The Fair Folk

The Fae are one of the eldest and most feared, most hated, of all things in existence. Despite being the stuff of chaos and dreams, even those in the realm of Creation are horrific to behold, and terrible powerful even as infants.

I have read through the Raksha book to help get a better understanding. Please read this info and respond in game time as your character would knowing this.

Positions and Strata

Types

• Unshaped - These Raksha exist in the deepest wyld. They have never been found, interacted with, or conceived of by mortal or god. They exist only as thought and pure chaotic creativity.
  
• The Shaped - These are pure wyld unshaped taking the first step from formless chaos to an accepted shape that creation could recognize.
  
• Raksha - Fair folk that have moved further into the realm of Creation. They wander the Middle and Border reaches and interact with mortals. These can range from the extreme to the mundane. But mundane for a Raksha is maddening to the mind.

Positions

• Nobles - The highest and most grand. Nobles are refined and terribly powerful. A freshly shaped noble can easily decimate a veteran Lunar or Solar. History has proven that directly attacking nobles leads to instant death. Warfare with Raksha is handled very differently, but this knowledge is nearly lost to the past. Nobles can follow any possible profession and lifestyle.
  
• Workers - Craftsmen of the Raksha can range in form and function, looking as elven men and women to beasts, elementals, demons, and other crazed creations. Many workers can become nobles, or work closely with them, as they are refined shapers.
  
• Army Warriors - The grunt armies can include shaped creations including dragons, drakes, other elven, hobgoblins, goblins, horrific to beautiful. These are typically bound to freeholds and the keepers of freeholds.
  
• Commoners - these are followers that believe or enslave themselves to freehold keepers. They can move among the many freeholds, binding to many, just to exist.

Status of Fae with Non-Raksha
Of course, concepts of respect and fear and status lack the same meaning when dealing with those not of the Fair Faolk. While the Raksha are generally agreed that they are superior to any other creature in existence, those of them who have become tied to the physical world-- that is, those of them inside Creation, and especially the ones who have spent a long time there -- can recognize other powerful beings and value their affection, fear, or hatred.

Having a Solar as a bitter enemy is enough to invigorate any Raksha. Imagine the battles, the revenges, the challenges, the stratagems, the sheer passion and danger of it! Similarly, the respect or hatred of Lunars or Abyssals is worth owning. Attention from such powerful beings provides the sort of personal definition and strong emotion that the Fair Folk need in ways that they cannot describe.

Once an Exalt or other powerful being has managed to somehow impress a Raksha as being worthy of attention -- possibly ways of doing so include possessing extreme physical beauty or great talents or defeating Raksha in battle -- there is the potential for some sort of relationship, whether adversarial or friendly. It doesn't matter that these rivalries are often shot and fatal. The need does not change just because the matter is dangerous. The Raksha may have to pursue his new object of interest across Creation in order to confront her again or may simply wait on his home ground and send her tokens of affection or insult in order to provoke a confrontation.

The type of relationship may depend on the Fair Folk's particular area of focus. A Valor-possessed Raksha will seek a worthy enemy. A Compassionate one may want a lover or a heroic friend. A Willpower-centered Raksha might prefer a strong-willed antagonist to plot against. A Conviction-focused one may be fascinated by an Exalt who will persevere against or even seek out countless obstacles, ad a Raksha who prizes Temperance may choose a violently flamboyant Exalt for pure contrast.

Among other Fair Folk, having a Solar or Lunar Exalt as a personal ally or enemy garners one a great deal of status. A Fair Folk Warrior who can say that he dueled with the Bull of the North from sunrise to sunset promptly becomes a dramatic hero to his fellows and a subject for the latest Raksha ballads. Abyssals are far too new for any significance, and Drabon-blooded are the usual and boring.

Dragon-blooded and the Guild are far more business partners to the Fair Folk than a source of drama. Rarely if ever will they foster relations beyond trade.

Solar Exalted
Even though their elevation to the status of demigods happened only within the last five years, Solar characters used to be mortals, and all of them will have heard of the war that took place after the Great Contagion. More importantly, all of them will have heard the stories about what the Raksha do to those they get their hands on, and so, only the most cocksure or mercenary Solar will work in concert with the Raksha who have not renounced their predatory ways. Still, Solar characters are nothing if not filled with temerity, and so, a crossover is possible, with the Solar Exalted working alongside the Fair Folk, individually or in rings, if the Raksha have enough to gain from the alliance and the Solar Exalted have cause.

For the Fair Folk's part, they eye the current crop of Solar Exalted nervously, all too aware that, given time, the Solar Exalted might again achieve the heights they reached in the First Age, when Raksha's attempts to assault Creation were repelled at every turn. Still, the Raksha are beings who always look for the upper hand in any dealing, and most would certainly attempt to bargain with Solar Exalted characters for some advantage, thus setting the basis for the crossover. Many Fair Folk will secretly attempt to induce Solar characters to complete some task for them or to move against some of the Fair Folk's foes in court. It is not impossible that a Fair Folk noble might consider allying with local Solar Exalted in exchange for a nonaggression pact and pledge of mutual aid.

Occasionally, a Raksha who has acclimated to the ways of Creation-- and gained some measure of respect for the mortals that make up its population-- might fight alongside a Solar Exalted, and a handful of the Fair Folk have come to call one of the newly reborn Chosen of the Unconquered Sun a friend. After all, the lives of the Solar Exalted are tumultuous and wracked with conflicts social and physical, and there are plenty of opportunities for a Fair Folk character to passively feed during a battle or at a negotiating table.

The Lunar Exalted
Crossover series with the Lunar Exalted are the most easy to actually facilitate, given the Lunar Exalted's immunities to the Wyld and to transformation, but nearly the hardest to justify, given the two factions' immense hatred of one another. However, it was not long ago that the Lunars and Fair Folk were, if not allies, then at least capable of cooperating with one another. It's only when the Lunars began cultivating tribes of barbarians underneath them that the struggle for a specific resource-- in this case, mortals --- began causing friction between the two groups.

But as the Ages turn and the Age of Sorrows begins (this age) to pick up steam, there may be some Lunars willing o reach an accommodation with the Fair Folk in exchange for weaponry, hobgoblin shock troops or even the aid of Fair Folk Cataphractoi. At the same time, there are surely prince sin the Middlemarches who see that the Lunars make better allies than foes and who ponder what a push into Creation would be like aided by one of the Celestial Exalted using Wyld barbarians as shoch troops. If all it takes to facilitate such an alliance is a peace treaty and oath not to feed off of an Exalted's barbarian flock, then surely something could be arranged.

The only thing standing in the way of such an alliance is what amounts to centuries upon centuries of bad blood and the weight of the Silver Pact coming down on whoever would dare aid the Lunars' traditional enemies. But as the Lunars tire of guarding the Threshold of Creation and begin to eye the rich and weak cities of civilization, more and more may decide that it's better to aid the Fair Folk and guarantee a successful campaign, than to continue to sit on the edge of the world, biding their time.

Melensai - Once warlord of the Gossamer Stockade, she lost her position when her brother was killed by a "mortal". She is in the Land of Night now.


Tusyel of the Dancing Word and Fashioned Steps
Storyteller fae that wanders the east


Coruasae- Baron of the Land of Night
Ruthless prince fae in the east


The Once King - Sireeliar
"Sinclair"

He has had so many names. Once there was an idea of a king. It was the part of him that wished for some sense of order, a reign upon the madness. It had left him, split away to become it's own story. As a child born from his own mind, his own dreams.

It left the remains of him strange, even among his own kind. And the tale one of the most tragic to grace the stage of the Raksha. For all so wish to become part of his legacy. The Once King. The Alseyr. That which always is, shall be, and never again shall rise.

Yet, the wild one, exiled and wandering, left the lands of the Fae, left his bitter half to rule. All the while, he entered creation as one of the most fearsome of forces. His blades drank from celestials and sought Yu'shan itself. And then something came into his life, a force as reckless, brazen and strange as his own.

He savored such a thing, wound his story about his. Sought with every part of him to become the nemesis he so truly deserved. He sought this man, this solar, until madness itself screamed for mercy. And so it was, mercy was won. Surrounded by his own, kneeling, did he beg as the others so pleaded. Between them was forged the legacy of Eclipse.

And with it, he lost a part of himself. Rushing from the battlefields, seeking the dominion of Raksha, he reclaimed the bitter half, consuming the king he fashioned. But this did not save him from the touch of that immortal soul. Existence as he knew it could never be as it always was.

And so he named his daughter successor, and left the world.

Now he is Sinclair. For now at least. And the truth of the Raksha remains hidden behind shaped flesh and song. Perhaps every tale he gives will help him find the missing pieces he believes hide in the world of Creation.




Sinclair as Sireeliar (Age of Sorrows)
The further Sinclair engages his sword and powers of shaping, the closer he comes to his lineage. At his height, he may look like this, a mix of human and fae.


Frailty of Winter - Faellowir
the Regent and daughter
When Sireeliar splits himself, he places this lady in charge effectively making her a form of daughter.

Courts of the Fae

The Opal Court
The Raksha of the East are ruled by a single true king. This is Prince Japhthia. Lords under his court include Slu'lura, Cahlenna, and Subarto. The court is not in the wyld but hidden away from the world of man by gossamer and dreams. None know of it beyond the Raksha themselves. Could they survive in the true wyld? No longer. The eldest and strongest may, but they have been in the realm of Creation far too long to return. They are the hand of the warriors of the great chaos of the Wyld. A court of Valor.

Fiann Na Mael
The Great White Stag
The Oathbound

Once called Spawn of Emerald Serpents, this fae engaged in shaping himself to leave the deepest Wyld for that of Creation. Embroiled in warfare, he bound drakes and serpents of quartz and the woodlands into his armor, melding within trees and nature, hidden and tracking those of the newly exalted. For ages, he tracked and murdered these invaders, selecting his targets and seeking them across the vast land.

Yet this in itself became a terrible trap. The further he hunted for the greatness of his kind, the more he shaped until even the Raksha could no longer stand his touch or company. He fell into a strange niche like so many others, far too shaped for the Wyld and far too alien to be accepted among the Exalted.

His tale at first held sparks of honest amazement among the Raksha, but soon his tale was as many others, and the life he held drained away slowly as a weeping wound. So little gossamer remained in his grasp, so few freeholds willing to accept his stewardship. He needed a new tale, else the shaped would lose his status as a noble and fall into the masses of commoners, never to rise again.

For the first time, Emerald knew fear. The fae brooded, thoughts twisting darkly until the very trees and rivers shaped in answer to his call. But what he brought forth wormed about his mind, pierced his heart, and grew into a darkness of essence and craft rarely seen. Rare yet possible, the Raksha could leave their paths, fall and stumble into an abyss of their own creation that called to their brothers, daemons, primordials, and the very Yozi lords and ladies of the Neverborn and Everdark.

It was into this very darkness that two Lunars bound to each other in love entered the life of Emerald. Alabaster Viper sensed a strange turning in the world, bringing it to the attention of her craftsman soulmate Masked Starfall. She felt plagued by nightmares, and chased in the woods once safe and filled with life. Together they entered the woodland armed with his precious works, gleaming with essence.

What they found tore at their minds and hearts, nearly plunging them in horrid despair. For weeks they toiled within a place that seemed to bleed primordial blood. Every tree, animal, even the very soil held the taint of this pain. And at the very heart they unearthed a creature tormenting itself and the world around it. Nothing they did seemed to aid in bringing forth a resolution, and no Solar could be contacted. So it was Alabaster Viper offered herself as a vessel.

Grief twisted and tore through her, the voice she spoke with pulled thin and tight from pain. For a month, Masked Starfall spoke with the creature listening to it's heartache and need. Tendrils of dark essence filled her mouth, clouded her eyes, but finally the presence left her and rose before them both. There stood a fae devoid of armor, thin and weary, close to unmaking and weeping in gratitude. Bewildered, they felt a kinship with this Raksha and nursed him to health. Between the three, they blessed the wood and gave rise to a demense of wood for the fae to live within.

Through their bonds, Fiann became. As a gift, Masked Starfall entrusted him with a fine bardiche and fought by his side. And when reports rose of deaths among exalts, he brought Alabaster Viper to Fiann for safekeeping. Unto Masked Starfall, Fiann entrusted a shaping the likes of which none had ever seen.