Main > Compendia > Creatures > Fey

This category enumerates the varieties and some individuals of the native race of Aracdia.

Fey (Commontongue), also Tuatha (Feytongue \tuˈwɔθə\ for people), idiomatically from fated, referring to their apparent immortality.

The earliest Fey came into existence during the Shattered Age, as Elf explorers journeyed through the Verging Wild to find Arcadia and became naturalized from Integral creatures to Strange creatures. The vast majority of Fey population came into existence during the early Dark Age, however, when many of the Elves of Pelithos went upon The Midnight Road to avoid corruption from the Endless Night.

Fey are a fundamental transformation of Mortal, Integral Elves into a Strange creature. They are the only known instance of a Mortal species becoming Strange en masse.

The category of Fey includes a base species: the Fairfolk are the form of Elves when they are first transformed from Integral to Strange. This is the form that Fey stay in unless they join one of the Fey Courts. Upon joining a Fey Court, the Fey begins following a Strange Philosophy developed by a Fey God. These philosophies are so profound, they actually reshape the Fey, and are the source of Fey varieties. This is not permanent, however. Fey routinely migrate between courts, and thus between species of Fey.

Fey society is broken into 15 groups: 7 Bright Courts, 7 Bleak Courts, and the general Sidhe populace. The Bright and Bleak courts co-exist in a form of constructive antagonism. Each Court itself is a philosophical exploration for meaning, which Arcadian culture feels deprived of, existentially, and it is this quest for meaning that is the founding organizing principle of Fey society, in the same way that a quest for some abstract concept of prosperity might be considered a general organizing principle of Mortal societies.

Fey differ from Mortal ecological traits in a large number of ways.

• They do not sleep, and in fact cannot fall unconscious, even involuntarily.
• They eat, drink, and breathe, but not for biological sustenance. They do not excrete.
• They do not age in any meaningful sense of the word, though they can appear older or younger at different times. This doesn't seem to be a conscious choice.
• They cannot reproduce conventionally. There are no Fey children.
• They cannot die in any meaningful sense of the word. Instead, if they are killed, they simply fade away, only to emerge some time later as if from a dream of their former life. They look the same, but how much they recall on their former life varies. Their interests and personalities can shift.