Seelie Court

While the Fey are chaotic and wild, paradoxically they follow strict laws of etiquette and magic. Those who delight most in beauty, light, pleasure and dalliance are called Seelie Fey. Seelie fey are known to seek help from mortals, warn those who have accidentally offend them, and return their kindness with favors of their own. Still, woe betide those who insult the Seelie Fey, and they are no strangers to mischief. Even worse, the "favors" of an immortal nature spirit may not mesh well with the needs and wants of mortal beings.

Structure

The Seelie Court is a complex web of allegiances, favors, and social currency. Niamh of the Golden Hair is the Queen, and most status and recognition flows from her according to her whims. She can grant and remove titles, positions and favors at will. Because she can invent new titles as she desires, the actual structure of the court is extremely difficult to track, with countless Princes, Barons, Dukes, Ministers, Royal Jesters, Earls, Princesses, and so forth.
What matters in the end is less about the formal titles a member of the court holds, and more about the affection they garner from their peers and the power they can bring to bear. Beauty is a major status symbol, so creating great works or scenes of loveliness can escalate a lowly fey to an important minister.

Culture

Appearances are nearly everything. Members of the Court spend much of their time keeping up with the latest fashions, innovating their personal appearance or the décor of their domains and subjects, procuring gifts or objects of great beauty and wonder--including mortals!
Interactions between members of the court are constant struggles of polite, eloquent one-upmanship. The more poetic and beautiful one's speech to other Seelie fey, the more admirable you are. The more elaborate your entrance into the court, the more renowned you are. The court spends very little time on urgent matters such as defense or strategy, and given their access to fairy magic they have no need for taxation or economic policy. Instead, they lavish gifts on each other, the more unique and beautiful the better, as a way of measuring favor and status against each other. Most court gatherings are centered around performances, dances, celebrations, feasts, and other recreational activity.
That said, despite the constant struggle for clout, the Seelie court simultaneously genuinely loves the natural world and the beauties of art. They are a people of paradox, both calculating and sincere.

Public Agenda

The Seelie Court exists to beautify the world and oppose all that is ugly and unpleasant.

History

After the Hunt for the Red Deer and the Kinslaying, Niamh of the Golden Hair departed in anger from her sister The Lady Rowan. She returned to The Otherworld and crowned herself Queen of Faerie, even as the Lady Rowan did the same in the briars and brambles. Those who sympathized with Niamh's plight joined her, and she anointed those closest to her as her courtiers and ministers. 
A scant few centuries later in 6284, the first major conflict between the two rival courts began when Niamh saw an opportunity to use the Huldra and their new mantles of power against her sister. She abducted Ri-Gheimhridh, the Winter King, to harness his powers against her sister. The Lady Rowan responded by manipulating the Winter, Spring and Summer Huldra nations, whereas Niamh was able to sway the Fomhor elves to her side. A nightmarish war of kinslaying--a cruel echo of the blood spilt by Niamh and Rowan before they parted--left neither queen with an advantage, and the paladin Gisirgis journeyed into The Otherworld and rescued Ri-Gheimhridh from Niamh's grasp. The Autumn Wars ended in 6318, and since then, the Seelie court has treated the Autumn elves with a cool disdain.
In 6412 Uzhul destroyed the avatar of Erecura and the Infernals claimed dominion over the Mortal World. Repulsed by their cruel ugliness, Niamh and her fey withdrew almost entirely to the safety of the Otherworld. But the two realms were connected too closely, and as suffering spread across the world, the Otherworld itself darkened. In this time the Seelie Court spirited away children to live with them in eternal youth, sparing them from the Iron Empires while also taking them from their own parents. Some folks managed to endure the Demonic Imperium by making offerings to the Fey for protection, and in exchange the Seelie Court obscured them with faerie glamors.
Some time before 6858, the magical barrier surrounding Ioth Academy weakened, and Seelie fey started slipping through the veil to explore this forbidden place. Pixies emerged to play their pranks on students, seelie Satyrs invited upperclassmen to join them in revelry, and chaos followed in their wake. This led to conflict between the Academy and Niamh, exacerbated by the death of multiple pixies at the hands of Garnet Tohsaka. After Vindur fractured the Golden Sphere and Morco declared the start of the Faerie Games, Niamh was determined to win the magic of the school--and if not that, the favor and admiration of the school--simply so her sister could not.
Fortunately, Inril Untermauler managed to establish a peace treaty between the academy and the Seelie Court, but that did not put a halt to the Faerie Games. It did shift the balance of power, however, when students of the school banded together to form their own fey court--the Court of Reverie.
Well after the end of the Faerie Games, the Apotheosis of Ramius in 6900 meant that the fey felt comfortable returning to the mortal world. Those who'd taken refuge in the Otherworld but chose to return to the Mortal World were called the Dea-Dhaoine, and the places where the veil was thin were suddenly populated by fairies, pixies, harrengons and other fey creatures.
Centuries later, Niamh courted both Ahlaper the Celestial and Nuinn, the Man with Roots for Boots. On a whim--and as a ploy to seal an alliance with Nuinn's Wild Fey court against her sister--Niamh proposed marriage to the archfey. Hospitality demanded that she invite her sister to the wedding. The end result of all this was a catastrophic wedding in the Fomhor city of Lunasa. The Seelie Court was humiliated by the Quest for the Book of Dawn, the wedding was called off, and the court retreated to The Otherworld to regroup and lament.

Demography and Population

Common parentages of the Seelie Court include:

• Elven
• Fairy
• Centaur
• Dryad
• Grippli
• Harengon
• Harpy
• Satyr
• Unicorn
• Pixie
• Sprite
• Flithidir
• Foxin
• Korrigan
• Lazavik
• Nymph

Laws

• If you accept a gift without giving something in return, you are indebted to the giftor.
• If you refuse a gift, you have gravely insulted your host
• A guest must always honor their host, and a host must always honor their guest
• All debts must be paid

Founding Date

5964

Type

Court, Royal

Alternative Names

Fair Court

Demonym

Seelie

Leader

Niamh of the Golden Hair

Head of State

Niamh of the Golden Hair

Government System

Monarchy, Absolute

Economic System

Post-scarcity economy

Location

The Otherworld

Related Ethnicities

• Dea-Dhaoine

Related Plots

• The Fairy Games