Realms of Power: Faerie Intro: Dreams & Nightmares

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

Realms of Power: Faerie is an overview of the Faerie realm of Mythic Europe, written for Ars Magica Fifth Edition. It addresses everything from the otherworldly place where faeries apparently originate to the people who use fae influence to fulfill their own desires, and includes all manner of faerie beings that live on the border between these two extremes. These are the things that characters with knowledge of Faerie Lore are likely to know, and depend upon to get along with faeries and those who associate with them. There are seven chapters to this book, loosely organized into four parts. The first part, Faerie Visions, describes the many roles that faeries play on the world’s stage, and the places and things over which faeries have the greatest influence (Chapter 1: Nature of Faerie and Chapter 2: The Faerie Realm). Faerie Envoys, the second part, describes beings with Faerie Might and how to design and play them for a saga (Chapter 3: Faerie Characters and Chapter 4: Faerie Bestiary). The third part, Faerie Vessels, develops human characters who have been invested with the power of the Faerie realm and draw upon it to work different types of faerie “magic” (Chapter 5: Touches of Faerie and Chapter 6: Faerie Wizardry). Finally, Faerie Tales, part four, is intended to give players ideas for playing and running stories that involve faeries and the Faerie realm (Chapter 7: Telling Faerie Stories).

What is Faerie?

Faerie is the realm of power in Mythic Europe most associated with human belief. Conscious and subconscious hopes and fears give the realm its strength, and many think humans actually become faeries through their exposure to the realm. If this is true, Faerie might be described as visions and nightmares made real, fantastic beings given a physical existence and purpose by those whose lives ultimately sustain them. However, while dedicated belief in supernatural beings may cause them to come about through the power of Faerie, it is clear that ceasing to believe in them does not drive them away again. Perhaps, then, Faerie is simply a supernatural repository for human myths and legends that grows stronger as they circulate, but does not weaken if they do not. More information about Faerie — specifically how the power of the realm defines and manifests in beings with Faerie Might — can be found in Chapter 1: Nature of Faerie.

Faerie & Other Realms

Faerie’s most powerful influence is over the mundane realm, where it does not clash with the other supernatural powers. Generally, Faerie is weaker than the others; it is easily dominated by the Divine and often subverted by the Infernal. The penalties that faeries and those who practice faerie wizardry suffer in these auras are worse than those suffered by Magic creatures and practitioners of magic like Hermetic magi. In places that have no other supernatural presence, however, it is common for faeries to move in and thrive, especially if there are human beings living nearby — human settlements in Mythic Europe rarely go without an aura for very long, and if they do not have a Divine aura, they usually develop a Faerie one.

Faerie and the Divine

While the Divine realm tends to treat other powers as either good or evil depending on how they are used, Faerie has an additional disadvantage when compared to Magic in that the Faerie realm is generally perceived as more alien and unnatural, especially by followers of the Divine. Many of them believe that faeries only serve to lead mortals into sin and temptation, and see little difference between them and demons. Of course, the Divine actively discourages the pagan worship that tends to go with Faerie powers. However, since the Dominion protects many places where people experience intense emotion and concentrated belief, there are many faeries that live within it, despite the penalties they endure there, and some faeries even participate in Divine worship. It would seem that the Divine realm encourages this, in some circumstances allowing such faeries to set up small Faerie auras within the Dominion (see Chapter 1: Nature of Faerie, Traveling Auras).

Faerie and the Infernal

Faeries are terribly vulnerable to the power of the Infernal realm — not as much as they are weakened by the Divine, but the Infernal actively seeks to undermine and corrupt the power of Faerie, and once a faerie has been subverted by demonic influences, the Divine will cease to distinguish between the faerie and the devils that have marked it. The Infernal realm also takes grim delight in destroying anything and everything, and faeries are often caught in the path of marauding demons. Some faeries oppose the Infernal, and a few unite with it (many people fear demons, and faeries can prey upon that fear), but most faeries are simply unable to understand it. Faeries are amoral by definition; they simply play a role as it is envisioned for them, and rarely choose a side in the struggle between Heaven and Hell. More interesting to faeries is what human beings want, and also what they believe. The Infernal only regards these concerns as means to turn humanity against the Divine, and thus it tends to treat faeries the same way.

Faerie and Magic

The Faerie realm has more in common with Magic than with either of the other realms. Like Magic, Faerie rarely concerns itself with morality and immorality. Faerie powers are more compatible with Magic, in that faeries are not penalized by Magic auras, and in fact derive a small benefit from them.'

However, Magic tends to favor subjects that are old and rooted to the natural order of things, while Faerie often prefers those that display the vitality of youth and fanciful notions born from imagination. Magic beings strive to improve themselves over time, growing more powerful as they enhance their defining characteristics, and losing their power if they stray too far into the mundane; faeries must adhere to the rules that surround their identities, and have little incentive to change at all, advancing themselves only by encouraging others to advance, and gaining more power only when their defining role changes in an artistically satisfying way. Many believe that beings of Faerie and Magic opposed each other in the past, fighting great wars between gods and monsters such as the Olympians versus the Titans, the Tuatha De Danann against the Fomorii, or the Æsir and the Vanir versus the Jotnar. Some think that the two realms were once a single realm, and that perhaps it was this struggle or some other cataclysmic event that separated them. As those well-versed in the lore of Faerie know, however, this theory is very difficult to prove — or rather opposing theories are impossible to disprove. Faeries draw upon human stories to form themselves, so it is not uncommon to find faeries playing the parts of beings that seem magical, because those beings appear in the stories that produce faeries. Just as there are thought to be faeries that resemble the ancient gods Zeus, Lugh, and Odin, faerie versions of their fabled opponents Cronos, Balor, and Ymir almost certainly exist somewhere in the Faerie realm as well.

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.