The Fey

Fairies. Daemons. Wild Things. The Fair Folk. The Fey have as many names as there are stars in the sky. They are foreigners in The Mortal Realm, come from The Otherworld. While some are benign, most are simply too alien to understand right from wrong, and might slay you out of good will, or aid you out of malice. Many are openly hostile, and behave like wild beasts, if only craftier.

After Thyrgar was imprisoned in the heavens, The Fey began to break through from The Otherworld and into The Mortal Realm, where Lys, in the absence of both Thyrgar and the Hrafnir, is too weak to stop them. Their world is an empty, hollow place, where no things live and nothing grows. The weak ones come as spirits, too frail to take on physical form, and thus occupy a space partways in The Otherworld and partways in The Mortal Realm. Stronger Fey known as Wild Things enter the world fully, and take on shapes that mimic the creatures of the natural world to greater or lesser extent. The mightiest of the Fey are the Fairy-Kings, who claim domain over aspects of The Mortal Realm and become patron gods to their mortal followers. These are the Younger Gods, vast pantheons that stretch all across the world. Their influence is limited, however, and different lands have their own pantheons, with their own gods. It is not unusual for the domains of gods to overlap, for after all, what could a god in the west do to contest a god in the east?

Though there was once a time where Fey were welcome guests, who lived side by side with mortal men, none in living memory, save perhaps The Green Man, still remember. Unchecked and free to roam as they see fit, Wild Things have become a scourge unto the land, hunted by mortals known as Slayers. It is they who have become heroes in their peoples' eyes, for without them the mortal races would surely crumble at the hands of the beings from the Otherworld.

The Fey do not obey the same laws as mortals. That said, they are not without weakness - most any Fey in mortal form is weak to fire, silver, or cold iron. Unlike mortals, Fey have no afterlife in which to rest. When a Fey is slain, its stolen body returns to the land from whence it came, and the soul within crumbles into the nothingness from whence it came.

Indeed, even the forgers of The Mortal Realm - Wol, Thyrgar, Lys and Lyra - were once Fey. Though they were also the first of The Fey, and share little resemblance with those who came after.