It Is With The Reading Of Books The Same As With Looking At Pictures; One Must, Without Doubt, Without

Their work is amazing

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I love these characters. New D&D PCs anyone?

Bird Warrior - Character Design Challenge by selected artists: Đặng Trường, Bruno Jacob, Isaac Jadraque, Thomas Dumey - Locki, Liam Rogge

Wow, that's a lot of information, but amazing and exactly how I have been imagining archfey in my head.

Villains - Archfey - Worldbuilding Wednesday

The villain is my favorite part of ANY campaign. So here I am gonna talk about how you can make different kinds of villains, honing down on a specific type and offering various ways to make them interesting. As always, we will be looking at real world history, culture, and mythology to make your villains seem realistic and specifically dastardly. For our first entry let’s discuss…

~~~~~~~~~~~~Archfey Villains~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why archfey? Two reasons: 1) I like archfey, they’re fuckin’ dicks. 2) Someone who’s name I can’t find asked me to make this and I am more than happy to make things for my followers.

NOW, let’s understand what an archfey really is.

An archfey is a creature of fey ancestry that is excessively powerful, nearing the power of a deity. Usually, such creatures are native to the Feywild. Within this realm, they command great power and can even shape the realm itself to their whim and whimsy. 

Common Misconception

Archfey doesn’t mean “superelf.” An archfey can be a pixie, a dryad, a ghost, a beast of some kind, anything that is classified as “fae” or “fae-like” can be turned into an archfey. Elf-like archfey are the most COMMON, but absolutely not the ONLY form of an archfey.

The other misconception is that the archfey are good. This is because the Feywild is mistaken as a plain of good, while Shadowfell is a plain of evil. This is wrong. Feywild and Shadowfell aren’t images of good and evil. Their are images of abundance vs lack of emotion. Shadowfell is a plain of the depressed, the emotionless, the broken. Feywild is a plain of the bipolar, the expressive, the artists and the madmen.

(I’m getting tired of saying “archfey”)

Characteristics of the Archfey

So to understand how we get an Archfey villain, lets discuss some general characteristics of the archfey.

Background.

The archfey come from the Feywild. This is a place governed by emotion. When its denizens feel something strongly, they can physically change their environment. A cruel witch will transform the forest around her to grow trees that bleed and produce fruits shaped like heads. While a kind princess will transform the fields around her into a gorgeous plain of crystalline flowers.

Now, the archfey can transform the Feywild at a moment’s notice. Which means they can do one or both of these things:

They can control their emotions very well.

They only ever have emotional extremes powerful enough to instantly alter the Feywild.

Lifestyle

The archfey live careless lives. They are too powerful to have any natural predators, as such live carefree and happy. Due to their extended life (they live like thousands of years), they are NEVER in rush. Why should they be? They’ve got time, ALL the time.

Environment

Based on HOW the Feywild is, how it is ever-shifting and changing, its denizens must learn to control this change to be able to thrive. Since we are working with an archfey, we can assume they’ve already thrived to the top of their food chain. As such, they must have learned to command the Feywild OR adapted to this changing world, having very drastic changes in personality, behavior, or even looks.

With all this information, let’s share some ideas for archfey villains.

Examples of Archfey Villains

Example #1: The Many Faced Man. Simply put, a doppelganger. The archfey are ever-changing. For this example, our villain always changes their looks. So your Party pisses off this archfey or in some way becomes enemies with him. So when your spends the night camping outside, whoever is keeping watch suddenly poof, is teleported away (because this is an Archfey, it can do this kind of shiz) and in steps a the Many Faced Man who takes this lost PCs form.

I urge you, IRL, pull the Player of this character aside and tell them your plan. Tell them that you want to replace them with a Doppelganger, but not to worry, because their PC will eventually be rescued. THEN, offer them to role play as a doppelganger pretending to be their character. Most players will have TONS of fun with this idea. If you player doesn’t want to RP a doppelganger offer them to role a new temporary PC or just dump the idea.

Example #2: Prince of Liars. A very powerful archfey this one is. He has immense power in the Feywild, and has managed to TRAP the Party in his domain. I’m stealing from Curse of Strahd here, but essentially rework that campaign with more fey-like themes. Instead of vampires, we got fey, instead of Strahd we got a spoiled brat of a prince who is all-powerful but only wants to mess with the Party before killing them in a cruel manner for his or her amusement.

For additional complexity, you can make the Prince of Liars have very drastic shifts of emotion. Think, the bad guy from Split (the movie). One moment he is nice to the Party and leads them to a place filled with treasure, the next he snaps into sheer brutal cruelty and slaughters the ranger’s companion. This will put the Party on edge when dealing with the guy. Furthermore, knowing that the archfey is powerful enough to destroy them with ease puts the Party on the edge, at least until they find something that can kill or neutralize this big bad.

Example #3: The Undying Court. This is for LARGE scale campaigns. Let’s say you have a game that is heavy on politics, but spans different dimensions. So the PCs are working with the politics between Mount Celestia and the 9 Hells and the Abyss, etc. That’s when you throw in the Undying Court. A hive-mind of several Archfey that operate as a singular entity and wish to expand their chaotic influence across the many plains. They may ally with Demon Lords and expedite chaotic situations to gain more power, so your PCs would have to negotiate a turbulent field of politics.

And that’s that folks. I hope this provides SOME use to y’all and helps you out with future ideas. Of course you don’t HAVE to follow my guideline 100%. You don’t need to follow it at all, in fact. Just take it as it is, my ideas for a good fey villain. What about you folks? Would you like to see breakdowns of other kinds of villains? I’d love to do more. Send your recommendations my way or share your ideas for villains. I’d love to hear it. Good luck everyone.

The Unfair DM

Oooh.. I've never seen this Magritte painting before, but I love it. This would make a really cool tattoo.

Almayer’s folly, 1951, Rene Magritte

I love these stylized chickens. They're accurate but cute.

Little feathered dinosaurs by Ekaterina Boguslavskaya

Beautifully melancholic

The procession of the months: the verses by Beatrice Crane; the designs by Walter Crane, [1889].

Typ 8302.89.10

Houghton Library, Harvard University

All very true

“Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian!! Ok, sure. We’ve all got our little preconceived notions about who librarians are and what they do. Many people think of librarians as diminutive civil servants, scuttling about “Sssh-ing” people and stamping things. Well, think again buster. Librarians have degrees. They go to graduate school for Information Science and become masters of data systems and human/computer interaction. Librarians can catalog anything from an onion to a dog’s ear. They could catalog you. Librarians wield unfathomable power. With a flip of the wrist they can hide your dissertation behind piles of old Field and Stream magazines. They can find data for your term paper that you never knew existed. They may even point you toward new and appropriate subject headings. People become librarians because they know too much. Their knowledge extends beyond mere categories. They cannot be confined to disciplines. Librarians are all-knowing and all-seeing. They bring order to chaos. They bring wisdom and culture to the masses. They preserve every aspect of human knowledge. Librarians rule. And they will kick the crap out of anyone who says otherwise.”

— Anonymous

Beautiful

Walt Disney Animation Studios ➞ The Silver Age (1950 - 1967)

I love Ghibli rain scenes.

Would live to own this

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls.