Homebrew Fairy Species Details

"There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it had been in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf..."

-- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

In the secluded glades and shrouded hollows of the wild world, if you search hard enough, you can find the races of tiny flying fey collectively known as fairies.

The term fairy refers to a few races of tiny fey with wings, such as pixies and sprites. Often ranked among the weakest of fey and rarely involved in great conflicts of history, these tiny people live their exceptionally long lives in the quiet of forest groves and other wild places. They are all imbued with an innate magic that is sought after by monsters and mortal mages alike, but most use this magic for little more than tricks and games when it isn't needed to keep them hidden.

Fairies generally do what they can to avoid being discovered, so it is quite rare for them to want to adventure in the dangerous outside world. Some of them inevitably have wanderlust stronger than their caution, and find a reason to leave their community. Others are cast out or even exiled, perhaps for a crime, or perhaps simply for their unusual and unfairy-like similarity to humanoids. Whatever their reason for traveling, the fairy adventurer is an incredibly rare sight. Adventurers of all races swap hopeful tales of what questing with such strange and fantastic companions might be like.

Wee Winged Fey

Fairies resemble very small elves, ranging from 5 to 10 inches tall, with wings on their backs like the wings of butterflies, moths, or dragonflies. Like elves, they are slender and lithe, and they even have the same pointed ears. With their slight frame and tiny size, they usually weigh no more than 2 or 3 pounds. Fairies have skin colors mostly similar to elves, encompassing the range of human tones along with more amber, bronze, green, or blue shades. Their hair sometimes passes for human colorations, but can often be bright blue, green, or any other color. Some clans of pixies and scamps have even stranger colorations more befitting a fey.

Staying Hidden from Hunters

The life of a fairy normally involves staying hidden from the outside world. While most of the more powerful fey usually ignore fairies and their villages except to enlist the occasional messenger or servant, the mortal world is eager to discover any pixies, sprites, or scamps that they can. Unfortunately, their eagerness usually goes too far. Fairies are commonly not only sought, but hunted by the outside races; they are prized for their innate magic, such as their wings or a pixie's dust. Some twisted few even seek and capture fairies simply to keep them in a deranged collection. These dark tales are what fairies tell their children to keep them from wandering too far from the safety of the hidden village, but that doesn't mean they aren't dangerously real.

To stay safely hidden, fairies build their settlements in locations that are difficult for others to find. Commonly chosen spots include the insides of logs, the boughs of trees or willing treants, within rings of toadstools, and other natural hiding spots found in verdant glades and untouched wilderness. While most of them live within the Feywild, there are plenty of fairy communities on the Material Plane as well, but they are so well hidden that you might never know it!

In some worlds, the wee folk have to fend off not only those that seek to harvest their innate magic, but even the natural predators who will hunt anything fairy-sized. One common example is the long-time nemesis of all wee folk and little animals -- the cat. In other worlds, the magic of the fairies wards off such mundane threats, but fairies still face predation at the paws of the cunning magical cats that lurk in the Feywild.

Fairy Names

Fairies are usually given names by their parents, but they lack family or clan names. They sometimes choose to rely entirely on nicknames that they have picked out for themselves. Fairies also might choose a name taken from the other races instead of a traditional fairy name, sometimes even naming themselves or others after a simple noun that the fairy finds intriguing instead of a proper name. Traditional fairy names, by contrast, often involve aspects of nature, especially ones as small as the fairies themselves, such as bugs or flowers.

Some clans of sprites eschew this pattern entirely, naming themselves exclusively with elven names. Some pixies and scamps on the other hand are enamored with the outsider concept of family names, and, lacking a full understanding of the purpose of such a name, adopt a family name that they've heard from another race, such as "Goodfellow." Such names are usually taken only for amusement and are only used when the fairy is among non-fairies; they are rarely passed on to children.

Male Names: Beetle, Blade, Cymbal, Cinammon, Cobweb, Darter, Elvinn, Fiddle, Finn, Garlic, Gelsey, Hornet, Jay, King, Lark, Locust, Marin, Oberon, Orin, Pan, Puck, Regin, Robin, Timpani, Weevil, Wren, Zephyr

Female Names: Amber, Aurora, Ariel, Bell, Dove, Dawn, Faye, Ginger, Harp, Holly, Isla, Jasmine, Kestril, Lily, Lorelei, Mabel, Marigold, Maven, Melody, Nutmeg, Odette, Rosalia, Shea, Tiana, Titannia, Viola, Wanda

Gender-Neutral Names: Basil, Cilantro, Coriander, Dancer, Gossamer, Lute, Mantis, Moth, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, Pepper, Rivergleam, Thorn, Tootie

Fairy Traits

Being size Tiny and being able to fly starting at 1st level is exceptionally effective in certain circumstances and greatly dangerous in others. As a result, playing a fairy requires special consideration by your DM. As a fairy adventurer, you are exceptional even for a fairy. You're a fairy that, for one reason or another, isn't as capable with the innate fairy magic as most of your peers, struggling with some abilities they have always mastered. But when compared to the average fairy, you have a much better understanding of the outside world than those peers. You're also considerably tougher. As a fairy, you have the following racial traits:

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 2.

Age

Fairies usually live to be over 300, but they reach adulthood as quickly as a human does.

Alignment

Given their friendliness and benevolence, pixies are typically neutral good or even chaotic good. As custodians of nature, sprites are almost always neutral good. Some are lawful or chaotic good, but evil sprites are quickly discovered by their peers using the Heart Sight and aggressively rehabilitated or exiled. Scamps are often drawn to chaotic alignments, and sometimes even to evil. Most scamps are chaotic neutral.

Size

Fairies have great diversity in their size despite their short stature, standing anywhere from 5 to 10 inches tall. Your size is Tiny.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 10 feet.

Fairy Flight

You have a flying speed of 30 feet. To use this speed, you can’t be wearing medium or heavy armor. While you are flying using this speed, you have disadvantage on Strength and Constitution saving throws made to resist being pushed, pulled, or knocked prone.

Fey Hybrid

You have two creature types: humanoid and fey. You can be affected by a game effect if it works on either of your creature types.

Puny Body

As a tiny fairy, you cannot wield weapons that have the heavy property, you have disadvantage on Strength checks, and if you hit with a weapon attack, you halve any bludgeoning damage, piercing damage, and slashing damage dealt by the attack.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Sylvan.

Subrace

Fairies come in three varieties, which have different cultural values in addition to their differences in innate fey magic: pixies, sprites, and scamps. Choose one of these subraces.

Optional Rules for Tiny Characters

Tiny-sized weapons and armor cost half as much and weigh only one-fifth as much as normal, but they are very difficult for larger creatures to create. Specialized magic can be used to shrink weapons or armor down to use for Tiny-sized creatures, and an artificer or blacksmith NPC might be able to do such magic for a fee, but this kind of magic is very rare in many worlds.

Of course, tiny creatures have a wealth of alternatives for armor and weapons. A fairy might use a large sewing needle as a rapier, use a sheriff's badge as a shield, or use a torn leather glove as armor. Others may consider such equipment a bit silly, but one has no concern for silliness when guarding oneself from the steely claws of a dragon or the wicked dagger of a cultist.

In addition to the rules for Tiny creatures given in the Player's Handbook, your DM can choose to use these optional rules. They can use some, all, or none of them. These rules are intended to increase realism, but they may make the game more complicated to play and can affect game balance in some cases.

Armor Sizing. Tiny creatures can't wear armor that isn't specifically made to be worn by Tiny-sized creatures.

Instant Death. A Tiny creature with the Puny Body trait uses half of its maximum hit points for the purposes of Instant Death and Damage at 0 Hit Points, instead of using its maximum hit points.

Moving Target. A Tiny creature with the Puny Body trait has advantage on Dexterity checks made to avoid being grappled by a creature of size Medium or larger as long as the Tiny creature can move, it has a speed greater than 5 feet, and it moved at least 15 feet on its last turn.

Weapon Damage. Puny Body also limits the damage of weapon attacks. Affected attacks can't deal more damage (after being halved) than the creature's Strength modifier (minimum limit of 1 damage).

Weapon Sizing. Tiny creatures can't wield weapons that aren't specifically made for use by Tiny-sized creatures.

Optional Rule for Fairy Rogues

This optional rule for rogues, from Legends of Prestige and Prowess (a D&D Unleashed compendium), can be very useful for enabling fairy rogue characters, a common trope that is often desired by players. Your DM decides if you can use this optional rule.

Poisonous Sneak Attack. As a rogue, when you hit with an attack using ammunition or a weapon that is poisoned or was poisoned within the past 1 minute and you use your Sneak Attack feature, you can choose to deal the extra damage as poison damage instead of the damage type dealt by the weapon.