Faeries are the theme for June’s RPG Blog Carnival, and I offer a gift (with a trick, just like a faerie)

Normally I post in spanish, but given the RPG Blog Carnival is hosted in english, I guess I have to follow the flow. Anyway I’m planning to translate it for my regular entries. Pitfalls and Pixies is hosting June’s Blog Carnival, and its theme is «Cold Iron and Pixie Dust: Step Into The Faerie Realm«. Since I restarted my blog just a few weeks ago and I was already considering starting to write in English, this gives me a good excuse. Of course, a look around can tell you I’m a big fan of the Eberron Campaign Setting, so finding ways to introduce this entry there will be a must-have. Let’s start.

According to the 3.5e Monster Manual, a fey is a creature with supernatural abilities and connections to nature or to some other force or place. Fey are usually human-shaped. From 4e, we find also that fey are creatures from the Feywild, a parallel plane to the Prime. Their language is called Sylvan. Fae, or faeries, as many like to be called, are creatures of any size, shape, texture or smell, that exemplify and inhabit natural wonder. They go by many names, like «Green Folk», «Fair Folk», «People of Peace», sometimes «Wee folk». Most sources establish that they are ruled by noble eladrins and other archfey, associated with the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. Now that we have covered the basics, we can proceed with my entry. Without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to Her Majesty.

From Lorwyn, with Love

Oona is the queen and mother of the faeries on Lorwyn. She lives in Glen Elendra and sees the world through her children and the harvested dreamstuff they bring her. She is one of the few creatures that retained her memories after the Great Aurora, and was in fact the source of all previous Auroras. Her children refer to her as Mother of All Fae or Great Mother. You can read a little about her background in Lorwyn in this article by Doug Beyer.

A Point of Inspiration already created an archfey and shared it on ENWorld forums, so I’ll just present some ideas to use it as Oona in a campaign, specially one set in Eberron, adding to her repertoire the most powerful illusion powers and a very specific ritual.

Oona prides herself of being able to make any flower to sprout and grow even in the most adverse conditions, any beast to calm and obey her command, any thing in a forest to change and transform in whatever she needs, except for one: the Golden Lotus, which, unbeknownst to her, is not a flower, but an arcane artifact left abandoned ages ago near her forest. Having heard of stories about it, but unable to find it, Oona disguises herself as a druid looking for a special component to a healing potion for her mother. She offers to make a dream come true for the person who brings her the mythic flower. This adventure hook works so far just as any other; but being as mischievous as she is, what Oona offers may well work against the person who gets the Lotus for her.

And welcome to Eberron

If you want to use Oona as mentioned above in Eberron, pay attention to the Twilight Demesne and the Greensingers sect, one of the least known druidic sects in the world. During the Last War, the Eldeen Reaches were part of Aundair, and the big green expanses were used by its war artificers to test arcane weaponry. One of the things they created was impervium, a material so strong it could only be shapen while created. Before showing this to anyone, the main artificer needed to test it: if the material would be resistant to the touch of the feys, which hated everything artifical, it would make Aundair win the war. He shaped a flower with his invention and embarked to the most western zones of the kingdom. Oona found out about this, and guided the artificer to her just to prove his foolishness. When she couldn’t destroy the flower, she enraged and swore the artificer that such a blasphemy on nature should never be used by mere mortals. The artificer of course tried to run, but she drew on the manifest zone to Thelanis to power her magic and rooted the artificer to the very edge of the Twilight Demesne, transforming him into a tree: a very off-looking tree, which the locals have named the Tree of Tales.

The Gilded Lotus, of course, can be replaced with anything suits your campaign, but as it is, it’s a perfect irony for whoever gets a hold on it: they possess an unbreakable and probably indestructible object… but it’s shaped as a flower, useless as a weapon. Oona, though, will trade it effectively for a blessing, a ritual, or something else that the adventring party might need. Unless of couse they’re not diplomatic enough with her.