but they aren’t necessarily of any interest beyond being pretty. Some of these are used to light lanterns for festivals, and are a popular export in as much as these things are possible from the Fey lands. They eat tiny insects and larva, as well as sometimes rotted vegetation. They live perhaps five years, and lay copious glowing eggs on the undersides of wide tree leaves. These creatures are edible but most animals don’t hunt them more than once: they appear to leave a bitter, if non-toxic, flavor behind.

Small fairies range from about a foot tall give or take a few inches, being very slender and humanoid but generally with a pair or two of insect-like wings. They rarely need these wings to actually fly, as almost all Fey have intense flight magic. Fairies are very strongly gifted with focusing magical power – but rarely have their own beyond flight and one element (often plant-magic). They make good ‘batteries’ and familiars, but on Dragondeep they hardly are expected to do so. Though fairies seem like they should be intelligent, they are only perhaps as smart as a dog or cat. They communicate with a chittering, sing-song like voice, but can also be taught to emulate other languages. Whether they actually understand them is debatable. They come visibly in two genders, though they all look rather childlike and effeminate. They can live many decades, but no one has ever seen them breed. Fairies eat small insects, fruits and nuts, grains and sometimes eggs of small birds and lizards. They in turn are often consumed by whatever can catch them.

Pixies – the only somewhat sociable and less annoying Fey – are taller than Fairies but are just as slender and magical. They lack wings, but sometimes have head ornaments such as antennae and horns. They come in two genders, but all look reasonably alike and very androgynous. The magic that Pixies use is often light and glamour based, but they typically rely upon their extremely nimble hands to twist small plants into interesting shapes. Pixies can live up to a century, and they have large families. It is highly unusual to see a single Pixie, as they love to be around others regardless of the species. Pixies are noisy when they’re celebrating something, but often only tittering giggles will be heard in the shadows of their forest homes. Pixies are truly intelligent, but tend not to show that aspect unless they must. Among those groups who have ‘adopted’ a Pixie or two, they can be extremely helpful – getting into small locations, disarming traps or unlocking doors. They do tend toward being a bit chaotic, but they understand and even have their own form of government. Well, as much as ‘this big tree is our tribe’s, we can meet in the middle by the brook and talk about whose nut cache was stolen’. Adept at hunting small birds and mammals, lizards and snakes, but also quite good at harvesting fungi and berries, Pixies will eat anything and love sweets. Often Pixies will have clumps of homes under a well-worn bees nest. Pixies have short, descriptive names such as ‘bright-eyes’ or ‘whistles a lot’.

Fey animals such as hippocampus, kelpies, rocs, hydra, salamander (the burning/elemental kind) and many others live scattered widely across Rotwood, but have made their way with some success into most parts of the world as well. Large creatures like rocs will usually be hunted down by Griffs or Dragons, while others may escape notice for quite a while. Since these are mainly animal-intelligence and barely considered sentient for the most part they’re treated as animals for hunting. Some might have magical components which are of use in ritual magic or potions. Uniformly, they are short-lived and have never overtaken an area so badly that they needed to be culled.

There are likely other animal-like creatures living in the depths of the Fey lands, but they are few and far between.

Social Fey

Forest-kin – humanoid elemental creatures like dryads, fawns and such – exist in the great stretches of Rotwood and the entire Fey realm, in large numbers. They have some form of social order, depending on their type and nature.

Generally there is one Dryad per two hundred trees, in some spots more, and some areas are bare of them. Naiads emerge from their waters rarely, but often work with the Wisps to seduce travelers into drowning. Naiads and Dryads live as long as their representative tree or creek/waterway is living. If their source is cut down or dammed, they will perish. Naiads and Dryads only come in female shapes, and can interbreed with many different Humanoid types. Their offspring are almost always like their father in nature, but bear a strong attachment to the different element of their mother. Dryads are faintly less evil than their watery cousins. That said, they will also tend to tempt hunters or explorers into patches of itch-weed or carnivorous patches. They have mysterious sounding names, but no one really knows whether they would answer to half of the things they claim to be called.

Fawns and Satyrs are female and male half-goats, much like Wyldkin in appearance but intensely psionic toward earth and plant elements. They among all the Fey can ‘pass’ in society, but often cause a serious amount of chaos on their way out the door. Fawns and Satyrs can live for hundreds if not thousands of years, but often are done in by their own tricks or by angering others into killing them. Their reproduction is very similar to any normal humanoid. Fawns and their ilk do have a governing King and Queen, though how they come about knowing who it is, no one outside their culture knows. Most Fawns wander for a considerable amount of their lives, and can often be found among adventuring or marauding teams.

Naga have been seen very rarely, along with their aquatic mermaid counterparts, though both of these are in such limited numbers that their habits have not been documented. Each type eats a logical food for their kind: water, fish, blood, berries and meat. Only Fawns and Satyrs like cooked food. For whatever reason, none of these, or their Floral counterparts above, can learn spell-magic, and may rely on outsiders to gift them with things that only that type of magic can do. This is their typical source of trade, actually, because many of them actually like having a ring of protection or a cup that never empties of wine. Fawn society use names, titles, nicknames, family and given names, whatever is at hand. They revel in being called all manner of things.

Summoned Fey

Summoned Creatures – because of the nearby culture of Summoners, as well as the presence of the Portals, there are a large number of people, creatures or beings which have been brought to Dragondeep from their own culture, without permission.

Summoned Elementals are often part of Summoner and Necromancer rituals (though many other cultures which requires a long ritual or an extensive spell may use them). Elementals come in many sizes and shapes, but generally are smaller than Human sized. Each elemental in an area supports hundreds of splinter creatures, but they can and have on occasion join into one massive being of immense size. The more dangerous of those are the Fire elementals, obviously, but a moving Water elemental group will cause plenty of damage, Air and Ice would as well. They are sexless, and entirely magical, and can be both created and destroyed using natural magic as well as spell-based magic. No one can truly say they have ever communicated with an elemental, beyond commanding it to go to a specific place, or stop attacking. Whether they are intelligent or not, no one really knows. Elementals of any type can also be destroyed by physical means, logical to their type: removing the air around a Fire elemental will slow it down long enough to let it burn out, though dousing it with water may rebound and cause an entirely new Steam elemental to form!

Imps are the most commonly summoned Fey that Summoners work with. They are simple-minded, but clever in certain ways. They are short, stubby creatures with very dark skin (usually black, charcoal, brown or crimson) with no hair, and are humanoid in configuration, usually with an added feature such as short leathery wings, a tail with a spaded end, hooves, horns or even a second head or extra arms. They are usually no bigger than a large dog, most are around two feet tall. Though they are small, they are often quite strong, and can perform many physical tasks, from cooking and cleaning to assembling a barn, plowing a field, or spying on someone from the shadows. It is wise to know exactly what tasks these little creatures will be performing: they are good at one thing when they’re brought, and one thing only. If you want to have an imp cook you dinner you can’t then tell it to muck the horse stalls. Once they finish their task, they usually hang around just long enough to break something. But in general summoning Imps is both easy and rewarding. When they ‘go bad’, or some how break the conditioning and spells cast on them to keep them under control, they often seek out Demons and other such creatures, because that’s where they’re most comfortable. Demons can easily control Imps, they may very well be from the same world. They do not use names, they’re almost entirely interchangeable. Though they do seem to come in male and female genders, no one really knows what their life cycle is like on their own world.

Daemons are minor creatures of almost pure evil. Chaos and fun are the same word in their language for a reason. Visibly they can come in whatever appearance they desire, though they are human-sized and must remain approximately that size and shape. They have no innate gender, and appear as whatever is needed nearby. They are also known as Doppelgangers, for this reason. They have no known reproduction cycle, and have been known to eat humanoids of any kind that come near them. They’re quite clever, but not very intelligent in scholarly ways. They live as long as they live. Whether they’re created out of pure magic or born somehow, is unknown. It’s said that they may be the product of rape of a mortal by a Demon lord, though this has yet to be proven. Though they are often quite violently able to kill and eat any humanoid sized creature, Daemons generally subsist on raw magic power, and will prefer to suck the magic out of a being slowly, savoring it. If a Daemon inhabits a village, eventually anyone with any magic power will note that they are less and less able with it over time. They can learn some amount of spell-magic, but have been seen to misuse it so badly that it caused their own demise. Daemons names, like their Demon counterparts, are usually secret, but can be learned – and used against them with magic.

Demonic peasants and lords are a rarity on Dragondeep but do exist because they have been summoned by someone to the northwest in the Duchy. Some demons fulfill their duties and are merely let go into the world rather than ‘un-summoned’, and others actively fight for their freedom and kill their summoner. There is no easy way for them to get back to their native lands, unless they place themselves at the mercy of the same Summoners. (There are those among the Summoners who would gladly send them home, but finding those is hard, and Demons don’t necessarily want to lose their freedom.) Demons have their own whole society in their own worlds, and being yanked out of it tends to make them rather angry. They are excellent at spell-magic; though some of them show forms of psionic elements this is not their concentration. They have the appearance of a dark or odd-skinned humanoid, generally with horns of some description and often longer ears, flat faces, and a tail of some kind. Beyond that, they could pass as Wyldkin in ways, or even dragonkin if they had wings. They clearly come in male and female, with sharply delineated duties between them. Summoners generally bring males to do their bidding, as females are woefully under-taught and would hardly be expected to do much more than cook, clean and bear young for their masters. They live for hundreds to thousands of years, but often fall quite short of their full lifespan due to the harsh nature of their existence here. Demons will eat typical human-style food, but also enjoy the taste of flesh of sentient beings. Sometimes, while it’s still raw on the living being. Demons sport a full given and family name, but also a private, magically-imbued title which is what most Summoners use to command them.

Notable Fey Creatures or Individuals of the Era

(none at present, though some number of them have been put down by Vaelan and his hunters.)

Features of Fey

• As above. Plenty of different ones to choose from; Naturally occurring and traveled through Portals / Gates, Summoned, and Social
• Only Demonic creatures have multiple languages, as they come from different locations; all other Fey seem to speak a variety of ‘words’
• Some of them have useful parts, from which many magical spells or items can be created
• Are not heavily populated beyond their immediate and occasionally confined woods, but are usually densely found there, no one knows exactly how many there are of any different type