Fair Folk and the Eladrin

Eladrin appearanceLarge, luminescent eyes that sparkle with the strange ripples and lights of Chaos. They're beautiful creatures, who make themselves attractive and love beauty, but often in strange, idiosyncratic ways that some-sometimes even elves-can't appreciate. Large (not necessarily pointed) ears and long fingers open to sensation. Covered in colors and with iridescent hues beneath their flesh. They don't look like elves, pixies or sidhe (as more fixed, unsubtle creatures like the agathia or archons do), except sometimes. They're not faeries.

Faeries are kin to the elementals. Sylphs, salamanders, nereids and pech are members of Faery's extended family. Dryads, fauns, and treants are linked to trees. Galeb duhr are linked to rocks. Brownies are linked to houses, dobies are linked to farms, and faerie fiddlers are linked to certain clans or lairs of Fair Folk. Generally, they're linked to places, people, or substances rather than ideas. They can be ugly or beautiful or plain. Their vulnerability to cold iron has been attributed to ancient pacts and feuds with the lords of Earth and Mineral, or a war with the house of Iron. Tall Tales of the Wee Folk says they're just allergic, and they have thin, wine-colored blood.

Unseelie CourtThe fourth MC Annual has the Unseelie Nymph. Quicklings, brambles, boggles, goblins, norkers, redcaps (evil brownies), poltergeists, genies, Ghul Lords, mephits, gremlins, and drow are all appropriate members of the Court.

Power LevelsThere are various sources for sidhe-like entities in AD&D. Sidhe appear in Tall Tales of the Wee Folk as like elves, dwarves, halflings and gnomes in appearance, but with an allergy to iron, the power to become invisible to those without the Sight and the ability to be wizard/thieves as well as fighter/wizards. The supplement called A Mighty Fortress and the Celts or Vikings campaign sourcebook suggest powerful multi-classed elves be used as the nobles of Fairy. In a campaign with normal elves, the fairy elves will be related to the common sort, but elemental and magical in nature-the kind that don't exist completely within the world. Maybe in a few incarnations they'll eventually join the elves and be Primes for a time. The Godsmen believe all souls originate in the Ethereal and must eventually incarnate on the Prime if they're to progress.

Origins and the RetreatThe Fair Folk are wild spirits, untempered by a Prime incarnation, though many may not have actually been off the Material Plane since the world was made. One Dungeon adventure suggested that Fairy was a parallel Material Plane with a very, very high magic level, quicksilver and changing. Gygax's Epic of AErth book did the same with its world of Phaeree. If fairies are faded gods, then Fairy should certainly be part of the Outer Planes.

I compromised by assuming that, like elves, fairies make their Retreat to the Outer Planes, though they originate elsewhere. The Seelie Court wanders; it's not linked to Arborea the way the eladrins are. I think fairies don't sufficiently define chaos and good the way I want eladrin to. Weis and Hickman's Darksword series had the fairies be manifestations of wild magic, coming spritelike out of wells of power and ruled by a queen like bees are. Very unanthropomorphized. I need eladrin to be flexible, as flexible as tanar'ri. I need them to be able to adapt into any interpretation of benign chaos. I need them to be able to shed their wings or grow them, and to grow any sort of wings, even inappropriate ones.