What are fey?

Fey have never been well defined in the many editions of D&D. There seems to be a vague idea of them being nature spirits, but what is classified as fey or not has never been very consistent. Blink dogs and hags are labeled fey, but they do not resemble nature spirits. So I have decided to adopt a clear definition of fey from The Complete Guide to Fey by Goodman Games, which to my knowledge is the only source book that has ever given the fey a clear definition.

According to that guide, fey are souls and spirits that have been given a second and last chance at life by being bound into living flesh. They may likened to a conceptual opposite of undead. Their physiology is completely different from that of mortals while appearing outwardly similar. For example, they do not have internal bones and organs, but they must still breathe clean air and require an external source of nourishment. They may reproduce, but they do not actually age. More details may be found in said source book.

Many fey may be found lurking in the wilderness, but they also have their own planes of existence to retreat to and mold in their image. My cosmology condenses the Astral, Ethereal and Faerie into a single plane consisting of countless diverse layers, planets and demi-planes. These are collectively known as the "preternatural planes." Some sages speculate these planes are aborted alternatives to the material plane. (A/N: I originally got the idea to merge the Astral and Ethereal from Beyond Countless Doorways, merge the Astral and Faerie from Faeries by Bastion Press, that Faerie has planets from Finwicket's Bestiary: Along the Faerie Path, and the preternatural planes from The Faerie Ring by Zombie Sky Press.)

The origins of the fey are shrouded in mystery. Burrowing from Exalted 's Fair Folk and Luke Maciak, I propose that there are actually two kinds of fey: the "true" fey and the "exile" fey. The true fey are aberrations that prowl the planes of discord and dreams, while the exile fey are those who became trapped in the material universe within bodies of base matter. The exiles discovered how to supplement their numbers by reincarnating lost souls and spirits into more of their own kind. According to some myths, the demikind races are descended from the exiles.

While fey commonly live in natural places, this does not mean they are nature spirits in the classical sense. Instead, I have expanded the definition of elementals to include nature spirits and will detail that approach in another post.