Faerie

Small and sparkly these beings live short lives at a fast pace. Though they are stronger than they look they do not offer a significant threat to anything bigger than themselves unless they attack in large numbers, which they are willing to do. Living on insects and being hunted by every bird of prey in their forest homelands faeries have adapted to living in a symbiotic relationship with elves. The elves provide protection from their predators and the faeries function as messengers and keep the villages clear of all sorts of insects including mosquitoes, flies and wood beetles.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Proportionately similar to a human these six inch tall humanoids are easy to overlook, or would be if they didn't trail a comet-like tail of sparkles anytime they flapped their four dragonfly wings. Large eyes, black antennae on their foreheads and feathery "ears" that reach to the top of their heads give them a strange, insectoid appearance. Skin tones that range from emerald to sapphire, amethyst or ruby, and long, dark hair of a similar colour give these beings an otherworldly beauty that stands in sharp contrast to the ferocity with which they will devour their prey.

Genetics and Reproduction

A male and female faerie will commit to each other for life and become paired. To form an intimate bond outside of a pairing, whether physical or emotional, is one of the worst crimes a faerie can commit and will result in being expelled from their community; a lone faerie is a dead faerie.
Faeries reproduce through the laying of fertilized eggs in clutches of three to five eggs each spring. The hatchlings will be cared for by their parents until the next spring when they will become fledglings and leave their parents' nest to join small groups of other fledglings of the same gender. By the next spring they will have fully matured into adults and seek out a mate to pair with.

Ecology and Habitats

Faeries love the forest and are at home in it; even more than elves. There is nothing better to a faerie than flying as fast as possible through a dense thicket of trees or racing in the midst of a tree's branches. If there is a grove of at least a handful of trees there is a decent chance that at least a pair of wandering faeries have created a nest as some point. The crowning achievement of a faerie community is to make contact with an elven settlement and move in. There is no greater protection than that which can scare a predator merely by moving its arms.
A faerie nest can be found anywhere that an owl, hawk or eagle can't reach; ideally in the home of an elf. Most elven societies have some sort of faerie presence. In fact, they welcome it and may go out of their way to track down faeries that are looking for a new home. To an elf there is no better form of pest control than to live side by side with faeries. A city that is well populated with faeries is one that has almost no insects that sting, bite or burrow into the trees.
Though rare, it is still possible to find a community of faeries living separate from elves. Often this community will be small, wild and nestled in the deepest, densest thickets of branches or brambles possible. In these cases nests will be made of grass, twigs, fur and anything else that can be woven into a thick, insulating wall that is strong enough to keep out predators.
No faerie, whether in an elven settlement or not, will fly alone, even pairs are rare. faerie's are most comfortable in gangs as small as four to as large as twenty. In these numbers they have a chance against an attacking bird of prey or of getting free of a spider's web. A lone faerie is a dead faerie.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Faeries love insects. If forced by a life or death situation, they can diversify their diet to include nuts, berries and small rodents.  That being said, there is nothing as tasty as a fresh wood beetles.
They will use their excellent hearing and ability to see in near total darkness and chase down anything that flies, hops or crawls whether it's day, night or in the insect's own burrow. The almost supernaturally strong grip of a faerie means that once they get their hands onto their prey it won't be able to escape. While mosquitoes are seen as a mid-flight snack, light meal or something to eat after drinking too much their favorite meal, and staple, is the wood beetle
Typically several gangs of faeries will enter a wood beetle nest and not stop until they've dismembered every beetle inside of it. The legs and mandibles will be wrapped up in the wings for transport and the bodies will be carried by the iron grip of two faeries working in tandem. Smaller insects, like mosquitoes and flies, are easily snatched out of the air in mid-flight and cracked open so that the interior can be sucked dry...some faeries like the crunch of the carapace but not many.
Organized insects like bees and ants are best handled with diplomatic interactions of peace and left to their own devices.

Additional Information

Domestication

There is no domesticating a faerie.  Either you, or your presence, provides something that they need or they leave.  If anything tries to drive them out they stay out of sheer spite and cause as much damage as they possibly can.  They can only be driven out if they options are to leave or die.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

A faerie's senses of smell, taste and touch run the same average range of a human.
When it comes to sight and sound a faerie is in a world of its own. Proportionately large eyes with an extremely high rod count and the capability to contract the pupil to the small pin prick and expand it to completely cover the iris gives a faerie to the capability to see from the brightest day to the darkest night. Conversely there is little room for cones in a faerie eye so they are not so good at detecting colours. Some think that the poor colour perception is what led to the rich colours of their skin and hair.
A faerie's best sense is that of sound. They can hear everything from the lowest rumble of a distant mating call of a creumure to the highest sonar calls of a bat. This is done through ears that are more akin to a moth's than an elf's. The outer ear resembles a feather and is often mistaken for a flight aid by anyone not familiar with these small beings. The stem originates just behind where the jaw bone connects to the skull, and rises to just below the top of the head. Hairs of varying sizes extend laterally, away from the skull, giving the feathered appearance. These hairs are what pick up on the sound, the length of the hair corresponding to the frequency that it can detect. Thus, it is possible to render a faerie deaf to selective sounds by removing specific length hairs. However, this must be done by plucking as cut or broken hair will grow back in short order. With no outer ear structure that is capable of controlling the direction from which sound is received faeries will use their wings, and sometimes their hands, to filter out unwanted noises. This is not a problem when they are in flight as any faerie that isn't listening in every direction while flying is a dead faerie.
The two short antennae that grow from the top of their heads give faeries the capability to sense vibration. While most faerie use their antennae to vibrations in the air around them, making them almost impossible to sneak up on, some have become adept in using their antennae to sense vibrations in any medium by pressing the bulbous tips against whatever it is they want to extend their sense through.  The only time these receptors are rendered useless is in flight.  The constant buzz of their own wings requires every faerie to press their antennae against their head while they fly rendering this organ useless.

Symbiotic and Parasitic organisms

Faeries love living within a community of Elves.  Here there is safety and lots of food.  All a faerie has to do is transmit messages from one elf to another every so often, a small price for these fast fliers.

Civilization and Culture

Major Organizations

Organization on a large scale is beyond faerie culture.
They live in small groups, called gangs, with the leader being determined by the one that is best able to locate food and work with the elves. When a faerie moves even as far away as a different neighbourhood they will join a new gang for the duration of their stay. When they return there is as much chance of joining a new gang as the one that they left. Whenever a large number of messages are required to be moved by the elves the entire social structure for an area may be dissolved and rebuilt overnight.

Common Etiquette Rules

A faerie's ears and antennae are highly personal and contact is intimate in the extreme.  To touch one without  invitation, even by accident, is among the worst offences that can be committed. The stomach is the path to any faerie's heart.  A courtship regularly starts with the offering of a steady stream of meals, from either gender, and progresses through to private flights and bonding.  Peace offerings are also made in the

Lifespan

10-12 years

Average Height

6 inches

Average Weight

1 lbs

Average Physique

Slim with little to no body fat and wiry muscles.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Faeries come in a wide range of colours, predominantly pinks, purples and blues. However, reds, yellows and the occasional orange do happen. An individual faerie's colouring is always monochromatic with the skin being the lightest tone and their nails and hair mid toned and theirs eyes the darkest. The four dragonfly wings encompass the entire colour pallet that is present on the rest of their body in a blend from darkest at the base to lightest at the tips.

Geographic Distribution

• Silver Forest