Urban Fantasy: The Ancient Folks/The Fey, Part 2

Last time I wrote about the basic concepts of my take on the 'fey' of my Urban Fantasy setting, giving them the somewhat paradoxical name of 'mortal demi-gods'. Their concept requires even more fleshing out to further understand them and their game use, as well as offering some core stat blocks to build them.

Statting the Ancient Folks

Forest Hag by Ilya Emelyanov

As creatures so manifold (and contradictory) in their nature, statting these creatures is not exactly an easy task at a glance. These beings are extremely mutable in form, function and abilities, ranging from the greatest of their kind being almost god-like beings, only 'mortal' in the sense their physical form being destroyed ending their lives, to mostly-human mongrels and changelings. For simplicity, these stats are split both in general power level and concept or archetypes found among these creatures. The 'true' Fey consist primarily of:

• Lesser Folks are the mostly-human creatures loosely related to the true Ancient Folks and are mechanically mostly just a supernatural human with possibly a few gimmicks.
• Ogres are those of the Ancient Folks who are of larger stature and physical prowess. These creatures are the Trolls and Oni of myth and folklore. Some are dumb brutes but others are simply just very large and strong lads whose nature has no effect on their intellect.
• Nymphs are land spirits bound to their physical location and have power over this landscape. Some are beautiful maiden but some may be portly Yaksha. The archetype is not limited by appearance.
• Elves is a bit of a dirty word that evoke certain ideas, but here it is used to refer to a greater Folk gifted with both grace and magical power. These are not the Elves of D&D and fantasy, however and are closer to some of the Sidhe or even the Djinn.
• Fey Spirits are the greatest of their kind and are almost True Spirit, being able to shift between material and spiritual form at will.

There are other types of Fey and not all fey are 'true fey', as they can create minions or raise beasts born of other dimension, of dreams and nightmares. These are creatures which form the 'ecological' niche of familiar and pets.

Fey Type	HD	AC	Atk	Dmg	Mov	ML	Skills	Effort
Lesser Folk	1-3	13	+1/2 HD	1d6 or Wep	10m	7	+1	2
Ogre	3	14	+3	1d8	10m	7	+1	1
Nymph	4	15	+4	1d8	10m	7	+1	3
'Elf'	5	17	+5	1d8	10m	7	+2	3
Fey Spirit*	6	18	+6	1d10	20m	8	+2	4

*Fey Spirits are mechanically akin to True Spirits with Materialize at Rank B or A.

In terms of general abilities, the Folks are rather elusive and hard to hit but suffer from a somewhat lacking morale. This isn't necessarily cowardice so much as a mercurial temperament. If a fight takes too long, gets boring, is a stalemate or something else then odds are the Folk will make a Morale check and might very well decide to just book it, possibly using its powers to confuse a foe and run away (even if they don't call it that).

Abilities of the Folks

The core statblock are only the basic framework, as these are creatures which can be heavily reliant on their often oddly specific abilities. By itself, one of the Ancient Folks is 'just a monster' with HD and everything and that can be a tad boring. The devil, however, is in the details and the bizarre abilities they posses. Unless a game is some high level murder-romp, odds are that most Ancient Folks encountered a Nemesis: an NPC with full HP and multiple actions, able to challenge Heroic Characters (which is the default power level of my game).

A good source of combat-related effects for the Ancient Folks would be in Godbound, specifically the monster section. Specifically the Impairing Powers found on page 169. Generally these would require the Ancient Folk to commit Effort for the scene or day, depending on the power or creature.

• Ogres are generally somewhat lacking in more advanced abilities. However because they are tough creatures, they tend to have the Hardy Nemesis trait, which grants them +3 HP by default and receive +1 additional HP every 3 other HD.
• 'Elves' (as much as one may loathe to use the term) might possess the ability to Commit Effort to cast a spell. Alternatively, in the case of creatures such as Djinn, Peri or others they might possess an enhanced Fray Dice, representing a more direct and reliable access to elemental abilities.
• Meanwhile, Fey Spirits are where a GM can just go nuts with ideas.

Generally speaking, each Ancient Folk encountered should be somewhat unique unless a game is specifically dealing with the Fey on a semi-regular basis, at which case creating some broad categories might be of use.

A common limitation of the abilities of the Ancient Folks requires them to target a mortal which offended them and their ancient taboos and/or someone who broke a bargain. This can include people who trespass on the invisible domain of the fey to doing certain actions on certain days, as well as those who do not respect the oddly specific rules a Fey might add to a bargain. NPC and the likes get no Saving Throws, obviously, it 'just happen' however a PC might find themselves making a Saving Throw with a penalty.

Idiosyncratic Weaknesses

The Ancient Folks are a loose conglomerate of strange beings from a bygone era, or perhaps of even stranger origin. For all their power, these creatures also often find themselves cursed with particularly unusual limitations, not unlike a Spirit, despite being (mostly) corporeal beings.

• Most folks are weak to a specific substance. The most infamous is of course Iron, but in some cases it could be anything coated with a specific substance, such as wolfsbane, holy water or even the blood or ashes of a holy man or something equally unusual. Striking an Ancient Folk with a weapon coated with their specific weakness make their AC count as 10, irrelevant of its actual value. In some cases it might also cause damage to always read straight.
• For other limitations, see previous posts on Spirits.
• Finally, the Ancient Folks (even the Fey Spirits) are mortal, meaning being reduced to 0 HP and killed very much destroys them, unlike Spirits which might simply vanish or be banished for a while.