Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Roleplaying in General

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 04-17-2018, 06:22 PM   #1
Pragmatic
Ceci n'est pas une tag.
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vancouver, WA (Portland Metro)
Default D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

As I continue "datamining" 4e, I came across the Fey Pact for warlocks. In wiki-walking through the Forgotten Realms wikia, I found that Lurue (unicorn goddess of good fey beasts) is an Archfey in 4e.

It got me wondering: Is there a list of fey and dark fey races? (E.g., centaurs, pegasi, satyrs, fomorians)

How about Archfey in 4e products? (Even vestiges, for binder pacts...)

And there's mention of the Summer and Winter Courts (found on wikipedia), is there some article or supplement that fleshes them out?
__________________
I'm a collector, not a gamer. =)
Pragmatic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-17-2018, 06:49 PM   #2
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

D&D 4th edition isn't terribly big on the worldbuilding stuff, but they tend towards fairly generic, which means the summer court is generally associated with light, life, warmth, the winter with darkness, death, and cold. The fey classification is a bit odd, there are a number of creatures that plausibly could be called fey but aren't, and it's actually odd to call dryads and satyrs fey, since they're from Greek myth (hags and pixies are proper fey).
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-18-2018, 08:28 AM   #3
Bruno
 
Bruno's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Why does being Greek in origin disqualify them from being fey? It's hardly defined in D&D as being "creatures of celtic origin".
__________________
All about Size Modifier; Unified Hit Location Table
A Wiki for my F2F Group
A neglected GURPS blog
Bruno is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 04:38 AM   #4
The Colonel
 
The Colonel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Defining fae is really half the battle - the original legends aren't clear on what they were, so pretty much anything can go in the bag. Greek origin should by no means be a bar to fae classification - although you'd have to decide what the jurisdiction of the fae courts looks like (is it global or local, if global what meaning to "summer" and "winter" have to fae dwelling at the equator). Pretty much every culture has fae like things - the Scandinavian "trolls" seem very similar, as do a large number of Japanese yokai, various Russian critters like dormovoi and kikimora and and countless things in other places that I don't know the names of. You could even argue the Roman penates to be fae like.
D&D's other problem with fae is that they have good and evil ones ... blue and orange would be more likely. Likewise tagging them as inherently chaotic when they were famously rule bound...
The Colonel is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 06:15 AM   #5
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Defining fae is really half the battle... Pretty much every culture has fae like things
And of course, the fae themselves aren't bound by human cultural boundaries and historical accidents of discovery, languages of naming, or propagation of those names from older cultures into more recent cultures. If the fae were really out there, the ancient Greeks having named one kind this and told these stories about it, while the Rus used different words and made up different stories wouldn't be a definitive source. A GM need not be strictly bound by a human textbook on cultural anthropology, even if they're inspired by it.

Now, if you want one of those settings where reality is mutable by belief, then your fae might be the ultimate expression of that kind of magic, and would in fact take on whatever forms and attributes were required of them by modern human legend. They are exactly what enough people think they are.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 07:42 AM   #6
Randyman
 
Join Date: May 2009
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Defining fae is really half the battle - the original legends aren't clear on what they were, so pretty much anything can go in the bag. Greek origin should by no means be a bar to fae classification - although you'd have to decide what the jurisdiction of the fae courts looks like (is it global or local, if global what meaning to "summer" and "winter" have to fae dwelling at the equator). Pretty much every culture has fae like things - the Scandinavian "trolls" seem very similar, as do a large number of Japanese yokai, various Russian critters like dormovoi and kikimora and and countless things in other places that I don't know the names of. You could even argue the Roman penates to be fae like.
D&D's other problem with fae is that they have good and evil ones ... blue and orange would be more likely. Likewise tagging them as inherently chaotic when they were famously rule bound...
Blue/orange doesn't neatly fit into a Good/Evil or even Lawful/Chaotic schema - that's inherent in the definition of Blue/Orange. Calling it "Chaotic" because its incomprehensible is as good of an approximation as any.
__________________
"Despite (GURPS) reputation for realism and popularity with simulationists, the numbers are and always have been assessed in the service of drama." - Kromm

"(GURPS) isn't a game but a toolkit for building games, and the GM needs to use it intelligently" - Kromm
Randyman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 10:50 AM   #7
The Colonel
 
The Colonel's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
And of course, the fae themselves aren't bound by human cultural boundaries and historical accidents of discovery, languages of naming, or propagation of those names from older cultures into more recent cultures. If the fae were really out there, the ancient Greeks having named one kind this and told these stories about it, while the Rus used different words and made up different stories wouldn't be a definitive source. A GM need not be strictly bound by a human textbook on cultural anthropology, even if they're inspired by it.

Now, if you want one of those settings where reality is mutable by belief, then your fae might be the ultimate expression of that kind of magic, and would in fact take on whatever forms and attributes were required of them by modern human legend. They are exactly what enough people think they are.
Absolutely - as long as someone at the table knows what is going on and no-one is deliberately sucker punching anyone.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Randyman View Post
Blue/orange doesn't neatly fit into a Good/Evil or even Lawful/Chaotic schema - that's inherent in the definition of Blue/Orange. Calling it "Chaotic" because its incomprehensible is as good of an approximation as any.
That's half the problem with the D&D alignment system - it means different things to different people. Hence, as someone said, why the forces of law include everything from a glowing ball of light to a green woman with wings whilst the ultimate expression of chaos is nothing but giant frogs. Chaotic as incomprehensible is fine, so long as that doesn't mean your players expect the fae to be flexible and open minded.
The Colonel is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 04:47 PM   #8
Randyman
 
Join Date: May 2009
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
That's half the problem with the D&D alignment system - it means different things to different people. Hence, as someone said, why the forces of law include everything from a glowing ball of light to a green woman with wings whilst the ultimate expression of chaos is nothing but giant frogs. Chaotic as incomprehensible is fine, so long as that doesn't mean your players expect the fae to be flexible and open minded.
The D&D alignment system as published is pretty clear, though not perfectly so. The confusion usually comes when gamers substitute their own definitions of the alignment terms for the published definitions.
__________________
"Despite (GURPS) reputation for realism and popularity with simulationists, the numbers are and always have been assessed in the service of drama." - Kromm

"(GURPS) isn't a game but a toolkit for building games, and the GM needs to use it intelligently" - Kromm
Randyman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 05:37 PM   #9
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Randyman View Post
The D&D alignment system as published is pretty clear, though not perfectly so.
Depends what you consider in your definition of 'as published'. D&D isn't internally consistent in its handling of alignment.
__________________
My GURPS site and Blog.
Anthony is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-19-2018, 06:54 PM   #10
Randyman
 
Join Date: May 2009
Default Re: D&D 4e: Fey races and Archfey? Summer & Winter Court?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Depends what you consider in your definition of 'as published'. D&D isn't internally consistent in its handling of alignment.
My definition: as the text describing the alignments reads in a given edition of D&D. That text has changed across the editions 1e->2e->3.x/PF->5e (4e had it's own distinct alignment system).

Within a given edition, do you have any examples of inconsistency? I don't recall any, but I'm hardly encyclopedic on the subject.
__________________
"Despite (GURPS) reputation for realism and popularity with simulationists, the numbers are and always have been assessed in the service of drama." - Kromm

"(GURPS) isn't a game but a toolkit for building games, and the GM needs to use it intelligently" - Kromm
Randyman is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:14 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.