How do you run the Fair Folk?

[Sunder the Gold]

I like the Ex3 presentation of Raksha as we know them being a specific type of wyld denizen, and not some archetypal framework for all things Wyld.

The Unshaped being the true form of Raksha, and being the only real lifeform of the Wyld, worked back when the Wyld was just a lavalamp of formless, meaningless nonsense.

The new nature of the Raksha, and the addition of more variety in Wyld lifeforms, has sadly not been matched by making the Wyld less nonsensical.

Is the Wyld supposed to be practically-empty Kaos, or is it supposed to be a hodgepodge of alien realities with alien worlds and alien species?

Like what they've done to the Underworld, with its various different afterlives, all separated by the seas of the dead?

[Dex Davican]

The Wyld is mutated Creation. Think of Chaos’ influence a bit like how radiation works in pulp stories. It’s an alien corruption of “natural” forms. Even in the Deep Wyld, that corruption follows patterns and forces, even if those aren’t clear to the Creation-born.

Meanwhile, fae creatures (like Fair Folk and Hobgoblins) aren’t corruptions so much as they’re mimics. They’re true aliens to Creation, bearing some trappings of reality in order to consume reality.

Beyond the borders of Creation, there is no Wyld because there’s no reality to corrupt. There’s only formless potential, a Chaos so senseless that it might as well be nothing. A vast ocean that would dissolve you into millions of specks of potential spread across infinity. A blank page that absorbs any ink lesser than the titans’ demiurgic miracle.

[Sunder the Gold]

The Wyld is mutated Creation. Think of Chaos’ influence a bit like how radiation works in pulp stories. It’s an alien corruption of “natural” forms. Even in the Deep Wyld, that corruption follows patterns and forces, even if those aren’t clear to the Creation-born.

Meanwhile, fae creatures (like Fair Folk and Hobgoblins) aren’t corruptions so much as they’re mimics. They’re true aliens to Creation, bearing some trappings of reality in order to consume reality.

Beyond the borders of Creation, there is no Wyld because there’s no reality to corrupt. There’s only formless potential, a Chaos so senseless that it might as well be nothing. A vast ocean that would dissolve you into millions of specks of potential spread across infinity. A blank page that absorbs any ink lesser than the titans’ demiurgic miracle.

So Wyld creatures are only native to the boundaries of Creation and Chaos, and the only lifeforms in the true Chaos are the Raksha?

[Dex Davican]

Raksha are a fae species, as are hobgoblins, hannya, and the unshaped. There may be others—frankly the unshaped and hobgoblins probably don’t have enough coherence to be considered a “species.” Raksha are the most familiar to humans because they tend not to spend much time in the Deep Wyld, and they’re social in the sense that they mimic Creation-born social constructs (e.g. courts, armies). All fae creatures have a few things in common: weakness to iron, unbreakable promises, the need to feed on emotion while in Creation, etc.

Wyld creatures become more fae-like with continued corruption, but yeah, gryphons probably started as a mutation of Creation-born creatures and gradually became Wyld natives. They probably don’t feed on emotion and probably need physical food even while in the Wyld.

Edit: And yes, the fae are Chaos natives, alien invaders to Creation.

[JohnDoe244]

All fae creatures have a few things in common: weakness to iron

Actually no longer true in 3E.

[Dex Davican]

Actually no longer true in 3E.

Hmm. Howso? Looking through their writeups in the Core, it looks like you can guess which Creatures of the Wyld are actual fae vs. Wyld-mutated monsters by whether they have the Cold Iron Bane Merit.

[Isator Levi]

Hmm. Howso? Looking through their writeups in the Core, it looks like you can guess which Creatures of the Wyld are actual fae vs. Wyld-mutated monsters by whether they have the Cold Iron Bane Merit.

The raksha Adeimantus substitutes a weakness to iron for a weakness to people that cannot read the history of his city inscribed upon his body.

[Dex Davican]

The raksha Adeimantus substitutes a weakness to iron for a weakness to people that cannot read the history of his city inscribed upon his body.

Interesting! I'm not as up-to-date on a lot of antagonist write-ups.

[Katamari_Naneke]

I wouldn’t worry about Graces in Ex3 unless you actually want a “Koschey’s Egg” situation. If I were a dev (and I’m not), I’d have Fair Folk need to create a Grace to maintain really broken powers and advantages, so PCs can find a clever way around those powers. Otherwise, forget ‘em.

I mean I just wanted them as a plot device. It's true they're not strictly necessary, but it's useful as a key object to fight, scheme and maneuver over. But maybe I can just simplify it so I don't have to worry about learning Grace mechanics and trying to houserule them into 3rd edition.

[Dex Davican]

Yeah, I think it's enough to say, "This Fair Folk put a core piece of their identity into this object, making it into an Artifact with a neat power. Anyone who holds it has a major social advantage over that Fair Folk, and they'll scheme relentlessly to get it back."

[Sunder the Gold]

Maybe holding a Raksha's Grace allows you to make social influence against them equal to its importance, regardless of whether the Raksha has an Intimacy that would allow the influence.

Their Heart Grace allows you to persuade them to take Life-Changing Tasks (like a Defining Intimacy), a Major Grace allows you to persuade them as per a Major Intimacy, and a Minor Grace works like a Minor Intimacy.

This is in addition to denying the Raksha access to any of the Grace's powers. Their Sword Grace's destructive Evocations aren't much use to them if someone else owns the Sword Grace.

[Isator Levi]

I've a few ideas about possible ways for Fair Folk to operate that I would convey by analogy. That is, I'm not exactly describing scenarios as they would actually play out, but things that capture some of the tone or motivation.

I imagine a scenario in which a group of friends is walking down the street in the evening, casually chatting away to one another. A different person walks past them in the opposite direction and one of the members of the group just savagely attacks them out of nowhere. The impulse to do so didn't come out of a sense of malice or sadism but out of a kind of strange curiosity about how people would react to something so horrifying and without warning, a drive unrestricted by moral sensibilities or fear of consequence (indeed, reacting to and playing off of the consequences, whatever they be, is part of the point).

I imagine another scenario in which a person that has a tendency to interact with events as an observer from the periphery looks upon other people's homes, the families that live in them, with a very strong desire to get into those spaces and see what makes them tick. They'd want to enter homes unknown purely for the sake of rummaging around in other people's lives; not to take things, but to look at how their possessions are arranged, what their interests are, what goes on in their private little world. But it specifically has to be a form that transgresses boundaries. It can evolve from there into an insinuation into their lives, getting oneself tangled up in their dynamic while not possessing a real personal bond to any or stake in how things turn out for them. That may ultimately involve pulling the threads to turn people in various directions, depending on what the intruder thinks about the assessment of their original scouting.

[Blackwell]

Graces were only sort of tied virtues insofar as they are the feeding maw that eats that particular Virtue, and/or they were basically the Fair Folk way of emulating virtues. My guess is that Graces probably stick around as a trait of some kind for the Castes and Charm trees to hang on even if feeding works differently.

I absolutely loved that Ink Monkeys material on Fair Folk; the Hannya (who have already been name-dropped in 3e, so still a think) were a huge lightbulb moment for me.

While we're on the subject of 2e Fair Folk deuterocanon, does anyone have a Scroll of Errata version that includes the Fair Folk rewrite?

[Braininthejar]

I just play them as humans.

I'd love to say "weird humans", but, uh, let's be honest here -- weird compared to what?

I had a beautiful noble who kept court and made many secret dealings as he unravelled the secrets to ancient Solar magic... But in play, I don't think I actually RPed him any differently to any of the human nobles.

I mean, sure, his army was made from the nightmares of children and dragons... and he bled a thick white tree sap... and he moved not by muscle but by invisible strings of Essence that flung him around like a marionette...

But apart from that... No different to any other noble.

Well, I think this is because you're an rpg player playing a noble.
A rahska is an incomperhensible alien thing playing a noble.

Perhaps this is the proper way to play raksha - roleplay them like rpg characters of a player prone to overacting?

[JohnDoe244]

Well, I think this is because you're an rpg player playing a noble.
A rahska is an incomperhensible alien thing playing a noble.

Perhaps this is the proper way to play raksha - roleplay them like rpg characters of a player prone to overacting?

Yeah, that seems exactly right to me. Particularly because I am prone to OVER ACTING!