The fey like to steal away/contract to themselves/otherwise acquire mortal childrenConsider then the adventuring party raised by fey, why might they have been allowed to leave, how would their upbringing affect their interactions with others
>>97852873Traditional games?
>>97852873The way it works in the stories from the high middle ages is that someone's moral failing results in their being in debt to otherworldly beings (who, sure, we can describe as "fey'). The mortal is then charged with a quest to redeem themself as a result of their moral failure. And the differences are almost always about manners--what's polite and proper and what's not.So you'd go for "your dad did such-and-such that dishonored himself. As a result, you're raised by the faeries who taught you that <insert weird mannerisms here; you may not speak between the hours of sundown and sunrise; whatever>. To break the curse you must obtain the McGuffin! And once you do, your father's debt is paid and the curse is broken."Something like that is the proto-typical version of the story.
>>97853165I like it
>>97853165Not bad for a backstory actually
>>97853232>>97853300They're the stories our modern concept of "Fantasy" is largely derived from (largely through Tolkien, who was a professor teaching these stories at the university level). I guess the part of the story I forgot to include is that you get a boon from the fairies, which you lose when you demonstrate the moral failure that puts you on the quest in the first place. And sometimes the "moral failure" is stuff that makes absolutely no sense to us, by the way. Would it really be a "moral failure" to speak between sunset and sunrise? Or ask the king a question during dinner? Or to hide a magic girdle that's gonna keep you from getting your head cut off? So you can also give the character some kinda advantage as being raised by the fairies, which is only partially functional until he or she gets the McGuffin.
>>97852873Maybe they have to construct feyways, and they escape. After a while the fey might not recognize them.
>>97852873I'd rather just play the game about fighting monsters and exploring dungeons than pretending to talk to pretend people and trying to read the DM's mind on how he wants the party to follow his script.
How would they leave?
>>97852873The obvious answer to me is the classic edgy story of 'village burnt down, gotta do something else with myself now', except its a bunch of fey hunters staking their fairie godparents through the heart with cold iron. You could also have them be sent out for the amusement of the local fae, monitoring their misadventures through some strange magic placed on the fae-sponsored adventurers. Hypothetically, this magic would mark the adventurers for who they associate with, creating problems and opportunities with both other fae and supernaturally-aware humans.In either case, an adult human that has a bunch of fey mannerisms isn't going to fit in anywhere. It'd be a whole party of strangers in a strange land, which you could (and should imo) capitalize on by making the mortal culture of their local very strange. Have your party of heroes stymied most often not by the magic they grew up with, but the social graces and culture they were entirely separate from.
>>97852873>why might they have been allowed to leave,Fey got bored of them when they realized human late teenagers are fucking obnoxious. Get them out of the court before they break something important. Go out into the mortal realms and retrieve the snipe.
>>97852873This fairy tale can be defined as a "fairy tale in the strict sense," since it contains direct references to defloration, rape, necrophilia, marital infidelity, pregnancy, breastfeeding, infertility, cannibalism, as well as other themes suitable for the adult aristocratic audience to which the Neapolitan writer was addressing.
>>97852873I had a story line where my players had to basically force a noble fae that was tricking people to sell their future kids away to return said kids. As it was a drifter who would have a one night stand with a woman or two and disappear to the next town. However many of the women still wanted to have said kid. So when when they were being taken. A bunch of towns were asking for help with finding their missing children.
What if I told you there is an entire game based explicitly around that exact premise?
The latest Genshin character, Linnea, is a changeling: a fae swapped for a human child. She is an "Augury Bird," a very rare type of fae.
