Fey

Within the faerie realm there are many sub-species of ‘little people’ who are, collectively, the primordial ancestors of modern gnomes. The evil ones are known as darklings, and they are highly magical creatures. There are five basic types, and though they sometimes look similar their powers and natures are varied.

Quickling

These darklings are blindingly fast (60 km/h), constantly hasted (as the spell), and specialize in hit and run tactics to wound or steal from larger creatures. They are cruel and petty, chattering at incredibly high speed and making fun of anything slower than they are.

Spriggan

These darklings have two sizes; a small gnome-like creature with plant traits and a large ogre-like brute with tusks. They can shape shift between these forms as a bonus action, and have the backstab ability. They are brutal and thuggish, acting as bandits and thieves with an addiction to creature comforts.

Boggart

These darklings can read surface thoughts, assume illusionary disguises, and shapeshift into any small to large beast as a bonus action. They learn what their targets fear and assume that form, specializing in intimidation. They are eerie and soft-spoken, obsessed with causing fear in others for its own sake.

Korred

These darklings have goat legs, hooves, massive beards, and short horns. They weave their hair into ropes and nets of incredible strength, and possess giant-like strength and the ability to hurl boulders. They are boisterous and aggressive, with huge appetites for revelry and wrestling.

Powrie

These bloodthirsty darklings wear iron shoes and garish hats that they stain red with the blood of their victims. They are abnormally strong, wield size large weapons despite their small stature, and can become invisible. They are malicious and bloodthirsty, constantly looking for victims or reasons to fight.

These humanoid fey are defined by their passionate natures, robust physicality, and animal magnetism. Regardless of gender they all have powerful equine or caprine legs that allow them to run swiftly, leap great distances, and kick with the strength of a warhorse. They are great lovers of music and hunting, holding wild tribal revels in the wilderness to celebrate various holidays and astrological events. Most satyrs are true neutral, but a lesser percentage are neutral good (25%) or neutral evil (25%). Powerful satyrs often possess druidic, bardic, or ranger abilities.

Folklore holds that satyrs are lusty creatures that love alcohol and can charm others with instrumental music. Folklore is absolutely correct, and maidens of other races who get sucked into a satyr revel often end up with changeling children. Giving birth to a changeling child spiritually alters the mother, granting her the gift of magic and allowing her to take sorcerer levels.

Because they embody the primal vitality of nature, neutral and evil satyrs occasionally form hunting bands to go after sentient prey. Their high mobility, perfect balance, and skill at archery make them frightening opponents who are hard to pin down or engage in melee. Fey lords often keep tribes of satyrs as vassals or thugs, enabling their wild revels in return for a vow to hunt their enemies when they march to war.

There are many types of supernatural women in the fey realm, and collectively they embody different aspects of nature. Most are chaotic neutral, but some (15%) are chaotic good and some (15%) are chaotic evil. Most have a reputation for being either reclusive and shy or fickle and vain. They reproduce by mating with mortal males of different humanoid species, ‘manifesting’ a new fully-grown maiden with a mix of its parent’s traits during the seasonal equinox. ALL maidens have a powerful connection to nature, and cast spells from the primal list using the lesser progression track. They are highly charismatic and befriend creatures native to their territories, who often act as guardians.

Dryad

Plant-maidens whose souls are tethered to a sacred tree. They can teleport between trees within 5-km of their soul tree, and have a powerful charm ability which they can use to enthrall one humanoid at a time. Male humanoids who fail their saves remain enthralled until the dryad chooses to release them.

Siren

Aquatic maidens with blue-green skin who can shapeshift into ichthyoid humanoid forms (such as merfolk) at will. They have powerful voices which they can use to mesmerize or charm listeners, and often enthrall travelers to kill, prank, or interrogate them.

Nereid

Maidens made of solid water whose souls are tethered to a shawl of white gossamer ectoplasm. They can discorporate into water elementals at will, assuming various aqueous forms. The kiss of a nereid causes supernatural bliss, but if the creature wishes it can also kill air-breathing creatures instantly on a failed fortitude save.

Sylph

Ethereal winged maidens who dwell in windy high-altitude places and love to sing and play wind instruments. They can discorporate into air elementals, become invisible, and manipulate the local weather.

Nymph

The most magically powerful of all maidens, nymphs are divine beings that embody the beauty of nature. Mortals who look upon an angry nymph must make a will save or go blind, and looking at a naked nymph forces a will save to avoid instant death. They are almost always the handmaidens or heralds of great spirits or deities.

The supernatural females known as ‘hags’ are products of an ancient curse. Mythology holds that they are universally hideous, but this is false. Some hags are actually quite comely, but onlookers always sense that there is something unsettling and gruesome about them. They ‘reproduce’ by using divinations to locate psychopathic women of other races to pass their curse onto. Because such women are already shallow, remorseless, deceitful, and lacking in empathy, this gift is rarely refused. Becoming a hag confers supernatural power, oracular talents, and immense longevity. Hags are capable of bearing children, and the offspring of a hag is always a normal looking female of her sire’s race with sorcerous potential. Such daughters always mirror their sire in temperament; they are only psychopathic if their fathers were. Hags bear children for many reasons, but they are incapable of genuine love. Unless a hag has a good reason to keep her daughter alive, she will sacrifice or sell her off without hesitation.

Despite their treacherous and cruel nature, hags gain power when working together in covens. They progress as major spell casters with access to all three schools of magic, and each additional hag adds +1 level to the spellcasting abilities of all coven members (max +2). This is why hags are most often encountered in groups of three; each sister gains +2 caster levels from the arrangement, and the death of any member would diminish the other two. The statistics shown here reflect a hag who was a “normal person” before her change. Women who already possessed class levels become extremely powerful when they turn into hags, and for this reason they are almost never turned. After all, it does no good to create a new hag who will instantly dominate the rest of her new coven.

Hags derive intense pleasure from haggling, supernatural pacts, and the ritual violation of social taboos. They readily serve evil beings of greater power as mystic advisors, and trade favors to desperate people in return for acts that somehow corrupt or degrade them. Some cultures regard hags as an unpleasant necessity, accepting their presence and bargaining for magical favors in times of desperation. Most hags are neutral evil, but those who fill this cultural role become lawful evil because of the dizzying web of oaths and pacts they maintain.

There are numerous sub-species of the tiny fey known as sprites; pixies, knockers, faeries, griggs, borrowers, leprechauns, nixies, etc. Their exact powers and personalities vary, but they are all cousin races with similar statistics. The unifying traits they all have in common are the ability to cast prestidigitation, whisper, invisibility, and phantasm. Sprite leaders are always mystics of some sort, and because the potency of a being’s magic has nothing to do with its physical size, antagonizing them is dangerous. Sprites rarely kill unless one of their own is killed first, but they have a long history of poisonings, pranks, getting travelers lost, and dangerous acts of sabotage. Settlements close to sylvan forests have many myths about these creatures, and sometimes make offerings to appease them or request small favors.

Sprites have a long and turbulent history with big folk because their bodies can be used to create potions of longevity. Many psychopathic magicians and nobles have hired mercenaries to capture sprites in hopes of selfishly prolonging their lives, though virtually all nature-based religions view this as heresy. Sprites hide from big folk because of this, and if there is a need to interact they prefer to use the whisper cantrip to speak without exposing themselves.

Of all the fey creatures in existence, none are so dangerous as the fomorians. They are monstrous giants that lurk underground or beneath the sea, raiding the surface for plunder and slaves. All fomorians have two shapes they can assume as an action; one monstrous and one darkly beautiful. Meeting a fomorian’s gaze causes supernatural fear, and they can breathe both water and air without difficulty. The average fomorian is 12-14 ft tall, well-muscled, and dresses in a mix of furs, rough woolens, and torcs or bracelets of beaten gold. To remain healthy they must consume roughly 25-30 lbs of food a day, so herding and farming are vital activities for a fomorian clan. Because they also require dark emotional energy to remain healthy, any fomorian tribe without slaves to bully faces spiritual famine. Clans residing near settlements of small folk often demand tribute in the form of children, grain, and livestock, but the most important nourishment they receive is the anxiety their extortion causes.

Despite their dark reputation, fomorians can be reasoned with under the right circumstances. The fey giants readily serve as mercenaries because this affords them the chance to sate their need for mayhem, slaves, and plunder. Clans also recognize that dead victims produce no emotional glamor to feed on, so they will take action to protect the communities they bully from being wiped out. Sometimes lone fomorians find work as marauding ‘adventurers’, adopting attractive forms and expressing sinister charm to deter mob violence while collecting loot and feeding on the suffering of their opponents.