I recently had my players meet a Chaotic Good member of the unseelie court, who actually helped them out on a quest.
After the session, on of my players told me he didn't like that NPC for several reasons.
1. He didn't think that an unseelie would help anyone
2. He thought it was ridiculous that a member of the unseelie court was good in anyway, even Chaotic Good was too far a stretch in his opinion
3. He didn't like how I had given an unseelie the beauty and grace of the Fey and thought she should have looked more like an old wretched hag.
This has got me thinking. Why do Unseelie always have to be evil. The fey courts are not binary and fey are notoriously fickle beings.
I really don't understand his reasoning since a chaotic good Unseelie seems perfectly within the scope of the unseelie court - being more chaotic than the Seelie court.
This is how I view the courts. Unseelie lean more towards rhe dark chaotic nature of the fey, while the Seelie court leans more towards finding order in that chaos.
So the Unseelie done restrain their chaotic nature and just be entirely natural in their being, while the Seelie do restrain their chaotic nature and tend more towards order and law.
What do you fellow DMs think of my interpretation and my NPC.
Was I really way off base and why do Unseelie always have to be Evil?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
The seelie fey tend towards good, the unseelie fey tend toward evil. Neither are that chaotic or ugly, chaotic aligned fey tend to be independent of the courts, and hags are almost never a part of the courts.
Both sides are very tricky and mischievous, but the unseelie court specifically can be more malicious and antagonistic (toward good aligned creatures any way).
Seelie = light fairies, Unseelie = dark fairies .. but according to the article either can have a wide range of behaviours. However, a chaotic good fairy would be more likely to be categorized as a Seelie just on the basis of the categorization system rather than specific affiliation.
Keep in mind, in this context, that the designations are designed by humans to group the fairies based on disposition and actual behaviour not as self organized political groups. How the fairies would actually organize themselves.
There is also the following article on the WoTC web site from 2002 which might offer more insight from a D&D perspective.
Finally, there are some passage in the DMG and Volo's that might be worth reading to get an idea of how you want to runs the courts in your world.
SEELIE AND UNSEELIE FEY DMG p49 Two queens hold court in the Feywild, and most fey owe allegiance to one or the other. Queen Titania and her Summer Court lead the seelie fey, and the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Gloaming Court, leads the unseelie fey. Seelie and unseelie do not directly correlate with good and evil, though many mortals make that equation. Many seelie fey are good, and many unseelie are evil, but their opposition to each other stems from their queens' jealous rivalry, not abstract moral concerns. Ugly denizens of the Feywild, such as fomorians and hags, are almost never members of either court, and fey of independent spirit reject the courts entirely. The courts have warred at times, but they also compete in more-or-less friendly contests and even ally with one another in small and secret ways.
Volos p52 gives more details on why hags are mostly excluded from either court. Basically, all court fey can be expected to be beautiful, graceful, alluring whether they are seelie or unseelie.
The 2002 article would certainly permit a chaotic good fey who doesn't have the blood line to be a member of the seelie court to be a member of the unseelie court if you wish.
The bottom line though is that it is your world and you don't need to conform to popular beliefs if it fits your narrative.
Some excellent information has already been offered, especially if you are running the Feywild close to how the printed books describe them!
Another option is that this creature is an exception to the rule. Every archetype has mold breakers, rebels, beings that doesn't conform to their cultural and social norms. This Fey might have been one of those!
Who says evil has to be ugly? Read a couple Dresden books or those glowy vampire books or any number of fantasy stories in which some evil being uses seduction as a weapon.
Evil doesn't have to be stupid. They can and will use the PCs and help the PCs if it furthers their own end. Did they help kill something evil? It was probably a rival.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
The way I see it. Mankind's moral compass is not how many other planes function. What they see as good / evil is vastly different from our own perspectives and definitions.
All fey are chaotic and tricksters by nature. A core element that is the same across the board for all of them. From there I break it up into their courts. One for each season. And each season portraying certain personality traits that are similar to the natural season. From there you either have the playfull/friendly pranksters that just want to have some harmless fun, with occasion leading to unintentional harm (Seelie). On the other you got more the manipulative harmful pranksters and tricksters... Think Politicians x 100.
Apply that to all the above mentioned info.
1. The Unseelie would help someone. If they would somehow get better from it. They're playing a larger game, over longer periods of time. Something how hags trick and make deals, but more subtle and dangerous. 2. good vs evul discussion is answered before already. doesn't apply really. Too abstract a concept to apply to fey. 3. just because an Unseelie has ugly behavior and mannerisms like a hag, doesn't mean they have to look like that. Their mesmerizing beauty makes sense as to catch people off guard as well. Especially since all courts are very elitist. Allowing only very specific high elven/pure fey creatures in their midst. So many creatures found in the Fey aren't even part of any court to begin with.
Wysperra invokes the Dresden Files novels, and I would further that as a recommended source for figuring out how to play the Fey. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts in that world are not Good/Evil - they are Summer/Winter.
The Summer Court can be as cruel, and the Winter Court as coldly helpful, as each other - they just have different world views and agendas.
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1. Unseelie are inherently malicious and antagonistic, that being said they will help other if it benifits themselves. They also have a kind of loyalty to their own. Meanig they would do just about anything for one of their own but some are more like the seelie and don't care who they step on as long as they have power. (One of the reasons I think seelie are the actual evil ones.) But some unseelie are just evil, such as the slaugh.
2. An unseelie are actually more lawful than the seelie because they stand by very strick codes.(mainly out of fear of their queen)
3. Almost all Unseelie where once a seelie so anything a seelie can do they can do but Unseelie follow the queen of air and darkness.
I think your research and description is straight up the best in regards to the understanding of the Two Courts. I've been perusing the internet for hours looking for something that kind of explained the lack of knowledge of the Courts and why there are so many differing understandings of them until I found this thread and this particular comment.
This leaves a great depiction of the mysteriousness behind the Courts and the understanding of the morality therein by simply stating that mortals are the ones describing them, not the courts themselves. You have saved me great headaches and confusion. Thanks a ton!
I recently had my players meet a Chaotic Good member of the unseelie court, who actually helped them out on a quest.
After the session, on of my players told me he didn't like that NPC for several reasons.
1. He didn't think that an unseelie would help anyone
2. He thought it was ridiculous that a member of the unseelie court was good in anyway, even Chaotic Good was too far a stretch in his opinion
3. He didn't like how I had given an unseelie the beauty and grace of the Fey and thought she should have looked more like an old wretched hag.
This has got me thinking. Why do Unseelie always have to be evil. The fey courts are not binary and fey are notoriously fickle beings.
I really don't understand his reasoning since a chaotic good Unseelie seems perfectly within the scope of the unseelie court - being more chaotic than the Seelie court.
This is how I view the courts. Unseelie lean more towards rhe dark chaotic nature of the fey, while the Seelie court leans more towards finding order in that chaos.
So the Unseelie done restrain their chaotic nature and just be entirely natural in their being, while the Seelie do restrain their chaotic nature and tend more towards order and law.
What do you fellow DMs think of my interpretation and my NPC.
Was I really way off base and why do Unseelie always have to be Evil?
Big question is, what was the help? Was it something that would have gone against the wishes or used up significant of the resources of the queen of air and darkness? If not they're probably OK.
Auril is described as the Frostmaiden, not the Frosthag, and was reportedly attractive. Though not typically conducive to life, there can be great beauty in winter.
I prefer to think of the Seelie Courts in terms of blue and orange, instead of good or evil and law and chaos.
I feel that of all the places PCs can end up, the Shadowfell should be the most alien (well, apart from the truly alien Far reaches :-). The Seelie court should also be alien and strange. Unknown and also possibly unknowable.
Warning: Those links go to TVTropes. Your productivity will suffer.
Lots of good info above. Ultimately it comes down to how you as the dm see your world...sorta......
As dms we have to decide when and how we will break our players expectations. A lot of the stereotypes in d&d are hard to over come for most players. A player who just watched lord of the rings might have a hard time forming a close friendship with Orcs to save the world from the wrathful world conquering ways of the elves. Using stereotypes is a easy tool for both dms and players, to layout at a quick glance the world they live in. People from Saltmarsh love fishing, and eating fish. True for most tell you meet a npc who hates the ocean and fish, but lives in Saltmarsh, makes a easy memorable trait for players to latch on to.
Sounds like the issue your having, and why unseelie are evil is because it's what your player expected. The player has a narrative of your world in which they are evil so therefore by them not being evil it shakes his player knowledge.
You can use this, is the helpful unseelie a outlier, or are unseelie all good? Maybe the player is right and this helpfulness is in the unseelies best interest, and the pcs will be stabed in back latter. What you should do is give the player what knowledge their character would have as it pertains to your world. Do they know anything about the summer and winter court, if so does this line up? Should the character be suspicious?
If the party are expecting two fey groups to be different to how Seelie and Unseelie are defined in the real world, then give those fey groups different names so that there is no confusion for the players.
I really enjoy the dresden files take on the courts. Nether are good nether are evil they are nature. Summer or Seelie rampant life also means virus spread and grow faster we get more super bugs you need the cold and death of the unseelie to maintain balance. They are just nature both courts would screw you over if it means the better for them, but as other said alot are okay with the long game help you now so you owe them a favor later to call in because nothing from the courts is ever free. Then again some lesser fae will do something if you just offer them food first rarely large scale things on the lower ends of courts. Creates alot more fun in the world when nether are evil and they just are.
My understanding of the folklore is that unseelie essentially means cruel which is why they are typically evil, to get in a fight with a seelie fey you needed to break a seelie rule while unseelie fey might harass you regardless. Fey in DnD are a mixture of things, you have the two queens, Titania which is a shakespear invention based off ancient greece and the queen of air and darkness which doesn't have a form and is just a kind of nebulous evil. There's a mixture of fairy tale characters, figures based off myths that don't fit into the angel/ demon dichotomy and folklore fairies.
The way I would run it is that seelie fey are the court of Titania and follow her rules as a kind of slightly less chaotic and more reasonable fey that deal with natural cycles, rules of hospitality, guardians of nature etc. While unseelie fey are everything else, including an unofficial unseelie court but also fey who don't follow any court like story book characters that follow story rules or really chaotic fey which do what ever they want.
There's a fey dichotomies you can work on to distinguish the seelie v unseelie courts.
Natural V Artificial
Civilized V Wild
Light V Dark
Summer V Winter
Good V Evil
You can assign either court to either side of the dichotomy. Seelie could be civilized and leave in harmony with humans with fey that clean houses if oyu are nice to them etc while the unseelie could be wild and untamed and the same kind of fey instead returns things to nature making plants over grow buildings etc. The Seelie could be the natural court and deal with things like flowers and plants while the unseelie could be artificial being gremlins that run around factories to help them run and maybe spread pollution. Both could fall into natural cycles like summer and winter or night and day. Id even possibly recommend changing up what the fey courts mean each campaign to keep them fresh and match them to the campaign themes.
My read on this would be different depending on how you are DMing your games.
If you're only ever running official, or WotC published content...if that's where your adventure started then your players are naturally going to expect that you stick to the lore of those lands. Utilising official adventures and running light on creating your own lore is possibly my least favourite way of playing TTRPGs. Playing a TTRPG however, has always had the strength that you use the system and create your own worlds and settings. In which case, it's going to be fair game for the lore behind creatures and enemies to differ from table to table.
Part of my session zeros and recap sessions, is always to highlight that I might use published creatures as a base but players shouldn't expect me to stick to the lore, or the exact stats. I do this for two reasons. We as a game group are developing a world together, I need the flexibility to build the sandbox in a way that appeals to their idiosyncrasies. Beyond that it limits metagaming. I've lost track of the times I've run sessions for strangers (at game cafes or online) and had complaints that 'hang on a skeleton's AC is only 13, why didn't I hit?' Usually, said players have ignored my descriptive introductions (the skeleton being clad in a steel breastplate and carrying a spear and hatchet in that case). In my world too, I've had good goblins who trade with a group of elves. These deviations make for a colourful and more realistic world. It's in fact why I find much of the 'official' adventure books and content so thin and frankly unengaging. I usually liken it for players to everyone having different HP values. For example I do warn players during session zeros that commoners can have a range of HPs. Don't expect that your battle-hardened adventurers can just go hitting any random commoner and not kill them. A commoner can have HP values as low as 1 after all.
I would advise taking some time during your next planning session to decide if you want to be bound by official lore. If not, then make clear at the beginning of your next session that you wish to have the flexibility to deviate from established lore. Talk it out with your group and if they're cool with it, it'll nullify any of those issues. If not, then you will want to be sticking to established lore in the source book from which you are getting the creature.
Fellow DMs,
I recently had my players meet a Chaotic Good member of the unseelie court, who actually helped them out on a quest.
After the session, on of my players told me he didn't like that NPC for several reasons.
1. He didn't think that an unseelie would help anyone
2. He thought it was ridiculous that a member of the unseelie court was good in anyway, even Chaotic Good was too far a stretch in his opinion
3. He didn't like how I had given an unseelie the beauty and grace of the Fey and thought she should have looked more like an old wretched hag.
This has got me thinking. Why do Unseelie always have to be evil. The fey courts are not binary and fey are notoriously fickle beings.
I really don't understand his reasoning since a chaotic good Unseelie seems perfectly within the scope of the unseelie court - being more chaotic than the Seelie court.
This is how I view the courts. Unseelie lean more towards rhe dark chaotic nature of the fey, while the Seelie court leans more towards finding order in that chaos.
So the Unseelie done restrain their chaotic nature and just be entirely natural in their being, while the Seelie do restrain their chaotic nature and tend more towards order and law.
What do you fellow DMs think of my interpretation and my NPC.
Was I really way off base and why do Unseelie always have to be Evil?
A caffeinated nerd who has played TTRPGs or a number of years and is very much a fantasy adventure geek.
The seelie fey tend towards good, the unseelie fey tend toward evil. Neither are that chaotic or ugly, chaotic aligned fey tend to be independent of the courts, and hags are almost never a part of the courts.
Both sides are very tricky and mischievous, but the unseelie court specifically can be more malicious and antagonistic (toward good aligned creatures any way).
Thats about all I know. I'm not an expert.
Here is a wiki article :) ... take it for what it is worth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classifications_of_fairies
Seelie = light fairies, Unseelie = dark fairies .. but according to the article either can have a wide range of behaviours. However, a chaotic good fairy would be more likely to be categorized as a Seelie just on the basis of the categorization system rather than specific affiliation.
Keep in mind, in this context, that the designations are designed by humans to group the fairies based on disposition and actual behaviour not as self organized political groups. How the fairies would actually organize themselves.
There is also the following article on the WoTC web site from 2002 which might offer more insight from a D&D perspective.
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20021213a
Finally, there are some passage in the DMG and Volo's that might be worth reading to get an idea of how you want to runs the courts in your world.
SEELIE AND UNSEELIE FEY DMG p49
Two queens hold court in the Feywild, and most fey owe allegiance to one or the other. Queen Titania and her Summer Court lead the seelie fey, and the Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Gloaming Court, leads the unseelie fey. Seelie and unseelie do not directly correlate with good and evil, though many mortals make that equation. Many seelie fey are good, and many unseelie are evil, but their opposition to each other stems from their queens' jealous rivalry, not abstract moral concerns. Ugly denizens of the Feywild, such as fomorians and hags, are almost never members of either court, and fey of independent spirit reject the courts entirely. The courts have warred at times, but they also compete in more-or-less friendly contests and even ally with one another in small and secret ways.
Volos p52 gives more details on why hags are mostly excluded from either court. Basically, all court fey can be expected to be beautiful, graceful, alluring whether they are seelie or unseelie.
The 2002 article would certainly permit a chaotic good fey who doesn't have the blood line to be a member of the seelie court to be a member of the unseelie court if you wish.
The bottom line though is that it is your world and you don't need to conform to popular beliefs if it fits your narrative.
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InsiderSome excellent information has already been offered, especially if you are running the Feywild close to how the printed books describe them!
Another option is that this creature is an exception to the rule. Every archetype has mold breakers, rebels, beings that doesn't conform to their cultural and social norms. This Fey might have been one of those!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Who says evil has to be ugly? Read a couple Dresden books or those glowy vampire books or any number of fantasy stories in which some evil being uses seduction as a weapon.
Evil doesn't have to be stupid. They can and will use the PCs and help the PCs if it furthers their own end. Did they help kill something evil? It was probably a rival.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
The way I see it. Mankind's moral compass is not how many other planes function. What they see as good / evil is vastly different from our own perspectives and definitions.
All fey are chaotic and tricksters by nature. A core element that is the same across the board for all of them. From there I break it up into their courts. One for each season. And each season portraying certain personality traits that are similar to the natural season. From there you either have the playfull/friendly pranksters that just want to have some harmless fun, with occasion leading to unintentional harm (Seelie). On the other you got more the manipulative harmful pranksters and tricksters... Think Politicians x 100.
Apply that to all the above mentioned info.
1. The Unseelie would help someone. If they would somehow get better from it. They're playing a larger game, over longer periods of time. Something how hags trick and make deals, but more subtle and dangerous.
2. good vs evul discussion is answered before already. doesn't apply really. Too abstract a concept to apply to fey.
3. just because an Unseelie has ugly behavior and mannerisms like a hag, doesn't mean they have to look like that. Their mesmerizing beauty makes sense as to catch people off guard as well. Especially since all courts are very elitist. Allowing only very specific high elven/pure fey creatures in their midst. So many creatures found in the Fey aren't even part of any court to begin with.
Wysperra invokes the Dresden Files novels, and I would further that as a recommended source for figuring out how to play the Fey. The Seelie and Unseelie Courts in that world are not Good/Evil - they are Summer/Winter.
The Summer Court can be as cruel, and the Winter Court as coldly helpful, as each other - they just have different world views and agendas.
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.
Let me lay some lore on y'all!
1. Unseelie are inherently malicious and antagonistic, that being said they will help other if it benifits themselves. They also have a kind of loyalty to their own. Meanig they would do just about anything for one of their own but some are more like the seelie and don't care who they step on as long as they have power. (One of the reasons I think seelie are the actual evil ones.) But some unseelie are just evil, such as the slaugh.
2. An unseelie are actually more lawful than the seelie because they stand by very strick codes.(mainly out of fear of their queen)
3. Almost all Unseelie where once a seelie so anything a seelie can do they can do but Unseelie follow the queen of air and darkness.
In response to David42' comment:
I think your research and description is straight up the best in regards to the understanding of the Two Courts. I've been perusing the internet for hours looking for something that kind of explained the lack of knowledge of the Courts and why there are so many differing understandings of them until I found this thread and this particular comment.
This leaves a great depiction of the mysteriousness behind the Courts and the understanding of the morality therein by simply stating that mortals are the ones describing them, not the courts themselves. You have saved me great headaches and confusion. Thanks a ton!
Big question is, what was the help? Was it something that would have gone against the wishes or used up significant of the resources of the queen of air and darkness? If not they're probably OK.
Auril is described as the Frostmaiden, not the Frosthag, and was reportedly attractive. Though not typically conducive to life, there can be great beauty in winter.
I prefer to think of the Seelie Courts in terms of blue and orange, instead of good or evil and law and chaos.
I feel that of all the places PCs can end up, the Shadowfell should be the most alien (well, apart from the truly alien Far reaches :-). The Seelie court should also be alien and strange. Unknown and also possibly unknowable.
Warning: Those links go to TVTropes. Your productivity will suffer.
https://youtu.be/pVzYS3Ga_j8
Lots of good info above. Ultimately it comes down to how you as the dm see your world...sorta......
As dms we have to decide when and how we will break our players expectations. A lot of the stereotypes in d&d are hard to over come for most players. A player who just watched lord of the rings might have a hard time forming a close friendship with Orcs to save the world from the wrathful world conquering ways of the elves. Using stereotypes is a easy tool for both dms and players, to layout at a quick glance the world they live in. People from Saltmarsh love fishing, and eating fish. True for most tell you meet a npc who hates the ocean and fish, but lives in Saltmarsh, makes a easy memorable trait for players to latch on to.
Sounds like the issue your having, and why unseelie are evil is because it's what your player expected. The player has a narrative of your world in which they are evil so therefore by them not being evil it shakes his player knowledge.
You can use this, is the helpful unseelie a outlier, or are unseelie all good? Maybe the player is right and this helpfulness is in the unseelies best interest, and the pcs will be stabed in back latter. What you should do is give the player what knowledge their character would have as it pertains to your world. Do they know anything about the summer and winter court, if so does this line up? Should the character be suspicious?
Anyways good luck.
If the party are expecting two fey groups to be different to how Seelie and Unseelie are defined in the real world, then give those fey groups different names so that there is no confusion for the players.
I really enjoy the dresden files take on the courts. Nether are good nether are evil they are nature. Summer or Seelie rampant life also means virus spread and grow faster we get more super bugs you need the cold and death of the unseelie to maintain balance. They are just nature both courts would screw you over if it means the better for them, but as other said alot are okay with the long game help you now so you owe them a favor later to call in because nothing from the courts is ever free. Then again some lesser fae will do something if you just offer them food first rarely large scale things on the lower ends of courts. Creates alot more fun in the world when nether are evil and they just are.
My understanding of the folklore is that unseelie essentially means cruel which is why they are typically evil, to get in a fight with a seelie fey you needed to break a seelie rule while unseelie fey might harass you regardless. Fey in DnD are a mixture of things, you have the two queens, Titania which is a shakespear invention based off ancient greece and the queen of air and darkness which doesn't have a form and is just a kind of nebulous evil. There's a mixture of fairy tale characters, figures based off myths that don't fit into the angel/ demon dichotomy and folklore fairies.
The way I would run it is that seelie fey are the court of Titania and follow her rules as a kind of slightly less chaotic and more reasonable fey that deal with natural cycles, rules of hospitality, guardians of nature etc. While unseelie fey are everything else, including an unofficial unseelie court but also fey who don't follow any court like story book characters that follow story rules or really chaotic fey which do what ever they want.
There's a fey dichotomies you can work on to distinguish the seelie v unseelie courts.
You can assign either court to either side of the dichotomy. Seelie could be civilized and leave in harmony with humans with fey that clean houses if oyu are nice to them etc while the unseelie could be wild and untamed and the same kind of fey instead returns things to nature making plants over grow buildings etc. The Seelie could be the natural court and deal with things like flowers and plants while the unseelie could be artificial being gremlins that run around factories to help them run and maybe spread pollution. Both could fall into natural cycles like summer and winter or night and day. Id even possibly recommend changing up what the fey courts mean each campaign to keep them fresh and match them to the campaign themes.
My read on this would be different depending on how you are DMing your games.
If you're only ever running official, or WotC published content...if that's where your adventure started then your players are naturally going to expect that you stick to the lore of those lands. Utilising official adventures and running light on creating your own lore is possibly my least favourite way of playing TTRPGs. Playing a TTRPG however, has always had the strength that you use the system and create your own worlds and settings. In which case, it's going to be fair game for the lore behind creatures and enemies to differ from table to table.
Part of my session zeros and recap sessions, is always to highlight that I might use published creatures as a base but players shouldn't expect me to stick to the lore, or the exact stats. I do this for two reasons. We as a game group are developing a world together, I need the flexibility to build the sandbox in a way that appeals to their idiosyncrasies. Beyond that it limits metagaming. I've lost track of the times I've run sessions for strangers (at game cafes or online) and had complaints that 'hang on a skeleton's AC is only 13, why didn't I hit?' Usually, said players have ignored my descriptive introductions (the skeleton being clad in a steel breastplate and carrying a spear and hatchet in that case). In my world too, I've had good goblins who trade with a group of elves. These deviations make for a colourful and more realistic world. It's in fact why I find much of the 'official' adventure books and content so thin and frankly unengaging. I usually liken it for players to everyone having different HP values. For example I do warn players during session zeros that commoners can have a range of HPs. Don't expect that your battle-hardened adventurers can just go hitting any random commoner and not kill them. A commoner can have HP values as low as 1 after all.
I would advise taking some time during your next planning session to decide if you want to be bound by official lore. If not, then make clear at the beginning of your next session that you wish to have the flexibility to deviate from established lore. Talk it out with your group and if they're cool with it, it'll nullify any of those issues. If not, then you will want to be sticking to established lore in the source book from which you are getting the creature.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.