Faeries

So here's the thing- Faerie is so encompassing that there's just no way we're going to list out every possibility from every pantheon or storyworld that could possibly be covered.  We want to make sure you can play whatever stripe of Fae creature you want- especially when it comes to where you have come from.  We aren't sticking to a strict, single background at all.  Here, "Faerie" is a catch-all term for the mystical creatures from another plane of existence that hide their true forms with Glamours and do cantrips with specific outcomes. This doesn't mean you have to be a pale skinned, tall eared elf that speaks Gaelic and can only be tied to Tuatha Dé Danann.  You can be a midnight Fae from lands connected through pathways to Haiti and vibe with the Houngan. You can be a troll with ties to Santeria that hails from deep in the mountains.  You can be a Norse-inspired, Odin loving psychopomp if you want. It really is wide open. We want you to be able to experiment with wild ideas.  

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And the usual: Don't take all the talents but have none of the weaknesses.  NO ONE likes a Mary Sue. Even if his name is Tom the Teetotaler.

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So here are a few rules to help you get started:

1. "Faerie" is a place. It is the common terminology for "The plane of Existence alongside ours where Fae come from." It can mean Arcadia to some, Tuatha to others, or the pub down the block that has the best stolen whiskey for miles that, when you walk backwards under the bar while chugging a Guinesss, you end up in a ditch in a Fae version of Dublin. The whole point of Fae is that it appears as you believe and as you support. Run with it.

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2. All Fae know how to glamour and can have two, basic glamour appearances. Most tend to create one for the human world and one for the non-human world, neither of which match what they actually look like. Except for Jeff. He's a vainglorious jerk who walks around sparkling and tricking teenaged girls into thinking he's a vampire. You can do what you like- but they are fairly stable visages. You can't just pop off today and look like someone else. Unless you talent for it.

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3. Fae don't do magic. They do cantrips and literally pull dreams from their realm into the human world. In our world, cantrips are individual spells which do a certain thing and are fueled by the Fae's own Dreamstuff. Does it look like magic? Smell like magic? Will casters think a glamoured Fae is a caster? Possibly.

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4. Metal. There's one common metal that will do you serious harm, break bones, sap all of the faerie dust out of you and make it so you can't cast. Could be Iron- could be Gold- could be Silver.  Pick your poison. (We decided to make this more flexible to consider some of the more fringe Fae who actually are "allergic" to other metals than Iron)

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5. Fae thrive on creativity of just about every stripe. Musicians, artists, painters, singers, writers, sculpture artists.. but also some of the less obvious types: architects, for example. Frank Lloyd Wright was getting some help. And how better to influence the city to be less soul sucking than to infuse it with Dreamstuff?  The chocolate maker who whips up new designs and ends up with his own reality TV show on the Food Network? Fae inspired. The televangelist preacher with his billion dollar "church"? Sure, that could be Fae inspired too. Not typical, but why not? Be creative!

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Becoming a Fae: Fae is just who you are. It travels in bloodlines- though really it travels in "Soul lines". You could be born a human with a Fae soul. You could be a Fae who came here from faerie. You could be a human who had a Fae soul slammed into you by Fae parents that didn't want to admit their child was without a Fae soul! L'horreur!  Depending on the pantheon, this can happen a number of ways.  Fae is about creativity- so bring it!  Fae do not usually become hybrids but it isn't completely out of the realm of possibility.  The door to Faerie may slam shut though- so lots to consider before jumping off that bridge. Similarly, other races don't usually get a Fae soul slammed into them.  Too much other "stuff" in there to compete with and the Fae soul is rejected. Again, not impossible- Chat with Staff.

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Metal? Really? C'mon: Yes, all Fae. Pick a metal for your character that makes sense.  It will burn you, break bone, and sap the dreamstuff right out of you making it impossible to even keep your own glamour up, nevermind actually doing a cantrip.  Mixed metals and other general mundane compounds found in a bustling city have various effects and we expect players to all react differently according to their pantheon. Be creative! There was this one Pixie that exploded when she touched a solid iron bell. Its where glitter came from. Seriously. Why are you laughing?

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Age, Ability, and Talents: Fae are another one of the immortal races, but the human bodies they inhabit are not. So they may glamour themselves to remain young, but the body is aging underneath it. They tend to body hop quite frequently. No one would ever know because the glamour stayed the same.  Rumor has it the term catfishing came from a particularly foul smelling Nymph that fell for a Highborne Elf and glamoured herself to be his perfect companion, body hopping decade after decade until she finally got caught when her glamour slipped. Oopse.

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Local Collectives: Fae tend to congregate for the general familiarity and safety of other Fae but they will fiercely compete for Dreamstuff resources amongst the creative non-fae circles of any given region. Fae are fueled by the creative juices around them and are weakened by banality and mundane day-to-day-corporate-wage-slave life. The concept of a Court System still rules in many areas of the world. There are court systems of Royalty that consolidates all the real power but you are just as likely to have come from a back-water burg in Arizona that caters to stoned hippies that make tie-dye and trip balls on fae-dosed LSD and hang.  To keep backgrounds from not going clashy, try to be reasonable about where you come from and what the dominant form of  collective probably is. Don't make a character that spent 300 years in Dublin but has never heard of Maeve, Oona, or Aine.

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Leadership: Just like the collectives, leadership will vary but it is often at the very least a loosely based Royal system based on a Hierarchy of nobles with a King or Queen, or similar, at the top of the pyramid.  Thirteen Pines does not currently have an established court system nor a leader.  There was a Prince in residence for quite a long time but something about a Dryad, a Nymph, and a really pissed off Centaur ended his reign.  They found pieces of him up several trees and an ear apparently was found by the Harbor Master during an outgoing logging shipment inspection.  The remaining Fae in the city weren't too keen to try and organize a court system after that, but someone always tries. Eventually.  They're taking bets over at the gallery whether or not a Sun King or a Moon Goddess will roll up next. The casters are rooting for Loa, but that just might be for the booze.

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General Abilities

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All of these are considered the Basics of being a Fae.   You may be able to do all of these things simply by being a Fae. You do not HAVE to be able to do them. If you want your character to be very young and still learning, or just not a very good Fae, or not be aware you can do some things by nature of how you were created, you are not required to know how to do them. Have a question about something not listed? Ask!

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Special Note: Ignorance of your abilities does not give you license to create complete havoc and ruin other people's RP.  Behaving ICly in a destructive manner will likely get you hunted and killed.  You cannot nope out of consequences.

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• Speed: You are 5x faster than the fastest human.

• Strength: You are 5x stronger than the strongest human.

• Self-Healing: You heal 5x faster than humans.

• Flight: Only the small Fae without their glamours can fly. (Think Pixies and Brownies)

• Inspiring Presence: You light up a room and fuel the creative juices of those around you without even trying. Artists can't help but randomly doodle around you, singers constantly hum a tune, writers come up with some of their best lines on the back of a cocktail napkin.

• Ethereal Presence: Whether you're devastatingly ​handsome, breathtakingly beautiful, or horrifically repulsive, there's that extra somethin' somethin' that seeps through your glamour no matter how hard you try to hide it. Most don't know what it is, you just have "it". Hollywood calls it Star Quality. Hunters call it bait.

• Two Glamours: Every Fae can have two permanent glamours that they use. They need to be fairly stable. No green skin today and red skin tomorrow.

• Sense The Dream: You can feel the thinner parts of the Dream Veil, where you can pull things through easier than others.  Two steps to the left and that rainbow will come through better! Similarly, your connection allows you to see the Faerie around others of your own kind. ​

General Weaknesses

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Below are some general Fae specific weaknesses that you can chose from in our story world. You can also pick other more general human-like weaknesses like phobias, personality traits, or mental and physical conditions or ailments.  This is not an exhaustive list, but just some to give you a head start as you flesh out your character. It is a good idea to take a weakness for every talent you will pick from the talent list (or from your own list).  Again, we're not going to be policing and requiring an application- we're all adults- so please be reasonable.  Want some kind of weakness that isn't here? Ask!

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• Mixed Metal: You're not only sensitive to Iron, but most banal metals in the shimmering cities of the human world.  Cars, public transport, steel reinforced buildings... basically the city is oppressing to you. And yet, you're here anyway. Like one of those people who wear masks and gloves and are afraid of germs. Truman Capote would have loved you.

• Limited Passion:  Nothing inspires you anymore and you haven't inspired anyone else for as long as you can remember. You can only recharge your Fae batteries by drawing dreamstuff from a single type of creativity anymore. It can be anything from painting to tattooing or anything in between.

• Dude, Where Am I? You have slipped between realms for so long, that it is hard for you to determine where you are at any given moment. Are you in Faerie- is that  fire hydrant or a redcap? ​

• Thin Skinned: Banality and the mundane effect you more than most. Someone droning on can make you physically ill and need to get away from them. God forbid if its a nerd.  ​

• ​Flickerer: When you get excited, or angry, or overly emotional of any kind, your glamour will flicker and slip. Most humans miss it or do a double take and blink and think it was just their imagination- unless they've seen it before.

• Delicate Freakin' Snowflake: Other creatures may be able to take a back-hand to the face from a vampire or a shifter and walk it off, but you are not one of them.  Whether it be hollow or brittle bones, your natural state is a wee Pixie, or you just don't have what some would call a hearty constitution, you're more apt to get hurt than other fae. Note: This does not effect your healing rate, just your capability to receive injury. ​

• What Do I Owe You?: You done messed up big time at some point and you owe a significant boon to another Faerie.  This can be called in at any time, without warning.  If you take this flaw, you need to provide staff the details. It can be another PC or an NPC.  If it is an NPC, by taking this flaw you agree to admins enjoying the fact you took it. Choose wisely, grasshopper.

• True Names: As we are allowing multiple pantheons and backgrounds, we will not require that you follow True Names.  That said, if as a Fae player you wish to have that weakness, you can! You put so much faith in your True Name that to speak it or share it is to give power to others. They can do horrid, horrid things to you with your True Name. Note: If you take this talent, and tell someone your True Name, you can't nope out of the consequences. You may request FTB.

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Available Talents

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Fae have a unique twist here that the other races do not: You must pick a side.

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While you may have your character come from any background, pantheon, or leadership-run city of any stripe and flavor, all Fae still have one thing in common: They either serve one side or the other. It is that choice which determines the type of cantrips you can cast and how you pull things through the dream-veil. It is NOT limited by the type of Fae you choose to play. It is personality and philosophy based- not what type you are.

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Some talents are available to both sides. Some are only available to one side or the other. So make your choice wisely.

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Available to All

Below are some of the more common talents that all Fae have available to them.  You may choose a couple of these to have in addition to the abilities all Fae are able to do.  Again- be reasonable. Don't take them all.   Also, if you think of a really cool talent that I didn't list, ask!

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• Writer's Block:  You can cut off another from their muses for a short period of time. Usually done as a punishment of some kind, or just because you don't like someone. You pull Fae shackles through the dream-veil and block off their particular muse. Other Fae can see the shackle- but non-Fae cannot.  These could be a blindfold on a painter, a gag on a singer, full leg casts on a dancer, etc.  Be creative. Fae can try to resist because they can see it coming- others not so much.

• Cantrip Collector: You have a stack of cards that you keep on you at all times. Each card is marked with a powerful sigil which will allow you to 'play' a cantrip and inspire those around you.  Just like a normal deck of cards, there are four types that influence four different muses. How you play these cantrips is up to you and should be influenced by the side you've chosen.

  • Cups: Inspiring spirituality, emotions and love, this cantrip can set the soul afire or douse it like a cold shower on prom night. All depending on what you want it to do. You cannot make someone love someone else unless both parties are already on that path. But you can certainly inspire a momentary flash of sizzle.

  • Swords: Inspiring Reason and Logic, this cantrip can help someone work their way out of a puzzle or make them more confused and stuck, depending on your intention.

  • Pentacles: Inspiring material possessions, greed, and career, this cantrip can help someone rise to new heights in the political arena or strip them of everything they care about because of a bad decision. 

  • Wands:  Inspiring Will and Creativity, this cantrip can help bolster someone up or tear them down depending on your intention.

• Mulit-Faced: Every Fae can have two fairly permanent glamours that they use regularly. You have perfected how to have two more. It takes effort and has a 24-hour cooling off period in between changes, but you can change your appearance like putting on a new suit.

• Personal Dream Battery: You have inspired a particular creature so well that their creativity fuels your very being. You can feed off of this person, for lack of a better term, and boost your batteries to make your cantrips more powerful. You have to be careful though- you can take too much and kill your pet if you're not careful.  The more you take, the longer they will go without their own ability to dream and be creative. ​

• Soul Mirror: You can see through the veil at the soul of another and see their aura. This would give you a general idea of their mood and general temperament. Vampires are always devoid of an aura. ​Shifters pulse with a low-grade red at all times.

• Who do you think you are, Icarus? : Even though you are a larger fae of some stripe, you can still fly because you have wings. However, you have to drop your glamour to do it.

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Available to The First

Some call it the First, but others call it the Sun. The Seelie Court gets all the good press and most of it is complete bull.  Friendly with humans, warning them against slights and helping them through troubles. Cha, as if. Oh sure some fall into all those pretty lies and try to be "Good" but there comes a time in every Fae's life where you just want to cause a little ruckus.  Who would suspect a pretty little sweet Pixie of anything improper?

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• Light's Blessing: You can pierce the dream-veil with beams of light and bend it to your will. You can set things on fire with it, blind your opponents, and you're the most popular person on the dancefloor. Some people call you Discoball- though that might be for a different reason. No judgement.

• Fae Colored Glasses: You have this habit of brewing teas and making cakes and cookies for others that have one too many Fae ingredients in them.  People who eat them tend to think they're hallucinating but what they're really seeing is Faerie. The effect only lasts for a couple hours- depending on how much they ate, of course. What they see would be up to the player, but it would be influenced by the Fae's pantheon.  So a Caribbean Fae who follows Papa may make a King Cake and those who eat it see the world dripped in purple, green, and yellow beads of a twenty-four-seven-mardi-gras... or maybe a thicket full of heavy cypress and willows in a swamp while another may see the African Desert or the rolling green Highland Hills.

• Presto-Chango: Typically only the smallest of fae use this one, but that Troll that lives under the bridge by the mountain? Yea, he does it sometimes too so he can climb up this Dryad and.. oh, well, anyway. Sometimes you just need to be big and sometimes you need to be small. Think Tinkerbell in a poof of faerie glitter. First you're one size, then you're another. Poof. Lasts until you change back and you can only change twice in a twenty-four hour period without draining the faerie right out of you.

• Seelie Gifts: You are able to bestow small gifts or blessings of luck, chance, or downright freakin' miracle. That scratch-off ticket the single mother of four in front of you just bought suddenly pays off, the exam your neighbor swore they were going to fail comes back with a C, congratulations, you're having twins! You get the idea. They are generally small bursts of good fortune. Check with your RP partner and present options.

• Boon of Pure Luck: You can bestow good luck on someone for 24 hours. This cannot result in tangible goods like the Seelie Gift Talent above which is a one-off, tangible gift. This is more- that puddle they almost stepped in, managed to see in time and not. Missed getting hit by that car that ran the red light- ducked fast enough to avoid a baseball at the ballpark, those sorts of things. This is significant and will drain a Faerie for the day.

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Available to the Second

They really hate being called the second- or the lesser- or the dark to the light- or the Unseelie Court. The goblins and alley dwellers shunned by the beautiful and sweet. The cruel tricksters and backstabbing fiends that will punch you for a sandwich and convince you that you wanted it. The dancers under the moon covered in blood but you thought it was oil. The stuff of nightmares and delusions. But did you ever stop to think that they were just more honest about who, and what, they are instead of those lying, egotistical, attention whores in the other court?

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• Cloak of Shadows:  You can literally pull the darkness out of Faerie and create tangible things with it. These shadows do whatever you ask. You may make them solid, you may create little creatures, you can make it dance or blot out the sun. You can protect a vampire from sunlight or snatch it away when it least expected it.

• The Sandman He Comes: You have perfected pulling a little bit of the Dream Dust through the veil and carry it around in your pocket. If someone ingests it (inhale, swallow, whatever) they become INCREDIBLY suggestible to you. As a consent sim, please work out the result with the other player. It is also resistible.

• The Blob:  You've been called the Thin Man, Jelly Roll (....wait), Stretch Armstrong,  and even Gumby from time to time. While your mass never changes, you can let yourself go and become very fluid. Need to get through that two-inch gap under the door- go for it. May take you awhile since you still have the same mass and there's a lot of you, but you can do it. Need to reach the top shelf? Stretch.  This does allow you to have your liqui-limbs be somewhat prehensile, but you do not have any fine motor control. The downside here is that it takes a hot minute to reconstitute on the other side and you are absolutely vulnerable. No insta-snap back. Take a pose round to start to come back together for even the smallest liquification- so be reasonable when reconstituting.

• Unseelie Curses: No one slights a Faerie. And slighting you especially can end ... poorly.  You should work with the person you're cursing: present them with options and let them choose which. This Curse cannot physically harm them or others. What they do with it is another story and up to them.  This could be things like making the person late to work on a day that it was vital they weren't. Everything the person eats that day tastes like something they hate. Drinks all taste like prune juice. You get the idea. Maybe they slighted your prowess, so you decided to make it so they can't get it up. Be creative but work with the other person.

• Malediction:  Like the Seelie Boon of Pure Luck, you can put a wet blanket over someone for 24 hours.  They're gonna step in every puddle, be late for every meeting, get sick every time they eat anything, develop a rash if they stay in the sun too long. It can really be anything but you should make sure your victim sets the terms. They can't Nope out of it entirely but do let them decide what all happens. This is significant and will drain the Faerie for the day.