Fellow DMs and world creators, I have this idea of creating a secret community of humans called "The Clave"
My idea is that The Clave, is a community of humans who long ago isolated themselves from the rest of the world and have been breeding with Fey, and interbreeding amongst themselves for many, many generations.
So they are not just feytouched humans, but humans who actually have fey ancestors.
They are similar to elves but not elves and much more chaotic and all of them have the ability to move back and forth between the material plane and the Feywild at will - being able to exist in both places equally.
The Clave is ruled by two courts - modelled after they Fey courts, but unlike the Fey courts, the Claves courts are not permanent. Instead they are assembled as and when they are needed and made up of the best people for the job, regardless of age or gender or anything like that. One court will propose something, and the opposite court will propose a counter. The two courts will then argue back and forth until until one court wins. These arguments often last for years and can break out into actual fighting between the two courts.
The Clave is almost entirely chaotic. There are only three laws that are absolute.
1: No member of The Clave may kill another member
2: No member of The Clave may answer falsely any question asked of them, by another member
3: Outside knowledge of The Clave is unacceptable
Beyond those three immutable laws, laws and rules are made and broken, depending upon the situation.
The Clave uses powerful illusion magic, to hide itself and cares little for the outside world, it could crash and burn for all they care. After all, they have each other and the Feywild - so what use would they have for the brick and mortar and metal cities of men that are so full of squalor and filth and disease.
The problem is, to create The Clave, I need humans to have bred with Fey for an extended period of time. As in several hundreds of years at least, but I am not sure whether or not Fey would breed with humans, or whether they even can in the first place.
I am not talking about Eladrin or any elves here - but actual Fey beings or creatures.
Can I have your thoughts on this please?
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A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
The short answer is: It's your world, and your setting; if the ability for Fey and Humans to interbreed is important to your Story, then they can, and they have a motive to do so.
I'm a simulationistat heart - which means my passion is that the settings and campaigns I create have to be as internally logically consistent and plausible as possible.
But it's all a fictional world: a setting created to allow my Players to create stories within it. Anything which can be used to tell better stories is fair game. I can set up any conditions I want so long as a) those conditions have a logical & plausible explanation, b) those choices are not contradicted by any established canon in my world ( and in this case that means anything presented as solid fact to my Players in this campaign, not written by WoTC ) , and c) I accept any logical consequences in the world of those design decisions.
You don't even need to do adhere to those restrictions, if you don't wish to.
But if you do, and you want to play it safe, you can always isolate your choices: the Fey can interbreed with Humans - but only in the lands occupied by the Clave; the Fey wished to interbreed with Humans, and create the Clave. This of course begs the question why can Fey and Human interbreed in this particular place ( and only here ), and why did the Fey wish ( need? ) to create the Clave?
The answers to those questions might be used as a springboard to create a wider lore, and a larger adventure.
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Generally, Fey don't really have children in the traditional sense. Usually, they either kidnap or make deals for babies and replace them with "changeling" babies. The freshly acquired babies are then brought to the the "Feywild" where the energies of the plane transform them into fresh Changelings and the cycle continues.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Generally, Fey don't really have children in the traditional sense. Usually, they either kidnap or make deals for babies and replace them with "changeling" babies. The freshly acquired babies are then brought to the the "Feywild" where the energies of the plane transform them into fresh Changelings and the cycle continues.
Generally, Fey don't really have children in the traditional sense. Usually, they either kidnap or make deals for babies and replace them with "changeling" babies. The freshly acquired babies are then brought to the the "Feywild" where the energies of the plane transform them into fresh Changelings and the cycle continues.
Is this content from one of the D&D sources?
More just my extrapolation from an amalgamation of faerie lore. There is not often in a fairy tale that you come across a pregnant Fey, and when you do, it's sort of a "big deal." Often fey want children or steal them and replace them with changeling babies and there are lots of stories about what happens to children who grow up among the fey and how they change over time. Presumably fey do procreate among themselves, but they are also long-lived and so maybe it only happens rarely or only with the help of a "mortal" consort stolen and raised in the Feywild.
Generally, Fey don't really have children in the traditional sense. Usually, they either kidnap or make deals for babies and replace them with "changeling" babies. The freshly acquired babies are then brought to the the "Feywild" where the energies of the plane transform them into fresh Changelings and the cycle continues.
Is this content from one of the D&D sources?
More just my extrapolation from an amalgamation of faerie lore. There is not often in a fairy tale that you come across a pregnant Fey, and when you do, it's sort of a "big deal." Often fey want children or steal them and replace them with changeling babies and there are lots of stories about what happens to children who grow up among the fey and how they change over time. Presumably fey do procreate among themselves, but they are also long-lived and so maybe it only happens rarely or only with the help of a "mortal" consort stolen and raised in the Feywild.
Gotcha. I was wondering if D&D had taken a stance on this. Yeah, I've read fey stuff where they were treated like this myself. There's tons of fey lore, though, and they are treated in all kinds of ways across all kinds of lore. I just googled up this cool looking bit of research about human-fairy offspring, for example. Changelings are a common trope, but sometimes they are stolen human children who are 'magicked' and then returned, sometimes the fey swap their own children with human children--meaning the fey have their own children to start with. There's really no consistency among the vast mythology, and thus no reason why a D&D world couldn't have fey-<other race> interbreeding.
I am definitely in the camp of "it's your game and your world, make it how you want it to be".
Why d the fey want to breed with humans? Perhaps the fey have seen humans (and others) having children and want to experience this themselves, but need a human partner to provide some essential part of it? Fey lack some metaphysical "vital essence" required for reproduction. Maybe it was an experiment or a game, the fey have extremely long existences so games and experiments can have a very long runtime. It is possible that the fey who started things rolling have forgotten, moved on to other interests, or perhaps they are continuing.
The three laws are interesting. Do the Clave get around the prohibition on killing each other by using proxies to do the actual killing? Or is conflict between them never deadly? I assume they can shade and twist what they give in answer to a question, not telling a deliberate falsehood, but not revealing the full truth either. If they are strictly secretive and isolationist, is there any opportunity for interaction with the outside world? Do the Clave adventure among the non-Clave incognito? Do the non-Clave ever enter Clave territory? If so what happens?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Fellow DMs and world creators, I have this idea of creating a secret community of humans called "The Clave"
My idea is that The Clave, is a community of humans who long ago isolated themselves from the rest of the world and have been breeding with Fey, and interbreeding amongst themselves for many, many generations.
So they are not just feytouched humans, but humans who actually have fey ancestors.
They are similar to elves but not elves and much more chaotic and all of them have the ability to move back and forth between the material plane and the Feywild at will - being able to exist in both places equally.
The Clave is ruled by two courts - modelled after they Fey courts, but unlike the Fey courts, the Claves courts are not permanent. Instead they are assembled as and when they are needed and made up of the best people for the job, regardless of age or gender or anything like that. One court will propose something, and the opposite court will propose a counter. The two courts will then argue back and forth until until one court wins. These arguments often last for years and can break out into actual fighting between the two courts.
The Clave is almost entirely chaotic. There are only three laws that are absolute.
1: No member of The Clave may kill another member
2: No member of The Clave may answer falsely any question asked of them, by another member
3: Outside knowledge of The Clave is unacceptable
Beyond those three immutable laws, laws and rules are made and broken, depending upon the situation.
The Clave uses powerful illusion magic, to hide itself and cares little for the outside world, it could crash and burn for all they care. After all, they have each other and the Feywild - so what use would they have for the brick and mortar and metal cities of men that are so full of squalor and filth and disease.
The problem is, to create The Clave, I need humans to have bred with Fey for an extended period of time. As in several hundreds of years at least, but I am not sure whether or not Fey would breed with humans, or whether they even can in the first place.
I am not talking about Eladrin or any elves here - but actual Fey beings or creatures.
Can I have your thoughts on this please?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
The short answer is: It's your world, and your setting; if the ability for Fey and Humans to interbreed is important to your Story, then they can, and they have a motive to do so.
I'm a simulationist at heart - which means my passion is that the settings and campaigns I create have to be as internally logically consistent and plausible as possible.
But it's all a fictional world: a setting created to allow my Players to create stories within it. Anything which can be used to tell better stories is fair game. I can set up any conditions I want so long as a) those conditions have a logical & plausible explanation, b) those choices are not contradicted by any established canon in my world ( and in this case that means anything presented as solid fact to my Players in this campaign, not written by WoTC ) , and c) I accept any logical consequences in the world of those design decisions.
You don't even need to do adhere to those restrictions, if you don't wish to.
But if you do, and you want to play it safe, you can always isolate your choices: the Fey can interbreed with Humans - but only in the lands occupied by the Clave; the Fey wished to interbreed with Humans, and create the Clave. This of course begs the question why can Fey and Human interbreed in this particular place ( and only here ), and why did the Fey wish ( need? ) to create the Clave?
The answers to those questions might be used as a springboard to create a wider lore, and a larger adventure.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Generally, Fey don't really have children in the traditional sense. Usually, they either kidnap or make deals for babies and replace them with "changeling" babies. The freshly acquired babies are then brought to the the "Feywild" where the energies of the plane transform them into fresh Changelings and the cycle continues.
Is this content from one of the D&D sources?
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
More just my extrapolation from an amalgamation of faerie lore. There is not often in a fairy tale that you come across a pregnant Fey, and when you do, it's sort of a "big deal." Often fey want children or steal them and replace them with changeling babies and there are lots of stories about what happens to children who grow up among the fey and how they change over time. Presumably fey do procreate among themselves, but they are also long-lived and so maybe it only happens rarely or only with the help of a "mortal" consort stolen and raised in the Feywild.
Gotcha. I was wondering if D&D had taken a stance on this. Yeah, I've read fey stuff where they were treated like this myself. There's tons of fey lore, though, and they are treated in all kinds of ways across all kinds of lore. I just googled up this cool looking bit of research about human-fairy offspring, for example. Changelings are a common trope, but sometimes they are stolen human children who are 'magicked' and then returned, sometimes the fey swap their own children with human children--meaning the fey have their own children to start with. There's really no consistency among the vast mythology, and thus no reason why a D&D world couldn't have fey-<other race> interbreeding.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
D&D 3.5 Book of Erotic fantasy
I am definitely in the camp of "it's your game and your world, make it how you want it to be".
Why d the fey want to breed with humans? Perhaps the fey have seen humans (and others) having children and want to experience this themselves, but need a human partner to provide some essential part of it? Fey lack some metaphysical "vital essence" required for reproduction. Maybe it was an experiment or a game, the fey have extremely long existences so games and experiments can have a very long runtime. It is possible that the fey who started things rolling have forgotten, moved on to other interests, or perhaps they are continuing.
The three laws are interesting. Do the Clave get around the prohibition on killing each other by using proxies to do the actual killing? Or is conflict between them never deadly? I assume they can shade and twist what they give in answer to a question, not telling a deliberate falsehood, but not revealing the full truth either. If they are strictly secretive and isolationist, is there any opportunity for interaction with the outside world? Do the Clave adventure among the non-Clave incognito? Do the non-Clave ever enter Clave territory? If so what happens?