Fay kin
High elves
The Court of the Sun, sometimes called the high elves, have spiritual origins tied to the Welkin. The high elves dwell on mountain tops in beautifully carved castles of stone. High elves put much stock in the human notions of chivalry, courtly manners, and grace. They emulate the human traditions of knighthood and the chivalric code. Almost everybody agrees they have perfected this institution.
High elf talent: Read the Past
All high elves have eidetic memories. Bid lore to accurately recall anything you have ever seen or heard. You can go back and count the beads of sweat on your mother's forehead on the day of your birth, if you wish.
Dark elves
Beneath the forest, beneath great hollowed out mounds, dwell the dark elves who call themselves the Court of Fallen Stars. The dark elves are descended from spirits of the Wastes, and their appearance and demeanor echo those grim specters. If mortals consider elves with a sort of awe, this awe becomes a reverential fear when considering the dark elves. Though never dying, dark elves are obsessed with the trappings of death. They spend their lives looking into the void between stars in hopes of foreseeing their eventual demise.
Dark elf talent: Foretell
Bid lore to ask the GM: “If I do X, will Y happen?” You receive a “yes” or “no” answer in the form of a prophetic hunch.
Wood elves
Below the high elven mountains there lies the sprawling forests of the Court of the Maimed Moon, also called the wood elves. The wood elves, who are descended from spirits of the Weald, do not make permanent shelters in the forest, but practice a nomadic lifestyle where they follow herds of game seasonally.
Wood elves are great weavers, and weave wood and grasses into many beautiful things—ships, bridges, shelters, and armor. Wood elves often tattoo living plants onto their skin that grow and shift into new patterns over time.
Wood elf talent: Keen Senses
Wood elves have the eyes of a hawk and the nose of a wolf. A wood elf’s senses can grow so acute that they can hear the chatter of living stone, the gossip of growing roots, or the rumors of passing insects. Bid lore to temporarily sharpen one of your senses beyond normal limits and ask the GM a question based on these heightened senses. Example questions might include:
“If I focus my sight, can I read their lips from here?”
“If I listen very closely, can I tell if anybody is invisible here? Like, do I hear anybody breathing or any heartbeats or anything?”
“I take a tiny taste and spit it back out. Can I tell if it’s poisoned?”
“Based on their scent, can I tell which path the thief went down?”
This ability only lasts a moment. As normal, if the GM does not give you any new information, you do not expend a lore bid.
Gnomes
And, of course, there are the gnomes, who are called the Court of Redcaps for the stout red hats that gnome men wear and the large mushrooms in which they dwell. It is true what they say about children that run away and live with the elves: they find immortality and never grow up. They do, however, grow old. The human body was never meant to live forever. These children—these gnomes—soon find themselves twisted by the elven food they eat and their own strange dreams. Still, they learn a lot over the course of their unnaturally lengthened lives.
Gnome talent: Weird, Wise, Ancient
When you bid lore, you can ask a follow-up question to the answer for free.
Arête
Fay gain arête by performing the following deeds:
Killing something without using a weapon
Providing aid to a spirit
Making someone they’ve kissed cry
When a fay accomplishes all three arête triggers, they gain one of the following talents:
High elf arête talent: Akashic Consciousness
Some high elves can cast their memories back through their bloodlines and ask questions of their ancestors or past incarnations. Spend a Resolve and ask the GM any question about an event that happened in the past. If it’s at all possible that one of your ancestors would know about it, the GM will answer the question.
Dark elf arête talent: Spout Doom
Spend a Resolve to ask the GM: “If I do X, what will happen?” The GM provides a prophecy, which pours unbidden out of your mouth.
Wood elf arête talent: Area Sense
Spend 2 Resolve to meditate for a watch (Watches). Draw a card. The GM describes a number of interesting “visions” equal to the value of the drawn card during your meditation. (Remember, pages have a value of 11, knights have a value of 12, etc.)
These visions are sensual experiences. For example, you could hear the clatter of dice as bored crusaders gamble, smell a nearby goblin taking a shit, hear two guards talking about who’s going to be on duty tonight, sense the quivering tension of a spike trap embedded in the ceiling, and so on.
The GM provides these details by looking at their map and Meatgrinder table. Starting near the player’s current area and moving outwards, the GM provides one salient detail from the nearby rooms. Each vision should yield a meaningful detail (e.g., the presence of a hidden door, detected by an imperceptible draft in a nearby room), but need not be elaborate or detailed (i.e., the GM need not mention that the door is trapped, or that it is activated by pulling on a statue’s arm).
Any Meatgrinder events that occur when a watch passes are resolved after the GM has given your visions.
Gnome arête talent: Uncanny Knowledge
If nobody at the table has an appropriate motif to bid lore about a subject, you may bid lore about the issue at hand. This is similar to having a motif of “Whatever You Don’t Know, I Know.”
Elven role-playing concepts
Elves are a lot like humans but everything is turned up to eleven. Heroes are so heroic. Villains are absolutely villainous. Elves love to play out archetypes.
Fay society is a lot like human society, but just a little different. Instead of dogs, elves keep foxes. Instead of horses, elves ride stags. Elves still have cats, though.
Elves succeed with less “technology” than humans. They do not write books because they can rely on the memories of the high elves. They do not practice advanced metallurgy because they have the weavings of the wood elves. Alfheim relies on magic for many of its crafts.
Gods are real to the elves. Their goddess (goddesses?), the Tripartite, literally rules their society. Having invisible gods is weird.
Gnome role-playing concepts
What if you made children super smart and let them live with demigods? Gnomes, that’s what. Gnomes act a little bit like the children in Village of the Damned. Elves probably don’t realize that gnomes are weird, but humans do.
Gnomes have a bad sense of humor. When impending doom is coming on them, they laugh. When they’re dying, they tell a joke. They really go in for physical humor and slapstick, too.
Seriously though, aren’t mushrooms the best?