The Fae are whimsical entities that embody folklore and fairytale. Not just known through stories, the Fae are intrinsically tied to the very concept of narrative. They impulsively seek real stories in the world and try to guide those stories to their satisfaction. Whatever the story, the Fae is ready to give the characters choices – binding choices, from which new pathways may present themselves.
Unfortunately, what makes a story good is debatable, and what a story needs to be interesting is not always positive. A moral lesson might require a painful example, and sometimes the “main character” may learn they were simply a side character to a different story a Fae was interested in.
The LARP variation of this legacy can be found HERE
Playstyle
The Fae’s ability to make binding contracts between individuals allows them to act as middlemen, collectors, guides, and rare-good dealers in a way that no one else can. Furthermore, the Fae’s perspective of reality is that of viewing and interacting with story. This disconnect has them disjointed from the normal flow of time, allowing some degree of manipulation, though they would just consider it narrative leeway.
Inherently intertwined with clever wordplay and fascinated by stories, the Fae have accumulated unique ways to collect and use lost words. However, words are more binding for the Fae than anyone else, so the Fae should always be careful with what they say.
Playing a Fae involves carefully watching the words of others as well as your own. Deals and truth matter more to a Fae than most others. They are a very social-focused legacy, with many merits specifically useful when talking to others. However, through their contracts, a Fae may gain temporary boons that help them in other situations.
Despite their initial social focus, the Fae are far from helpless elsewhere. They regularly use lost words to alter whatever situations they might find themselves in. With their storybook origins, many Fae have tremendous strength or other supernatural qualities. Furthermore, due to their perspective on time, some have a habit of adjusting the past to “make the present narrative less of a hassle” or altering time to adjust recent events.
Play a Fae if you want a character who enjoys making deals, enjoys stories, and is willing to do what is best for the story.
References: Mab and Titania; Queens of Winter and Summer, The Green Knight, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Riding Hood or the Big Bad Wolf,
Visual Identity
As hinted by their fairytale inheritance, the Fae can come in all shapes and forms; from fantastic beasts to beautiful hyperbole: a hulking troll architect, the Ice Queen’s elven stewardess, a redcap mortician, or yeti gatekeeper. When creating a Fae, consider the placement of the Fae in our modern world, and consider the stories they care about.
Signature Ability: Contract
The Fae have the ability to make binding contracts between individuals with a guaranteed consequence if someone breaks the contract. More powerful Fae that focus on this ability can use their contracts to include things that are normally not available for trade, such as memories or the color of one’s eyes.
A Fae’s Binding contracts can be written or spoken, but can only form with the agreement, intentional consent, and confirmation of all parties. However, once agreed upon, only the letter of the contract matters, and a contract can not be voided unless all parties involved agree upon it. While a character can be tricked into agreeing to a contract, or can naively consent without fully reading and understanding a contract, a character cannot unwillingly agree or magically be coerced to agree to a Fae’s contract. If that does happen, only possible if the Fae is unaware of it, then the contract is voided as soon as the Fae learns of the duplicity. Breaking contract deals major harm to a character.
Out of game, when a player creates a contract, they should write the exact deal and agreement onto a piece of paper for tracking.
Time is a Narrative
Regardless of how the Fae perceive time, the past cannot be changed, but it can be enhanced. The Fae view time as a narrative, and a narrative has a lot of empty space. While they can’t change the words that have been written and read, they can “fill in the blank” to alter the past in a way to provide more opportunities to change the future. Time is malleable, as the narrative needs.
Disadvantage: Truth
All Fae are unable to intentionally, overtly tell a falsehood. They are bound to the Truth.
The Fae can misdirect, but cannot overtly lie without risk. If caught telling a lie, an overt falsehood, a Fae is obligated to give an esoteric to the individual or group that they lied to. If they do not have a resource to provide, they must instead burn 1 box (in any merit). Furthermore, any contracts made on the premise of that lie are voided.
If the Fae tell a lie unintentionally, they are not required to lose an esoteric or burn a box, but any contracts made on the premise of that lie are still voided.
Separately, as magical creatures, Fae cannot cross a threshold uninvited.
Merits
Merits represent the core characteristics, traits, gear, and companions that a character has at their disposal. Merits Tracks represent a form of character health, merits help make actions easier to perform, and many merits provide unique powers and abilities for a character to take advantage of.
Each legacy has 1 signature merit (underlined below), a powerful and complex merit that provides the core ability characters within that legacy are known for. Signature merits can be further enhanced with the meta merits of the same legacy, up to the number of Meta Slots the signature merit has (see the following list after regular Merits). The Fae have a strictly magical origin and may also select supernatural merits.
| Signature Merit | Effect | Track | Meta Slots |
| Contracts | You can make any contract you are involved in binding as long as all parties agree. If any party breaks the contract, they choose one of their merits and mark its entire track, taking major harm. A Fae’s binding contracts can be written or spoken, but can only form with the agreement, intentional consent, and confirmation of all parties. |
2 | 3 |
| A personalized notebook or ledger with binding ink. | |||
| Fae Merits | Effect | Track |
| Glamor Dust | Spend 1 lost word to create a medium sized illusion that can completely fool 2 senses (such as sound and sight). You have full control of the illusion and it lasts for the remainder of the scene or until you choose to dispel it | 4 |
| A pouch of dust collected from fairies and other fey creatures. | ||
| Gift Ledger | Whenever you accept a gift from someone, you must share something you consider of equal worth. Whenever someone accepts a gift from you, they must give you a gift in return that one of you consider equal in worth. If they cannot do so, they cannot act against you or your interests until they repay the gift | 2 |
| A floating notebook and quill that follows the Fae. A gift given requires a gift in return. | ||
| Bestowed Pearl | Mark to give an ally one of your merits, other than this one or the contract merit, as a 2 box temporary merit. | 4 |
| A collection of pearls that attempt to absorb the magic around them, collected in a bottle that prevents them from doing so. | ||
| Echo Chamber | Burn to cause an event which occurred in the last 10 seconds to happen again. | 4 |
| A glass vacuum chamber with a windup seal. | ||
| Lost Letters | When taking an acquisition task to find a lost word, you can instead create a lost word directly; converting something you have seen or heard recently into a lost word. | 3 |
| A postal-worker’s pouch of unreturned letters. | ||
| Scroll of Names | If you ask for someone’s name and they give it to you, you mark to create a lost word of that name. | 3 |
| An old scroll of barely held together parchment and a variety of “handwritten” signatures. | ||
| Time Accelerant and Sedative Salves | Mark to cause a target to move through time twice as fast or twice as slow for as long as you concentrate on this effect. | 4 |
| A pair of spice jars that contain a crystalized esoteric blend. | ||
| Polyrhythm Shoes | When you use the flashback action, you can take past actions even if the past you was otherwise too busy to take those actions. | 3 |
| A pair of dancer’s shoes with musical script layered on top. | ||
| Left Procrastinator | Mark to send a touched target ahead in time 10 seconds. The target returns to the same location or the nearest unoccupied spot (30 seconds in the future). |
3 |
| A red, fingerless glove with long frayed threads that appear that briefly vanish when pulled | ||
| Right Rewinder | Mark to return a touched target to a younger state and location up to 10 seconds in the past. The target appears in their past location, or in the nearest unoccupied spot, with the same unmarked merit boxes they had in that point of time, but any spent esoterics and lost words are not restored and the target keeps all memories of the lost time. |
3 |
| A blue, fingerless glove with short frayed threads that appear that briefly vanish when pulled | ||
| Fungal Growths | Mark to gather one of the following specimens: “Numbing Slime,” “Flash Spores,” or “Spreading Mold” | 4 |
| Fungi and slime molds grow on your body and clothes. | ||
| Stasis Incense | Burn to freeze time for 30 seconds for everyone except the target. Anything the target interacts with unfreezes early. *Not recommended for LARP scenes |
2 |
| Two short, thin, and waxy incense sticks that smell like thyme. | ||
| Hospitality Bindings | You may enter and exit any threshold freely as long as the host has not explicitly barred you personally from entry. While within a threshold you are bound by the Laws of Hospitality as a guest, and for creatures within your own thresholds you are bound as a host. As host, you may rescind guest rights to guest that break the laws of hospitality. As a guest, if a host breaks the laws of hospitality you may freely leave the host’s threshold instantly to a nearby and safe location outside of it. |
4 |
| A set of runic, legalese tattoos written on your body. | ||
| Experience Hoarder | Once per scene when you share the story of a new experience, you may gain a lost word. | 3 |
| A whispering but attentive spirit of the campfire and storytelling, willing to trade its knowledge for more. | ||
META Merits
Meta Merits alter or enhance a legacy’s signature merit and automatically extend that merit’s track with their own. Meta merits are unique to their legacy and cannot enhance any merit other than the signature merit of the same legacy.
| Meta Fae Merits | Effect | Track |
| Memory | When you make a contract with or for someone(s), individuals can offer memories as part of the trade. When a memory is traded, the original owner forgets the memory completely, though they know a memory was given, and the contract’s recipient can recall the memory at will. Example: memory of your name, a happy moment, a moment of revelation |
– |
| Physical | When you make a contract with or for someone(s), individuals can offer up physical features as part of the trade. If the physical trait was associated with a merit, the original owner marks all tracks in the merit and the contract’s recipient gains it as a temporary merit with a track equal to the number of boxes marked. Example: hair color, an eye, one’s strength, ability to walk, etc |
– |
| Character | When you make a contract with or for someone(s), individuals can offer character personality quirks and characteristics as part of the trade. Example: honesty, attentiveness, empathy, hope, despair, fear of spiders, love of a person, passion for something, etc |
– |
| Blood Bound | When you make a contract, you can choose to make it Blood Bound. Each individual signing the contract must offer 2 of their merits as collateral, declaring which merits before signing. If a party breaks the contract, they must burn all boxes on those two Merits. |
– |
| Letter of the Law | You can make binding contracts without gaining intentional consent from a party, as long as that party physically signs the contract. | – |
| Amendments | You can spend 1 lost word to add or remove a word or sentence from an existing contract. The addition or removal must relate to the phrasing on the lost word. |
– |
| Alternative Consequences | When you make a contract, you can include an alternative consequence should either party break the agreement. The consequences must be something be something a party could theoretically enforce themselves, such as by giving an esoteric or using a merit. The consequence then occurs automatically when the contract is broken. |
– |
Alternative Concepts
Stories are expansive in their ephemeral monsters: trolls, giants, goblins, etc. However, a number of Fae traits also fit other archetypes, such as a lawful devil or an eldritch being unbound by time.