Realms of Power: Faerie Chapter Four: Faerie Bestiary

This page is part of the Realms of Power: Faerie Open Content

The authors of this book encourage you to use modern faeries in your stories, but they are not included in this chapter. Storyguide and players, it is assumed, are familiar with fantasy literature and, given the limited space available in this book, would prefer creatures that are both more historically appropriate and less familiar. Medieval versions of faeries, to readers raised on modern stories, should seem alien, threatening, and intriguing.

This chapter uses modern, rather than period, names for many of the creatures. Players find these easier to say, and it avoids the use of terms that have been co-opted by stock characters from modern fantasy fiction. Greek and Roman names are often used for types of faerie, but this doesn’t mean those faeries are only found in Greece or Italy — just that when those of the Order of Hermes discuss them, they use a classical term.

Faeries Drawn To Life Stages

Human lives go through several stages, and as each transition approaches, the human becomes more mutable. This surge of vitality attracts faeries. And so, disproportionate number of humans who interact with faeries are either just about to begin, or have just completed, the transition to the next stage of their lives. The Church protects each of these life stages with a sacrament, which in some communities discourages the faeries from interrupting the transition.

A variety of beings prowl the borderlands of life, childhood, adulthood, mastery, and mortality. Some faeries facilitate the transition from one life stage to another. Others try to prevent the character from maturing, reflecting their incomplete natures in the lives of human victims. Sometimes, two faeries make a contest of a person entering a life stage, with one pulling toward maturity, and the other holding it back.

A classic example of this occurs when a young person is swept away by faeries to a feast. The leader of the faeries asks the human to partake of the food while another, often a dead friend or an ancestor, counsels him not to. If the human eats, he is trapped in Arcadia, halted forever in adolescence. If he refuses to eat, he is returned home, and is able to continue into adulthood.

These faeries are, in folklore if not truly, people who have themselves failed to move into the new stage of life. They repeat their incompleteness in the lives of others. This is particularly notable in faeries that kill children.

Two Borders Many faeries are creatures of two borders simultaneously: an infant stolen away to the forest by a faun, and a man who finds a selkie wife at the shoreline have both encountered a faerie that expresses both physical and developmental borders. Faeries that reside on multiple borders increase their chances of harvesting the vitality of the humans they encounter.

Birth

Humans, just after birth, are bundles of tremendous vitality. Faeries can harvest this potential in several ways. The most direct way of harvesting the vitality of a child is to kill and eat it. This method is rare, but so horrible that it is widely famed. A related way to harvest attention is to refuse to harm children protected by a particular ritual, and accept the performance of the ritual as worship. Some faeries steal and try to raise children, who then provide an endless harvest of attention if they survive. More beneficent faeries bless children at their birth.

Child Killers

Child killers are some of the most common faeries in medieval folklore. But their variety is tremendous. The stories that surround them often suggest that they are the spirits of women whose own children have died, and they seek the lives of other children either from malice, or to ease the pain of their loss. These faeries are designed as human sized, and many of them are naturally incorporeal and able to become invisible. Most strangle, although some suck the breath from babies, or kill by suckling. Other child killers are babies who were never named: that is, unbaptized infants.

Some child killers have very little Might, and can be kept at bay by simple folk charms. Others kill to force the traditional wards to be employed. Many children die despite wards, though, which causes ill-feeling when mothers blame their supplier for poor wards, and the folk witches blame the grieving mothers for some form of spiritual pollution that reduced the efficacy of the charm.

Lamashtu

Lamashtu is not designed as a player character. She is an ancient Babylonian goddess of stillbirth.

• Faerie Might: 45 (Animal)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com –3, Str +6, Sta +2, Dex –1, Qik –2
• Size: +2
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Greater Faerie Powers, Huge, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Feast of the Dead*; 8 x Increased Faerie Might, Improved Initiative (clawed hands), Improved Powers, Lesser Faerie Power, 2 x Personal Faerie Powers; Incognizant, Traditional Ward (Minor – Pazuzu)**
• Personality Traits: Vindictive +3, Hungry +1
• Combat:
  • Clawed Hands: Init 0, Attack +10, Defense +10, Damage +8***
  • Donkey Bite: Init –2, Attack +11, Defense +8, Damage +7
  • Owl Talons: Init +1, Attack +13, Defense +11, Damage +10***
• Soak: +4.
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1–7), –3 (8–14), –5 (15– 21), Incapacitated (22–28), Dead (29+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 5 (flight), Brawl 9 (while airborne), Faerie Speech 5 (potential victims).
• Powers:
  • Fatal Menses: 0 points, constant: (5 intricacy points on cost) A poison, like that of scorpions, drips continually from Lamashtu. This creates a fine mist as she flies. Lamashtu poisons wells as she flies over them, so that all who drink of them for the next week fall terribly ill. Her venom can also cause personal illness of sufficient virulence to kill the infirm, or fetuses in utero. Crops and animals die as she flies over them, if she wishes. (This has been treated as a level 50 effect, based on Treading the Ashen Path, which is PeHe 30, +10 (added requisites for humans and animals) +10 change Mom duration to Sun, +5 constant, -5 no longer a fancy effect. Treat this power as a magical force, rather than a poison.)
  • Enthralling Sound: 0 points, Init–4, Mentem: (3 intricacy points on cost, 1 on Initiative) Her terrible roar arouses fear.
  • Flight, 0 points, constant, Corpus. (2 intricacy points on cost)
  • Invisibility: 0 point, Init –4, Imaginem. (2 intricacy points on cost).
  • Loosely Material: 1 point, Init –5 Corpus (Animal)
• Equipment: Often depicted carrying snakes, or suckling a dog and a pig.
• Vis: 9, a dead owl
• Appearance: Lamashtu is a tall woman with the head of a lion, the teeth and ears of a donkey, and the feet of an enormous owl. She has leathery, tanned skin that is sometimes furred. She does not require wings to fly.

* Lamashtu causes stillbirth by touching the belly of a pregnant woman seven times. She also feasts on the flesh of young men, and rips babies from the womb with her talons to consume, although this most often occurs to travelers. She prefers to kill slowly with repeated touches, or by suckling babies to death. ** Lamashtu fears and flees images of the Babylonian disease spirit Pazuzu. *** Lamashtu’s breasts ooze a poison that does +10 Damage. She smears this on her claws and talons if she anticipates battle.

Story Seed: The Battle of Child Eaters A Seeker has found an ancient tablet that makes reference to a “demoness” called Lamashtu, rival of the Faerie gods of Babylon. Now that her story has been rediscovered — and retold to the grogs by a companion with Free Expression — a faerie near the covenant has taken her form. Can the characters find a way of calming Lamashtu, or destroying her story? Once Lamashtu becomes active, another faerie becomes involved in the affairs of the magi. Lamia is an ancient, and yet more modern, telling of Lamashtu’s story. Lamia is insane and does evil things because of her madness, but she gladly acts as an ally for the characters against another spirit trying to steal her biography. Lamia can become rational if steadily supplied with magically created eyeballs. As her mind returns, Lamia realizes what a monster she has become, and what terrible things she has done. If coaxed to destroy Lamashtu by a suitably skilled artist, Lamia may be able to change role.

Lamia

Lamia is not designed for use as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 35 (Corpus)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com –1, Str +2, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik +2
• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Greater Faerie Powers, 2 x Improved Characteristics, 6 x Increased Faerie Might, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech; Hybrid Form, Large, Lesser Faerie Powers, 3 x Personal Faerie Powers; Narrowly Cognizant
• Personality Traits: Befuddled +2.
• Combat:
  • Claws: Init +1, Attack +8, Defense +8, Damage +4*

* If Lamia grapples successfully, she can wrap her body around a target and do constriction damage of +6 per round, while she retains her Grappling Advantage.

• Soak: +6 (scales)
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1–8), –3 (9–16), –5 (17–24), Incapacitated (25–32), Dead (33+)
• Pretenses: Awareness 9 (faeries), Brawl 6 (humans), Faerie Speech 5 (those expecting prophecy), Folk Lore 9 (aspirations)
• Powers:
  • Enthrallment: 3 points, Init –2, Mentem. (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Extended Glamour: 0 points, constant, Mentem.
  • Hound: 2 points, Init 0, Corpus. Lamia’s power allows her to detect the direction and distance of unattended babies, even if she lacks an Arcane Connection to them. It also connects her to humanoid creatures using her story, like lesser lamiae and Lamashtu. This is the remnant of Lamia’s power to scry the future.
  • Immateriality: 1 point, Init. –2, Corpus/Animal. (2 intricacy points on cost)
  • Invisibility: 1 points, Init 0, Imaginem (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Silent Motion: 0 point, constant, Imaginem. (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Steal Eyes: 4 points, Init –2, Corpus: This power removes the eyes of the victim, and places them in Lamia’s head. It has Touch range. (PeCo(Re) base 20, +1 Part, +1 Touch, +1 Rego requisite, +1 Finesse)
• Equipment: Rich jewelry, and contingency plans that perfectly suit the weaknesses of player characters.
• Vis: 7 Intellego in two bleeding eyeballs (3 in the right, 4 in the left).
• Appearance: Lamia has sharp fingernails that act as claws. Her form is serpentine from the waist down, and may attack by constriction. She has the ability to move silently and slip through walls. She uses these powers to see when mothers leave their babies unattended. Her eyes are usually bloodshot.

Long ago a queen of Libya was a lover of Zeus. She became repeatedly pregnant, but had each of her babies save one, Scylla, die in accidents arranged by the goddess Hera. Then Hera went further: she cursed the queen with eternal insomnia. Driven mad with exhaustion and grief, the queen died and became a faerie. Lamia’s lower body now appears to be that of a great serpent. She took her current name “Lamia” when she transformed. It means “gullet,” as her only food is other people’s children.

Zeus took pity on Lamia, but was unable to undo Hera’s harm. Instead he gave her a power: whenever her unsleeping eyes become so red and painful that it hurt less to rip them out than continue with them, she could steal a fresh set of eyes from a human. Lamia still haunts the world, stealing children and eating them. She is still mad with sleeplessness, and when her eyes become too red for her to bear, she steals fresh ones from her sleeping victims. In ancient times there was a shrine to Lamia in Corinth, and characters facing her may find valuable information there.

Lamia was able to predict the future in ancient times. A strange supernatural event, called the Silencing of the Oracles, destroyed the capacity of faeries to predict the future. Learned magi suggest this was an act of God, to prepare the world for a new age with the coming of his Son.

Lamia Variants

In Greece there are spirits called lamiae that eat babies and are said to be the children of this Lamia. They aren’t: Lamia’s curse is that she can’t have children. These lesser lamiae have the bodies of goats or snakes, human torsos and heads, paws on the front legs, cloven hooves on the rear, and hissing voices. They are less-powerful faeries, which survive by drinking blood and do not need fresh eyes. Injuries from a lamia do not heal until the character seeks out the lamia again and hears her hissing. More generally, vampires are sometimes called lamiae, but these use the statistics for ghulas.

Kubu

• Faerie Might: 1 (Mentem)
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 3, Str n/a, Sta n/a, Dex n/a, Qik n/a.
• Size: usually appears to be –2
• Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Speech, Faerie Sight; Restricted Might (Major – sunlight), Decreased Might, Intangible Flesh, Incognizant.
• Personality Traits: Playful +3, Lonely +1
• Pretenses: Charm 6 (children), Guile 6 (children), Faerie Speech 5 (children)
• Powers: N/A
• Equipment: Phantasmal toys
• Vis: 1 Mentem, The skull of a tiny baby
• Appearance: A small child, dressed well, and with a surprising number of toys in a bag.

Kubu is an infant-sized faerie that is believed to have been a child who died without being named in ancient times. He often kills other children before they reach confirmation, by calling them to play in the middle of the night. Kubu may visit a child repeatedly, to gain its confidence to wander further and further from home. He leads them off into the wilderness, there deserting them to die of exposure. He cannot stand the light of the sun.

Kubu is not designed as a player character, but may be modified to become one easily. His Flaws need balancing, possibly with powers. He needs extra Pretenses, and a motivation that is more useful for troupe stories than loneliness.

Child Stealers

The children stolen by faeries often share a few distinctive features. Single parents are usually raising them, in a household that contains no other relatives. The children are left unattended, if only for a few minutes, and stolen while an adult is not watching. Babies are usually kidnapped before baptism; older children are generally tempted to stray into faerie areas instead of being stolen. Children who survive being stolen have a Touch of Faerie, as described in Chapter 5.

Many types of faerie are unable to reproduce. The most human–like — the kings and queens of the courts of faeries — yearn for children and steal them from humans. Each king or queen has a distinctive set of powers, based on the demesne of which her or she is ruler. Many are neglectful parents, and the children they steal often die for lack of milk, warmth, or shelter. Sometimes the death of a child generates a dependent role: a minor courtier that is the heir of the noble. Scholars differ on whether this is the spirit of the dead child, or just a faerie pretending to be.

Many faeries that steal children leave behind an enchanted stick or statue that seems to be a sickly version of the child. It simulates death, allowing the faerie time to steal the child away. But, more importantly, it may severe the bonds of longing that could otherwise allow the family and child to find each other again.

The Man in Black With a Sack On His Back

The Man in Black with a Sack on His Back is not designed as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 10 (Herbam)
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per +3, Pre 0, Com 0, Str –2, Sta +2, Dex 0, Qik +1
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, Increased Faerie Might, Immune to Bashing Weapons*, Personal Faerie Powers; Incognizant, Restricted Might (minor – direct firelight).
• Personality Traits: Gregarious +3, Likes stealing things +1
• Combat:===
  • Brawl (hands)*: Init +1, Attack +2, Defense +2, Damage 0
  • Brawl (2 x Bludgeon)*: Init +2, Attack +4, Defense +2, Damage +1
• Soak: +2 against slashing weapons. Immune to bashing weapons.
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11– 15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Brawl 2 (children), Carouse 3 (suspicious adults), Faerie Speech 5 (suspicious adults)
• Powers:
  • Appear Human, 1 point, constant, Imaginem.
  • Immure to Bashing Weapons:* 0 points, constant, Herbam: This faerie has the body of a scarecrow, and is undamaged by weapons that cause harm through crushing force.
  • Invisibility: 1 point, Init –1, Imaginem (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Squirming Sack: 1 point, Init –1 Corpus: Moves a child up to 50 paces away who has made eye contact with the man into his sack. (Base 15 + 1 Eye, 1 intricacy point spent on cost)
  • Still Sack: 0 points, Init –1, Mentem (2 intricacy point on cost): A powerful version of the Cause Drowsiness Power that keeps children unconscious until they are removed from the sack. (Or Sun, whichever comes first)

* Hands do damage as gauntlets because they are made of wood. When not pretending to be human, the man uses his forearms as if they were wooden clubs, using his Brawl skill.

• Equipment: Clothing, large sack, an endless supply of straw.
• Vis: 2 Herbam in a tattered old sack.
• Appearance: The Man in Black with a Sack on His Back always appears foreign, and seems to be able to blend into darkness. He often takes the form of a scarecrow. He carries a sack, or sometimes a backpack, and he puts naughty boys and girls in it, and carries them away. People are not entirely sure what he does with them, but eating is a distinct possibility.

The Man in Black with a Sack on His Back is found in a surprisingly large area of Mythic Europe. In most areas he is a nursery terror, but in others he steals children. He is a dark mirror image of the pleasanter Yuletide faeries, who carry presents for good children.

Faeries That Prey On New Mothers

Most fairies interested in the threshold of birth want to seize the vitality that flows forth from the newborn child, but some faeries prefer, instead, to steal nurturing from the new mother.

Changeling (Gerontified Faerie): Some faeries steal a child so that there is a place in a mortal household for a changeling. A changeling is a faerie who has become so withered and unhealthy that it is exchanged for a mortal baby. The changeling appears, using illusions, to be the stolen child, but it becomes needy, sickly, and forever hungry. The nurturing given by the mortal mother rejuvenates the faerie, allowing it to resume a younger version of its form. The stolen child is usually not killed or neglected, so there may still be some sort of connection between the life of the child, and the usefulness of the life the changeling has stolen.

There are several traditional ways of forcing changelings to reveal themselves. Many of these, if accidentally performed on a human child, are horrific forms of child abuse. The torture continues until the changeling agrees to bring the child back, in exchange for its safety and freedom. In many cases, the changeling is left in an abandoned place so that the faeries can trade the children back. The Church has passed strict laws against leaving children in deep holes in the earth or on roofs because they are sickly, but the practice continues.

In some cases, the faerie can be tricked into speaking by showing it something marvelous: these faeries usually accept the marvel as a trade for the return of the child. These items tend to contain vitality or express human craftsmanship. A returned child, particularly one returned through trade, is likely to have future dealings with his or her fairy twin.

In some areas it is believed that the faeries make a tithe of souls to Hell. They give their children away, as changelings, so that when the demons come to collect they take human children instead. The faerie horrors that lie at the edge of Infernal spaces also appear around Magical places that local custom mis-assigns to the Infernal realm.

Nursery Terrors

Adults use tales of these faeries to guard the border between civilized and wild behavior. These faeries also lurk around budding adolescents because adults, generally, do not truly believe that they exist. Nursery terrors usually do not kill children; they prefer to terrify them night after night.

Black Terrors: The weakest faeries ever observed by a member of the Order. They are dark, ghastly shapes, lacking mass, that form worrying patterns on the walls of children’s bedrooms. They gain vitality from the fear they provoke. Each has 1 point of Faerie Might, lacks the power to become material, and has no powers beyond those common to all faeries. Black Terrors contain 1 pawn of vis each, so magi are keen to find them. Some magi find it profitable to enslave these creatures, to use as messengers.

The Cyclopes: Used by the ancient Greeks to scare their children into submission. They are cannibalistic giants with a single eye in the middle of their heads. They use the statistics for any other giant, with a –3 on all rolls requiring depth perception. Some magi say that these cyclopes are mere reflections of the real cyclopes, which are primordial giants associated with the Magic realm. A kind of cyclops, the licho, is still used as a nursery terror in Slavic lands. It is described later, in the section on Roads.

Jenny Greenteeth: Jenny is one of the many nursery terrors that are encountered outside the house. They represent both the boundary between obedience and disobedience, and the boundary between safe places and dangerous ones. When adults say “If you lean too far over the well, Jenny Greenteeth will catch you in her claws and drag you under,” they do not believe the story they are telling. The story is only effective, however, because children do. Regional variants include: the Grindylow of Yorkshire, which inhabits pools and marshes; Nellie Long Arms, who is much like Jenny but has incredibly long arms; the Morgan of Wales, which is a freshwater merman; and the Pontarf of Ireland, which is a giant fish.

Lammikin: An ugly, humanoid faerie from Scotland. He torments children by stabbing and pinching them. If they cry out, it waits and ambushes their mothers, slicing their throats and drinking their blood while the children watch. His story is told to children to prevent them from waking their parents.

Gorgon

Gorgons are not designed as player characters.

• Faerie Might: 25 (Mentem)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +6*, Pre –3, Com 0, Str 0, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik +3

* Due to Dozens of Eyes power.

• Size: –1
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Greater Faerie Powers, 4 x Increased Faerie Might, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Hybrid Form; Incognizant, Small Frame
• Personality Traits: Vain +3, Iconoclastic +1
• Combat:
  • Brass Claws: Init +2, Attack +5, Defense +7, Damage +2
  • Tusks: Init +3, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage +5
  • Serpent Hair: Init +2, Attack +8, Defense +5, Damage +1*

* Gorgons have mid-back-length hair, so they may only use their hair snakes to engage targets close together. Theoretically, she has 18 snakes able to strike at any time on her head, although usually she only uses three at a time. See also the venomous bite power.

• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: -1 (1-4), -3 (5-8), -5 (9-12), Incapacitated (13-16), Dead (17+).
• Pretenses: Brawl 3 (humans)
• Powers:
  • Enthralling Sound, 3 points, Init 0, Mentem: A gorgon can utter the scream of the dead, creating terror in those who hear it. The low hissing of her snakes can create the same effect.
  • Deadly Gaze: 1 point, Init –2, Terram: (4 intricacy points on cost) The gorgon can transform into stone any person or animal with which she makes eye contact. Creatures so changed revert to life if the gorgon dies or is stripped of its Might. (Base 25, +1 Eye, +4 Until)
  • Dozens of Eyes*, 0 points, constant, Animal: The gorgon has dozens of pairs of eyes, which scan her surroundings, in all directions, constantly. This grants her extraordinary Perception.
  • Venomous Bite*, 0 Points, Init 0, Animal: When the gorgon’s hair attacks, compare its Attack Advantage to the victim’s armor Protection (not his Soak). If the gorgon’s advantage is higher, the victim suffers the effects of adder venom as listed in the Poison Table on page 180 of ArM5, regardless of whether the bite inflicts an actual wound. The storyguide may adjust the required Attack Advantage for special circumstances.

* This is a power of the gorgon’s Hybrid Form, and does not need to be paid for with the Personal Faerie Power Virtue.

• Vis: 5 Mentem, a mask
• Appearance: A woman of slight build, with a hideously deformed face, tusks, and brass claws. Snakes replace her hair. Some gorgons are stunningly beautiful (Per 0, Pre +6, lose the omnidirectional vision or spend an extra Major Virtue), and some can fly on bat–like wings.

In ancient Greece, the gorgons were nursery terrors. The name gorgon means terrible, and terror is something a young boy would need to overcome to be a man. A true Greek warrior would learn to seize control of fear, and use it against his enemies, much as Perseus used the head of the gorgon. After achieving this, the head of the gorgon becomes a traditional symbol that wards off evil, called the gorgoneion. She is the faerie that humans use as a folk charm to scare away lesser faeries. Thus, the name Medusa means “protector.”

Mormo

Mormo is not suited for player characters.

• Faerie Might: 15 (Mentem)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre 0, Com +1, Str 0*, Sta 0*, Dex 0*, Qik 0*.

* These statistics are provided by Mormo’s host.

• Size: 0 (as host)
• Virtues and Flaws: Focus Faerie Powers (Possession, see below), 2 x Increased Might, Loosely Material*; Incognizant.

* Modified to a minor Virtue: may only take forms using possession power.

• Personality Traits: Playful +3, Thinks children are scrumptious +3
• Combat:
  • Bite*: Init +0, Attack +8, Defense +6, Damage +1

* Modified by the body’s statistics. The bite marks Mormo’s hosts leave are like those of horses.

• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Brawl 5 (infants), but may use the Pretenses or abilities of the host.
• Powers:
  • Possession, 1 or more points, Init +2, Mentem: If this power penetrates, the victim is possessed by Mormo and is under her direct control. Any attempt to force the victim to act contrary to her nature, or to use any of the host’s own magical powers requires that Mormo spends Might. A supernatural power (including spell-casting) requires 1 Might point per magnitude to produce. A questionable action that is contrary to the nature of the host requires Mormo to exceed the possessed being’s Personality Trait roll on a stress die + Might points spent. The storyguide may give a modifier to the Personality Trait roll based on the nature of the command (see the Entrancement power, ArM5 page 65, for suggestions). Both Might costs must be met if the use of a supernatural power is also contrary to the victim’s nature. If Mormo is in direct control of its host’s actions, the host acquires Mormo’s Magic Resistance, but is also affected by wards that would normally exclude her. If the host is acting under her own free will, then she does not benefit from Mormo’s Magic Resistance, but may also walk through wards with impunity. This power’s costs are not based on the Hermetic system of magic. It is instead based on material in Realms of Power: Magic.
• Equipment: Someone else’s body, all of their material goods.
• Vis: 3 Mentem, in the saliva of the possessed victim.
• Appearance: Mormo does not have a material body, but if seen with Faerie Sight, or Second Sight outside a body, she seems to have a horse’s head. This is incongruous with her lupine name, indicating that this was possibly changed at some time by a human. It may be, in some way, symbolic of her changed personality.

Mormo is a faerie who bites children and babies who are being naughty. A mother, on the faerie’s behalf, often playfully delivers Mormo’s bites.

Mormo was initially a mother who lost her children, and became a werewolf (mormulukeion) to seek revenge. Somehow she lost her body, and became a possessing spirit, like the faerie that causes the tortoise game described in the nearby insert. In time, she became less dangerous and more playful. This may be the result of a human reworking her role with creativity, turning her attacks into a game like peek-a-boo between a mother and child. Mormo still possesses mothers and encourages them to playfully nibble at their children.

Mormo’s presence, like that of the Tortoise, causes the mother to continually refer to her child as if it were food, with names like “honey,” “sweetie,” “dumpling,” and “apple.” Mormo’s statistics may be used for the Tortoise, her more-dangerous role mate.

Mormo sometimes uses weapons, and at other times seems incapable of it. This may indicate there are several faeries that take the role of Mormo, but that makes her change from devouring mother to nursery terror more difficult to explain.

Story Seed: The Tortoise Game The ancient Greek writer Errina describes a game that the children at the covenant have begun to play. Girls sit in a circle, with a girl in the middle. She is called the “tortoise.” Each girl in the circle asks the tortoise a question, which she answers with the first thing that comes into her head. When any girl asks “How did your baby die?” the girl in the middle screams while chasing the questioner around the circle. If the questioner makes it back to her place she is safe, but if she is tagged, she becomes the new tortoise. This game is based on the actions of a faerie that takes advantage of postnatal tiredness to possess a mother, and make her kill her baby, and perhaps eat it. It then feeds off the negative attention the murderess suffers, until she dies. Some faeries that dwell inside bodies can pass through the Aegis that defends the covenant, if the human they are residing within chooses freely to enter. That the girls of the covenant are playing the game indicates that the Tortoise is present, and is seeking a victim. What do the characters do? As the characters hunt the Tortoise, it takes refuge in a variety of women, or female animals, always seeking to get closer to children that it can murder.

Protectors

Protectors are faeries that watch over small children. They are fervently courted by mothers and, once their charges are grown, are kept vital by occasional visits to the children they have helped.

Faerie Godmothers: A godmother is a person who promises to guard the child from the wiles of the Infernal, and to raise it in the Christian faith. Godparents also traditionally give gifts to their godchildren, and may adopt them if their parents die. These are some of the most innocuous faeries, but they can turn nasty if they feel slighted, using their intimate knowledge of the godchild to cause them enormous pain.

Faerie godmothers can be designed as Courtly Faeries, the statistics for which are given later. Fairy godmothers are particularly noted for supplying magical gifts to their godchildren, so the statistics of the Courtly Faeries might be modified to allow for this. Godchildren raised by faeries have a Touch of Faerie, as given in Chapter 5.

Imaginary Friends: Characters who gain the Faerie Friend virtue at this age often have friends that are toy-like, or belong to one of the classes of faerie that children believe in, but not adults.

Toy Soldier

The toy solider could replace a beginning companion with alteration. It requires a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and needs to balance its Virtues and Flaws. The soldier requires another 90 points of Pretenses. The Improved Damage Virtue or Damaging Effect power would raise the toy soldier’s damage to +1. Although it could not afford to enter combat, it could act effectively as an assassin sent to kill sleeping humans, or guard animals that use smell to detect threats, like dogs. A horde of enhanced toy soldiers could overcome human foes. Removing one of the Little Flaws, and raising the character’s Size to –2, would make the character far more durable and allow it to inflict heavier damage.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Herbam)
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per +1, Pre 0, Com 0, Str –9, Sta 0, Dex +2, Qik +8
• Size: –6
• Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 2 x Improved Characteristics, Observant; 2 x Little, Dependant (child), Incognizant
• Personality Traits: Brave +3, Loyal +3, Proud +1
• Combat:
  • Tiny Wooden Sword: Init +9, Attack +10, Defense +15, Damage –6
• Soak: +4
• Wound Penalties: –5 (1), Incapacitated (2), Broken (3+)
• Abilities: Athletics 3 (running), Awareness 6 (night terrors), Faerie Speech 5, Single Weapon 6 (tiny wooden sword)
• Equipment: Painted uniform, tiny wooden sword
• Vis: 1 pawn Herbam, tiny wooden sword
• Appearance: This foot-tall wooden soldier is the veteran of many imaginary campaigns, and stands guard over his lord while he sleeps. He has the good fortune to be a Traditional Ward against certain nursery terrors, but he puts the retreat of such monsters down to their fear of his prowess.

Reason

Children that are just about to come into the state of reason, generally defined in Mythic Europe as occurring around the age of seven, develop the ability to feel wonder. They have not been jaded by experience, so their wonder is a source of pure, and easily evoked, vitality. Children repeatedly influenced by faeries at this tender age are often marked for life, which provides the faerie with regular attention.

Guides To Adventure?

Child stealers for this life stage are similar to those for babies, except that they must gain the assent of the child before it can be stolen. This assent can be verbal, but can also be expressed by actions, like running away with the faerie, or lifting the latch to the faerie so that it can take the child away. Children who are lured away are sometimes replaced with changelings.

The one difference is that many child stealers for this age group are willing to bring the children back, once they have completed a story. This can seem charming to the child, but any adult would notice that the guide is continually putting the child in dangerous situations. If the child dies, then the guide feels miserable, but the story must go on. The guide simply befriends a new child, and sends it on the same adventure, recruiting as many children as the story requires for conclusion. Some guides return the bodies of dead children, others simply don’t bother.

Most guides provide children with a method of rapid travel. This is sometimes a spell made up of nonsense words, that works through the power of the faerie. Other faeries give the child a magical device, often a piece of clothing or furniture, which allows travel. The most popular choice is carrying the child. Some faeries allow humans to ride them, on their backs if in animal form, or on their shoulders if human shaped. Others put the child in a container and carry that.

Faerie Animal Companions

Characters who gain the Faerie Friend Virtue at this age often have friends in animal shapes. Sometimes a single faerie in animal shape adopts a magically significant number of children and surreptitiously takes them all on thrilling, which is to say dangerous, adventures without parental supervision. The most skilled faerie animal companions have sufficient powers that they can control the minds of adult adversaries, to prevent them from just murdering interfering children.

Adulthood

Characters entering puberty feel the first flame of adult passions. These permit new opportunities for emotional expression. Adulthood also allows characters to change social roles, choosing professions and spouses.

Entrapping Lovers

Young people lack the discernment to know the superficial from the actual. Faeries are able to put a patina of beauty upon themselves, which humans take as a promise of eternal happiness. Older, wiser humans who are taken by the faerie lovers fight them, and if they cannot escape count themselves among the dead.

Nymphs: Folklore is filled with beautiful women who take knights as lovers, and turn them into the most comfortable sort of prisoner. The Lady of the Lake captures Merlin in a cave beneath a rock, stripped of his powers. Triamore takes a knight as lover, but robs him of the power to talk of her and so save himself from slander, and then later the power to leave her home and act as a knight should. True Thomas’ Queen strikes him dumb, so that he cannot use his poetical tongue to break free of her realm. Calypso, whose name means “hidden,” offers Odysseus an eternal life of domestic bliss, if he gives up his fame, his kingdom, his family — any chance he will be remembered by anyone. His glory must forever be hidden. Nymphs are not creatures of the wilderness — they live at the edge of the domesticated land outside cities. They may represent a natural feature, like a stream or an oak, but they require humans, and live near their communities. Many of the nymphs that live closest to humans do not physically entrap their lovers. Instead, they prefer to be the first, idealized love that captures the vitality of the emerging sexuality of a string of adolescents from the nearest village.

Lesser Nymph

The nymph described here is one of the weaker of her kind. Nymphs that are more powerful are designed using the statistics for courtly fairies, given later.

This maiden is one of a group that gathers to dance in the deep woodland. Like many nymphs, she lacks effective combat skills. This occasionally makes her prey to insecure and cruel men. She has satyr allies she can summon if in difficulty, using her glamour, which touches theirs.

Minor nymphs can replace companion characters. Players are advised to swap out the Extended Glamour Lesser Faerie Power. The nymph below needs three more Flaws to be balanced, and needs a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw. Her Coils of Entangling Plants power could also be modified. The Music and Athletics Pretenses should be lowered and combat Pretenses added. The Personality traits should also change to something more suited to interaction with other player characters.

• Faerie Might: 10
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre +3, Com +1, Str 0, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik 0
• Size: –1
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Power, Cognizant Within Role, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, Increased Faerie Might, Lesser Faerie Powers, Observant, Restricted Might (winter), Sovereign Ward (folk charms), Small Frame
• Personality Traits: Shy +3
• Combat: N/a
• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties –1 (1-4), –3 (5-8), –5 (912), Incapacitated (13–16), Dead (17+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 5 (dancing), Awareness 3 (humans), Carouse 3 (parties), Charm 3 (potential dancers), Etiquette 2 (faerie court), Faerie Speech 5 (conversation), Music 6 (harp)
• Powers:
  • Extended Glamour: 0 points, constant, Mentem.
  • Coils of the Entangling Plants: 2 points, Init.–2, Herbam: as the spell of the same name, ArM5 page 138.
  • Enthralling Sound: 3 points, Init –3, Mentem: May create infatuation with the sound of her dancing or running.
• Equipment: Bells on her toes.
• Vis: 2 pawns Imaginem, a leaf tangled with a spider web
• Appearance: A beautiful maiden who dances in the woods, with others of her kind and with passing strangers.

Nymph Variants

Some nymphs maim their lovers, either to trap them or because they are a variant of the sexual predators described in the next section.

Sexual Predators

A few faeries rape humans, colonizing their bodies with faerie babies. When the baby is about to be born, the mother is often drawn to the home of the father to deliver the child. Some try to kill the woman, but many faeries, like the scarlet-robed stranger in the lai of Sir Degare, provide a patrimony for their sons. In this case, his father leaves Degare a pair of magical gloves and a sword with a broken point that later allows him to recognize his son. These faeries are often knights, and use the statistics in the Courtly Faerie section.

Many of these stories have an ending that many players find shocking: the woman forgives her attacker, and is reconciled with him as his wife. The same is true in stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the mortal hero rapes a faerie queen, who curses him at the beginning of the story and is, in some versions, married happily to him by the story’s end.

Many faeries use their sexual attractiveness to lure mortals to their doom.

Jezinkas: Beautiful female faeries in Bohemia that steal eyes after lulling men to sleep with an apple, a rose, or by combing their hair. Jezinkas cannot touch brambles, or break bonds made of them, and can be drowned if bound with them. Jezinkas have the power to return any eye they have stolen into any socket, giving odd abilities to mortals.

Happily Ever After is Just a Pleasant Sort of Death Players struck by the portrayal of nymphs in other roleplaying games may not understand how a character could object to an immortal life filled with sex. Characters in Mythic Europe have an afterlife, so they are in an important sense already immortal. They have greater ambitions than finally finding someone who will sleep with them regularly. Just as unnamed babies become faeries that try to kill other babies before baptism, so nymphs, who are on the verge of becoming young women, are incomplete adults, and make the people they trap similarly eternally adolescent. An eternal life in which nothing significant ever happens is identical to the classical Hades.

Faeries Who Eat Their Spouses

A surprising number of faeries take human spouses, and then eat them.

Ghula

Ghulas are not designed as player characters.

• Faerie Might: 20
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre +5, Com +1, Str +1, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik +1
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Greater Faerie Powers, Infiltrator (Wealthy, orphaned merchant’s daughter); Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Feast of the Dead, Humanoid Faerie, 3 x Increased Faerie Might, Personal Faerie Powers; Narrowly Cognizant; Restricted Might (Major – daylight).
• Personality Traits: Demure/Ravenous +3
• Combat:
  • Claws: Init 0, Attack +11, Defense +10, Damage +5
  • Fangs: Init +1, Attack +10, Defense +8, Damage +4
• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-4), –3 (5-8), –5 (912), Incapacitated (13–16), Dead (17+)
• Pretenses: Charm 6 (men), Brawl 6 (in dark areas), Stealth 9 (urban areas)
• Powers:
  • Cause Drowsiness: 2 points, Init –2, Corpus, (Touch Range, Until Duration, 1 intricacy point spent on cost)
  • Illusionary Home: 0 points, Init –3, Imaginem (4 intricacy points on cost): variant that has a constant effect on a structure.
  • Transform Into Human: 0 points, Init.0, Animal (3 intricacy points on cost, 2 on initiative): This power transforms the character between human and feasting form. It is treated as a Personal level 25 MuCo(An) effect.
• Equipment: Perfume, wardrobe
• Vis: 4 pawns Imaginem, rat skulls
• Appearance: Ghula usually look like beautiful women. To attract husbands, ghula pretend to be wealthy widows or orphans of good families, in need of husbands. Ghulas often pretend to be members of communities displaced by war, as it gives their story verisimilitude. The eyes and the insides of the mouths of Arabic ghula are always green. Male ghuls exist, but are the servants of the ghula, and rarely play the role of seducer.

These spirits may rise from, or impersonate, those who die of thirst in the desert. They are surprisingly common in Europe, because the magicians of Arabia can identify and defeat them. Europeans are less well prepared. Philostratus, who records in detail a conflict between one of these creatures and the ancient magician Apollonios of Tyana at a wedding in Corinth, calls them lamiae.

These spirits seek virile and wealthy husbands. They drain the blood of their husbands as they sleep. Once sufficient vitality has been consumed, the ghula can have a baby. The baby appears to share the characteristics of the human parent, but it is a faerie — a ghula like its mother. Baby ghuls are born with teeth.

The ghula in a city sneak out of their houses while their husbands sleep. They gather in graveyards to feast, cavort, and drain the blood from corpses. In most versions of their story, the husband of a ghula discovers these night meetings, and destroys the nest of ghuls, but cannot bring himself to kill his children. The young ghuls grow to adulthood and tyrannize the city, forcing the man who discovered the ghuls to flee. This old, sick, broken man lives near the town, warning travelers away, and reciting his role in his home’s downfall. In doing this, he spreads the fame of the ghuls, which gives them vitality.

Ghula Variants

A related story says that ghula are the ghosts of prostitutes, given solid form, and that they are simpler in their predatory be havior. They merely eat the dead, and lacking fresh prey eat corpses. They use their wiles to lure men of weak faith to hidden places, and have a power that causes sleep, allowing them to crush the heads of their victims with stones.

Ghaddar: This creature has the power to entice men, and to cause paralysis. She lures a victim to an isolated spot, and then tortures him for an extended period, culminating in the consumption of his genitals. These forms of ghula police a moral boundary.

Glanconer

Glanconers are only slightly outside the range of companion player characters, but are a form of sexualized serial killer, and so are difficult to place in sagas.

• Faerie Might: 10
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com +3, Str +1, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qik 0
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: 2x Greater Faerie Powers; External Vis (minor), Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Human Form, 3x Improved Characteristic, Increased Faerie Might; Sovereign Ward (sunlight); Incognizant, Non-combatant. Traditional Ward (folk charms, religious charms)
• Personality Traits: Predatory +4
• Combat: N/a
• Soak: +1
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20) Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 3 (climbing walls), Awareness 3 (at night), Bargain 5 (for lover’s favor), Carouse 2 (alone with young woman), Charm 3 (young women), Folk Ken 2 (courtship), Guile (women) 5, Faerie Speech 5 (flattery), Stealth 2 (stalking)
• Powers:
  • Allure: 0 points, Init –1 Mentem (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Pine Away: 3 points, Init –3, Corpus: The glanconer version of this power has Arcane Connection range, and causes only a Light wound, but is used repeatedly over successive days. Part of the glanconer’s glamour is that the Arcane Connection must come from an item that was knowingly given as a love token — it cannot be stolen or an arcane connection to an enemy. This reduces the spell’s effective level and cost.
  • Guide: 0 points, Init –3, Mentem (3 intricacy points on cost): A limited form of this power, which works at Voice Range and only on an individual who has given the glanconer a love gift.
  • Steal Judgment, 0 points, Init –2, Mentem, (2 intricacy point on cost).
• Equipment: Garments that give the impression that the glanconer is a prosperous man, but not one of such high class as to be unattainable by his victim.
• Vis: 2 pawns, usually kept in the trinket given as a favor.
• Appearance: A handsome man, generally said to be tall and dark, who is only seen at night. He hunts girls who go places they should not go, and so in some sense is a nursery terror for teenage girls. If unable to find sufficient victims in lonely places, he may try to lure girls from their bedrooms, although he prefers not to.

A “love talker” is a sort of faerie that appears as a handsome stranger and courts a girl. When she offers her love, it asks for a token of affection. It uses this Arcane Connection to harvest the vitality of the girl, until she pines to death, or, in some cases, she commits suicide so that she can be with her lover forever.

Glanconers, in some areas, have a distinguishing disfigurement, usually of the feet.

Glanconers flee combat because they see no point in it. There will always be another village, with another lonely girl.

Glanconer Variants

Kelpies: Some glanconers are kelpies — faerie horses that drown their victims. Before the drowning, glanconers get a cunningly worded consent to take the human’s life. Questions like “Do you want to be with me forever?” or “Will you do anything for our love?” are examples of the creature seeking consent.

Faerie Spouses Trapped By a Trinket

Some men find a spouse at the edge of the wilderness. These faeries visit the land of humans, and can be trapped here if made incomplete. The faerie bride is made incomplete by the theft of the thing that she most prizes, or that represents her dual nature. It is usual for the lady to leave when she finds her skin again, or when the husband breaks a taboo, such as striking his wife, or yelling at her.

Selkies: Faeries that are made into mortal wives by the theft of the seal skin that allows them to change into their aquatic shape.

Bird Women: Faeries who are forced to become spouses when their cloaks of feathers are stolen away.

Nymphs: These faeries become wives when their headscarves are stolen.

Faerie spouses, in their trapped form, have the statistics of human women, although their personality traits are unusual. Their children have strong faerie blood, which makes itself obvious. The children of a selkie wife, for example, are likely to be skilled doctors, but have webbing between their fingers.

The trinket itself can be represented by several Virtues and Flaws. For example, the character may have the Restricted Might Flaw, the loss of her skin being the condition that invokes it. The character might have the Skinchanger Virtue, and not be able to manufacture a new skin because faeries find it difficult to create real things. Or the trinket might contain the External Vis of the character.

Guarded Spouses

Another way that a faerie can guard adulthood is by guarding the perfect spouse for the character. The Rapunzel story uses a witch in this role, but giants are also common. They often guard their beautiful daughters from young princes. In other cases, the perfect spouse is guarded by transformation.

Coinchenn: A giantess from Ireland who is the mother of a beautiful daughter. But because a prophecy has stated that she will die if her daughter is wooed, she has beheaded all of the girl’s suitors. She places the heads on bronze stakes around her castle. Coinchenn has the head of a dog, for reasons that are not clear in the original story.

The Dragon-Maiden: In a cave in Asturia lives a beautiful woman who angered a nymph with her laziness. The lazy girl’s mother warned her not to comb her hair near the nymph’s spring, but she ignored the warning and one of her hairs fell upon the water’s surface, causing ripples. As punishment, the nymph turned the girl into a cuelebre — a sort of dragon — until a man so pure of hear that he felt no fear of the transformed girl, and loved her regardless, should come.

Mentors

A faerie mentor allows the character to move from his immature, adolescent self to his potent adult self. Mentors are difficult to find, and often initially reject the character, forcing him to prove his suitability for training through arduous tasks. The mentor then provides the wisdom and power necessary to complete the task that allows the character to take his adult place in society. The mentor may also provide the student with a symbolic gift that suits the challenge faced, like a sword, or magical fruit that produce jewels when broken open.

Exceptional Servants

A type of faerie that is related to the mentor is the exceptional servant. These are treated by humans as if they were supporting characters, when it is clear to the outside observer that the point of the human in the story is to observe and benefit from the marvelous things that the faerie can do. These faeries usually take an adolescent man, or far more rarely a woman, on an adventure. At the adventure’s conclusion, the young person has excellent prospects. The faerie then feeds on the vitality exhibited by this family, reveling in its fortunes and, sometimes, intervening if they decline. These are annoying non-player characters: they make the player characters into observers and the players into an audience.

Centaurs (Hippocentaurs)

In the statistics here, the centaur’s statistics have been purchased as if for a human character. This is because the base form, the horse, has poor Intelligence and Communication, both of which are significant to the centaur in its mentor role. Rulers of courts of centaurs have higher Might and more Powers than the creature described here.

The centaur below has two Virtues too many to substitute for a companion. The Improved Damage, Faerie Speech, or Faerie Sight Virtues could be removed. This is particularly suited for those centaurs that think they are a mundane race of beings driven to near extinction by humans. An adolescent centaur, Size +2, could retain these powers but trade away one pick of the Huge Virtue. The centaur needs additional flaws, including the Social Status Flaw of Monstrous Appearance. Centaurs as companions take advantage of their size and the innate powers of a faerie form, rather than additional powers that cost Might to use. The Pretenses of this centaur are correct for a beginning companion, but players should modify them to emphasize, or reduce, the character’s skill in combat.

There is no disadvantage, for a faerie, in selecting far heavier armor than that which the centaur her wears. This centaur has boiled leather armor and a small round shield because that’s how people imagine centaurs when their stories are told. Some centaurs have recently been observed with heater shields and lances — magi interested in these things say it is only a matter of time before centaurs with full chain armor and horse barding are observed.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Animal)
• Characteristics: Cun 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str +6, Sta +3, Dex +1, Qik –1
• Size: +3
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Huge, Hybrid Form, 2 x Improved Characteristics, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech; Lesser Power, Incognizant, Sovereign Ward (The Dominion)
• Personality Traits: Curious +2, Brave +1
• Combat: Each centaur has a Single Weapon Pretense with a score of 5 and a specialization bonus of 1. Each has either the Bow or Thrown Weapon Pretense. Each centaur also has Brawl, with a score of 2 and a bonus of 1 for specialization. The statistics here assume the centaur is specialized in each weapon. For a specialized brawler, add 3 to Attack and Defense for Brawl (fist) and Brawl (kick), and subtract 3 from any one other weapon.
  • Bow (shortbow): Init –2, Attack +10, Defense +5, Damage +17*
  • Brawl (fist): Init –1, Attack +4, Defense +2, Damage +11*
  • Brawl (hooves): Init +1, Attack +6, Defense +4, Damage +12*
  • Single Weapon (club and round shield): Init 0, Attack +9, Defense +8, Damage +20*
  • Single Weapon (lance and heater shield): Init +1, Attack +11, Defense +8, Damage +20*
  • Single Weapon (short spear and round shield): Init +1, Attack +9, Defense +8, Damage +20*
  • Thrown (javelin): Init –1, Attack +9, Defense +5, Damage +16*

* Includes +5 for Damaging Effect.

• Powers:
  • Damaging Effect: 1 points: Init –7, Terram (supernaturally sharp) or Herbam (poisoned), 2 intricacy points spent on cost. This is designed as a Lesser Power. More powerful centaurs may have this as a Greater Power (Cost 2, Initiative –3, possibly with the cost adjusted down using intricacy.), or may have Improved Damage on a preferred weapon, or may stack Improved Damage and Damaging Effect.
• Soak: +8 (Leather scale armor)
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-8), –3 (8-16), –5 (17-24), Incapacitated (25–32), Dead (33+)
• Abilities: Athletics 4 (long-distance running), Awareness 3 (noises), Bow or Thrown 5 (shortbow or javelin), Brawl 2 (kick), Carouse 2 (drinking), Chirurgy 2 (centaurs)*, Craft (any) 2, Faerie Speech 4 (oratory), Hunt 1 (humans), Single Weapon 5 (club or lance), Survival (grassland) 2

* Like most faeries, centaurs heal supernaturally quickly. They don’t, however, notice this.

• Equipment: Weapons, barding.
• Vis: 1 pawn Animal, discarded riding gear
• Appearance: A composite of horse and human, joined so that the human torso emerges where the neck of the horse would usually connect.

Hippocentaurs interest Hermetic magi, because they are almost certain that the original centaurs, who fought the Lapiths in ancient Thessaly, were aligned with the Magic Realm. It’s clear that at least one — Cheiron, who mentored Herakles and became the constellation Centaurus — is a powerful astrological spirit aligned to the Magic realm. Modern hippocentaurs are faerie duplicates can be found in the writings of the ancients who state that there were no female centaurs, while in Mythic Europe, they have often been observed.

Noble centaurs embody the struggle, in young people, between the bestial and spiritual elements of human nature. They guide the young hero to the adult state. Bestial hippocentaurs are an excellent example of how faeries can take over the stories of an extinct tribe. Further proof that modern centaurs represent the danger of the unbridled passions of adolescence when coupled with the power of an adult body and social position.

Centar Variants

Nuckalevee: The Irish Nuckalevee is like a flayed centaur that lairs in the sea, and forages for human victims ashore. Its breath causes plague, and it is terrified of fresh water. It represents the division of between potable and salt water. The point on rivers that is closest to the coastline, but where the water is still potable, is often the site of settlement, so the nuckalevee is a dire threat. The point where freshwater turned back the salt was also significant in the folklore of the pre-Christian Celts.

Rivals

Characters who have faerie rivals have suffered an emotionally charged injury, which has given form to a faerie that represents the effects of that injury. The rival needs to be overcome, in the field that the character is most interested in, for the character to claim his or her birthright, or adult role. Rivals can take any shape that suits the character’s emotional injury.

Mastery

Some faeries allow young people to rise to the top of their professions, and gain the glory and status due an elder within their community. These faeries are relatively rare, but they focus their attention on player characters disproportionately. People happy to rest comfortably within the mediocrity of their professions rarely encounter these spirits, but player characters are often outside the community, and strive to be exceptional. These humans are perfect audiences for faeries that guard the borders of mastery.

Creatures Designed To Die in Combat

Many faeries expect humans to kill them. The faeries gain vitality from this process, but for the story to be complete, they must not use the same role until sufficient time has passed for their actions to constitute a new story. So, a faerie knight known for doing battle every midsummer’s day may die in combat once a year, but the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk cannot return to Jack’s country in its original form. Perhaps it returns as the giant’s wife, or son, or brother, or chooses to go to a different kingdom, and tell the beanstalk story again with a new boy.

Fachan

Fachans could conceivably be player characters, but their story potential is limited by their ugliness and their narrowly focused Pretenses.

• Faerie Might: 30
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre –3, Com –3, Str +3, Sta +3, Dex +3, Qik +1
• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 Greater Faerie Powers, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 5 x Increased Faerie Might, Large, Hybrid Form; Missing Eye, Missing Hand, Incognizant.
• Personality Traits: Hates humans +3, Bloodthirsty +2
• Combat:
  • Club: Init +2, Attack +14, Defense +11, Damage +6
  • Fist: Init +1, Attack +13, Defense +11, Damage +3
  • Flail: Init +3, Attack +16, Defense +11, Damage +10*

* Poisoned: see powers section

• Soak: +5
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1–6), –3 (7–12), –5 (13–18), Incapacitated (19–24), Dead (25+)
• Abilities: Awareness 3 (humans), Brawl 5 (humans), Faerie Speech 3 (primitive threats), Penetration 3 (poisoned weapons), Single Weapon 9 (club or flail)
• Powers:
  • Lurching heart: 4 points, constant, Corpus: The fachan is so terrible to look upon that characters who see it must make a Brave roll against an Ease Factor of 9. If they fail, their heart flutters uncontrollably until they gather their courage. This cramping in the heart is treated as a fresh Light wound every round until the Brave roll is made. The great kings of the fachans can strike men dead with fear simply by being present, and some magi have encountered fachans who cause more grievous harm than described here. (35 spell levels (Base 5 +3 Sight +2 Sun +1 Constant) +15 xp in Penetration from intricacy points.)
  • Poisoned Weapons: 4 points, constant, Animal. The weapons of the fachan are smeared with deadly poison. Its Ease Factor is 9. See ArM5 page 180 for more details. (35 spell levels (Base 20 +2 Sun +1 constant) +15 xp in Penetration from intricacy points.)
• Equipment: Flail or club, belt
• Vis: 6 pawns, a decayed apple
• Appearance: A fachan looks like a human, but has a single eye in the middle of its head, a single arm extending from its sternum, and a single leg. Fachans also have a black, feathered crest that runs from the top of their heads along their spines. The mouth of a fachan is inhumanly large.

The fachans are faeries of distant lochs and valleys, found in Ireland and Scotland. They are rarely seen, but hate humans. Many fachans fight with clubs, but many others use iron flails, with up to twelve chains and fifty weights, dipped in poison. Fachans wear a cloak of sticky feathers that provide light armor'

Fachan Variants

Fer Caille: A similar creature, the Fer Caille, is found in Ireland. He acts as a faerie herdsman, and is accompanied by a hag. Direach: In the Scottish Highlands a version of the Fachan called the Direach can be found, which is gigantic.

Knight (Minor)

Faerie knights, converted to companions, require a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw. They have 1 Flaw which is not balanced by Virtues. Infiltrator (knight) is highly suitable.

• Faerie Might: 10 (Corpus or Terram)
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre –2, Com –2, Str +3, Sta +2, Dex +2, Qik +1
• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 2 x Improved Characteristics, Increased Might (minor), Large, Lesser Faerie Powers, Narrowly Cognizant, Observant, Personal Faerie Powers; Sovereign Ward (varies), Vow (Chivalrous conduct), Oath of Fealty, Overconfident.
• Personality Traits: Arrogant +3, Courteous +3
• Combat:*
  • Brawl (gauntlet): Init +1, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +5
  • Long Sword and Heater Shield*: Init +8, Attack +13, Defense +12, Damage +9
  • Mace and Heater Shield*: Init +2, Attack +12, Defense +11, Damage +11
  • Lance and Heater Shield*: Init +3, Attack +13, Defense +11, Damage +9

* Does not include +3 to Attack and Defense for being mounted.

• Soak: +9*

* Faerie metal scale, made of glamor using the Shift Human Shapes Power.

• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (1318), Incapacitated (19-25), Dead (26+)
• Pretenses: Awareness 1 (enemies), Brawl 3* (knights), Carouse 3 (feasts), Charm 1 (ladies), Etiquette 3 (chivalrous combat), Faerie Speech 5 (boasting), Hunt 2 (humans), Leadership 2 (guards), Ride 3 (horses), Single Weapon 4* (varies).

* Many knights have far higher scores than this. These statistics are correct for faeries that plan to improve their Pretenses by losing to a character, then mirroring his experience gain for the season.

• Powers:
  • Damaging Effect: 1 point, Init –4, as per motif of court (2 intricacy points spent on cost) This is designed as a Lesser Power. More powerful knights may have this as a Greater Power (cost 2 points, Initiative –1, possibly with the cost adjusted down using intricacy), or may have Improved Damage on preferred weapon, or may stack Improved Damage and Damaging Effect.
  • Flight, 2 points, constant, Corpus
  • Shift Human Shapes: 1 point, Init 0, Corpus. Allows the knight, who is usually armored to demonstrate his role, to remove the armor simply by thinking about it.
• Equipment: Arms and armor. Has a faerie horse constructed of the knight’s own glamor, so it flies when the knight does, and shares the knight’s Magic Resistance. Courtier as squire.
• Vis: 2 pawns, often rusty pieces of armor that the knight has poured its glamor into.
• Appearance: A knight clad in silver leaves of metal, astride a fine horse. These knights often display the motif of their court on their surcoat, shield, and pavilion.

These faeries are often encountered outside courts, on lonely roads, and guarding bridges. They seek out defeat by humans as a way of gaining additional combat Pretenses. They are never seen with their armor off, so they may be a role that other faeries take on when they wish to enjoy some blood sport. Faerie Knights are more bound to the rules of chivalry than real knights, and so they do not use the Damaging Effect Power on their weapons against worthy foes.

Masters of Skills

These faeries seek out mortals who are at the peak of their profession, and either raise them up, or cast them down. Many of the faeries in this chapter might play the role of master of skills.

Faerie Knights: These creatures seek out great warriors for combat. The Fatae: Faeries who humble women who boast of their weaving. Selkies: Faeries who have captured the souls of drowned fishermen can be convinced to free them if beaten in drinking contests.

A master of skills has the disputed Ability as a Pretense with a score of at least 9, and may have additional Virtues which aid in the use of the Pretense, like Improved Dexterity.

The Barking Beast

The beast is not designed as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 10
• Characteristics: Cunning +5, Per +3, Pre –2/+2*, Com –5, Str +1, Sta n/a**, Dex +3, Qik +5 (* Some versions of the beast are strangely beautiful. ** Most faeries have stamina scores because their roles make it necessary for them to seem to tire; not so the barking beast.)
• Size: +2
• Virtues and Flaws: External Vis (minor), Faerie Sight, Greater Faerie Powers, Highly Cognizant, 4 x Improved Characteristics, Increased Faerie Might, Large, Sharp Ears
• Personality Traits: Loves being hunted +5, Likes rewarding hunters +3
• Combat:
  • Bite: Init +5, Attack +12, Defense +11, Damage +4
  • Soak: +5
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-7), –3 (8-14), –5 (1521), Incapacitated (22-28), Dead (29+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 6 (running), Awareness 6+3 (hunters), Brawl 5 (bite), Stealth 5 (when being hunted)
• Powers:
  • Spirit Away: variable points, n/a, Vim: allows the faerie to act as a threshold guardian, as described in the Faerieland Chapter.
• Vis: 2 pawns, usually buried well away from the hunt.

Appearance: There are two different versions of the questing beast. The more monstrous, which has been described by the statistics here, has the head and neck of a snake or possibly a dragon, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion, and the feet of a stag. The baying of sixty hunting hounds comes from its belly while it moves. The second version is usually smaller than a fox, although a gigantic version may exist. It is pure white, and beautiful. The baying within it comes from its unborn young, who tear it asunder when they emerge.

This is sometimes read as an anti-Semitic religious allegory, or as an allegory for various forms of heresy and impiety, including disruption of the Mass.

Barking beasts are the greatest test of the skill of a hunter. They are an interesting study for Hermetic scholars, because it is clear that the original barking beast was the product of a human copulation with a demon. Once it was hunted down and destroyed, other barking beasts, some of which are aligned to the Divine realm, appeared. Hermetic magi have also discovered faerie barking beasts. These are likely to be faeries drawn to the role by the passionate attention it provides. The barking beast lives to be chased, not caught, and although it allows its body to be destroyed, it works very hard to make its External Vis source inaccessible. To reward its hunters for the frustration of chasing it, it often leads them through places where enemies of the hunter are meeting, or where valuable resources are available, while the chase continues. If the hunter brings retainers who can leave the hunt, these resources can be collected, or marked for later use. Some hunters claim that while they have chased the beast they have traveled into distant parts of Europe, and that the retainers they have left to gather resources sometimes return to them from distant ports. This may be true, but it might also be that the beast simply fools the retainers with glamour and has them wander faerie for a time. The barking beast is not malicious, but damages crops if ignored, to force people to hunt it. In T. H. White’s The Once and Future King there is a beautiful scene featuring one of these creatures. The knight charged with hunting the beast has forsaken the quest, because he has become a Christian and put away worldly concerns. He chances upon the beast, pining away for want of attention and too sick to flee him, so he nurses it back to health and begins the quest again.

Barking Beast Variants

Zlatorog: A similar creature, the Zlatorog, is found on Mount Triglav in Slovenia. It is a white chamois with horns of gold. Hunters seek its horns, but it tricks them into falling over precipices. If the blood of the Zlatrog is spilled, a red flower grows from it. When the Zlatrog eats this flower, it is immediately healed.

Death

Just before death, the spirit flares as it flexes free of the body. This attracts the presence of many different types of faerie. This section does not concern itself with faeries who kill to feed on the fleeing spirit. Instead, it details faeries who wait for the person’s natural time of death and interact then, or with faeries that seem to cross to the mortal world from the lands of the dead.

Psychopomps

A psychopomp is a faerie that leads the spirits of the dead to an afterlife. It was a role of the god Hermes in classical times.

Psychopomps are now rare in Mythic Europe, because of the general prevalence of the Dominion.

Valkyrie

Valkyries are not designed as player characters

• Faerie Might: 20
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str 0, Sta 0, Dex +3, Qik +1
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: 3 x Increased Faerie Might, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Form, Personal Faerie Power; Incognizant, Visions* (* Valkyries know where and when worthy men are likely to die.)
• Personality Traits: Brave +5, Judgmental +3
• Combat:
  • Axe and Round Shield (unmounted): Init +2, Attack +16, Defense +12, Damage +6
  • Axe and Round Shield (mounted): Init +2, Attack +19, Defense +15, Damage +6
• Soak: +9
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Awareness 9 (battlefields), Brawl 9 (einherjar), Ride 5 (wolf), Single Weapon 9 (giants)
• Powers:
  • Fly: 0 points, constant, usually Corpus but sometimes Animal (2 intricacy points on cost)
• Equipment: Arms, armor, wolf mount, vast quantities of wine.
• Vis: 4 Corpus, a dead vulture

Appearance: Shield maidens or crones that ride wolves above battlefields, and select the worthy dead. They have excellent equipment and extraordinary training.

These minor goddesses of the Norse pantheon are no longer worshiped in Mythic Europe, but have been encountered by magi in Arcadia, and in their ancient places of power in Scandinavia. Their name means “Chooser of the Slain,” because they are believed to choose who lives and dies during battle, and which spirits are worthy of transformation into einherjar — spiritual warriors awaiting Ragnarok. They also act as serving maids in Valhalla. Many have names that evoke the tumult of battle. They ride through the sky, invisibly, on wolves.

Wolf Mount

• Faerie Might: 20 (made of the glamour of the Valkyrie and shares her Might pool)
• Characteristics: Cun +2, Per 0, Pre –2, Com 0, Str +2, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik –4
• Size: +3
• Virtues and Flaws: Gigantic, Improved Characteristics (x2), Faerie Sight, Ferocity (when hungry) Sharp Ears
• Personality Traits: Brave +3, Cowardly +3
• Combat:
  • Teeth: Init –2, Attack +9, Defense +9, Damage +3
• Soak: +7
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-8), –3 (8-16), –5 (17–24), Incapacitated (25–32), Dead (33+)
• Abilities: Athletics 5 (distance running), Awareness 3 (smell), Brawl 5 (teeth), Hunt 4 (track by smell), Survival 3 (winter)
• Powers:
  • When the valkyrie uses Fly the wolf, as part of her glamour, flies too. The valkyrie can carry a passenger with the aid of her wolf.
• Vis: None, as the wolf is an extension of the valkyrie.

Appearance: A wolf the size of a horse, with saddle and harness. Its thick fur gives it a Protection of 1, and it wears leather covers that act as partial barding.

Returned Dead

The returned dead are faeries that either are, or pretend to be, humans that have passed from this life into the next, and then return. They are not, like many magical ghosts, driven by an obsessive need to finish a single task. Many believe they died at an unnatural time, or were not laid to rest in the most efficacious way. They hope that when their true hour comes, they will rise to Heaven, or pass to some pleasant other place in Arcadia.

Aoroi: This class of restless ghosts, waiting just the other side of death and able to come back to speak with the living, were called the aoroi by the ancient Greeks. They were thought to be waiting on the worldly side of the Styx, unable to cross until their mortal hour had passed, or they found an obol for their fare. The aoroi — the summonable dead — were particularly important for divination, and were often called by the cthonic cult that eventually led to the formation of the Houses of Tytalus and Tremere.

More-recently dead people seem to return to earth to finish their story. Ghosts, including faerie ghosts, have been described in great detail in Realms of Power: Magic.

Rusalka: The rusalka, a type of water nymph, demonstrates a type of returned dead that comes back so that their tragedy can be replayed.

Ancestral Spirits

These faeries believe that they are the ancestor of all people within a particular family. They take on attributes from the family’s history and symbolism, although they sometimes misappropriate or misunderstand them. They believe themselves to be the ancestral dead, though, so they refuse to believe more-accurate information if it is presented to them.

The banshee (whose name means “faerie woman,” or literally “woman of peace”) and the bean nighe (washer woman) are such faeries that foretell deaths. These are designed as courtly faeries, with high or low Presence depending on their regional variant, and the Visions Flaw. They shouldn’t be used as magical wishing genies, though: they can’t just grant anything a character desires.

Banshee: The Irish form of this creature, the banshee, is both a faerie and the ghost of a woman. She appears to sing the death lament for one of her descendants. In certain circumstances, it is possible to discover how a person will die from the banshee, and attempt to cheat fate. She gives a wish to anyone claiming to be her foster child. In some areas, banshees are thought to leave their combs for mortals to find, so that they can spirit them away. Bean Nighe: The washerwoman, who appears in both Scotland and Ireland, is seen washing the bloody clothes or armor of one who is soon to die. A character may claim a wish by sneaking up on the bean nighe and suckling from her drooping breasts. Tomte: The tomte, a powerful sort of brownie, believes it is the ghost of the first ancestor to clear that land on which the farm it inhabits is built. It is found in Scandinavian lands.

Many Courtly Faeries, fauns, and nymphs also claim descendant families.

Life Stages for Magi

The life stages through which magi pass are different from those that mundane people experience. Many faeries that seek children as victims mistakenly assail magi, because some magi have not been marked as adults by rituals the faeries recognize, like first communion or marriage. Other faeries that interact with magi reflect their unusual lifestyle by guarding the borders of the life stages unique to Hermetic culture. The first threshold is being taken as an apprentice:

Black Faced Hermes: This faerie comes down the chimney to take away unnatural children, still abducts the Gifted and leaves them at the doors of covenants. The Mournful Maga: While growing up, apprentices face the Mournful Maga, a Bonisagus maga whose apprentices kept dying in laboratory accidents, who tries to steal the apprentices of other magi when they travel from their covenants. The Seducer: Just before the Gauntlet, an apprentice may meet the Seducer, a faerie that tempts him with a life of social acceptance and domesticity.

Young magi entering middle age often face a pack of unpleasant faeries, as well:

Ravagers: Ravagers hunt magi wanting to find their longevity formula. The Retiarius: This faerie chases potential familiars with his nets, to force them to fight in the faerie arenas.

Many Mystery Cults have faeries that guard their secrets, as well. An apprentice, if found, must be guided past the creatures that the magus has conquered, and any others that have been drawn by the covenant’s vibrant life. And some archmagi, it is rumoured, state that in the depths of Arcadia dwell faeries who are a challenge even for their great might. Giants and Titans — Magic creatures imprisoned in the Faerie Lands since the Titanomachy and Gigantomachy — struggle against their chains, held in place by terrible faerie guardians.

The Master of Challenges: A creature called the Master of Challenges torments magi who come this deep into Arcadia. It intermittently claims to be Tytalus, forced to serve as the jailer of the creatures he hoped to release, but it has a half dozen other origin stories, and none of them need be true.

Faeries Interested in Social Distinctions

These faeries dwell on the borders between different types social classes of human. When examining these faeries, it is important to recall that although they appear human, their motives are guided by an alien set of internal rules. A faerie pretending to be a lord or a knight may be attempting to communicate to the characters that it wants them to behave toward it in the same way they would toward a real knight or lord. The tone of the interaction having been set, what the faerie actually desires may bear little resemblance to what a real lord or knight would want. Alternatively, the faerie may want what a lord wants, but have no practical use for the thing, seeking it merely to fulfill a role that, once complete, makes the thing valueless to the faerie.

Bringers of Riches or Humility

Some faeries manipulate the social positions of people, because status is closely tied to powerful human emotions. They may treat well those humans who fulfill their roles perfectly, while punishing those that fail to meet their standards. Faeries may support people who wish to ascend to a higher social class, because it causes such joy and ire among surrounding humans. Others enforce the boundaries of social class, feeding on the crushed hopes of the poor. A few pull down the wealthy.

Brownies

Brownies are fragile, and so they are not strongly suited to conversion to player characters. Players who would like to play a brownie need to select two Virtues to balance the current Flaws, and if they do not select another Virtue or Flaw that governs the rate they gain Pretenses, they must select the Observant Virtue. The basic brownie has spent 10 spell levels from its Personal Faerie Powers Virtue on intricacy points A player may trade them back, so that the Invisibility power costs 2 points. It has also spent 10 spell levels from its Focus Power Virtue. A player may trade those back, but this severely restricts the value of the Focus Power. The brownie has the correct Pretense scores for a beginning companion character.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Corpus)
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str –12, Sta +1, Dex +3, Qik +3
• Size: –6
• Virtues and Flaws: Focus Power (Domestic Work); Feast of the Fae, Faerie Sight, Humanoid Faerie, Personal Power (Invisibility), Positive Folktalkes; Narrowly Cognizant; 2 x Little, Sovereign Ward (clothes)
• Personality Traits: Loyal +3
• Combat:
• Thrown Knife or Stone: Init+3, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage –10.* (* Damage is +5 when using a human-sized knife and Focus (Domestic Work) power.)
• Soak: +1
• Wound Penalties: –5 (1), Incapacitated (2), Dead (3+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 2 (climbing), Awareness 2 (intruders), Charm 2 (women), Folk Ken 5 (farming), House Lore 3 (lost items), Speak 5 (Local language), Profession: Household Servant 6 (indoors), Thrown Weapon 3 (knives).
• Powers:
  • Focus (Domestic Work): up to 3 points. May create effects up to level 15. (2 intricacy points raise maximum level)
  • Invisibility: 0 points, Init +1, Imaginem (2 intricacy points reduce Might cost)
• Equipment: None, and it is known for being nude.
• Vis: 1 pawn, balls of hair and dust

Appearance: Brownies are domestic faeries. They look like shaggy men around a foot tall. They are frequently nude, although some wear brown clothes.

Brownie Variants

Brownies are found in many locations under a variety of names.

Boggart: In England the boggart, a trickster spirit that causes havoc in the home, is simply a brownie that has decided to be malicious. Portune: This is a tiny faerie, half the size of a thumb, which acts like a brownie but delights in roasting frogs on the fire when his humans are asleep.

Ellyon: In Wales the ellyon perform similar service, but vanish forever if they become aware they are being spied upon.

Heinzelmännchen: In Germany, similar creatures are called heinzelmännchen. They look a lot like dwarfs, but the word is often translated as “elves” in English. The “Elves and the Shoemaker,” by the Grimms, contains heinzelmännchen. For a time, every house in Cologne had one of these servants, but they were scared away when a curious housewife broke their taboo. She spilled peas on her floor in order to make one fall over so she could have a look at it. The best described of these creatures appeared as a child in a red coat, but when it showed its true form to a maid, it was the ghost of a child who had been chopped apart with swords.

Domovoi: In Slavic lore the equivalent of a brownie is called a domovoi, and lives beneath the threshold or the stove. He looks like a hairy little man with a tail and horns, or takes the shape or a domestic animal, or even appears as the owner of the house. He can predict the future, and gives warnings by laughing or moaning. The wife of the domovoi is called the kikimora, and she helps with the chickens and the spinning, although to see her spinning is a presentiment of death.

Tomte: The most mystically powerful of the brownie variants is the tomte. The tomte is the Sandinavian form of the brownie, and is believed to be the spirit of the person who cleared the tomt, the block of land, on which the house rests. A tomte may vary his size from that of a mouse to larger than a human, and may make himself invisible. Tomtes, seen with faerie sight, look like wizened little men with full beards. Tomtes aid the fertility of the land, and dwell just underneath it, so farmers are required to shout a warning if they spill hot water. Tomtes also take particular care of horses.

Feoderee: The most physically imposing brownie is the Feoderee of the Isle of Man. He was a Courtly Faerie, but was cursed to become a giant hairy monster after his courtship of a mortal girl made him miss a soiree with the other faeries. He has the statistics of a giant, but is in all other respects a brownie: he stops serving at a farm if given clothes, for example.

Ùruisg: The ùruisg is a tiny satyr that serves much as a brownie does. They are found in Scotland, and have a taste for dairy products and the charms of dairymaids.

Liberators of the Underclass

Many faeries allow characters to move over the border from poverty into wealth.

The mechanism that provides wealth varies by place. English faeries, for example, seem often to know the location of buried treasure, while Scottish faeries teach skills like divination and healing that allow a poor person to earn a living. Little folk with hidden treasure are described later under Guardians of the Entrances of the Earth. Animals that take a young man or woman on an adventure, so that they are wealthy when it concludes, are described in the Human Sidekicks section.

Courtly Faeries

Called the “sidhe” in Ireland, courtly faeries gather in large groups to fulfill roles similar those found among humans in centers of political power. A faerie court’s members usually have a unifying theme in their roles, which highlights the threshold that this court inhabits. Humans who interact with a faerie court are usually acting above their social station, which means they are also crossing a threshold that is considered very important in Mythic Europe. One of the methods humans use to hold that border is elaborate rules of etiquette that separate those raised in a social class from those who merely have money. Faeries are made of rules, and courtly faeries adopt a version of human etiquette fastidiously. Faerie courts are usually ruled by a monarch, or pair of monarchs. This monarch is served by lesser faeries, sometimes called nobles or the gentry. These in turn, have servants and faerie animals. Most courts are guarded by creatures that are designed as giants, but altered to suit the theme of the court. The statistics of courtly faeries can be used as substitutes for those of many other humanoid faeries.

Faerie Monarchs

For a faerie to challenge the power of a group of senior magi, unaided, it requires a Faerie Might score of around 60, and the Penetration Pretense, to allow it to project its powers through the Parma Magica. Monarchs of this highest degree of power are rare, and many have a Might score of 40. These can challenge magi in their middle years, if aided by a court of less-powerful beings.

White Lady (Dame Blanche)

White Ladies are not designed as player characters.

• Faerie Might: 40+10 (Aquam)
• Characteristics: Int +4, Per 0, Pre+4, Com +3, Str +2, Sta +2, Dex 0, Qik +1
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Focus Power, 3 x Greater Faerie Powers, Highly Cognizant, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 2 x Great Characteristic, Human Form, 6 x Improved Characteristics, 7 x Increased Faerie Might, 2 x Personal Faerie Powers, Place of Power (kingdom); Traditional Ward (The Dominion)
• Personality Traits: Fond of seducing mortals to their doom +2
• Combat:
  • Brawl (fist): Init +1, Attack +1, Defense +2, Damage +2. They prefer to use magical effects rather than weapons.
• Soak: +2
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (1115), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: (Area) Lore 6 (sites of historic significance or power), Artes Liberales 3 (history), Animal Handling 2 (one of horses/hawks/dogs/fish/seabirds), Athletics 6 (dance), Awareness 2 (ambushes), Bargain 7 (magi), Brawl 1 (escaping), Carouse 6 (dancing), Charm 6 (men), Concentration 3 (while killing things), Craft: (varies, often weaving) 6 (varies), Etiquette 7 (forcing others to be rude), Faerie Speech 6, Finesse 6 (Rego), Folk Ken 2 (customs of surrounding area), Guile 3 (men), Intrigue 4 (against magi), Leadership 6 (in warfare), Order of Hermes Lore 5 (conflicts), Penetration 6 (using Arcane Connections), Swim 9 (home waters).
• Powers:
  • Extended Glamor: 0 points, constant,
  • Focus Power (Water within her realm): up to 10 points, Init –9, Aquam. Some of the Ladies have other focuses. This is the most common. They have been known to kill with versions of Ice of Drowning, Mighty Torrent of Water, Pull of the Watery Grave, and Tower of Whirling Water using this power. Note that in character creation, the same focus power has been selected twice to gain this higher level.
  • Touch of the Mermaid: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam: Kiss of the Mermaid, for characters too regal to kiss a magus for ease of transport.
  • Torrent from the Lungs: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam: The Ladies often live in kingdoms of salt water, where this spell and a skin of potable water can be used as negotiating tools.
  • Transform into (one of Current/Wave): 2 points, Init –4, Aquam: (Until Duration) (3 intricacy points to reduce cost)
  • Transform Victim into (one of Seagull/Crab/Salmon): 2 points, Init –3, Animal. (2 intricacy points to reduce cost)

Each lady also has distinct, individual powers. Pine Away is the most common of these, but Enthrall and Spirit Away are also common. These have not been included in the Virtue section.

• Equipment: A small kingdom of faerie servants. Mystical artifacts which at a minimum include a scrying pool (see ArM5 page 122 for a spell that simulates this device). Centuries of shipwreck treasure. Clothed in white wool, with flowers in her long hair. Often carries a comb and mirror.
• Vis: 8 pawns Rego, a comb, +2 if in kingdom

Appearance: A beautiful woman with long hair and fiery eyes, in a robe of the finest wool.

“White Lady” is a euphemism used in the Normandy Tribunal, much as “good neighbours” or “wee folk” are used in other places, to refer to the faeries without offending them. The White Ladies of Normandy are various types of faerie, ranging from the lesser nymphs of wells to the powerful creatures described here. The White Ladies are, in a sense, guardians of a division of space, because of their connection to waterways. The most powerful White Ladies are, however, courtly faeries with retinues, who interact with player characters in their role as queens. The most powerful White Ladies claim they were nine sorceresses, the princesses of the Celtic tribes that inhabited Normandy before the Romans came. Pushed back, first by Roman military power and then by the Dominion, they took refuge in the waters. Some keep wells that lead to Faerie, while others command kingdoms of faeries beneath the waves. The White Ladies are of particular interest to magi because they are steeped in Druid lore, but some supported House Diedne in the Schism, and they do not love the proudly Roman Order of Hermes. White ladies often steal children, and some of these are lucky enough to survive into adulthood. They also make bargains with drowning sailors for things that can only be found on land, or for the sailor’s children.

Faerie Noble: The Privy Counselor

The statistics given for the Privy Counselor have been kept within the range that a player might substitute for a beginning magus, but this makes it weak compared to other faerie nobles, who have too many Virtues and Pretences to balance beginning characters. To play the Privy Counselor, a player must give the faerie a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw and the Observant Free Virtue. This set of statistics has 25 points of Virtues and 12 points of Flaws, so for play it needs to trade back at least 4 points of Virtues and 2 of Flaws.

• Faerie Might: 35 (Imaginem)
• Characteristics: Int +3, Per +1, Pre +2, Com +2, Str 0, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik 0
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: External Vis (Venus’ Blessing, his signet ring), 3 x Greater Faerie Powers, 6 x Increased Faerie Might, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 2 x Improved Characteristic, 3 x Personal Faerie Powers; Restricted Might (major – in the presence of honest people), Sovereign Ward (places or objects sacred to Saint Thaddeus, the patron of penitent thieves), Sovereign Ward (crossing the Aegis of the Hearth), Oath of Fealty (monarch), Incognizant, Traditional Ward (keys).
• Personality Traits: Charming +3, or Sarcastic +3, once discovered
• Combat:
  • Brawl (bludgeon): Init 0, Attack +2, Defense 0, Damage +2
  • Long Sword: Init +2, Attack +5, Defense +2, Damage +6
• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (1115), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Awareness 1 (amusing things), Carouse 3 (feasts), Charm 1 (criminals), Brawl 1 (when surprised), Etiquette 4 (merchants), Faerie Speech 6 (speeches), Intrigue 3 (against magi), Order of Hermes Lore 3 (covenant administration), Penetration 1 (Enthrallment), Ride 1 (horses), Single Weapon 1 (dirty fighting).
• Powers:
  • Enthrallment: 4 points, Init -1 Mentem (3 points on Initiative +1 point for Penetration)
  • Illusionary Home: 4 points, Init –4, Imaginem: (Room or structure variant depending on role)
  • Image Phantom: 2 points, Init –2, Imaginem.
  • Steal Judgment: 2 points, Init –2, Mentem.
  • Allure: 0 points, Init –1 Mentem: (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Invisibility: 0 points, Init –2, Imaginem (2 intricacy points on cost)
  • Shift Human Shapes: 0 points, Init 0, Corpus: (1 intricacy point on cost and Initiative)
  • Transform into Coin: 4 points, Init –4 as form of object: the faerie often takes the shape of a coin to spy on its enemies.

(This example does not use the Extend Glamour power, but it is recommended for principal faeries of minor courts.)

• Equipment: Sumptuous clothing, and effortless wealth.
• Vis: 7 pawns, in hat (External Vis Virtue).

Appearance: The privy counselor looks like a young nobleman, and often claims to be the bastard of a duke who sent him away, but set him up in business. He uses his powers to maintain an apparently sumptuous home, after finding a site in a city where the Dominion is weaker than usual. He gains real money to fund his role, by stealing it using shapeshifting and enthrallment.

Faerie nobles vary widely in appearance and power. They serve as the monarchs of lesser faerie courts, or as the principal agents of great monarchs or pagan gods. Faerie nobles can superficially be mistaken for their human counterparts, particularly by the poor, who rarely see mortal nobles. The Privy Counselor is a trickster and saboteur that an angered faerie monarch sends to strike at the covenant’s interests in the mortal world. The Privy Counselor cannot merely cause the covenant to decline, through surreptitious sabotage, over decades. It must strike the covenant in ways that the magi feel, and it must, eventually, engineer a confrontation to feed from them. The faerie gives clues to the identity it has assumed, and once it has been discovered it may flee, but it always returns in new guises to strike at, and mock, the characters. It lacks the cognizance to change its role. This prevents the Privy Counselor parleying with the magi to change sides and strike at its monarch.

Champion: Sir Excelsis

The faerie champion cannot be taken as a player character, except to replace advanced magi. Players desiring a less powerful knight should consult the Creatures Designed to Die section.

• Faerie Might: 25 (Ignem, in this case, but usually Corpus or Terram depending on what’s under the armor)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +1, Com +1, Str +9, Sta +1, Dex +2, Qik 0
• Size: +2
• Virtues and Flaws: Huge, 4 x Increased Faerie Might, Cognizant within Role, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 2 x Great Characteristic, Humanoid Faerie, Observant. 3 x Improved Characteristic, Improved Damage (sword), 2 x Personal Faerie Powers, Puissant Pretense; Enemies (other knights who want this role), Puissant Militant Pretense, Sovereign Ward (spilled blood of a noblewoman), Sovereign Ward (The Dominion)
• Personality Traits: Loyal +3, Proud +3.
• Combat:
  • Brawl (gauntlets): Init 0, Attack +2, Defense +4, Damage +11
  • Greatsword:** Init +2, Attack +18, Defense +13, Damage +23
  • Lance and Heater Shield: Init +2, Attack +17, Defense +14, Damage +23
  • reat Sword and Heater Shield:** Init +2, Attack +17, Defense +15, Damage +20
  • Mace and Heater Shield:* Init +1, Attack +16, Defense +14, Damage +17'

(* Various weapons have been described here to speed customization. Unusual weapons that suit the motif or the court may use the scores above, with slicing weapons in lieu of swords and bashing weapons in lieu of maces. These statistics do not include the +5 Damage bonus the champion gains when using the Damaging Effect power, or the bonus of +3 to Attack and Defense gained when fighting mounted, or the +1 for fighting on the tourney field. They do include the effect of the Puissant Pretense Virtue in all cases, so if the champion is forced to swap away from his preferred weapon, he suffers a –2 penalty on the Attack and Defense scores listed above.) (** Also includes +5 for Improved Damage)

• Soak: +10
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-7), –3 (8-14), –5 (1521), Incapacitated (22-28), Dead (29+)
• Pretenses: Area Lore 3 (hunting spots), Awareness 5 (enemies), Brawl 6 (knights), Carouse 4 (feasts), Charm 3 (ladies), Etiquette 5 (faerie court), Faerie Speech 6 (boasting), Folk Ken 3 (surrounding humans), Hunt 5 (humans), Intrigue 3 (against other knights), Leadership 9 (tournaments), Ride 6 (horses), Single Weapon 9+2 (tourney field).
• Powers:
  • Damaging Effect: 2 points: Init –6, Terram (supernaturally sharp) or Herbam (poisoned), 2 intricacy points spent on cost. This is designed as a Lesser Power. More mystically endowed knights may have this as a Greater Power (Cost 2, Initiative –2, possibly with the cost adjusted down using intricacy) and may stack it with Improved Damage.
  • Glide: 2 points, constant, Corpus. A renaming of the Flight power, this allows Sir Excelsis to move through the waters of the subaquatic kingdom as a flier would through air. This enables him to swim and fight at the same time, for example. It does, technically, still allow him to fly.
  • Shift Human Shapes: 0 points, Init –1, Corpus. Allows the champion to don or remove armor simply by willing it. (1 intricacy point to reduce cost)
• Equipment: Armor of magical scales of faerie iron. Lance with pennant and other weapons. Attendant as squire. Trappings marked with the burning fern motif. The champion’s glamor produces a faerie horse for him, which has the statistics given below for faerie horses, except that it shares his vis, Might, and Magic Resistance. As it is an extension of his glamor, the champion’s mount flies when he does.
• Vis: 5 pawns Ignem, a rusty piece from human–sized armor. For other champions, storyguides might consider a rusty weapon, and add the External Vis virtue.

Appearance: An immense human figure clad in scaled armor of metal fern fronds, that can turn into a huge, but superficially charming man. His fastidious chivalry exceeds that of the humans he impersonates, and he enjoys challenging humans to duels over minor shortfalls.

Sir Excelsis is the most powerful faerie knight in the White Lady’s kingdom. He is treated as a noble by the other faeries, despite his lack of Might. He is less physically imposing than her gigantic guards, due to his human appearance, but he has greater magical resistance, better equipment, and more Intelligence than they do.

Lesser Courtly Faeries

Lesser faeries can be designed as player characters. Many have the Place of Power Virtue. These faeries have the roles of minor nobles, or their attendants. Courtly faeries also often have faerie animals as servants. Most courts have animals that suit mortal nobility, like horses, hounds, and hawks, but the court of the Lady has horses, eels, and gulls. Some ancient Roman writers talk of “mimic dogs,” which were creatures that could be taught to repeat human actions. These were probably a type of servant faerie that has been destroyed by the coming of the Dominion.

Sprites

Sprites are challenging as player characters, because a single strike in combat destroys one. A character that emphasizes the spying and sniping elements of the role survives longer. Players are advised to select the power set that allows multiple magical arrows per day. Sprites as described below lack a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw and need a Virtue like Observant to govern character development. The statistics below have one more Flaw than Virtue. The Pretenses given are correct for a new character.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Corpus)
• Characteristics: Int, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str –20, Sta +1, Dex +3, Qik +10
• Size: –10
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Power; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, Personal Power (Flight) or Faerie' Ally; Narrowly Cognizant; 2 x Little, Oath of Fealty, Traditional Ward (smoke, in this case, or as per court)
• Personality Traits: Loyal +3
• Combat:
  • Bow: Init +8, Attack +12, Defense +15, Damage –12* (* Often used in conjunction with Grant Flaw, some other power, or poison.)
• Soak: +6 (tiny jerkin)
  • Wound Penalties: Dead (1+)
• Pretenses: Area Lore (court) 5 (intruders), Athletics 3 (flight), Awareness 5 (intruders), Bow 5 (intruders), Carouse 1 (feasts), Charm 1 (as ambassadors), Etiquette 2 (faerie) Faerie Speech 5, Hunt 1 (humans).
• Powers:
  • Cause Sickness: 0 points, Init +9, Corpus. (3 intricacy points spent on cost, 2 on initiative): This power usually causes strokes when used by sprites, but in this court, fevers are caused instead. The strike of a messenger’s arrow can cause this effect. Strokes have an Ease Factor of 6, but cause a Heavy wound. The fevers caused by these sprites have an Ease Factor of 9 and cause a Light wound.
  • Flight: 0 points, constant, 2 intricacy points reducing Might cost. (See Sir Excelsis for modifications to this power for the White Lady’s court.)

A faerie that wishes to use magical arrows often, for combat, might trade its Greater Power for the following selections:

• • Improved Damage Virtue (+5 Damage)
  • Improved Soak Virtue (+2 Soak)
  • Damaging Effect Lesser Power: 1 point, Init +4: (2 intricacy points on cost), Provides a mystical effect based on the court’s motif, that increases the damage of the messenger’s arrows by +5 for 2 minutes.

It retains Personal Power (Flight), as above.

• Equipment: Bow, jerkin with the mark of the burning fern. Some faeries of this type fly using mounts, purchased as the Faerie Ally Virtue, in lieu of the Fly power. They have Pretenses of 2 in Ride and 1 in Animal Handling, and lower their Athletics to 2 and their Etiquette to 1.
• Vis: 1 pawn Ignem, dead bug. In many other courts this would be Corpus.

Appearance: These faeries are tiny humanoid figures that can fly, a power they use to perform interesting feasts of gymnastics for their lords. They are armed with tiny bows, and prefer to attack in confusing swarms.

The nobles of the court use these tiny faeries as envoys and saboteurs. Sprites also pose a danger when they attack in swarms. Note that winged faeries are not known in much of Mythic Europe. If your saga proceeds as history did, they do not enter English literature until the 18th century. Most faeries fly either simply by wishing to, or by riding mounts that fly.

Regional Courtly Faerie Variants

Most of the regional variants of these faeries reflect the culture either of the group currently living in the area where they are found, or the culture of the humans who were displaced when the current culture invaded the area. Courtly faeries are often divided into fertile and infertile courts, which have seasonal connections, although the symbols used to represent their allegiance vary between communities.

Story Seed: The Deluded Hero A young man who lives near the covenant is undergoing a difficult adolescence, made worse by a faerie queen who keeps giving him missions. She tells the young man that these difficult, if not really very dangerous, tasks are vital to the safety of his village, which the young man feels he has saved several times. The boy, on the cusp of manhood, becomes so emotionally agitated during his quests that his patron can feed deeply on his vitality. The faerie eventually seeks the aid of the magi, though, because its meddling has so changed the personality of the boy that he has attracted a minor demon of Pride. The faerie wants the player characters to defeat the demon and tell the boy the truth. It wants to protect him, but it also wants to feed on his disillusionment. The boy’s quests have bought him faerie equipment and unusual skills, so he would prove a useful companion.

Divisions of Time

Faeries are encountered at the borders of the year and seasons. These faeries may lead static lives, trapped in a single repeating day, or may lead circular existences, as part of a mystical clockwork. Faeries associated with divisions of time are some of the most human-seeming faeries: many of them use the statistics for courtly faeries given in the preceding section.

Summer and Winter: Fertile and Infertile

Mythic Europeans live in an agrarian society. They live and die by the strength of their harvests, and this concern draws faeries. The courts of summer and winter, in many areas, fight battles on the Equinoxes. Summer defeats winter, and then later in the year, is in turn defeated. The members of each court are dressed as appropriate for their season. The faeries of winter often seem harsh, while the faeries of summer are happy, and it is easy for the untutored to mistake these two sides for good and evil. Players may be forced to intervene if the seasonal battles are disrupted. This is because the faeries involved believe they are vital for agriculture, so their roles force them to destroy crops with unseasonal frost or droughts.

Cailleach Bheur (Cally Berry)

The blue hag is not suitable as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 40+10 (Auram)
• Characteristics: Int +3, Per 0, Pre –3, Com +2, Str +5, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qik –1
• Size: +3
• Virtues and Flaws: 3 x Focus Power, Greater Faerie Powers, 7 x Increased Faerie Might, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Form, Large, Time of Power (winter); Restricted Might (major summer), Improved Powers, Incognizant, Sovereign Ward (summer turns her to stone)
• Personality Traits: Cruel +2
• Combat:
  • Brawl (razor sharp fingernails): Init –1, Attack +7, Defense +7, Damage +7
• Soak: +1
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-8), –3 (9-16), –5 (17-24), Incapacitated (25-32), Dead (33+)
• Pretenses: Scotland Under The Snows Lore 9 (faerie auras), Awareness 6 (distant events), Bargain 5 (with questioners), Brawl 5 (when ambushed), Charm 3 (those who come with questions), Faerie Speech 5 (gullible people), Guile 3 (answering questions), Penetration 2 (Focus Power (Ice))
• Powers:
  • Extend Glamour: 0 points, constant, Mentem: the Cailleach Bheur’s glamour is unusual in that it covers far more than a Boundary.
  • Focus Power (Ice): up to 5 points, Init –6, Auram (3 points on Penetration)
  • Focus Power (Storms): up to 10 points, Init –11, Auram
  • Spreading a Mantle of Snow: 1 point, Init –4, Auram: (2 intricacy points spent on cost). The hag pounds her staff — or mallet, in some areas — onto the ground so that it becomes hard and coated in ice.
  • Conjuration of the Indubitable Cold: 0 points, Init –4, Ignem: (3 intricacy points spent on cost). As the spell of the same name on ArM5 page 142.
• Equipment: Her plaid, which covers the land.
• Vis: 8 or 10 Auram, a rotten plaid

Appearance: The Cailleach Bheur has blueblack skin, like a corpse, and is hideously ugly. In some areas she turns to stone during the summer months.

In some areas, single creatures represent summer and winter. In many parts of Ireland and Scotland, for example, the winter is represented by the blue hag, the Cailleach Bheur. The blue hag is the guardian of the streams and wells, and the protectress of wolves, goats, deer, cattle, and many other animals. She washes her plaid at a particular spot until it is pure white, then spreads it over the land until summer, when her power passes to a rival. In ancient times this was often the goddess Brigid, but in other areas she keeps the summer as her prisoner. The Cailleach Bheur’s glamour extends to much of the land, so she is aware of many important things happening in distant places. This ability makes her unsuitable as a player character in most sagas, but makes her a valuable ally to magi.

Spring and Autumn: Sowing and Reaping

Spring is a time of natural vitality, and faeries seek out the pleasure this gives to humans. The faeries of the spring are lighthearted, and heartening. Some seem to be able to feed from the natural magic of the world, and not be interested in humans at all. The season of harvests is both a season for joy and happiness that draws faeries, and of banefires to keep curses away.

Południca

If redesigning Południca as a player character, note that she has 5 spell levels in Personal Faerie Powers that have been converted to a intricacy point to reduce the cost of her whirlwind power by 1. She has 30 spell levels in Greater Faerie Powers that have been used to reduce the cost and increase the speed of her Cause Fatigue power from 4 points, 0 Init. These might be reclaimed for a new power. Południca’s Virtues and Flaws are not balanced: she requires an additional Minor Flaw. She also requires a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw. She currently has the equivalent of eight Minor Virtues.

• Faerie Might: 10 (Auram)
• Characteristics: Int +1,Per 0, Pre +3/–3, Com 0, Str 0, Sta 0, Dex 0, Qik 0
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, Increased Faerie Might, 2 x Personal Faerie Powers; Incognizant, Restricted Might (major – winter), Sovereign Ward (running water), Traditional Wards (questions)
• Personality Traits: Curious +3
• Combat:
  • Scythe: Init +5, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +5
• Soak: +0
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
• Abilities: Awareness 3 (laziness), Charm 2 (rural people), Faerie Speech 5 (rural people), Local Farms Lore 6 (stewardship), Profession: Farmer 6 (stewardship), Single Weapon 3 (rural people)
• Powers:
  • Cause Fatigue: 0 points, Init 0, Ignem: (2 points each on cost and Initiative) Causes the loss of a long-term fatigue level via heatstroke.
  • Shift Human Shapes: 1 point, Init –1, Corpus (beautiful to hideous within a range of +3/–3 Presence)
  • Transform into Whirlwind: 3 points, +2 Init, Auram (1 intricacy point on cost, 2 on Initiative)
• Vis: 2 pawns (scythe, Ignem)
• Appearance: This faerie may appear as a beautiful maiden, a crone, or an adolescent girl. She wears a white dress and carries a scythe or shears. She may travel as a dust devil, and is used as a nursery terror to frighten children so that they do not harm crops.

Południca usually appears around noon on hot days, and asks farmhands difficult questions, or engages them in conversation. If the farmhand tries to change the topic of their conversation, or cannot answer one of the faerie’s questions, she gives him heatstroke. If particularly annoyed at this farmhand, she might instead drive him insane, or cause his death from hyperthermia.

Christmas

Faeries are particularly attracted to the ebullient energy of celebrating humans, and many are drawn to Christmas celebrations. They include kallikantzaroi in Greece, the jolarsveniar in Norway, the trows in the Shetland Islands and the drekavac in Serbia.

Kallikantzaro

Kallikantzaroi make poor player character because they are trapped within the Earth for most of the year. The statistics for kallikantzaroi could, however, be used as the basis of a player character faerie of some other type. The character would require a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and then sufficient Virtues to balance the many wards this character suffers from. It needs another 245 points of Pretenses. It requires three additional points of Characteristics from the table on page 30 of ArM5, and has 10 levels of unspent Personal Faerie Power.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Corpus)
• Characteristics: Int –1, Per +1, Pre –2, Com 0, Str –6, Sta +1, Dex +3, Qik +3
• Size: –3
• Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Feast of the Fae, Hybrid Form, 2 x Personal Faerie Powers; Little, Sovereign Ward (Religion), Incognizant, Traditional Wards (fire, counting games, burning shoes in some places)
• Personality Traits: Destructive +3
• Combat:
  • Brawl (bite): Init +3, Attack +10, Defense +9, Damage –1
  • Brawl (talons): Init+2, Attack +11, Defense +9, Damage –2
• Soak: +3
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-2), –3 (3-4), –5 (56), Incapacitated (7-8), Dead (9+)
• Abilities: Athletics 1 (climbing)*, Awareness 1 (shiny things), Brawl 3 (each other), Faerie Speech 5 (* Has virtue allowing supernatural athletics.)
• Powers:
  • Silent Motion: 1 point, constant, Imaginem. These faeries are capable of silent motion, but make noise by damaging things in the excitement of their revels.
  • Supernatural Agility: 0 points, constant, Animal (3 intricacy points spent on cost).
• Vis: 1 pawn (Animal)

Appearance: Kallikantzaroi have different appearances in different areas, but they are generally small faeries that have mixed human and animal characteristics. They are usually black and furred, with glowing red eyes and extended tongues. They often have the ears of donkeys or goats, and many have animal feet. They may have tusks and have sharp, curved claws.

Kallikantzaroi are faeries that live under the Earth, where they saw away at the World Tree. Each year, as their labor is nearly complete, Christmas arrives and they are allowed onto the surface of the Earth until the Epiphany, and the Blessing of the Waters, which occurs on January 6. When they return home, they find that the tree has regenerated and begin their labor again. In some areas it is believed that children born in the period when the Kallikantzaroi are active become kallikantzaroi themselves during the festive season, their spirits straying from their bodies to raise havoc. This can be prevented with folk charms, like binding the child in special herbs, or singeing its toenails.

Kallikantzaroi often prefer to break into a house by crawling down the chimney, so it is traditional to leave the fire burning for the whole of the Yule period, and sometimes to hang sausages or sweetmeats in the chimney, as a bribe to encourage them to go away. A person being chased by a kallikantzaro can divert it by dropping a colander or spilling grain, because it is forced to stop and count the holes in the colander, or the number of grains.

Story Seed: Południca There is a little girl in a village near the covenant who has an imaginary friend. Her friend is a hyperthermia faerie, like Południca. The girl, through an artistic temperament, some luck, and an invitation to play, has convinced the spirit that it should express emotional, rather than atmospheric, warmth toward the girl. The girl’s friendship with the faerie keeps it close to her village, and does not alter its attitude to other humans, so she poses a terrible risk to her neighbours. The girl can be used as bait to ambush the faerie, though, and destroy it. Skilled characters might, instead, trap the faerie and alter it over the course of years. They would need to find a way to feed it sufficient vitality that it can change role, spread stories about the faerie that make the change of role easier, defend the role against other faeries that attempt to fill it, then coach the girl to collaborate with it, so that it becomes a more-helpful harvest faerie.

Kallikantzaro Variants

A variant form of Kallikantzaroi is a version of the faun. They also attack the World Tree, and revel during the Christmas season. They are terrified of sunlight, and so anyone who can fool them into dancing until the sun rises is free of their depredations. These Kallikantzaroi may be up to 25 feet high, and use faun or giant statistics.

Divisions of Space

Many faeries live on the edges of human communities. This is, in part, a practical response to two competing needs: faeries must remain near humans, but many faeries prefer to avoid the Dominion. Faerie lands are sometimes described as a ring that lies between the safety of the Dominion and the disinterested Magic of the wilderness. Faerie lands are dangerous, but a cautious character with an ear for folklore can navigate them far more safely than the Magical lands that lie beyond. Magical creatures usually do not care about human desires, passions, or lives. Faeries do, so some form of payment for safe passage might be arranged. Faeries also live at the edges of communities because they are often dangerous places, and the hint of danger arouses human emotions. The community stops at the forest, or the river or the ravine precisely because accidents happen there. When a place is avoided because it is dangerous, stories grow up to explain the danger, and these stories attract faeries that suit the locale. Faerie wolves may fill a forest. Faerie bandits may camp in a ravine. Faerie dwarfs may haunt an unsafe mine. Traditional gifts or wards for these dangerous faeries are likely to be discovered following their emergence. And characters with sufficient folklore usually know ways of crossing the territory of these creatures, or of meeting safely with them. Faeries also dwell at the borders of communities because humans want them there. For many faeries, it is important that humans desire their existence. It is far easier to desire the existence of an ogre that eats wicked children, or a faerie queen that whisks men away for nights of bliss and death, if they are believed to live a safe distance away.

Roads

Crossroads are places of faerie power, because where four roads meet, two roads cross. A crossroad is made of two borders, each transgressed by the other. Similarly, a bridge is a place where two borders cross. They do not transgress each other, but do touch in the darkness beneath the bridge.

Faerie Hounds

Faerie Hounds are not suited as player characters.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Animal)
• Characteristics: Cun 0, Per +2, Pre –4, Com 0, Str 0, Sta +2, Dex +1, Qik +2
• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Power (varies), Faerie Beast, Faerie Sight, Improved Characteristics, Sharp Ears, Large; Incognizant, Reckless, Traditional Wards (varies)
• Personality Traits: Loyal +3, Reckless +3, Brave +2
• Combat:
  • Bite (small teeth): Init +2, Attack +10, Defense +9, Damage +1* (* In some cases, faerie hounds have the Lesser or Greater Faerie Power Damaging Effect, which adds +5 to the damage score of their bite. This is usually visually obvious, for example as their spittle ignites tiny flames on the ground, or their breath puffs like smoke because their teeth freeze like ice.)
• Soak: +2
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-24), Dead (25+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 5 (distance running), Awareness 6 (keeping watch), Brawl 5 (bite), Hunt 6 (track by scent)
• Powers:

For rapid character generation, select from the following Greater Powers. Many others are known, but these are the most common. Take a total of 50 spell levels of powers. Trading 5 full levels allows the character to spend an intricacy point to reduce the cost of each use of a power, or the Initiative penalty for the power, by 1.

• • Damaging Effect: 2 points: Init 0, Varies
  • Enthralling Sound: 3 points, Init –2, Mentem: Used to cause terror and panic with its howl.
  • Enthrallment: 4 points, Init –2, Mentem
  • Fearful Flaming Eyes: 2 points, Init –2, Corpus
  • Hound: 2 points, Init 0, Corpus
  • Many also have the Personal Faerie Power of Flight. For this, add the Personal Faerie Powers Virtue.
  • Flight: 0 points, constant +2, Animal (2 intricacy points on cost)
• Vis: 1 pawn Animal, dog corpse

Appearance: Faerie hounds are usually of chunky hunting breeds. Many have shining eyes, and almost all have black, white, or green fur. These statistics also suit the hunting hounds of the courtly fae. This type of faerie hound often has a white coat, red ears, and blue eyes.

Huge faerie dogs haunt the roads of much of Mythic Europe. They terrify, and sometimes kill, travelers. Some can run rapidly, while others run upon their hindlimbs when chasing humans, so as to have their teeth closer to the victim’s throat.

Faerie Hound Variants

In part of France, this role is filled by a terrifying goat.

Aufhocker: Found in German-speaking areas, this creature acts as a kelpie, and uses its adhere power to cling to foes while goring them so that its weight adds 6 to their combat Load.

Kludie: From Belgium, this is the most-powerful variant of this beast. It can take monstrously large versions of the forms of dog, cat, bat, horse, or frog. It walks on its back legs, with a dancing movement as it sprints toward its victim. It is preceded by supernatural blue flames. Kludie knows the trick of bouncing on the back of his quarry and using the adhere power to drag his prey down. It also does the kelpie trick, dunking or drowning those who mount him in horse form.

Kelpie (Water Horse)

Kelpies are not suited as player characters.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Animal)
• Characteristics: Cun –2, Per 0, Pre 0, Com –4, Str +2, Sta +3, Dex +1, Qik +1
• Size: +1, in this case, although some are fullsized horses (Size +3, add +4 Str, subtract –2 Qik, adjust combat statistics and body levels)
• Virtues and Flaws: 2 x Great Characteristics, 3 x Improved Characteristics, Greater Faerie Powers, Faerie Beast, Faerie Sight, Feast of the Dead; Aloof, Incognizant, Fear (loud noises), Traditional Ward (sign of the cross).
• Personality Traits: Brave +2
• Combat:
  • Hooves: Init +2, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage +3
• Soak: +3
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-24), Dead (25+)
• Abilities: Athletics 5 (long-distance running), Awareness 3 (noises), Brawl 3 (predators)
• Powers:
  • Adhere: 0 points, Init 0, Corpus. (1 intricacy point on cost)
  • Guide: 1 points, Init –2, Mentem. (2 intricacy points on cost)
• Equipment: None.
• Vis: 1 pawn, straps of water weed

Appearance: A black, or perhaps dark green pony with a shaggy coat. Some of these horses are able to walk on their back legs.

Kelpies are pony-like faeries that encourage people to mount them. The rider is held to the back of the water horse, which plunges into the nearest lake. Usually this drowns the human and provides the kelpie with a meal, but some kelpies instead take their vitality from the wounded emotions of pompous, rich people that they dump in marshes in order to destroy their fine clothes. Some kelpies take the form of young men, and seduce girls into climbing on their backs: use the Galconer statistics for the character’s human form, and add the Transform into Human Personal Power to the statistics.

Kelpie Variants

Grant: A Scottish faerie horse able to walk on its back legs. It appears just before important buildings catch fire. It is not clearer if it creates the blazes or warns people that they are about to occur. It is sometimes reported as having burning hooves, a flaming mane, or fiery eyes.

Licho

Licho is not suited for player characters.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Mentem)
• Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre –3, Com +2, Str +3, Sta 0, Dex +1, Qik +1.
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers, Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Form; Missing Eye, Incognizant
• Personality Traits: Enjoys inflicting misery +3
• Combat:
  • Claws: Init +2, Attack +9, Defense +9, Damage +5
• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious.
• Pretenses: Area Lore 3 (lonely roads), Awareness 3 (gifts), Brawl 6 (wrestling), Faerie Speech 5 (threats), Folk Ken 5 (gift giving) Stealth 4 (stalking prey)
• Powers:
  • Adhere: 0 points, Init 0, Corpus: Licho uses the adhere power to cling to the neck of her victims, or to make them unable to drop an item created from her glamor. Penetration +8 due to spent intricacy points.
• Vis: 1 pawn Corpus, a skeletal hand.

Appearance: The licho looks like an old, skinny woman dressed in black, with a single great eye in the middle of her forehead.

Licho personifies ill-fortune, and either eats her victims or tricks them into grievous self-harm. She might, for example, ride on the neck of a victim, and convince him that he should jump into a lake to drown her. She is a faerie, and needs not breathe, so her victim drowns instead. Sometimes she pursues a victim, who grabs an item that seems likely to aid against her, and then cannot put the item down. She convinces the victim she will hunt him until he gives the item away, so he cuts off his own hand. The licho can be given away: a character who presents a large, undeserved gift to another person can pass the licho to him, as well. The licho can occasionally be tricked, much as the cyclops in the Odyssey was.

Road Faerie Variants

A donestre looks like a human with the head of a lion. They are particularly skilled at Faerie Speech, and use their eloquent ability to mimic humans to draw travelers off the roads, into wild places, where they are eaten. Some donestres have the Guide power, while others have the power to Enthrall. Donestres do not eat the heads of their victims. Instead, they sit beside them, quietly weeping, after the feast. This may represent the donestre’s crossing the border from human to animal, then back to human again.

Waterways

The shore is a dangerous place — to step over the high tide mark is to enter a world where humans are not the masters. Many fisherfolk are deeply superstitious, because their superstitions offer them some promise of being able to manipulate the moods of the waters. The ancient Irish claimed that Arcadia began seven waves in any direction from Ireland, a view that is no longer true, but is still indicative. The sea is a wonderful and terrible place, and the stories people tell of it take beautiful and hideous forms.

Tritons

Merfolk are finicky to convert to companions. Players may wish to trade out the Flaws Aloof and Restricted Might, gaining 80 Pretense points. They then need to spend the Pretense points, select a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and then select additional Flaws to balance up the many Virtues. There is still a little space for additional Flaws, if added Virtues are desired. The merfolk described here are not optimized for combat: player character merfolk, or those designed primarily as a force for the player characters to combat, should have higher weapon Pretenses, and powers or Virtues than increase their effectiveness in combat.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Corpus or Animal depending on type of merfolk)
• Characteristics: Int, 0 Per 0, Pre +2, Com 0, Str +1, Sta +1, Dex +1, Qik +1
• Size: 0
• Virtues and Flaws:* 2 x Greater Faerie Powers; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Hybrid Form, Personal Faerie Power; Sovereign Ward (folk charms), Restricted Might (on land); Aloof, Incognizant.
• Cannibalistic merfolk often have Feast of the Dead.
• Personality Traits: Greedy +3
• Combat:
  • Brawl: Init: +3, Attack +3, Defense +1, Damage +5
  • Trident and Net:* Init:+3, Attack +3, Defense +1, Damage +5
  • Trident (thrown): Init+1, Attack +5, Defense +3, Damage +5

(* When one of the merfolk uses a net, it reduces its rival’s Attack score by half the net wielder’s Thrown Weapon Pretense. Nets do not work the same way for humans.)

• Soak: +3*
• Leather clothes.
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)
• Abilities: Area Lore: Fishing Grounds 2 (productive spots), Awareness 2 (fish), Bargain 2 (for catches), Brawl 1 (underwater), Charm 2 (fisherfolk), Faerie Speech 5, Folk Ken 2 (fisherfolk), Guile 2 (about origin), Music 2 (singing), Profession: (fisher) 3, Single Weapon 1 (spear), Swim 3 (endurance), Thrown Weapon 3 (spear)
• Powers:

Merfolk from various regions display a wide variety of powers. One variety has the following powers. Some, more powerful, merfolk are able to cause storms or grant wishes for wealth

• • Enthralling Sound: 3 points, Init –2, Mentem: Merfolk, mermaids in particular, can cause fascination in sailors who hear them sing. They usually allow the men to return to shore, with instructions to purchase them beautiful things that cannot be made in the sea, like glass mirrors. Cannibalistic mermaids lure ships onto rocks.
  • Kiss of the Mermaid: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam
  • Push of the Gentle Wave: 2 points Init –1, Aquam: Similar to the spell of the same name (ArM5 page 124), but has a longer effect, allowing the faerie to appear to tow small boats or swim assisted by a magical current. Costs 15 spell levels (Base 4, +1 Touch, +2 Sun)
  • Conversing with the Sea: 3 points, Init –2, Aquam. Allows the faerie to ask questions of its local part of the ocean. Similar to Voice of the Lake, ArM5 page 122, except that faeries can converse with portions of genuine lakes and seas. Costs 25 spell levels (Base 15 +1 Touch +1 Concentration)
  • Transform into Human: 3 points, Init: –2, Corpus. This has been treated as a level 25 effect, slightly easier than a complete transformation into a fish (level 30). Some faeries have this power due to an External Vis Source. Humans finding this source, which is often a red hat, can turn into merfolk. If designing one of these faeries, add the External Vis Source Virtue, then add a power worth 25 spell levels to replace this.
• Equipment: Fishing gear (trident, net, bag over shoulder, personal trinkets)
• Vis: 1 pawn, rusty fish-hooks (or, suiting the External vis virtue, a red hat.)

Appearance: Merfolk are generally human from the waist up, although some of the fairies in the Mediterranean tell of an ancient epoch when they were the other way around. They have fishlike scales, but these provide no defensive advantage. Merfolk men are handsome in Scandinavia, but hideous in Britain.

Tritons, more usually called merfolk in English, seem to live in clans beneath the waters in areas where fishing is good. They resent humans who treat their fishing grounds poorly. Triton fishers sometimes trade on shore for human baubles. They also trade for alcohol, which makes them surprisingly drunk. In trade, they offer fish or cargoes salvaged from wrecks. A few merfolk are man-eaters that deliberately cause shipwrecks or pretend to be drowning to lure rescuers into the water. They are believed to be more active just before storms, or perhaps cause them. A few live as humans, and gain their fish tail by placing magical red caps upon their heads when traveling through the waters. Theft of this cap allows them to be captured as spouses. Selkies and merfolk seem to live amicably: some stories indicate that they form alliances against mutual enemies.

Triton Variants

The following variants may also suit your game.

Abgal: The abgal were merfolk, possibly aligned with the Magic realm, who became tutors for the earliest humans. Modern mermen may be based on stories passed down from the time of this lost race. The mermen in Realms of Power: Magic are, perhaps, degenerate abgals. Characters could seek the undersea kingdoms of these creatures, long abandoned.

Gigantic Sovereigns: The rulers of the merfolk are increasingly large. It is recorded in The Book of Four Masters that the corpse of a mermaid was washed ashore in AD 887. She was 160 feet long, had hair 18 feet long, and fingers seven feet in length. She was pale white all over.

Havfrue: Similar to other mermaids, but those who lie with a havfrue may be led to their deaths. Sighting a havfrue is a warning of imminent storms. She is a herder, driving her white cattle to pasture on terrestrial grass during fogs and storms.

Hakennman: This merman is divided slightly differently than normal: he has the body of and tail of a fish, and has the torso and head of a human rising from the front of that body. Icthyocentaur: A creature with the torso and head of a human, the tail of a fish or dolphin, and the front legs of a horse.

Liban: In part of Ireland there is a hagiography that indicates that a woman was changed into a mermaid by the goddess Danu. She lived for 300 years, and then was baptised, at her request, by a monk. After her death she entered Heaven as a Holy Virgin, and miracles were done through her intercession.

Selkie King

Selkie kings might substitute for magi as player characters, but require substantial alteration. They are Aloof, so the player may wish to remove that Flaw, gaining 80 Pretense points, but requiring an explanation. The character requires a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and then requires Flaws to balance its many Virtues. If the character remains a king of the selkies, then the troupe needs to negotiate why the character does not have a private army of faeries constantly on call. An exiled faerie prince, for example, might be a suitable character. The Secret Hiding Place Virtue is suitable for selkies who can flee their landbound enemies to undersea grottos. The intricacy points spent on powers might be traded back into spell levels, to pay for additional effects.

• Faerie Might: 15+10 (Animal)
• Characteristics:
  • Human Form: Int, +1, Per +1, Pre +2, Com +1, Str +1, Sta +1, Dex +1, Qik +1
  • Seal Form: Int +1, Per +1*, Pre 0, Com –4*, Str +4* , Sta +4 , Dex +2, Qik +2

(* Higher than usual for a seal due to Improved Characteristics Virtue.)

• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Power; 2 x Increased Faerie Might, External Vis (minor), Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie/Faerie Beast, Improved Characteristics, Large, Skinchanger, Place of Power (behind low tide mark), Residual Power (Spill Blood); Narrowly Cognizant; Restricted Might (above high tide line), Sovereign Ward (folk charms). When on shore often has Dark Secret – selkie king and Infiltrator (itinerant laborer)
• Personality Traits: Self-centered +3, Romantic +2
• Combat:
  • Brawl (bite – seal form): Init +3, Attack +9, Defense +6, Damage +8
  • Brawl (bludgeon – human form): Init +2, Attack +6, Defense +4, Damage +3
• Soak: +1 or +6
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-25), Dead (26+)
• Pretenses: Brawl 3 (bite), Athletics 3 (acrobatic turns), Awareness 3 (fisherfolk), Faerie Speech 5, Hunt 3 (fish), Swim 5 (pursuit)
• Powers:
  • Always Hear the Waves: 2 points, Init –1 or 0, Aquam: The faerie always knows the direction and distance to the Palace of the Selkie King. 15 spell levels (Base 2 +4 Arcane +1 Concentration)
  • Steal Judgment: 2 points, Init –1 or 0, Mentem: The target believes almost any lie that the faerie tells, although an Intelligence roll against an Ease Factor of 6 is permitted to resist, with easier rolls for truly incredible lies.
  • Spill Blood: 2 points, Init –1 or 0, Auram: When a selkie’s blood is spilled on the ocean, it creates an effect similar to Clouds of Rain and Thunder, but with a longer duration. When acting in concert a group of selkies shedding blood on the waters can cause tremendous storms like Wrath of Whirling Winds and Water, ArM5 page 126. This is used to avenge mass slaughters of seals, or the death of other selkies. 20 spell levels (Base 3 +1 Touch +2 Sun +2 Group)
• Equipment: Seal skin.
• Vis: 3 pawns, skin of a seal

Appearance: Selkies are human-shaped faeries who live beneath the waters, or on distant islands, and change into seal shape to travel through the sea. They take the form of any large seal, avoiding only the shape of common seals. If their seal skins are stolen they may be forced to become spouses, as detailed in the Spouses Captured by Trinkets section earlier.

Male selkies, particularly their king, come ashore intermittently to seek brides. It is unclear if their brides live in happiness with them in the depths, or if the blonde hair of the brides is used to thatch the roofs of the selkie king’s palace. Women may conjure up selkie lovers by crying seven tears into the ocean.

Selkie King Variants

Roane: The Highland version of this creature, the roane, is smaller and far less bloodthirsty.

Seal Statistics

Seals can hold their breath for twice as long as normal, and the bonus from its LongWinded Virtue adds to rolls to withstand deprivation of air. When using the seal as an alternate form for a selkie, disregard the Fatigue levels. Faeries don’t need to breathe, so the Long-winded Virtue is unnecessary.

• Characteristics: Cun 0, Per 0, Pre –2, Com –5, Str +2 , Sta +3 , Dex +1, Qik +1
• Size: +1
• Virtues and Flaws: Improved Characteristics, Long-Winded, Puissant Swim; Carefree
• Qualities: Amphibious, Pursuit Predator, Tireless, Tough Hide
• Combat:
• Teeth: Init +1, Attack +8, Defense +6, Damage +3
• Soak: +5
• Fatigue Levels: OK, 0/0, –1/–1, –3/–3, –5, Unconscious
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-24), Dead (25+)
• Abilities: Brawl 3 (bite), Athletics 3 (acrobatic turns), Awareness 3 (fish), Hunt 4 (fish), Swim 4+2 (pursuit), Survival 3 (at sea)

Marsh

Marshland lies in the border between land and the water. Marshland is, agriculturally, sterile, and yet it is naturally fecund. It just has a fertility that people cannot use. This fertility may take faerie form as an expression of the uncivilizable fertility that marshlands possess.

Fool’s Fire

Fool’s fire is not a creature that’s suitable as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 5+10 (Imaginem)
• Characteristics: Cun 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str n/a, Sta n/a, Dex 0, Qik +10
• Size: –10
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers, Feast of the Dead, Place of Power (swamp); Glamorous Flesh, 2 x Little, Incognizant.
• Personality Traits: Homicidal +3
• Soak: 0
• Wound Penalties: Immaterial, but any damage to immaterial things snuffs the fire out (Dead (1+))
• Powers:
• Guide: 0 points, Init +6 Mentem: 4 intricacy points spent on cost, added magnitudes for Sight Range and Sun Duration.
• Equipment: One large swamp
• Vis: 1 pawn, rapidly dissipating gas, Mentem

Appearance: This faerie looks like a distant, flickering flame. It dances away from those who seek it, drawing them further and further from aid.

Fool’s fires are tiny lights, also called will o’ the wisps, that guide lost travelers into dangerous terrain. Some fool’s fires act as lure on behalf of more powerful faeries. In some German areas they are thought to be the ghosts of people who have moved border marking stones.

Rivers

Rivers are the lifeblood of medieval cities, and many were worshiped as goddesses in pagan Europe. The most powerful of these was Danu, who was the goddess of the Danube, the Don, the Deipnier, and many other places. The courtly faeries of Ireland, called the Tuatha de Danu, are her children. Rivers are guarded by merfolk, and by nymphs.

Lakes and Wells

Lakes seem bottomless, and may link to the lands of the dead. The surfaces of lakes are reflective, so what lies beneath the lake can reflect what lies within the viewer. A character wading into a lake is stepping through a mirror, and into is own reflection. A well is a dark hole that leads to the underworld. It’s a source of water, which is life, but at its depths any manner of thing might lurk. Children, particularly, should be kept away from wells, because you never know where their shafts might lead, or what might be watching from the depths, that the children might draw up.

Wastelands

Lands that lie at the edge of settlements, that people venture into only occasionally, suit faeries perfectly. When swineherds graze pigs on acorns in forests, of fisherfolk seek catches in swamps during spawning season, they are entering places infested with faeries.

Forest

Forests have deep and powerful meanings for mythic Europeans. The forest is where natural chaos runs as it will, and where enemies and predators may hide. In the forest the way forward is never clear, and it is easy to become lost. The forest is also the source of windfall riches: wood and food, and the secrecy to do things that others would not approve of. Forest faeries are a subtle mixture of danger and allure, just like their home.

Great Lezi

The great lezi described here is not suited as a player character.

• Faerie Might: 40 (Herbam)
• Characteristics:
  • For Size 0:* Int +3, Per +3, Pre –2, Com 0, Str +6*, Sta +3, Dex 0, Qik 0*

(* For every +1 Size, add +2 Strength and subtract –1 Quickness. For every –1 in Size, subtract –2 Strength and add +1 Quickness.)

• Size: Varies from –10 to +7. A Lezi may change size in increments of fractions of an inch, if it wishes.
• Virtues and Flaws: 3 x Focus Power, 3 x Great Characteristic, 7 x Increased Faerie Might, 7 x Huge; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Highly Cognizant, 6 x Improved Characteristics, Humanoid Faerie, 6 x Personal Faerie Powers; Sovereign Ward (may not leave forest), Some Lezis, particularly those with backward feet, are unable to harm humans who have turned all of their clothes backwards.
• Personality Traits: Loves Forest +5
• Combat:
• 2 x Brawl (club):* Init 1+(Size x –1), Attack 8, Defense 7+(Size x –1), Damage +9+(Size x 2)

(* The lezi’s arms are made of solid wood, and do damage like a club. They are wielded with the Brawl Pretense, even if the lezi generates clubs to use in battle.)

• Soak: +15
• Wound Penalties:
  • For Size –10: Dead (1+)
  • For Size –5: –3 (1), –5 (2), Incapacitated (3), Dead (4+)
  • For Size –3: –1 (1-2), –3 (3-4), –5 (5-6), Incapacitated (7-8), Dead (9+)
  • For Size 0: –1 (1-4), –3 (5-8), –5 (9-12), Incapacitated (13-16), Dead (17+)
  • For Size +1: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-25), Dead (26+)
  • For Size +3: –1 (1-8), –3 (9-16), –5 (17-24), Incapacitated (25-32), Dead (33+)
  • For Size +7: –1 (1-12), –3 (13-24), –5 (25-36), Incapacitated (37-48), Dead (49+)
• Pretenses: Animal Handling 9 (woodland creatures), Athletics 3 (striding), Awareness 9 (damage to forest), Bargain 3 (from position of strength), Brawl 6 (human interlopers), Carouse 3 (wine), Charm 2 (forest folk), Faerie Speech 5, Folk Ken 3 (forest folk), Forest Lore 9 (locations), Guile 2 (about woodland dangers), Leadership 9 (woodland creatures), Swim 3 (streams).
• Powers:
• Extended Glamour: 0 points, constant, Mentem: Constantly in touch with the forest.
• Focus Power (Manifestation): 5 points, Init –5*, Animal or Herbam.
• Focus Power (Woodland Change): 5 points, Init –5*, Herbam: Muto and Intellego effects only in Herbam and Animal.
• Focus Power (Size Reduction): 5 points, Init –5, Corpus or Animal: Are considered to naturally be Size +7, and use powers to live at a smaller Size.
• Transform into Animal:** 3points, Init. –3*, Animal
• Transform into Bird or Fish:** 3 points, Init: –3*, Animal
• Transform into Human: This power costs the Lezi whatever it cost to transform away from the human shape. For character creation purposes, its cost and Initiative must be equal to the most expensive the character will use it to reverse, in this case Transform into Object (Plant).
• Transform into Object (Plant):** 4 points, Init –4*, Herbam

(* Add appropriate Quickness modifier, based on Size. (** Lezi are extraordinary in that they can change into any animal or plant from their woodland: they do not specify alternative forms as other creatures do.

• Equipment: Can fabricate an endless variety of material from the woodland.
• Vis: 8 pawns, External vis, club

Appearance: The Forest Lord, or great lezi is found in Slavic lands. He usually appears as a tall, pale, bearded man with emerald eyes, but can take the shape of any plant or animal. He may change his size from that of a blade of grass to that of a tall tree. Many lezi have feet that face backward, and many are faunlike.

Great lezi command woodland animals, particularly wolves. The term “great” is used to compare this creature to the more-common lezi, which is a form of faun.

Great Lezi Variants

Basajauns: Gigantic fauns are found in the Basque country in Iberia. Once they were much like other fauns, although even then they had striking red fur. When humans won the right to till the country, these fauns became agricultural faeries. They use their great height to plan agricultural improvements, perform feats of remarkable engineering, and shout warnings when predators approach. In that region they are called Basajauns, but this is confusing because Basajaun is a large, wild faun in the folklore of the surrounding peoples, who keeps house with his wife and human slaves.

Fauns

As potential player characters fauns require some adaptation. They require a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and have many Virtues not balanced by Flaws. Wards might help to limit the faun, as might increasing the number of Weaknesses. The Pretense points given below are correct for a starting character.

• Faerie Might: 5
• Characteristics: Int –1, Per 0, Pre +2, Com +1, Str +2, Sta +3, Dex +1, Qik +2
• Size: +1
• Personality Traits: Lusty +5, Hasty +2
• Virtues and Flaws: Greater Faerie Powers, Faerie Speech, Faerie Sight, 3 x Improved Characteristics, Hybrid Form, Large, Lecherous (major) or Greedy (wine major), Aloof, Incognizant, Weakness (music or sex or wine), Traditional ward (religious).
• Combat:
• Kick (brawl): Init +4, Attack +8, Defense +9, Damage +5
• Horns (brawl): Init +3, Attack +9, Defense +6, Damage +6
• Spear: Init +4, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage +7
• Spear (thrown): Init +2, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage +7
• Soak: +3
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-6), –3 (7-12), –5 (13-18), Incapacitated (19-24), Dead (25+)
• Abilities: Athletics 2 (dancing), Awareness 2, Brawl 5 (wrestling), Carouse 6, Charm 2 (taking liberties), Guile 2 (women), Local Language 3, Music 3 (flute), Single Weapon 3 (spear), Thrown Weapon 3 (spear)
• Powers:
  • Grant Puissance in Combat: 2 points, Init 0, Mentem: Fauns can play wild, violent music, giving those who hear it +3 on Weapon Skills (affecting Attack and Damage rolls) and Brave totals for the rest of the scene.
  • Endless Wine: 0 points, constant, Herbam: (1 intricacy point spent on cost). Any vessel the faun touches fills with wine, if the faun so wishes. Note that fauns prefer human wine, because it has vitality. Fauns give this wine to humans so that they act in vital, uninhibited ways. This effect also makes vines laden with grapes spring up in places where fauns dwell, in some cases. (Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 constant.* )

(* This power lasts for the length of the party. These usually break up at dawn, so it has been given Sun Duration. Note that harm caused to people by effects that vanish does not, itself, vanish, so phantom wine can create real hangovers.

• • Steal Judgment: 2 points, Init 0, Mentem

OR

• • Endless Wine: 0 points, constant, Herbam.
  • Enthralling Sound: 0 points, Init –1, Mentem: (3 intricacy points spent on cost) Faun dancing music makes listeners more riotous and merry, increasing Personality traits like Reckless, Lustful, and Impulsive for the rest of the scene.
• Vis: 1 pawn Animal, goat horn

Appearance: Fauns are rugged, wild men with two sharp horns and goat’s legs and hooves. They have the ears and tails of horses. They are very hairy, their whole bodies covered in short, dark fur, and they often sport scraggly beards. They are also a little larger than normal men. In spite of all this, they are still very attractive in a wild, virile way, for they embody pure masculinity in everything they do.

Fauns represent the freedom granted by the secrecy that the forest provides. Fauns are braver than satyrs, described later, and represent what people can get away with in the woods, while satyrs represent what petty people wish they could get away with. Both are dangerous, particularly to women, but satyrs more so when in groups.

Faun Variants

Satyrs: A variant that is distinct enough that its statistics have been included separately, following this section.

Glastig: The glastig, also known as the Green Maiden, is a Scottish faerie that appears to be a very attractive, blonde woman. She wears a green dress to conceal her goat limbs, although she can shift into an entirely human, or completely caprican form. Some glastig simply lead travelers astray, while others seduce, murder, and drain the blood from their victims. Some act as household spirits, and others as announcers of death, like banshees.

Iopontes: Like fauns and satyrs, but they have the lower parts of horses. Panes: Satyrs with goat legs and tails.

Satyriskoi: Child-satyrs. Seilenoi: Aged satyrs — satyrs who have maintained their role since ancient times and are treated as fathers by modern satyrs. They often have ox horns, and fluffy, white fur. Many seilenoi refuse to relinquish their role, because they are highly cognizant. They know that fauns represent whatever humans do not feel is moral: the lusts they must hide in the woods. Current humans are far more repressed than the humans of ancient times, and so modern satyrs have a narrower set of vices. Elderly satyrs have no desire to find so many of their darker passions forbidden them.

Tityroi: Those satyrs that play magical shepherd’s pipes. In some areas all fauns and satyrs play pipes, in others only a special caste of these creatures do.

Satyrs

Satyrs are weaker than fauns, so they require less modification to suit beginning player characters. A new satyr character requires a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and additional Flaws to balance its Virtues. The Pretense points given below are correct for a starting character. The player may wish to make his or her satyr less timid than usual.

• Faerie Might: 5
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre +2, Com +2, Str 0, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qik +4
• Size: –1
• Personality Traits: Proud +3, Lusty +2, Brave –2*

(* Satyrs are less timid when in groups, or by driven by their compulsions.

• Virtues and Flaws: Great Characteristic, Greater Faerie Powers; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, 2 x Improved Characteristics, Hybrid Form, Observant; Lecherous (major) or Greedy (wine – major), Aloof, Incognizant, Small Frame, Traditional Ward (folk charms), Weakness (music or sex or wine).
• Combat:
  • Kick (brawl): Init +4, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +2
  • Horns: Init +5, Attack +3, Defense –1, Damage +2
  • Spear (thrown): Init +4, Attack +7, Defense +9, Damage +5
• Soak: +4
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1-4), –3 (5-8), –5 (912), Incapacitated (13-16), Dead (17+)
• Abilities: Athletics 2 (dancing), Awareness 2 (humans), Brawl 1 (escaping), Carouse 6 (party games), Charm 2 (taking liberties), Guile 2 (women), Local Language 3, Music 3 (flute), Thrown Weapon 5 (spear)
• Powers:
  • Enthralling Sound: 0 point, Init +2, Mentem: (3 intricacy points spent on cost, 1 on Initiative) Satyr dancing music makes listeners more riotous and merry, increasing Personality traits like Reckless, Lustful, and Impulsive for the rest of the scene.
• Vis: 1 pawn in a phallic-looking reed

Appearance: Satyrs have human bodies, including the legs, but have but have the ears of donkeys and the tails of horses.

Satyrs embody the cowardice of the common man, in heroic stories. They appear in many Greek plays, and their role is to promise to support the hero, and offer to do great deeds, but to fail because they are stupid and cowardly. This re-enforces the belief that heroes are a separate and better class of human, which was important to Greek audiences. Satyrs are similar to fauns, and most Mythic Europeans use the word interchangeably for what this chapter calls a faun, but satyrs are far smaller, and their machismo is mere bravado. Both fauns and satyrs are notorious for sexual violence, but satyrs tend to be violent more often, and also attack children more frequently.

Mountains

Mountains are borders, in the most emphatic sense. They are land that can be seen, but never touched. They are the border of every surrounding culture, because with few exceptions there is no point in settling above the snowline of the mountain. Faeries dwell on, and in, the mountains. They are also active in mountain passes, where travelers on a road transgress the border that the mountain range embodies.

Snows

Many cultures in Northern Europe tell stories of the creatures that dwell in the desolate, snowbound lands of the North.

Koerakoonlane

Koerakoonlased are suited for play as companions. Characters divided vertically should take the Missing Eye Flaw, and depend less on missile weapons than dog-headed (cynocephalus) koerakoonlased. The statistics given below have unbalanced Virtues and Flaws, but the Pretenses are correct for beginning characters.

• Faerie Might: 5
• Characteristics:
  • Vertically Divided: Int 0, Per +1, Pre –3, Com 0, Str +2, Sta +3, Dex 0, Qik +2
  • Cynocephalus: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –2, Com 0, Str 0, Sta +3, Dex +1, Qik 0
• Size: 0, varies within human range.
• Virtues and Flaws: Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Observant; Hybrid Form, Incognizant.
• Personality Traits: Brave +2, Cruel +2
• Combat:

For the leader of a raiding party, add +3 to all Attack and Defense bonuses to represent superior Pretenses.

• Vertically Divided
  • Bite: Init +2, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +3
  • Club: Init +3, Attack +7, Defense +8, Damage +5
  • Javelin: Init +2, Attack +7*, Defense +7, Damage +7

(* Missing eye not included)

• Cynocephalus
  • Bite: Init 0, Attack +7, Defense +4, Damage +1
  • Club: Init +1, Attack +8, Defense +6, Damage +3
  • Javelin: Init 0, Attack +8, Defense +5, Damage +5
• Soak: +6
• Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)
• Pretenses: Animal Handling 3 (dogs), Awareness 2 (slaves), Brawl 2 (bite), Carouse 1 (on spoils of raid), Faerie Speech 4 (making demands), Hunt 3 (humans), Ride 5 (sled), Single Weapon 4 (club), Survival 3 (icy conditions), Thrown Weapon 4 (javelin)
• Equipment: Sled, team of dogs, furs, club, javelins. These faeries eat, although they do not die of starvation, and carry rations made by, or from, humans.
• Vis: 1 pawn, the frozen corpse of a dog.

Appearance: A hybrid of both dog and human features.

The koerakoonlased are faeries of the frozen north, who sweep out of the storms into isolated human settlements to take prisoners. They march their captives north to their distant home, where the humans serve as slaves and as cattle. Individuals sometimes attack isolated farms, but raiding parties, usually made of up 12 koerakoonlased, more frequently attack settlements cut off from outside aid. Migrations involving clans with 40 warriors and their dependents have been reported. A koerakoonlane warrior usually fights with a club and javelins, and wears thick furs that provide limited protection. Most do not use shields. Many ride in sleds pulled by five dogs. When engaging in combat they may swiftly unharness their teams to allow them to attack a foe. This tactic is, however, rare. The warriors prefer to pursue and kill their own prey, and only unleash their dogs if they face skilled opposition, or if they need their dogs to chase down fleeing potential slaves. More-powerful koerakoonlased have been observed. Some act as war leaders, and these have the Spreading a Mantle of Snow Power. Unnatural snow is often the first warning that a raid is imminent. It allows the faeries to prepare the ground for their sleds, which they use as mounts for warfare, and to carry away booty. Others are able to apply the Kiss of Frost power with their whips. This allows the slaves of the koerakoonlased to survive their march into the northern wastes.

Koerakoonlane Variants

Variations of the koerakoonlane are reported in Baltic countries. In some areas they have human bodies down one side, and dog bodies down the other, with a single eye in the middle of their heads. In others they are human from the neck down, with dog heads. Hermetic magi who study faeries would be interested in how this drift in their appearance occurred, if they were less dangerous to approach.

Hemicynes: These peaceful, dogheaded people are said to come from the far north. They appear in western European folklore. They may be magical creatures of which the koerakoonlased are faerie variants, or the converse.

Naval Koerakoonlased: The hero Kalevipoeg tried to sail to the Underworld, and discovered an island filled with koerakoonlased, but these creatures were peaceful farmers and did not have human slaves. After Kalevipoeg destroyed their crops they became fishers, but no naval attacks by koerakoonlased have been reported.

The Entrances To the Earth

Mythic Europeans have a mixed relationship with caves. They are useful, for shelter and for storage of goods, but they are also dangerous places, on the verge of a different world. In parts of Italy, people use caves to store wine and cheese, and when they are ready, the grotto becomes a tavern. In Roman times, many of these taverns were guarded by statues of Cerberus, the guardian of the gate of Hades. Caves are like tombs: revels within them may lead to contact with creatures that guard the border of the deep earth, or the land of the dead.

Dwarfs, Gnomes, & Goblins

Dwarfs make excellent player characters, but require slight adjustment before they can be used. The player must choose which powers the dwarf has, and pay for them with Virtues. Many regional variants of dwarfs do not have Immunity to Terram, and instead have narrower immunities. They also have different Crafts. The dwarf requires a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and they then require Flaws to balance the Virtues.

• Faerie Might: 5 (Terram)
• Characteristics:
  • For Size –2: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –3, Com –2, Str –1, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +4
  • For Size –3: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –3, Com –2, Str –3, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +5
  • For Size –4: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –3, Com –2, Str –5, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +6
  • For Size –5: Int 0, Per +2, Pre –3, Com –2, Str –7, Sta +3, Dex +2, Qik +7
• Virtues and Flaws: Immunity from Terram, 2 x Great Characteristic; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Humanoid Faerie, 2 x Improved Characteristic, Observant; Little (once or twice), Traditional Ward (offerings)
• Personality Traits: Vengeful +3
• Combat: For every Size less than –2, subtract –2 Damage and add +1 Initiative and Defense.
  • Brawl (fist): Init +4, Attack +9, Defense +11, Damage +3*
  • Pick/Tool (two handed): Init +7, Attack +8, Defense +11, Damage +11 (Includes +1 for pretense specialization)
• Soak: +6, Immunity from Terram
• Wound Penalties:
  • For Size –2: –1 (1-3), –3 (4-6), –5 (7-9), Incapacitated (10–12), Dead (13+)
  • For Size –3: –1 (1-2), –3 (3-4), –5 (5-6), Incapacitated (7-8), Dead (9+)
  • For Size –4: –1 (1), –3 (2), –5 (3), Incapacitated (4), Dead (5+)
  • For Size –5: –3 (1), –5 (2), Incapacitated (3), Dead (4+)
• Pretenses: Athletics 2 (digging), Awareness 2 (hazards underground), Bargain 5 (with mortals), Brawl 6 (fist), Craft (smith) 5 (weapons), Great Weapon 5 (pick, as pole arm)
• Powers: Many cause rock falls, but this may be through physically damaging the mine’s supports, rather than with a power. Some faeries seem to have the power to make people tiny, so that they can enter the faeries’ miniature subterranean kingdoms.
• Equipment: Professional gear
• Vis: 1 pawn, in main tool or body residue.
• Appearance: In many areas, dwarfs are small bearded men. Dwarfish women may be hideous or beautiful, by region.

Dwarfs, gnomes, and goblins are subterranean versions of the small faeries described in other sections of this chapter. In many countries, the equivalent of a brownie is merely an antisocial dwarf who lives alone in a human homestead. The dwarfs in this section are those that live in communities that guard the entrances to the earth. They are found in caves, barrows (ancient tombs), and in mines. They also dwell in Arcadia. There are many legends of the gnomes, but they all seem to center on two facts: they are cunning smiths, and they have access to the treasures of the Earth.

Dwarfs, like most faeries, lack the capacity to innovate. They can, however, make excellent versions of currently known things, remake items so that they appear magical, and create objects that express the inner natures of their owners. They are able to grant the External Vis Virtue to other faeries.

The little folk known in many tales as having a pot of gold that they must surrender if caught are a type of dwarf. In Mythic Europe these creatures tend to dress in red, and sometimes have the habit of sending dreams that are addictive. They make their victim dig for treasure at a certain spot until they lose their profession, then their health, then their life. Some gnomes live just beneath the Earth, and are able to affect the fertility of plants, through their roots, leading to conventional affluence.

Dwarf, Gnome, & Goblin Variants

Dwarfs are found in the Germanic and Norse spheres of Mythic Europe. Other known variations include the following.

Barbegazi: These are dwarfs of the snows. They are found in burrows on the mountaintops in many areas. They are all male, and have beards of icicles and broad feet that they can use to slide across the snow. Their cries can cause avalanches. They are well-disposed toward humans who meet their standards of goodness and politeness, but often murder people they think are “bad” by crushing them to death.

Dvergar: These Norse dwarves were originally maggots in the corpse of the giant Ymir, from whom the world was made. The Norse gods chose to give them intelligence and their human shape. They flee sunlight, which can reduce them to stone. They were the crafters of many of the treasures and weapons of the gods, and were powerful workers of magic. The curse of a dwarf on the Rhine gold is a major contributor to Ragnarok, and the son of the dwarf king, Fafnir, is able to turn himself into a dragon to express his greed for the treasure he has obtained.

Gnome: This term is not used in Mythic Europe, except perhaps for earth elementals by some magi. Creatures who resemble gnomes, even down to the pointy red hat, are known, but have a variety of names in local languages.

Karzełek: These creatures are Polish dwarfs with green grass for hair, who ride their diminutive horses over field hands who go to sleep when they should be working. This is often fatal. Karzeleks are not consistently nasty — they aid those who farm dedicatedly — but they are extremely violent in response to relatively minor infractions like going to the toilet in a field, or swearing while harvesting.

Knockers: These are Cornish spirits, who are said to warn miners of coming collapses by knocking. Knockers are thought by many to be the souls of dead Jewish miners. Although this is not true, the faeries who perform this role play along with the expectations of humans they encounter.

Kobolds: Thse German mine faeries lace mines with arsenical ore, and cause other minor trouble. Some are helpful, as the whim takes them.

Saga Seed: Escape, Then Fortify Before the koerakoonlased mount a major invasion of the warm lands, they make additional raids, then concentrate their slaves into work camps. A campaign might start with the non-magi trapped in such a camp, and detail their escape to the south. When the Order discovers that an invasion of the tribunal is imminent, they send a force of magi, again player characters, to respond. The characters build a covenant slightly south of the koerakoonlased, tasked with sending warning south if the faeries mass in force again, and holding their castle against koerakoonlased besiegers, as a mustering space for the tribunal’s forces. Story Seed: Searching For Sanctuary An itinerant tailor related to one of the grogs has sought out the covenant because he feels safe within its walls. One night while drinking with faeries, he became afraid he would be trapped forever, so he placed one of his needles in the goblet of the minor goblin king he was toasting with. The faerie swallowed his needle, which wedged in his throat and choked him, so that the tailor could flee. Since that time, whenever the tailor touches a thread it breaks, a curse that is alleviated while within the covenant. The tailor would like his needle back, and the Arcane Connection between the tailor and the part of his life wedged in the goblin’s throat can guide the characters to the site where the court of mining faeries dwells.

The Borders of Supernatural Spaces

Some faeries guard the border of supernatural spaces, feeding on the fear that humans fear toward the uncanny. Faerie monsters are also common at the edge of Infernal, Magical, and Divine areas. Fauns: Faeries that prowl the borders of Infernal spaces often include twisted fauns. These fauns look very similar to demons, and are virtually indistinguishable to most medieval people.

Story Seed: A Monstrous Protector In a lake in Switzerland that has a gateway to hell at its base, there is a faerie that pretends to be a demon. Butatschah-iglis is a vast amorphous sack, like a stomach, coated in clusters of eyes that emit beams of fire. It lives by consuming the fish of the lake, and any fishermen foolish enough to come close to the gate. This faerie is like a nursery bogie, but for adult fishermen instead of children. Its story, which explains the lack of fish in the lake through the presence of the monster, hides the existence of the gateway to Hell, while keeping people safely away from the danger. But the characters discover a clue in the diaries of the Founder Jerbiton, that indicates that there is no Infernal gateway in the lake. This too is merely a story, circulated to the more-educated members of the community with an injunction not to panic the common folk with the truth. The lake was created during the years of disorder after the fall of the Western Empire. It is the result of a magical battle that left a great hollow gouged from the Earth. Jerbiton’s diaries do not describe the magical stronghold that lay there in any detail, and give no account for the real reason that the lake never contains fish, but it does mention that something terrible may be living in the depths: something even more terrible than its guardian faerie. Story Seed: The Covenant’s Reputation A covenant that develops an evil reputation in surrounding areas eventually attracts faeries who represent that evil. Evil is often framed, in medieval storytelling, in terms of the Infernal, so faeries that have the distinctive folklorisitic marks of demons may begin to interact with all of the communities that surround the covenant, raising the ire of the Church and the Quaesitores. Characters cannot fight these demons in the conventional way: there are always new faeries to fill vacant roles in a popular story. The characters need to find symbolic acts that change the perception of the covenant in the minds of surrounding people.

Oft-Repeated Forms

The following physical forms have been gathered together here because they are used in many stories, to guard a variety of borders.

Giants and Other Gigantic Humans

These generic statistics suit player character giants, but require the addition of a Social Interaction Virtue or Flaw, and then the balancing of the selected Virtues with Flaws. The player may wish to reduce the giant’s Stamina and redistribute the Characteristic points spent on it, but this alters the giant’s combat statistics and Soak. Similarly, the player may wish to reduce the giant’s combat Pretenses to spare experience for purchasing social skills like Bargain and Charm.

• Faerie Might: 5+10 or 10 (Corpus) or more
• Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com 0, Str 0*, Sta +3, Dex +1, Qik 0*

(* For every +1 Size, +2 Strength and –1 Quickness.

• Size: Varies from +3 to +10. Although larger giants exist, they are not well-represented by the Ars Magica combat system.
• Virtues and Flaws: Huge (at least twice), Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech, Human Form, Increased Might (for a raider) or Place of Power (for a giant the characters seek out in its lair); Incognizant
• Personality Traits: Destructive +3
• Combat:*
• Size 3 (10 to 13 feet tall)
• Brawl (fist): Init –3, Attack +7, Defense +3, Damage +6
• Club: Init –2, Attack +10, Defense +5, Damage +9
• Thrown Rocks: Init –3, Attack +6, Defense +1, Damage +8

(* Includes +1 for Pretense specialization in particular weapon. If using an alternative weapon, Attack and Defense fall by 1. For every additional Size: –1 Initiative, –1 Defense, +2 Damage. Giants larger than Size +3 tend to kick human sized targets instead of punching them. Examples include:

• Size 5 (17 to 20 feet tall)
  • Brawl (kick): Init –6, Attack +7, Defense 0, Damage +13
  • Club: Init –4, Attack +10, Defense +3, Damage +13
  • Thrown Rocks: Init –5, Attack +6, Defense –1, Damage +12
• Size 7 (28-37 feet tall)
  • Brawl (kick): Init –8, Attack +7, Defense –2, Damage +17
  • Club: Init –6, Attack +10, Defense +1, Damage +17
  • Thrown Rocks: Init –6, Attack +6, Defense –3, Damage +16
• Soak: +3*

(* Thick leather clothing provides this protection. A handful of giants have roles that allow them to manifest human-style armor from their glamour. This is a tremendous advantage, because glamorous armor has no Load rating. The giant can have metal armor far thicker than humans wear, without weight penalties.

• Wound Penalties
• Size +3: –1 (1-8), –3 (7-16), –5 (8-24), Incapacitated (25-32), Dead (33+)
• Size +5: –1 (1-10), –3 (11-20), –5 (21-30), Incapacitated (31–40), Dead (41+)
• Size +7: –1 (1-12), –3 (13-24), –5 (25-36), Incapacitated (37-48), Dead (49+)
• Abilities: Awareness 3 (small moving things), Brawl 5 (fist for Size +2 or +3, kick for larger)*, Carouse 2 (drinking), Faerie Speech 5, Folk Ken 3 (threats), Single Weapon 6 (club)*, Thrown Weapon 3 (rocks)*.
• Vis: 1/5th Might in human bones, Corpus

Appearance: Huge men, usually uncivilized and bestial looking. There are female giants, but they tend to be beautiful and smaller than the males.

Huge humans — giants, ogres, trolls, and many others going by less-modern names — are a typical guard for any space in faerie stories. All of these huge humanoids use the statistics here, but are differentiated with powers and through superficial appearance. Faerie giants differ from Magical giants in several ways. Faerie giants are drawn to humans, despite the known danger from magi. They tend to cause terror and pain, so that they can harvest vitality. This makes them far more destructive than their Magical counterparts. Faerie giants also tend to recur: they regenerate unless their vis is used, so they plague regions periodically. Faerie giants often have daughters who are beautiful and human-sized, since this facilitates their role as love interest for heroes who come to slay the giant.

Giant Variants

These variations might be appropriate for your game.

Cliff Ogres: These large faeries haunt roads that run along cliff tops. The ogres attack travelers, throwing them onto the rocks below, where the ogres’ disgusting children squeal for human flesh. Dev: The Dev are Armenian giants with up to seven heads, each with a single eye. Some can change shape into dragons or other monsters.

Gello: This is an ogress from Italy, whose breasts drain the blood of children. She has been Vulnerable to the Divine since the early years of the Church, when three missionaries, in one version of the story, forced her to return blood to a child she had drained, by miraculously throwing up the milk they had received as babies. Similar child-eating ogresses are found throughout Europe. A German version, for example, is called “Kinderschrecker” (“child guzzler”). It does not have exsanguinating breasts.

Guardian of the Fishes: A huge, humanshaped faerie from the Baltic Sea. It is covered in scales and with the fins, gills, and eyes of a fish. It has a serrated ridge down his spine and is able to walk on its rear fins, although it rarely leaves the water.

Jack’s Beanstalk Giant: This giant is a bit of a ham — he seems to be entirely aware that a boy who wants to kill him is present, and does silly things to allow the boy to become famous. The giant does not, for example, just rain castle bricks down from the clouds, to crush the boy and his home. He has been known to drop golden eggs from the sky onto people who intend to interfere with “his” boy. The beanstalk giant is assisted by his wife, who is able to take the form of a witch, and gives simpleton boys magic beans. Jack’s giant is the most anachronistic of the faeries in this supplement. The most similar to him, in the medieval period, is Red Ettin.

Red Ettin: A three-headed giant that took the princess of Scotland prisoner. He has the power to turn people into stone, and can sense the presence of humans by smell. He announces their presence with a little rhyme, much as Jack’s Giant does, although he lacks the power to determine nationality by smell. A person who can answer his riddles has completed Red Ettin’s Sovereign Ward, and can kill him without risk.

Troll: This is a difficult term, with three divergent meanings. In historical Europe it does not appear until 1276, and then means a barrow-faerie that serves as an ancestral spirit. In the north of Scandinavia, a troll is a shaggy giant that is usually solitary. They are often turned to stone by sunlight, and are unable to face the Dominion. In Southern Scandinavia, a troll is a small faerie that is usually social. The name occurs wherever the Norse settled, so there are trows in Orkney, for example, that are little mound dwellers that dance under the stars on significant nights and steal away musicians.

Muilearteach: A sea giantess who comes ashore during storms in the shape of a hag, knocking on doors and begging piteously for shelter. If offered sanctuary, she swells to her full size and eats her benefactors. The border this faerie guards is an odd one that modern players may not recognize — among other things, she represents the moral imperative of never giving charity to outsiders when it could be given to family. This giantess can cure injuries with a pot of magic ointment, and is believed to be able to bring back the recently dead.

Multiheaded Giants: These are found in many areas of Mythic Europe. They are either easily confused, because each head has its own personality, or incredibly cunning.

Vörys-mort: An unusual giant, who breaks the general rule that as giants get larger, they become slower. Vörys-mort is so tall that he can look over the forest. He moves so swiftly that if he runs, humans and animals he passes are picked up and carried along in the slipstream of air he creates. He sometimes assists hunters in the Volga by driving animals toward their traps.

Giants in Combat

The combat rules are oriented toward characters of human size. Special considerations apply to combat between humans and giants. As noted on page 192 of ArM5, a three-point difference in size is approximately a tenfold difference in mass. This weight advantage also gives giants an advantage in certain combat situations. The storyguide can simply rule that attempting to punch, grapple, or disarm a giant is completely ineffective. For a morecomplicated approach, grant the giant a special defensive bonus equal to double the difference between its Size and a smaller opponent’s. This can be applied to Defense rolls against scuffling, grappling, and being disarmed. This bonus does not apply against attacks with melee or missile weapons. Giants of Size +4 or larger must bend over double in order to reach a Size 0 human with their hands. In such situations, giants usually prefer to kick, or use weapons. Giants are subject to Corpus spells, but the base Individual Target for Corpus is a person of Size +1 or less. Most Corpus spells are not designed to affect anything as big as a giant.

Orms and Other Dragons

• Faerie Might: Size 0: 20 (Animal). For every +2 Size, add 5 Might. For every –2 Size, subtract 5 Might
• Characteristics:
• Size 0: Int* 0, Per –2, Pre –6, Com –6, Str +1**, Sta +2, Dex +2, Qik 0**

(* Non-player character orms are often Cunning rather than Intelligent.) (** For every +1 Size, add +2 Strength and subtract –1 Quickness. For every –1 in Size, subtract –2 Strength and add +1 Quickness.)

• Size: –4 to Size +6
• Virtues and Flaws: Huge or Little (as suits size), Faerie Beast; Faerie Sight, Faerie Speech*, Highly Cognizant*, Increased Characteristics, 3 x Increased Might (adjusted with size increase or decrease), Personal Faerie Power (Constant Damaging Effect)

(* If Intelligent. Cunning orms are Incognizant and lack Faerie Speech.)

• • Personality Traits: Inquisitive +3, Hungry +2
• Combat:* Damage statistics above do not include the Constant Damaging Effect power, which adds +5 when appropriate.
• Size 0
  • Fangs: Init (0–Size), Attack +14, Defense (+5–Size)*, Damage (2 x Size)+2
  • Constriction: Init 0, Attack +9, Defense +5*, Damage +8
  • Claws (if appropriate): Init –1, Attack +11, Defense +10, Damage +3

(* +6 to Defense against grapple attacks)
(** An orm may grapple its own Size in Size 0 enemies.)

• Soak: 6+Size
• Wound Penalties:
  • Size –4: –1 (1), –3 (2), –5 (3), Incapacitated (4), Dead (5+)
  • Size –2: –1 (1-3), –3 (4-6), –5 (7-9), Incapacitated (10–12), Dead (13+)
  • Size 0: –1 (1-5), –3 (6-10), –5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
  • Size +2: –1 (1-7), –3 (8-14), –5 (15-21), Incapacitated (22-28), Dead (29+)
  • Size +4: –1 (1-9), –3 (10-18), –5 (19-27), Incapacitated (28–36), Dead (37+)
  • Size +6: –1 (1-11), –3 (12-22), –5 (23-33), Incapacitated (34-44), Dead (45+)
  • Size +8: –1 (1-13), –3 (14-26), –5 (27-39), Incapacitated (37-52) Dead (53+)
• Powers:
  • Constrict:* When successfully struck with a constrict attack, the character is encoiled and unable to use mêlée weapons. The orm automatically does damage in each subsequent round, without requiring an Attack roll. The victim may still Soak damage. At the end of each round, including the round in which the constriction attack succeeds, the character may attempt to break free by an opposed Strength roll. To do this, he rolls Strength + a stress die, and compares it to the orm’s Strength + a stress die. Success indicates he is free, and may attack normally in the following round. For each character assisting him to break free, he may add +1 to the Strength roll, but an assistant is unable to attack the orm in that round. A character unable to break free for 30 seconds (6 combat rounds) needs to make deprivation rolls, as described on page 179 of ArM5.
• Constant Damaging Effect, 3 points, constant, Auram: Many orms emit a noxious slime or have toxic breath, and poison their surroundings, but many other damaging effects are known. This effect does +5 Damage, but is always active. 25 spell levels (Base 5 +1 Part, +2 Sun, +1 Constant)
• Venomous Bite:* When the orm attacks, compare its Attack Advantage to the victim’s armor Protection (not his Soak). If the orm’s advantage is higher, the victim suffers the effects of adder venom as listed in the Poison Table on page 180 of ArM5, regardless of whether the bite inflicts an actual wound. The storyguide may adjust the required Attack Advantage for special circumstances.

(* These are natural abilities of the faerie’s form, and do not require the Personal Faerie Powers Virtue.)

• Gwibers and other flying orms also have a Personal Faerie Power: Flight, 0 points, Init Qik+3, Auram*
• Pretenses: Area Lore 3 (watering points for prey), Awareness 3 (prey), Brawl 7 (crushing), Hunt 4 (rodents), Faerie Speech 5 (threats), Folk Ken 1 (human prey), Stealth 3 (stalking prey)
• Equipment: None
• Vis: Might/5 pawns, in a snakeskin or a piece of lost string

Appearance: Orms are vast snakes, normally smeared in toxic mucus.

Most of the dragons of Mythic Europe are Magical or Infernal creatures, but one class of dragons, termed orms, are predominantly faeries. Orms, which means “worms,” are usually faeries that take the role in the expectation that they will be destroyed. Orms can be distinguished from quite similar Magical dragons through their desire to eat vital things. Orms usually love cows’ milk, and some demand that peasants leave out great pails of it in tribute, much as brownies expect a dish of milk. Others simply suckle directly from cows. Some orms eat only virgins. Some orms drain the vitality out of their surroundings so severely that they seem to be poisoning the landscape. Many take residence around wells or springs.

Dragon Variants

Some other variations for your game might include the following.

Alklha: A Siberian dragon so large that its wings can block out the sun. It is a faerie that feeds on terror, and it does this by seeming to swallow the Sun. The gods, or perhaps shamans, of the area became sick of fighting it off, and so they sliced Alkhla in half at the base of its stomach, across the belly behind the wings. Alklha is a faerie, so this didn’t kill it, but the shamans hid the lower body under a ward, so that it could not regenerate. Alkhla looks like the front half of an enormous dragon, and fights with claws and teeth, but cannot constrict and does not swallow creatures. Alklha has displayed another striking power when fighting magi: he can dispel Sun duration effects by licking them (Penetration +45).

Gwiber: Most noted in Wales, this is an odd sort of dragon. It begins as an orm, and craves milk as all orm do. If an orm manages to drink even the tiniest amount of human breast milk, however, it grows leathery wings and becomes a gwiber. Some gwibers are poisonous. Magi report creatures similar to gwibers in Egypt, rivals to the ibis sacred to Thoth who was Hermes. This makes magi suspicious, even superstitious, about gwibers.

Horse-Headed Serpents: In many parts of Mythic Europe, great serpents with the heads or forequarters of horses have been described. These serpents often have red or yellow eyes, and have fangs. Few leave the water.

Kalshedra: An Albanian dragon that has the ability to breathe fire, and take the shape of a hag. It pollutes water with its urine, and causes drought. It accepts human sacrifices as payments to trouble some other town. It is a faerie that feeds directly on human vitality. Pisuhänd: A type of small dragon found on the Baltic coast that acts like a brownie.

Tatzelwurm: An Alpine type of dragon, ranging in length from two feet to six feet. The tatzelwurm has a catlike head with large eyes. It has the body of a lizard, but lacks hind legs. It can breathe clouds of toxic vapour. One variant, the tunnel worm (Stollenwurm) is far longer and fights by raising itself on hind legs and attacking with its foreclaws. It towers over human-sized opponents. The scales of the Stollenwurm are bristly and venous.

Vishap: This dragon, which resides on the top of Mount Ararat, must regularly fight human warriors. It keeps to itself and is not particularly destructive, but its blood is so poisonous that a weapon that has injured Vishap can strike any other creature dead with a single scratch. He is a Mastery Faerie.

Vouivre: The Vouivre has the hindparts of a two-legged green dragon and the foreparts of a woman. Some vouivres have arms, while others lack them. The Alpine version of this creature can spit flame. Each vouivre has a single eye, which is a huge gemstone on the centre of her forehead. This is usually a diamond, but French vouivres often have rubies instead. Even hedge wizards know how significant this stone is — many believe it can turn iron into gold — and attempt to steal it while the Vouivre sleeps. Each also guards a horde of mundane treasure, a portion of which it is possible to steal when she leaves her cave, once a year, to bathe. While bathing, some vouivres remove and hide their eyes, making this a perfect opportunity for thieves to either raid the hoard or, more dangerously, seek the eye. The treasure of the French version of this creature includes gigantic gold pieces, a pearl crown that she wears, and a ring of gold about her tail. Wivere: An odd French dragon, whose name unhelpfully means “serpent,” which lacks wings and legs. It is notable because its Sovereign Ward is that it cannot harm naked people.

Story Seed: The Mother of Vis Sources Serpents with gemstones in their faces, that lack the transformation power of the vouivre’s eye, are found in the forest of Luchon, at the foot of the Pyrenees in France. Characters harvesting the vis from these serpents do not realise that they are the children of a vouivre. When she bathes, one of her surviving children informs her that they have been decimated by magicians, and she seeks vengeance. This calls all of the hedge wizards of the area together, because they want to take advantage of the vouivre’s distraction by attempting to open the doors of her subterranean lair and take the treasures there. Terrible questions, after this dispute is settled, remain. Will any remaining serpents grow into vouivres? And what manner of creature was their father?

Editor's Note: This text includes errata.

Attribution

Attribution Based on the material for Ars Magica, ©1993-2024, licensed by Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games®, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license 4.0 ("CC-BY-SA 4.0"). Ars Magica Open License Logo ©2024 Trident, Inc. The Ars Magica Open License Logo, Ars Magica, and Mythic Europe are trademarks of Trident, Inc., and are used with permission. Order of Hermes, Tremere, Doissetep, and Grimgroth are trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB and are used with permission.