Relationship between Fey, Demons, and Divines

[TheHighWayMan]

All cosmologically and metaphysically speaking of course. The most generic model I can conjure is Heaven and Hell representing Order and Chaos while Faeries and Elementals exist outside of the power to Create but have the freedom to inhabit the physical world and manifest their power there without the use of a medium (such as a cleric or warlock)

Personally I like to think of Fey as the embodiment of Chaos. Much like an Angel/Archon embodies good and a Demon/Devil embodies Evil, Fey embody Chaos (and Constructs - such as inevitables - embody Law). This has a nice symmetry with the Great Wheel and helps explain why Fey seem much closer to Demons than Angels do. Fey as a general rule tend towards Chaotic Neutrality while Angels tend towards Chaotic Good and Demons Chaotic Evil. Hence Fey are in the middle between Angels and Demons explaining why many Fey have similar traits to Demons (the horns and the like) yet are also very reminiscent of Angels.

EDIT: Imagine each type of alignment is embodied by one distinct group of creatures. Good = Angels, Evil = Demons, Law = Inevitables, and therefore Chaos = Fey

As for the exact origins of the Fey, in my campaigns I usually have all outsiders descended from an ancient and long forgotten True Neutral race (perhaps even the first progenitor gods) that embodied all and none of the alignments. This explains how there are some similarities between all outsiders yet why they all embody different alignments. As for how they ended up where they are now that is up to you :)

[Bohandas]

So banned topics include :

Real-world religions (including religious reactions to gaming)
Real-world politics (including political reactions to gaming)
Graphic violence
Illegal drugs
Illegal/Criminal activity
Explicit sexuality


Hmm... Seems like a bit of a hamstring not being able to discuss how one might be able to glean interesting ideas from the wealth of world religions and mythologies that exist

Oh it very much is. And some of the mods take it even further and apply it not just to religions that exist but also to religions that only used to exist but that have now died out.

Deities range tremendously in power, from the great gods who created the world down to the minor spirits of trees and streams. Fey creatures are the lower end of this range. Essentially, they are very minor gods. Fiends share the same divine nature, but are not associated with particular natural phenomena; they exist only to cause pain, sickness, and death.

Pain, sickness, and death are natural phenomena

[Aniikinis]

But WH is also gonzo grimdark. And I'm much more on the heroic side. I read about those settings (and steal ideas, because I'm a magpie), but don't find them all that fun as anything other than self-satire/deconstruction of tropes.

Ehhh, it's only in the recent couple of editions of 40k that really took itself seriously and fell into the stinking hole that is the GrimDerp. The first few editions were super on the nose about it being satire and the wargame version of heavy metal album covers. I mean Doomrider is a thing, after all. Plus there's a fan project called Nobledark Imperium for 40k, to rewrite the fluff into a more heroic sci-fi setting

"The night is dark and full of horror, but the dawn is coming - and it will be glorious. All we must do is survive."

– Srg. Marcus Albus, Mustavaar 3rd Rifles Regiment, 845.M40

And Fantasy was grimdark, yes, but AoS has a bit of a brighter tone while still hanging a minute to midnight.

[Izzyboshi]

But WH is also gonzo grimdark.

I would probably pick up and play a game that called itself "Gonzo Grimdark".

Total tangent here but there's a game I've been toying with called Shadows of Esteren. It's lore is a bit Grim Dark since it's sort of Middle Ages low tech themed but I found it's treatment of magic really interesting. It also gives you the lore of these Monsters that are... possibly fey?

the game has a vaguely Gaelic flavor and while it's entirely possible to have a game where you are townsfolk just dealing with famine and the neighboring baron who goes out pillaging for fun, it gives a bit of lore of these things that manifest from the natural world that cause people or whole towns to disappear or fall ill. The game basically gives you no guide on what these things are, no explanations of rules, just a couple of stories to get your imagination a jump start. I found it kind of enchanting not really giving players a reference guide as it makes encounters and the origin of these things personally tailored by the GM and cause for mystery and alarm.

Black chicken randomly up in town before a disaster? Coincidence... or one of... THEM?!

It is kind of neat giving fey the sort of alienist horror treatment. They are unknowable, unpredictable, dangerous and impossible to understand. You could hunt them your entire life and be no closer to the secret, only better know how to mitigate the damage.

[GaelofDarkness]

Yeah, I love me a bit of a dark edge, but the age of grimderp has been so very not my jam.

Total tangent here but there's a game I've been toying with called Shadows of Esteren. It's lore is a bit Grim Dark since it's sort of Middle Ages low tech themed but I found it's treatment of magic really interesting. It also gives you the lore of these Monsters that are... possibly fey?
*snip*
it gives a bit of lore of these things that manifest from the natural world that cause people or whole towns to disappear or fall ill. The game basically gives you no guide on what these things are, no explanations of rules, just a couple of stories to get your imagination a jump start.

That sounds really cool. I'll have to look it up. I've always been interested in "Monsters" as a category in fantasy too. Like, where's the line between beast and monstrosity or monstrosity and aberration - or monstrosity and spirit. I think you can do something really interesting by just refusing to engage in any of those distinctions.

[Max_Killjoy]

Ehhh, it's only in the recent couple of editions of 40k that really took itself seriously and fell into the stinking hole that is the GrimDerp. The first few editions were super on the nose about it being satire and the wargame version of heavy metal album covers. I mean Doomrider is a thing, after all. Plus there's a fan project called Nobledark Imperium for 40k, to rewrite the fluff into a more heroic sci-fi setting

"The night is dark and full of horror, but the dawn is coming - and it will be glorious. All we must do is survive."

– Srg. Marcus Albus, Mustavaar 3rd Rifles Regiment, 845.M40

And Fantasy was grimdark, yes, but AoS has a bit of a brighter tone while still hanging a minute to midnight.

At one point 40k stopped being a parody of other things, and became a parody of itself.

It used to have a sense of humor, I mean, the Ultra Marines have very blue armor.

[Aniikinis]

At one point 40k stopped being a parody of other things, and become a parody of itself.

It used to have a sense of humor, I mean, the Ultra Marines have very blue armor.

^^^This. Another fan-project is bringing back the parody aspect with loads of comedy: If the Emperor had a Text-To-Speech Device. It asks a simple question and go on to answer it in the dumbest possible way while ****ting on the worst bits of lore and bringing new life into the cesspit that is the milky way galaxy in 40k. That question is: "What would happen if someone installed a 21st century Text-To-Speech device into the golden throne so that the Emperor could use it to talk with people?" It goes about as well as you'd think and things get crazy real fast.

[Drakien]

The setting I have puts the devils as a warlike race of primordials enslaved by the angels and forced to imprison damned souls, the fey are material spirits mostly, they embody the earth and water and trees while the older fey/spirits embody concepts like love justice and monarchy

[FatR]

Let's describe my setting's take on typical DnD categories of supernatural being in alphabetical order.

- Aberration. An unvited guest from a parallel universe. A lot of them are outright toxic to local life or must parasitize on it. A lot of them consciously or unwittingly serve masters back home whose agenda is hostile to put it mildly or believe themselves infinitely superior to mere humanoids. Great Old Ones and similar eldritch abominations are the top dogs of this group. Tend to have "what is this I don't even" alien appearance. Not zapped by holy powers as a general rule, unless buffed up with a lot of dark magic and evil arcane science they are still mortals. Obviously live in the normal world, through the greatest of them can still be sealed away back in their old homes.

- Fey. A living story. Tries to play a specific arhetype to the best of his ability, which to be fair makes him no different at all from a typical NPC in the game and cannot stand uneventful life, which does make him different. Even if a fey plays a heroic character, the more powerful he becomes the stronger his narrative powers grows, until his mere presence in the mortal realm starts causing all sorts of interesting plot developments, which a normal human would call "calamities". Do not have a general agenda towards mortals, but many like to play with them more than they like to play with other fey, because mortals are less predictable. Look picturesque, even ugly ones are always imposing in their exaggerated hideousness. Fey are zapped by holy powers. Normally sealed away in the fairy tale realm of their own, but can be called forth with relative ease, sometimes even unwittingly.

- Fiend. (Demons are a subset.) An evil spirit who hates and despises mortals. Generally you can confidently bet that he wishes to pull your spine out of your ass, the reason why differs depend on the fiend type (contempt for all mortals, hunger, hatred of the ordered existence, etc). Presence of most, excepting the weakest and wimpiest ones or the most powerful ones who can assume pleasant forms, tends to blast mortal minds or kill everything around them, so you will have hard time mistaking them for anything else. Zapped by holy powers, of course. Normally sealed away and cannot reach the world of mortals without being summoned, which takes fairly serious magic.

- Elemental. A creature of raw elements and magic. Their progenitors were created by titans as "better" alternatives to feeble creatures of flesh. Elementals are split roughly 50/50 between those who still want to fulfill the initial agenda of their kind and crush mortals, and those who would just like freedom, for like fiends elementals are sealed away in their own Elemental Realms. In any case, while in the grand scheme of things elementals may be almost as destructive as fiends Zapped by holy powers.

- Gods. The heavenly gods are bigshots of, well, Heaven, who maintain the world order that keeps the previous three categories away from mortals unless mortals are stupid enough to invite them, and bestow holy powers to zap them with. Unfortunately ever since one of the heavenly gods decided that the whole "free will" thing was a mistake and gods should be rulers of mortals, not their caretakers, they only interfere directly in the mortal realm very rarely, as to avoid bringing their conflict there and accidentally smashing a galactic cluster or two in the process. The same restriction applies to their angels, though angels who were already set to keep watch over the mortal worlds and survived to the present age may still help mortals - as they see fit.
The earthy gods are just spirits who feed off mortals and establish cults to get worship and sacrifice. Though when confronted by those who understand their nature they say that the heavenly gods are simply pretenders who did the same trick for so many ages, that their power became incomparable.

[Mendicant]

I'm firmly in the "fey are natives" camp. The original two planes are the astral and material, and the interplay of the native super beings of those two planes created the other intermediate planes. Demons are "big c" Chaotic--they're the result of astral beings' tendency towards big concepts. Fey are little c chaotic, for the most part. They don't have a real alignment the way outsiders do, they just tend to be very in the moment. Even the "lawful" ones are operating more on instinct than principle.

[Bohandas]

^^^This. Another fan-project is bringing back the parody aspect with loads of comedy: If the Emperor had a Text-To-Speech Device. It asks a simple question and go on to answer it in the dumbest possible way while ****ting on the worst bits of lore and bringing new life into the cesspit that is the milky way galaxy in 40k. That question is: "What would happen if someone installed a 21st century Text-To-Speech device into the golden throne so that the Emperor could use it to talk with people?" It goes about as well as you'd think and things get crazy real fast.

The problem with that is that it assumes, probably incorrectly, that the Emperor's reign hasn't been a 10000 year long Weekend At Bernie's

[Bogardan_Mage]

I'm having a similar issue world-building for d20 Modern, concerning the distinction between fiends and "Luciferians".

The background on Luciferians is there were originally (I believe) written up in the Alternity setting Dark*Matter where they are presented as extradimensional creatures possessed of advanced technology which inspired stories of demonic magic and "deals with the devil" (for access to this technology). Fine, except this is all rather undercut by the existence in the setting of literal actual demons which are explicitly supernatural. This didn't get any better in the translation to d20 Modern, where the legions of hell are if anything better defined (borrowing much from their D&D presentation) and Luciferians are nonaligned Outsiders that look like this but are definitely not fiends, no sir.

So while I could just keep Luciferians out of campaigns that include fiends (and vice versa), I'd like to try and reconcile the existence of both without changing their roles too severely.