Pale Folk

The Pale Folk are a race of magical beings who inhabit wild places far away form humankind. They are most strongly associated with forests and rivers, but have been reported in nearly every natural habitat. Human encounters with Pale Folk typically consist of only brief glimpses of pale figures in the periphery who disappear before the viewer can bring them into focus. Those who claim to have gotten a closer look at the Pale Folk describe them as generally human in appearance, but slender and very fine-featured with alabaster skin and large eyes. Most seem to have white, silver, or platinum hair, but most hair colors found in humans have been reported. Pale Folk seem to be very attuned to magic, particularly nature magic. Some magical abilities--like their ability to shake off the gaze of humans and the ability to enchant men with their beauty, their gaze, or their song--are so common that some believe they are inborn powers that the Pale Folk can command even witout magical training. When Pale Folk approach humans, it's usually to offer them some kind of deal that often takes the form fo the wager and always turns out to be much less straightforward than it seemed. Another common Pale Folk tale involves a human being lured or invited inot a Pale Folk freehold, where they enjoy (what seems to them to be) a night of delicious food, drink, and frivolity. When they awake the next morning, they discover that days, months, or even decades have passed. The halls where Pale Folk hosts their revels are found under hills, behind waterfalls, deep in the forest, or even underwater, often in spaces that are seem much larger than whatever natural feature seems to hide them. For this reason, many scholars believe that the Pale Folk are a type of Elteri and that their freeholds exist in other realities connected to our own by natural portals. However, there is also a competing theory that says the Pale Folk are whole terrestrial embodiments of nature and that their lairs are pocket dimensions that exist naturally in our world, accessible by paths that aren't usually perceptible to humans.