Fey

The fey are an immortal species, who have been called by many names in different places. Sometimes they are known as the Old Ones, sometimes the Fairies, sometimes the Glamour and sometimes the Hidden Lords and Ladies. The Stability Council believe that the fey have existed within their secretive archetypal realm for as long as there have been human evolutions within the local Discontinuum and their presence in the folklore of many, many worlds, suggests a deep and abiding symbiosis between the evolutions and their archetype which surely reveals much about the complex nature of the shared connections that bind the universes together. The fey seem to thrive on drama, within their own society and elsewhere when they can manufacture or foster it. It might be the case that drama is their literal life blood. The fey are regarded with ambivalence within the evolutions. On the one hand they are seen as bringers of wonder and beauty and guardians of magical secrets that can bestow great blessings on the lucky. On the other hand, they are known to be capricious and cruel and their whims may wreck life and love for the mortals they choose to curse.

Basic Information

Biological Traits

The fey are immortal, in that they are not subject to the natural laws of aging and death that afflict humans in the evolutions. This does not mean that they cannot on occasion suffer from sickness and disease, most commonly in the form of melancholy and a kind of ennui from which they may take centuries to recover. The fey can die from acts of violence, so that death in combat, and occasionally in tragic accidents, is the usual cause of their demise. More rarely they can also suffer from a fatal and strange form of wasting they call the Fade, which afflicts only a very few individuals at any one time and has no known cause or cure.

Genetics and Reproduction

The very first fey were created from chaos and imagination in the age now known as the Dawn of the Fey. These were the Unelmien Lapset, the Children of the Dream and they are now thought to be exinct. At the start of the Age of Wandering, the first child was born of the union of a male and female fey, Merch Gyntaf, who was also known as the first of the Veren Lapset, the Children of Blood. All modern fey were born in the same way, since the generative power of the age of the Dawn of the Fey has now faded. Because the fey are immortal and only subject to rare forms of death, their population would explode if they reproduced at the rate typical for humans. Some stories say that there may have been a time when the fey sought to expand into other realms and their numbers did indeed grow very rapidly, but if that ever was the case, it is no longer true. Now the fey limit reproduction to the very few numbers that are needed to replace the tiny loses that occur over the ages. In part, their fertility is naturally low but in part too, it appears that there are strict social rules which mean that a fey birth is something very rare and special. One important point about fey reproduction is that it does not necessarily follow patterns of genetic inheritence which mortals might expect to see from parent to child. Under the laws of form of an archetype and still carrying elements of the dreaming that were so strong in the Unelmien Lapset, even the children of pure born Veren Lapset can vary wildly in their racial characteristics. This is due to their sensitivity to unknown and unknowable driving factors within neighboring evolutions. Do not look for uniform racial groups within the fey which maintain any form of common identity. An individual's visual racial characteristics might mirror those of some mortal race but it has no significance within fey society where matters of class and privilege are determined by entirely different factors.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

The vast majority of all fey now dwell in the realm of The Fey Court but historically they were always a wandering race and some few can be found travelling or dallying in many other evolutions and archetypes. They have lived for many ages and have a natural affinity for travel between realms of the Discontinuum, and they have also perfected new techniques to breach high barriers into otherwise inaccessable realms, most notably through the use of Changlings.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

The Veren Lapset have two names, a private family name which is chosen for them at birth by their father and mother and a name they choose for themselves which is the public name used in all the articles on this site. It follows that the Unelmien Lapset have only the public name. Names may have two parts or just be a simple single word. Nothing can be assumed about lineage from the second or first name, since it is rare (although not completely unheard of) for fey to take the names of ancestors or partners.

Major Organizations

The Fey Court is ruled by Queen Mab (shown in the image at the head of this article) but the fey are fierce, proud and independent as individuals and it is difficult to say exactly how much authority she has, except in the governing of certain key rituals, like the Dance of the Silver Tide. The custom of travel into evolutions is widespread and often faciliated by the use of changlings, a method that is commonly practiced at Jäätynyt Ovi using the special rituals in which Shailyn Jää is an expert. She is the chief Changer in the Council of Changlings.

Beauty Ideals

Both male and female fey are almost always (with a very few notable exceptions) gifted with an extraordinary supernatural beauty which is dazzling to mortals and is the reason why they are sometimes called the Glamour. They understand how to wield this beauty like a weapon both in the company of mortals and in their own complex social games.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

The Festival of Song is perhaps the most important regular cultural event in the life of the fey. It has been held every five years since the Age of Wandering with only a very few interuptions when the fey were at war.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

They fey love ritual and tradition, which they use as a way to constrain behaviour and to play games with mortals and between themselves. It is their delight to make and break elaborate rules and then to enforce elaborate penalties on the offenders. There are certain customs that they think particularly important, the most significant of which is the periodic reshuffling of their romantic attachments at the Dance of the Silver Tide. The ritual of Lost Memory is another very important tradition practiced privately and also communally when a king or queen dies.

History

It is important to appreciate that the Fey Court is not a properly constituted evolution. Time here is subject to strange jumps and loops the fey call "shudders" and history is less certain and more mutable than mortals in the evolutions can comprehend. Subject to that proviso, we can at least theoretically attempt to map a coherent timeline which is relevant for all contemporary observers at any given moment. Such a timeline is known as an iteration and the Fey Court is currently subject to the third known instance of such an iteration, since externally moderated records began. This is the unstable history discussed below. The fey seldom reveal much about their long past to outsiders and what little is known is only a patchwork of story and fable. They claim that in the beginning they once had to fight primal monsters to establish the Fey Court and they still keep the ancient border fortress of Jäätynyt Ovi in the north as a deterrent to the Frost Giants. In the West, they hold the castle called Caer Cathasach which they also call the New Castle because it replaced a much older fortress that was lost to a powerful enemy from deep in the Fever Dream at the cost of many fey lives. Once, the Fey Court was based around a great castle complex they called the High Seat of the King, built on a hill called the Binding Rock in the land of Tân y Gwanwyn. Now only the Old White Tower, Hen Tŵr Gwyn remains and the Court has moved to Shalderenen and the Great Circle Woods. It was at this time too, that the fey changed their rules of royal inheritence to favour queens as their first option for succession, instead of kings. After countless years of relative peace, recent history in the royal family and in the realm as a whole has been turbulent once again and culminated in the Second Rift War, an existential threat to all fey, in which they suffered many losses before they emerged victorious. Now under Queen Mab, the Fey Court has hopes of longer term peace once again. A more comprehensive account of some of the most interesting aspects of their current historical timeline can be found under the article explaining Historical Iterations and within the one covering the White Tomb.