Faerie realm

Seelie faeries are among the Shadow World's oldest and most numerous residents. The ancient fair folk are to this twilight land what the elves are to Cerilia, and are as in tune with the Seeming as the elves are with nature. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, seelie faeries might amuse, confuse, bemuse, or abuse adventurers. In fact, characters can count on only one certainty in a seelie encounter: it will prove interesting.

The physical appearance of seelie faeries cannot be generalized. Each is unique. They are tall, short, fat, thin, old, young, gargantuan, and diminutive. Some have wings, some have horns, some have tails or fins. Some look like small humanoids; others are bizarre composites of various life forms, bearing perhaps a pumpkin head, ivy hair, or goat hooves.

No one knows for certain whether members of the Seelie Court bear these characteristics for real, or whether the broad range of shapes, sizes, and features is the work of the Seeming. No other denizens of the Shadow World can manipulate the Seeming as they can. One theory offered by a handful of scholars posit that, were the Seeming stripped entirely from the Seelie Court, all these fanciful creatures would look exactly the same as each other - and very boring indeed.

In the age when the gods were young, the elements of permanence and transience - light and shadow - were in conflict. Eventually, the daylight world become dominated by permanence and light, and now is ordered according to comprehensible natural laws that operate in all times and places. The Shadow World remains a realm of transience, and the faeries embody that essence.

Two factions exist in the Faerie Realm: the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. This division is not obvious to Cerilian visitors and encounters with faeries can leave one uncertain whether one has encountered the Seelie or the Unseelie. This divide however is a pronounced one, and no faerie can claim neutrality. The difference is not between the strong and the weak, for both have mastery of the Seeming. The Seelie oppose the Shadow and seek to preserve their realm as it was before the coming of the Shadow. The Unseelie embrace the Shadow and the changes it has brought to the Faerie Realm, even so much that it is now known as the Shadow World, and will remove, destroy, or corrupt anything that stands in their way.

Seelie faeries prize beauty, in both individuals and in objects. They often covet beautiful things, be they trinkets, treasure, or human children. They may offer aid in exchange for a traveler's possession, or attempt to trick the individual out of it. They are wary of outsiders, but are not unaware of the value of allies. Cerilians who oppose the Shadow might find friends among the Seelie.

The fair folk don't like to be seen; they can become invisible at will and often move about thus hidden from view. Detect invisibility, detect magic or similar magic reveals them, as does a successful Knowledge (Seeming) against the faerie's Seeming score. A faerie might freely choose to reveal itself for some purpose, but never to an evil creature. Seelie faeries have the innate ability to discern the nature of those they encounter (as the know alignment spell).

Unseelie faeries are a macabre host of evil spirits and undead beings, the hideous counterpart of the Seelie Court. The Unseelie Court has its own dark queen and other 'nobles' who manipulate the Seeming toward their own sinister ends. The Unseelie Court comprises two types of faeries: evil living faeries, and evil undead faeries. Like the seelie faeries, each is unique in size, shape, and form.

Unseelie faeries are even more likely than their seelie counterparts to torment travelers just for kicks. Their tricks range from merely mean-spirited to seriously harmful or even deadly - particularly if the unseelie faeries believe their victims to be allies of the Seelie Court or otherwise agents of good. Cerilians are only thought useful as amusements or pawns and pets in their malevolent schemes. The are predators and openly hunt living creatures that cross their path.

Though the very nature of seelie faeries defies summary and stereotype, some of them fall into a few broad, general categories.

The Deceiver
Some faeries intentionally try to deceive those they encounter. The creatures habitually give poor directions, misleading information, and bad advice. Though they do so not out of real malice - to them, it is all a grand game - their deceptions sometimes have dire consequences for travelers in a land where a single wrong turn could prove fatal.

The Innocent
Though all seelie faeries exhibit a certain amount of childlike innocence (as evidenced in their literal interpretation of speech), some carry it to an extreme. They tag along, asking 'why' eighteen times in a row, poking and prodding at unfamiliar objects and people, letting curiosity guide them until the beleaguered traveler is driven to distraction. Innocents tend to be very young faeries (only a couple centuries old).

The Helper
Some faeries make a genuine effort to aid travelers they encounter. Usually, this philanthropy comes as
the result of a kindness shown them by the recipient or other travelers who came before. (For example, a faerie might help a Khinasi adventurer because a century ago another Khinasi did it a good turn.) The helper may reveal itself to the recipient, or offer aid secretly (for example, magically replenishing a party's diminishing rations while they sleep). The attempt at aid is not always successful - faeries have been known to inadvertently make a situation worse instead of better - but the intentions are good. The assistance is generally limited to a single instance.

The Protector
Occasionally, a faerie chooses to serve as a protector to an individual or party. Perhaps the faerie believes itself to be in the individual's debt (if, for example, the traveler saved the creature's life or outsmarted it somehow). Or perhaps the faerie seeks to aid the person's mission. Regardless of motive, the faerie watches over its charge from a distance, rendering aid or fending off harm as the need arises. As in the case of helper faeries, recipients of a faerie's protection may not even be aware of the attention or its source. But unlike helpers, protectors stick with their self-appointed charges until their protection is no longer needed (for example, the recipient leaves the Shadow World) or the obligation is fulfilled (for example, the faerie saves a life in exchange for its own being saved).

The Trickster
While all faeries delight in puzzles and games (particularly verbal contests of wit) some turn every encounter into an opportunity for amusement - at the traveler's expense. Such a creature tries to trap the unwary into commitments they would rather not keep or actions they would be wise not to take. Some of the ploys in a trickster's arsenal are downright menacing, while others are meant merely to amuse the faerie. Rumplestiltskin's bargain is an example of a trickster's plot. Because one never knows whether a faerie might be a trickster, the wise individual exercises caution while speaking with any faerie. It is easier to avoid entering a trickster's power than to extricate oneself from it.

Changelings come in two types: human and faerie. Human changelings are Cerilian infants stolen by Shadow World faeries and raised in the Seelie Court. Faerie changelings are ancient faeries left in the stolen child's place.

Like other members of the Seelie Court, faerie changelings eat nearly any food, but have an aversion to milk. Their refusal to drink milk - a staple of most human children's diets - leads to their discovery more often than any other clue. Sometimes, a perfectly ordinary human child is suspected of being a changeling simply because she or he doesn't happen to like milk.

Faerie changelings do their best to masquerade as Cerilian children for as long as possible. Once discovered, however, they flee the premises as soon as possible, often using the infamous, confusing faerietalk to create an opportunity for escape.

Brownies, leprechauns, sprites and other creatures with the fey descriptor are types of seelie faeries. Like halflings, they are able to see across the barrier that separates the Shadow and Daylight Worlds, and under special circumstances, to cross it. Some fey creatures have special restrictions that are unexplained. They cannot leave a certain pool or venture too far from a particular tree. Sages speculate that some seelie faeries use a limited form of portal magic, which only allows them access under the kinds of conditions which match the restrictions particular to that fey creature. So, for example, a dryad is listed as tree dependent. This means, "each dryad is mystically bound to a single, enormous oak tree and must never stray more than 300 yards from it. Any who do become ill and die within 4d6 hours. A dryad's oak does not radiate magic." According to this theory, the dryad's tree is a portal and a link back to the Faerie Realm, and it is this portal, and not the tree per se, which is necessary for the dryad's survival.