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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Fey Thoughts

I’ve been thinking about fairies a lot recently. In 4e parlance I’d probably use the word Eladrin, but for the rest of you, I’m talking about the fey nobles (Titania, Oberon, etc.). While I’ve not always included the fey in my games, I find myself more and more inclined to do so.

However... I don’t want my fairies to look like this:


or this:


They aren’t little humans with shiny wings. They aren’t TinkerbellI or Oona. They are strange, alien creatures

Not this sort of alien!

I want them to be distinctly Other. Something that’s just kind of creepy, yet beautiful and potentially terrible at the same time! I’m not sure where the idea first came to me, but it was probably looking at the various masks that are in my house, and the pictures of the masked characters of Venice. It got me to thinking about the scene in Labyrinth where Jareth sweeps Sarah into the masquerade ball.



What if fairy nobles appeared in full masquerade garb? Fully covered, head to toe, hats, gloves, and garb all highly elaborate. Full face masks, with only their eyes appearing. No skin showing at all!






I would rule the mask only removable by killing the fey noble, and underneath would be nothing! Like when Old Ben Kenobi is killed by Vader and the robes fall to the ground.



As you can see, I'm not dead, it's just been a busy week!

9 comments:

  1. I happen to have just introduced a race of masked fey in my campaign, here as described from the point of view of a player. Great minds think alike ;)

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  2. I also use quite a few fairies in my campaign set in the Dragon Warriors medieval Europe LEGEND setting. One good resource that I came across is the Pathfinder Fey Folio. I'm just educating my players about the Seelie and Unseelie courts.

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  3. Really great idea, thanks for sharing!

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  4. I love your idea of masks and nothingness. I'm in the process of designing a world, and have been working on categorizing races/creatures. I want to have elves that are somewhat recognizable to D&D players, but also have an extra mysterious element to them. Otherwise, an elf is just a person with pointy ears who is really good with a bow.

    Check out my world treatment thus far, and let me know your thoughts if you care to!

    http://shatterworldrpg.blogspot.com/

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  5. Agreed, fey should be creepy/scarey not cute.

    What if the fey are the masks? So anyone foolish enough to put one on would be possessed by the fey.

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  6. I posted some ideas on the Fair Folk in RPGs in an entry for the September of Short Adventures, here. I was also definitely inspired by some neat ideas of Zak's in his old A-Z monster review (linked in that post).

    ...though I take credit for the realization that Star Trek's "Q" is essentially a Fay! :-)

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  7. Sounds like a groovy idea and I enjoyed reading this post. Thought it was funny.

    Happy Weekend.

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  8. The best scene in the whole film. Although I ruined it for my wife by pointing out the whole sexual awakening thing.

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