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Threat Analysis, Information and Legend Status

Faerie Courts

It seems we finally got some information on the recent incidents thanks to two groups heroes dispatched. One of them was able to retrieve a book with the same sun and moon motif that was found at the incident locations. The other group was able to find someone who could actually translate the book for us. Now the book and its translated notes have come to me to write up my report on this. I can only assume the fact they put me in charge of such an important report is proof no one is actually reading anything I put down.

So basically, we're dealing with faeries I suppose that's not too surprising. They did encounter a will-o-wisp during the forest incident. From what I can understand from the book notes it sounds like each of the incidents was caused by two different major faerie courts. Some call them the Seelie and Unseelie courts. They're more commonly known as the Summer and Winter courts.

The Winter Court is about what you'd expect according to the book. Powerful wicked faeries. They often show up to place curses on mortals. The thing is some of the transgressions requiring life destroying curses seem relatively minor. Like really minor. Like we have at least one record of a person being transformed into a deer for the rest of their life because they walked on the grass. The rules that the Winter Court comes up with almost just feel like a pretense. It's like they're playing a game, trying to find some excuse to wreck some random person's life. It's hard to imagine a way how to deal with them because the rules don't always make any sense. I suppose if you knew what rules they wanted you to follow you could escape unscathed... But they're not exactly going to explain it to you... And demanding they do would likely result in you being turned into a parrot for your insolence of questioning them. There's not really much of a win with them.

Naturally... The Summer Court is even worse. The Winter Court is at the very least... Honest about their malice. The Summer Court on the other hand will screw you over and act like they're doing you a favor. They'll call their magic a blessing but make no mistakes it's just as bad as the curses of the Winter Court. They might justify it saying it helped you grow as a person or made you more interesting but they're just as selfish.

Though... One can't help but wonder if they have a point. I was pretty traumatized when I first lost my humanity... But I'd stab you in the eye if you tried to take away my tail now.

Anyway the main problem it boils down to is that the faeries don't really see us mortals as real people. After all... When you can live for an eternity what do you care for the whims of people who are gone in the blink of an eye from your point of view. To them there's no point in showing empathy for us. Any individual would be long gone before the faerie felt like they had even gotten to know them. So that's gotta be part of the problem. Instead they just seem to see mortals as entertainment.

From what I'm reading of this book the faeries love their entertainment. They're all about art, music and of course games. I've found a lot of records of faeries that have taken on a mortal lover and become their muse so to speak. They inspire them to produce greater and greater works of arts. These relationships tend to not really work out due to previously established reasons. Often it can end in someone literally becoming trapped in their own art... Or after the artist passes away the faerie trying to force others to fill their shoes or live out their lover's work. Imagine mourning for your dead father only to have a nymph show up and now claim you must devote the rest of your existence to his work. If you refuse you find yourself trapped in a world created from one of your father's paintings unable to leave. The nymph thinks she's helping you. She's trying to show you how special it is. If you don't survive the endeavor well... That's on you.

Faeries are whimsical.

That doesn't make them nice.

Now then on to our current problem. Why are the forces of Summer and Winter causing problems? Well... From what I can understand the two courts are constantly at war... But not the kind of war we traditionally think of. They would never directly strike at each other. That would destroy a rather delicate balance that exists between them The simple fact is that Summer and Winter are relatively evenly matched. They may hate each other... But any major battles between them would decimate both sides. I believe the term we mortals like to use for this kind of scenario is mutually assured destruction.

So instead they find other ways to fight. Remember what I said about the faeries loving their entertainment and their games? They'll play a game with each other. There are stakes... But from what I can understand many of the stakes might just be their pride. The winner gets bragging rights. Sometimes it might be the turning of seasons. Turns out you might have a freakishly long summer or an extremely severe winter when one side has been winning more often.

Aside from the fact that our environment is literally just a chip to be bet in a poker game... There's the very pressing problem that they tend to see us as game pieces. More than likely that's what was going on with the forest and coliseum incident. Summer and Winter were recruiting pieces for some kind of upcoming game.

The Faerie Tale creatures vs the Monsters. Something tells me it wasn't going to be a rousing game of cribbage. It's all well and good we shut those operations down. But there is the question of what happens now? I sincerely doubt the faeries are just going to pack up and go home. Most likely they'll find a new place to pick up their game pieces. So... What do we do now?

Well... The smart thing would be to just let them. They're not going to destroy the entire country. They'll ruin the lives of a few select people who get in and leave the rest of us alone. It would be so easy to just let it happen. Anything we do to stop it could risk the faeries escalating their game... Or worse taking an interest in us. Let a few people disappear so the rest of the world can live in peace. That would be the smart choice.

But

We're the Society of Heroes Investigating Fantastic Threats. We don't really do smart. We jump headfirst into the problem with zero plans and zero resources and somehow don't die in the process. It's our thing.

So... We're probably going to interfere. And luckily, we do know a few things that can harm them now that we have this book.

Pure Iron: It has to be pure iron, not an alloy and worked at a low temperature. But faeries are actually scared of it. It looks like it shuts down their magical powers when in contact with it, effectively making them mortal. This also means pure iron weapons can damage a faerie just as easily as a mortal being.

True Name: If you can get a faerie's true name you can control them. Well... Sometimes. On some of the more powerful faeries this might not be a good idea and may just make them angry. I suppose if you're a talented enough spell caster you might be able to bind a fey lord if you learn their true name.

Cream: Kind of an odd thing... But faeries seem to have some kind of issue with cream. I recall an old tale about leaving out bowls of milk or cream for faeries. I guess it just has an intoxicating effect making them easily forget about you and move on.

Disguises: Apparently, some faeries have difficulty telling the difference between mortals. If you're being stalked by a faerie sometimes something as simple as turning your coat inside out when it loses sight of you is enough to fool it. Of course... Given the line of work and the constant abuse our wardrobes take this might not often be an option.

Shamrock: Four leaved clovers are effective against them. It won't actually harm a faerie, but it will break any glamour spells allowing you to see their true selves. This won't really do too much to stop the faerie... But it might prevent you from accidentally making a contract with a faerie while they're in disguise.

Contracts: A last resort... But faeries will always keep the word of any agreements they make with you. If you enter a contract the faerie will honor it. Be warned though they'll follow the contract to the letter and they've had years of finding loopholes in them.

I'm not sure how useful or how feasible each of these options are but there at least a few things we can try now. There is one other option to consider as well... And that would be to simply play along with the game. If we can't prevent their games from happening we might be able to play along and at least mitigate the damage. Who knows, maybe we could even find the way to rig the game to a stalemate so neither the sides of summer or winter gain an edge over each other. The only problem is something like that requires us to actually know what game we're playing. When dealing with the faeries you can feel like you're trying to play chess against someone else who's playing poker. It just doesn't work.

That's about all I got for now. We know it's faeries but not really which. There are plenty of fey lords on each side... and of course there's the Queen of Summer and Queen of Winter themselves. I figure it's gotta be someone pretty high up for the magic they're pulling off but we'll need to learn more to find out who and what kind of game they're actually playing. I'll do my part to go through as much of the book as possible and see if I can find more evidence.

But man. I know it has to be done. But I'm glad it's not me that does the field work.

Sybil Delphi

SHIFT Scribe and Archivist