Fae

The **Fae**, also known as **fairies** or **Good Neighbours**, are a magical species resident in the forest surrounding Wickhills.

Fae can live everywhere (for example; in hollow trees, in burrows, in flowers, etc), although Gentry would most likley live in faerie hills.

## Behaviours

Fae have a number of "tricks" they often play on humans, including:

* Replacing children with changelings, fae children who look near-identical but behave very differently. (One example of this is Logan Sanders, who was left as a changeling in Thomas Sanders's place.)
* Replacing people with "stocks," wooden branches enchanted to look like humans. This happened to Mrs Galloway.
* Tying hair in knots.
* Spoiling dairy products.
* Kidnapping humans from fairy circles and keeping them for unpredictable lengths of time.
* The Wild Hunt, in which a group of fae ride out at night on horseback, accompanied by dogs, in order to hunt whatever animals and humans they find.
* Pixie leading. In most cases the fae will disorient or warp the path in the forest to get the human lost. In other, the fae will put put the human under some sort of a trance. (One example is what happened to Roman during the revel in Hoping that the whole makes sense or what Logan accidently did to Roman and Patton in The mirror cracked from side to side). More mundane form of pixie leading includes a fae imitating your companion's voice when you're apart and calling out to you to make you follow the voice you think belongs to your companion.

The fae hold revels every full and new moon.

## Weaknesses

There are a number of items or habits which serve as counter-charms to the fae or particular fae magics:

* Iron: cold iron burns fae upon touch, and is the most powerful and common protection against them.
* Running water: fae cannot cross running water. They get more and more uncomfortable the closer they get to the other bank until they can't move any closer. However, they can cross as long as there's something completely between them and the water, such as bridges and big boats.
* Turning your coat or shirt inside-out causes the wearer to disappear.
* Wearing bells: this is a common way to protect children from the fae.
* Rowan, hazel, red verbena, shamrocks, St John's wort, daisies, red berries: fae are allergic to these plants, and they can be carried as a form of protection.
* Spilling corn, poppy seeds or other small grains in their path: the fae will be compelled to stop whatever they are doing until they have counted every grain that was spilled.
* A horse shoe hung on a door would pervent fae from entering through that door.

## Appearance

Fae can vary in appearance more than humans, as they are not constricted by the human body. They appear different based on what court they belong to, Seelie or Unseelie. Fae can utilize glamours to change their appearance at will. Most fae have pointed ears and unnaturally colored eyes.

### Physiology

* Fae can't lie. Any attempt to lie would result in their voice cutting off before they could finish the sentence. They can, however, tell a factual falsehood if they believe it to be the truth.
* Fae have exceptionally good hearing.
* Fae are immortal, although they can be killed.
* While fae can cry, they don't cry saltwater, as it causes them harm. The liquid that they cry varies from fae to fae. For example; Both Virgil and Logan cry clear freshwater (although Virgil's are incredibly colder than Logan's- to a point where they can freeze), Percy cries pondwater and Remus cries the liquid one get by squeezing moss.

* A fae's temperature is determined by their court; Winter and Springs run cool (Winters much colder), Summers run very hot (for example, the air around Percy gets muggy) and Autumns are varied- most fall somewhere in the middle but some are on the extreme end of the spectrum, enough to be confused as part of a different court.
* There are many ways for a fae to be born. While some are born through the Tab A Slot B method (mostly gentries), many can be born out of nature (mostly wild fae). The most common way for sprites to be born, for example, is out of flowers. There could also be some kind of a ritual involved.
* As a general rule, the fae type of the child is the same as the parent's.
* A fae's physical age is determined by how old they precieve themselves to be as well as their age in comparison to those around them. For example; Linda stops aging a short while after Virgil does becase she percieves herself as his daughter and thus cannot get too close to his age.
* They can get sick but not from the same ilnesses as humans since they're not contagious between species. Fae are also more likely to get sick for magical reasons than biological ones.
* Fae blood doesn't contain iron as it's harmful to them and thus isn't normally red. A nymph's blood, for example, would be the color of the fluid of the plant they're related to (shades of brown, white or clear).
* Winters heal slower and often not as well as other seasons.

## Diet

Fae have a wider range of foods they can eat than humans. They can safely consume raw meat and more type-specific foods for each type of fae. A nymph for example, can eat any plant that isn't fae repellent including those who would be toxic to unseelie and deadly to humans.

Despite this, any food that is fae repellent, such as red barries for example, would affect them negatively. The severity of it depends of how powerful the fae is, what type of food it is, how much did they eat and if they swallowed it or not.

Fae are also known for having a sweet tooth and a love for dairy.

## Culture

Fae culture is largely based on their court.

### Colors

Colors have meanings in fae culture;

* **Green:** amorous, sexy. The reason is the implication that you were "rolling around in the grass" with someone and got green grass stains.
* **Red:** a repelling color. The reason fae dislike the color red isn't clear.
* **Grey, black and white:** mourning.
* **Blue:** traditional for weddings. Usually the "abducted" party/ies wears blue. Blue, the color of the sky, goes with sky-related-nature of fae wedding vows.

The courts are generally more inclined towards specific colors:

* **Spring:** tend towards pastels
* **Summer:** tend towards jewel tones and yellow.

Seelie are also more inclined to wear green.

* **Autumn:** tend towards warm colors and earth tones.
* **Winter:** tend towards grey, white, black, dark navy blue and eggplant purple.

### Idioms

Here a list of some fae idioms and their meanings:

* **I have cats to chase:** Essentially a very dismissive “i have better things to do”. Common among goblins and unseelie sprites.
* **The moon is full and the wits are waning:** Its the full moon, commence shenanigans
* **A good tree is also a good shelter:** Good things are better when they have many uses. Particular to Seelie, especially nymphs.
* **A lot of noise, but where are the acorns?** All talk and no action. Also particular to seelie.
* **Like singing to the echos:** Talking to an audience that doesn't understand you or just doesn't care.
* **A good tongue is the best weapon:** The power of a well spoken word can not be underestimated.
* **To use footstools as tables:** To be stoic when you are being made fun of. Particular to Small Folk (Dwarves, Gnomes, etc) and Sprites. It's a bit of a tongue in cheek joke about how revels and other such events are usually not designed with people their size in mind.
* **Go pick flowers:** Leave me alone. Used by both Unseelie and Seelie, but is usually noticably more scathing coming from an Unseelie.
* **Did a squirrel nest in your ear?** You have no ear for music.
* **Do you always solve puzzles with fire?** Are you always this brutish/unsubtle?
* **Just walked out of the [dark/light] and air:** Fae version of “born yesterday”.
* **A weasel is a weasel, but so is the ermine:** Valuable things can come from unexpected places.
* **To have root rot:** To be a coward. Particular to Seelie.
* **Sending a hunt after mice:** to waste a lot of effort and resources on something and get little in return. Particular to gentry.
* **Only good to sharpen knives** A person who is a waste of space. Very particular to Unseelie.
* **Do you like cream?** A rebuttal when someone asks a very obvious question.
* **Counting stars:** Staring excessively at your sweetheart.
* **Trying to sell honey to the bees:** Trying to deceive someone on a subject at which they are an expert.

### Weddings

A fae's wedding is usually incredibly private with an incredibly short engagement period. It's common for a fae wedding to have no guests at all other than their attendants and a trusted person to tie the binding knot.

Their weddings involve a tradition of a "kidnapped" party and a rescue party who needs to retrieve their spouce/s. There is no limit to who one can marry and to the number of people marrying each other. The wedding ceremony involves tying a binding knot to the hands of the fae being married while reciting their vowes.

Because names are so important to fae, it's not strange to not know your spouce's name.

### Inheritance

Fae inheritance works differently than humans as it doesn't go by the order of birth, but by their season and how early in the season they were born. A fae can inherit personal property, territory debts and gifts- both magical and mundane.

The line of inheritance goes from you as such:

* Your children who are the same season as you, from earliest birthday to latest.
* Your children who are the same Unseelie/ Seelie court as you but not the same season
* Your children who are the not of the opposite season to yours
* Your children who are of the opposite season to yours

For example; for a Spring the line will go as followed: Springs, Summers, Winters, Autumns. If there is more than one parent involved who are of different seasons, the children would inherit from different parents in diffeent orders.

If a fae doesn't have children, it goes to their sibling in the same order as the children.

If a fae has no close living relatives, a problem is formed, especially with debts as they have to go to someone. The debts would often transfer to a distant living relative.

## Mannerisms

Fae are typically easy to insult, which is why, for example, they are mostly refered to as "The Good Neighbors" by the humans who live near them.

## Types

* Gentry

Wild fae:

* Little Folk, including all types of goblins (boggarts, redcaps,cornies,etc) and all types of dwarfs (Tommyknockers, Gnomes, Leprechauns, etc)
* Ogres/ Hags (Tolls, Wood Boogers, Night Hags, Jenny Greenteeth (mud hags), etc)
* Pookas (White things, Deer Folk, Dewayos, etc)
* Sprites (Pixies, Nixies, Brownies). Unseelie Sprites are often called "Gremlins".
* "Water-dwellers" (River Runners, Kelpies, Crybabies, etc). It is a sungroup of water creatures that don't fit any other category, as there are fae in the other subgroups that live in water.
* Humanoids (Dryads, Banshee, Green Men, etc)
* Ghouls (Ghouls, Doppelgangers, Dullahans, etc)