Old World Order: Faeries
Faeries
The Faerie fall into two rough divisions: the Summer Court (the Seelie) and the Winter Court (the Unseelie)—though there are various wyld powers in between these factions. Neither major Court is absolutely “good” or “evil.” Trying to assign each a moral stance vis-à-vis mortal perspectives is just dumb.
Each Court has three rulers: the Queen Who Was (the Mother), the Queen Who Is (the Queen), and the Queen Who Is To Come (the Lady). The Mother holds vast power, but she is beholden to the natural order and thus takes little active part in the rulership of the Court. The Queen holds a substantial share of power and uses it to rule. The Lady holds the smallest portion of power, but she also has the most freedom of action, the closest access to the mortal world, and the most ability to act independently.
Some of the fae prefer hanging out in the mortal world to spending their lives in the Nevernever. (Even the sidhe—see below—visit the mortal world on occasion, but they don’t spend that much of their time there.) This may be because humanity offers various fleshly pleasures (such as pizza), or because the fae in question needs to interact with humanity or nature in order to fulfill its purpose.
HARRY: Like how Lea feeds on blood and power from artists and poets, and grants inspiration in return.
While the Summer Court and the Winter Court are locked in their customary rivalry, the Summer Court has offered mild assistance to the White Council in the course of the Vampire War.
Sidhe
Among the faerie, Sidhe is a state of being that is somewhat political and somewhat biological. A sidhe has all of the abilities of their faerie type, raised to greater heights of power. They are the aristocracy of Faerie, and this mindset must be considered (no matter which Court—or no Court—they are associated with) when dealing with them.
Sidhe Knights
Sidhe Knights, the champions of the Courts, ensure the balance between the Courts of Faerie. While the Faerie Queens cannot kill anyone who isn’t attached to their Court through birthright or bargain, the Knights can. The Knights can also act in affairs not directly related to Faerie, making them the primary outlet of the Faerie Courts for intrigue in the mortal world.
This relative freedom is, of course, enabled by the fact that Sidhe Knights must be mortal—i.e., human.
March brings us the Order of the Blackened Denarius and the Freeholding Lords.
See you then.
“While the Summer Court and the Winter Court are locked in their customary rivalry, the Summer Court has offered mild assistance to the White Council in the course of the Vampire War.”
I dunno… seems to me that the Winter Court has been far more helpful. Didn’t Summer specifically say they weren’t going to get involved in the affairs of mortal powers in Summer Knight?
That was my understanding too. Winter allows the White Council access through the Never Never, and the Council gets rather nervous when they think that access might go away. Harry has used that to his advantage in one or two of the books.
None of what y’all are saying is in contradiction of the above. While Winter and Summer are locked in their customary rivalry with one another, the Summer Court *has* offered mild assistance to the White Council. It just so happens that Winter has offered *more* than mild assistance.
This brings “Changeling the Dreaming” to my mind.
@Chris
Well the entire white wolf’s World of darkness is similar to the dresdenverse, but far from the same.
Playing around with ideas, I think I’ve come up with a good potential version of the Spring and Autumn Courts, if one wants them in their game. The basic idea is that Spring is growth, power, earth and plants while Autumn is wind, water, finesse and restraint. Both the Summer and Winter Courts seem to have the advantage over both Spring and Autumn via freezing, burning and heat flows getting out of the way of the heat source, meaning they are basically stuck as lesser Faerie Courts. The back and forth, the combination, gives opportunity for them, in politics and elements. It also seems that Spring would favor Summer, and Autumn would favor Winter, when it comes to the greater Courts’ rivalry. In this way they could even be related to, or part of, the Wyld Fae.
Having read only White Night, I only have research to go off of for this line of thought. I got the WyldFae info from http://dresdenfiles.wikidot.com/sidhe-courts so I’m not sure how accurate it is. I’m kinda curious how well this would fit into the Dresdenverse, considering the reference to the possibility of an Autumn Court in the Emissary of Power character template post.
I like the idea that all that’s left of Spring and Autumn is one relatively unimportant sidhe vassal for each (Spring serves Summer and Autumn serves Winter, obviously) and pretty much all they do is recruit a Herald (a minor version of Summer and Winter’s Knights) to proffer the traditional challenge that leads to the customary battles for supremacy at Midsummer and Midwinter.
I would think that there should be some tie in for the Vernal and Autumnal equinox perhaps on those days the Spring and Autumn courts gain a brief supremacy or advantage
Just had another interesting thought, changeling items. It seemed like an interesting idea for an item, grafting on the Changeling Template with it’s power adding, refresh cost, choice to throw off the powers, possibly have them removed from you. Just a thought.
There are faerie beings from Scotland/the Orkney Islands called Selkies. Usually, they appear to be seals, but they sometimes come ashore and remove their seal-skins like clothing, revealing human bodies. Several stories tell about how they can be trapped in their human forms (have their powers taken away) if they lose their seal-skins… or if a clever person hides it from them.
On the surface, this sounds a lot like the hexenwolf variety of shapeshifter, but the stories very clearly define them as “something else.” I definitely plan to work up a selkie changeling for this game.
Spring and Autumn courts?
Seems to me that the Summer and Winter ladies would serve that pourpose.
i will probably use an autumn court in my game in due course, but i would say that the spring and autumn remind me more of transitional periods between summer and winter. my thought is that, eventually one court or the other is meant to win. autumn aids transition to an era of wint [see new dark age here] and then, after that age, spring transitions back again to summer [maybe a reinsance (sp)]. then we go back to stand off and repeat again. the autmn court would be tiny, being meant to live and die in a very short period of time.