Lord, what Fools these Mortals be!

Earth Shakes
Seasons Turn
Mountain Quakes
World Will Burn

Palace of Old
the Hidden Revealed
World Grows Cold
Fate is Sealed

Black Sun Rise
Red Moon Fall
Fae's demise
the Doom of All

- Prophecy by the Mad Seer Culaina of the Spring Court

This is the main site for the RPG group I'm running. We're be playing the "Dark Age: Fae" game by White Wolf, and all the setting-info and houserules will be posted here. Eventually.

The Oathcircle

The Clans

NPC's

Locations

Adventures

The Forum

There is a world humans can't see, but sometimes stumble into. It's a world that lies hidden between two blades of grass or behind an old stone. There are creatures here which are beyond human comprehension, creatures composed of pure magical energy given form. They are beautiful and terrible as the dawn, treacherous as the sea, and they are glory and terror incarnate. In short: They're us. In a hidden world boiling over with courtly intrigue, espionage and murder in the dark, where war is ever looming over the horizon, the mighty rulers fear the prayer of the peasant woman. As the Old and the New clash, society will crumble for the want of a nail, and old conspiracies and mysteries may yet be brought to light. To the ruin of all.

Faerie

Faerie is the world of the Kindly Ones, where they still Rule as they did of old. But the world now belongs to humans (though not everyone realizes this fact, like most humans), and so fairy-land has no place in the "Real World". The last pockets of safety, the remaining havens are like colourful soap-bubbles placed on a map: They contain far more space then what actually touches the map, but as soon as it loses its connection to the mortal realms it floats away into the mists, never to be seen again.

That said, most of them are far away from this fate. They are inhabited by energic fey with strong Oaths, binding themselves firmly to humanity. They are places where palaces of crystals and bowers of pure sunlight exist, and where the moon and sun do not follow the same paths. It's like going through a wardrobe and encountering a wintery land of wonder, or going too far into the forest and discovering an unknown city. Almost anything is possible, as long as those who Rule wills it to be.

Fae Psychology

Despite the rather pretentious headline, this little blurb is rather simple, although it covers some very important points not really explored in the rulebook.
The Fae are described as being very "alien", and the fact that they don't really understand humanity is repeated a lot. But they don't explain how the fae themselves think and act, only that its very different from the humans. Actively thinking "I don't understand this" when confronting normal, human events is difficult without a frame of reference. Hence this little text that should give some pointers.

To illustrate: The medieval man had to toil physically simply to survive, to get enough food. Hygiene was lacking most of the time, the streets were dirty and sickness flourished. The Fae on the other hand, lived in a land where food was plentiful, and nobody had to really work unless they wanted something. all basic needs were met, so politickeing and entertainment were their only concern, until humans became a threat.
My point is that instead of trying to think like we grew up in the dark ages when portraying our characters, we should instead be trying to think a little like we were people from the 21th century living in the dark ages.

Think about it: The fae have food aplenty and good health. Compared to the are, so do we. We live in a society where physical toil is optional most of the time, and where technology can provide near-magical wonders for us. THIS is why the Fae react strangely to the humans: Their world is as weird as it would be to us if we hadn't learned history.

If you took a bus for twenty minutes, and ended up with people who never bathed, who weren't able to go into a store to buy food and who were incapable of using electronics, wouldn't you think they were different and strange? Not to mention inferior? That's how fae see humans. And it's a great help when trying to play them: Act as if the human part of the dark medieval times are as strange to the character as it is to you personally.
Though of course much of the Fae realms and magic is as normal as TV's and guns are to us. It's all in the eye of the beholder (while the adventurer is in his maw)....

The Setting

The land as a whole has no name in the tongue of the courts, but the mortals will later know it as Scotland. It is one of the few places where all four courts have significant holdings, and as such it is rife with politicking, intruige and espionage. From the ever-secretive Stonehenge in the south to the remote and inhospitable isles Orkeny-islands to the north, the Fae have their hidden palaces and groves.

I'm just flat out saying this: The two things I suck at the most is History and Geography, so do not expect historical or geographical accuracy. I'm trying to study this, but expect weird anachronisms and funky stuff. Loch Ness is two hours travel from London? Stonehenge is right outside Glasgow? Lindisfarne was sacked two weeks ago? Get used to it. And as the master ST I am, I have come up with two cunning excuses, which are more cunning than a fox with a Ph.D. in Cunning from Oxford university:

1. The World of Darkness isn't technically the same world as hours, so history could have taken place differently. I'll try to keep it real, though. no aliens in kilts, etc.
2. The mists. As we all know, fae aren't connected to time and space like mortals are. This makes it difficult for player characters to understand the world like mortals do. Hence the weird inconsistencies, and differences from the way mortals believe the world to be.

So there. Even the most heinous and horrid mistakes can now be justified. Now I'll get back to the book of historical maps and stories about medieval europe...

Inspiration

Quite apart from the DA: Fae book itself, many other sources have helped when constructing this setting. For those who want to get a better idea about what kind of place their characters are living in, I can reccomend the following books and comics. Most, if not all, are found at the local library.

• "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell" by Susann Clarke. Has vivid descriptions of Fairies as human-like people, but underlines the differences between their way of thinking rather than their appearance. I have yet to find better representations of high-mists fae, and the way she interprets fairy-magic if f-ing glorious.
• Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. A young man has Adventures in Faerie. More or less perfect for our use.
• Sandman, book III: Dream Country, by Neil Gaiman. The tale "A midsummer night's dream" has images of the faeries that more or less made this setting happen. The rest of the sandman series also has glimpses of faerie, especially "Seasons of mist", "Worlds End", "the Kindly Ones" and "The Wake".
• The Books of Magic, By Neil Gaiman (man, he dos write a lot of fairy-stuff, don't he?). In which the boy timothy Hunter is taken on a tour of the magical world, including one of the best, and most extensive, portrayal of Faerie ever.
• The Books of Magic 1 and up. Though these follow-ups weren't created by Neil, they do have lots and lots of faerie-imagery. Though not as good as the original, they do have their style, and give a much better impression of how the inhabitants of faerie actually think and act.
• The Books of Faerie. Spinoff from the Books of Magic, centered around the history of Faerie. Though the society modelled after the human one a tad too much, this is good info for those having problems visualizing fay-to-day life for fae.
• A Faerie Tale, by Raymond E. Feist. Unlike the others this isn't a comic, but it is exremely well written. It tells of what happens when the local fae take an interest in the local family just moved in from Hollywood. wonderful depiction of fae moral and mentality, but best of all is the mortal/fae interaction.
• A Midsummer night's dream, by William Shakespear. If only because it has inspired so many others. Not to mention the fact that the way the faries squabble amongst themselves, and manipulate the mortals can be quite fitting.
• Tithe, by Holly Black. easily read and quite amusing book about a girl who finds out she's a changeling. A good primer on the fey realms as seen by a newbie, though in a modern setting.
• The Book of Ballads, by Charles Vess. A bunch of authors took ancient british ballads and wrote them into stories, which Mr. Vess illsutrated and collected into a book. So far he is the single best illsutrator of faeries. Ever. Those who have seen his work in Sandman and Stardust probably agree on this. The fact that the stories themselves are like unto the foundation of much of the faerie-lore we have today is also a pretty good reason to look through this volume.

Lots of Articles about the Fae

• Though these are deigned for D&D, there's a lot of information about the psychology of the Fae, not ot mention a couple of interesting versions of how their society could be like. Though the setting is the traditional Seelie/Unseelie, it's easy to mentally re-write a few details when reading them.

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