The Fae
The First Born — Heart of the Realm
The First Born
Overview
Of all the peoples who walk the lands of Lumeris, only one did not arrive through the Luminous Veil. The Fae were not gathered from the ruins of dying worlds. They did not survive a Shattering. They did not flee through a convergence gate. The Fae were born here. They are Lumeris — or rather, Lumeris is, in some fundamental sense, made of them.
They are ancient beings of magic formed from the raw essence of nature and emotion, existing between the material world and the Feywild — a parallel realm of pure magical current that underlies the physical world like a second heartbeat. They embody elements and seasons and primal forces that predate every civilization in the realm. Some among them remember a world before the first mountain rose.
A Fae does not think in the straight lines most mortal minds prefer. They think in spirals, in seasons, in the long arcs of centuries. When they act, the reasoning is real. It is simply older than the question you thought you were asking.
Many Forms, One Nature
Physical Appearance
The Fae do not have a fixed physical form in the way that most races do. They are inherently magical beings, and their appearance reflects their Court affiliation, their emotional state, and the choices they have made about how to present themselves to the world. Two Fae of the same Court may look dramatically different from each other. A Fae in a heightened emotional state will look different from the same Fae at rest.
The features common to all Fae are few but unmistakable. They are slender — almost impossibly so by the standards of most humanoid races, as if some portion of their mass exists in the Feywild rather than the material world. Their eyes are luminous without an identifiable light source, carrying an inner glow that brightens with emotion and dims with exhaustion. Their ears taper to fine points. Their movements carry a quality that other races consistently describe as slightly out of sync with the physical world.
- ◈No fixed physical form — appearance reflects Court, emotion, and personal choice
- ◈Impossibly slender by humanoid standards — as if some mass exists in the Feywild
- ◈Eyes are luminous without identifiable light source — brighten with emotion, dim with exhaustion
- ◈Ears taper to fine points
- ◈Movements described as slightly out of sync with the physical world
- ◈Most carry wings in natural state — translucent to leathery shadow-membranes
- ◈Veilshift allows wings to become near-invisible and overall size to shrink
- ◈Embers Court: copper, amber, deep gold skin tones
- ◈Tides Court: seafoam, pale silver, deep oceanic blues
- ◈Radiant Court: white-gold with eyes that hold genuine light
- ◈Umbral Court: shift color with emotional state — most visually unpredictable
Before the World Existed
The First Breath of Magic
Before Lumeris existed, reality was formless. There was no sky, no ocean, no stars. Only two infinite cosmic forces drifting through the void. The first was the Radiant Weave — the force of creation, light, growth, and order. The second was the Umbral Veil — the force of shadow, change, emotion, and chaos. For eons the two existed separately, incapable of touching, each defining itself by the absence of the other.
At the beginning of existence, the Weave and the Veil collided. The impact shattered the emptiness itself. From that collision erupted time, matter, emotion, elemental energy, and the first magic. This event became known as the First Convergence — and the explosion birthed a living world: Lumeris. At the center of the newborn realm formed a divine magical core — the Heart of Lumeris. It pulsed like a living soul, releasing waves of magical energy across the forming land. Where that energy touched reality, life awakened. And the very first beings born from those currents were the Fae.
The Primordial Fae — Spirits Before Form
The earliest Fae were not flesh and blood. They were living manifestations of magic itself — spirits of flame, thoughts carried by wind, emotions given form, songs made alive. These ancient beings possessed what no mortal race has ever fully reclaimed: immortality, vast magical power, and the ability to reshape reality through will alone. They wandered the forming world, shaping mountains, forests, oceans, and storms. But as their numbers grew, so too did their differences. The Primordials began to divide along lines of affinity — and those divisions deepened over centuries into the Six Eternal Courts.
The Fracture That Changed Everything
The Sundering
For long ages the Six Courts lived within the Feywild — the parallel realm of pure magical current that underlies Lumeris like a second world overlapping the first. The material realm and the Feywild were not separate in those ages. They were permeable to each other, the Fae moving freely between both.
Then came the Sundering — a catastrophic event whose precise cause is still disputed between Courts. The Embers Court holds it was an act of excess magic that tore the boundary open and collapsed it simultaneously. The Umbral Court holds it was inevitable: all things that are one will eventually become two. The Tides Court holds it was the first mortal spell ever cast — a human mage reaching across the boundary and pulling so hard that it snapped.
The boundary hardened into something that could be crossed but not dissolved.
Many Fae were trapped in the material realm at the moment of separation — caught on the wrong side of a divide that had not existed the moment before. These trapped Fae faced a choice: find a way back, or adapt. Many tried to find a way back and failed. The ones who survived were those who adapted — learning to move among the larger beings of the mortal world, developing their Veilshift ability, building relationships with mortal races that made them useful and therefore protected.
The Fae in Lumeris today are the descendants of those who adapted, those who chose to stay, and those who have been born into the material world across the centuries since.
Their Way of Life
Culture
Fae society is organized around the Courts — not as a government so much as an identity. To be Fae is to belong to a Court, and to belong to a Court is to embody its force. There is no Fae Council, no universal law, no single authority that speaks for all six. What exists instead is an elaborate system of inter-Court diplomacy, bargain, and alliance.
They Place Great Importance On
The Fae relationship to time is one of the most disorienting aspects of dealing with them. They do not experience urgency the way beings with finite lifespans do. A Fae who tells you they will return shortly may mean a decade by mortal reckoning. This is not deception — it is a genuinely different temporal orientation.
The Way of the Courts
Culture & Society
Fae society is organized around the Courts — not as a government so much as an identity. To be Fae is to belong to a Court, and to belong to a Court is to embody its force. There is no Fae Council, no universal law, no single authority that speaks for all six. What exists instead is an elaborate and perpetually shifting system of inter-Court diplomacy, bargain, and alliance that has been ongoing since the age of the Primordials.
The Bargain
The Bargain is the Fae legal system, spiritual practice, and social currency simultaneously. A Fae oath carries weight that no mortal contract can replicate — when a Fae gives their word, something in the fabric of magic binds it. Breaking a Fae bargain is not merely dishonorable; it has tangible consequences for the breaker that operate at the level of their own magical nature. This makes Fae agreements both the most reliable contracts in Lumeris and the most dangerous ones to enter without reading every word.
Relationship to Time
The Fae do not experience urgency the way beings with finite lifespans do. A Fae who tells you they will return shortly may mean a decade by mortal reckoning. This is not deception — it is a genuinely different temporal orientation. Fae who spend significant time with mortal races often develop better calibration for mortal time, but they never fully lose the deep sense that time is not something you run out of.
In the Age of Arrival
The Fae are the oldest living beings in Lumeris by an enormous margin — their history predates every other race's presence here by ages. Yet they are not rulers and have no interest in being so. Their Courts work on different ambitions, shaped by the cosmic forces they embody rather than by territorial or political calculation. Other races seek them out as allies, as advisors, as sources of magic that cannot be found anywhere else, and as deeply unpredictable wildcard presences in any alliance. The Fae generally find this satisfactory.
The Divine
Religion & Spirits
The Radiant Weave
The cosmic force of creation, light, growth, and order. Not a god but a fundamental property of existence — one of the two infinite forces whose collision birthed Lumeris. The Radiant Court considers itself closest to the Weave, but all Fae acknowledge it as the source of their being.
The Umbral Veil
The cosmic force of shadow, change, emotion, and chaos. The counterpart to the Radiant Weave — not evil, simply the other half of existence. The Umbral Court embodies it most directly, but all Fae carry both Weave and Veil in their nature. The two cannot exist without each other.
The Heart of Lumeris
The divine magical core at the center of the realm, formed in the First Convergence. It pulses like a living soul, releasing waves of magical energy. The Fae were the first beings born from those currents, and they consider the Heart their truest origin — not a parent, but the source from which they emerged.
The First Convergence
Not a being but an event — the collision of Weave and Veil that shattered the void and birthed the world. Revered as the moment of creation itself. Fae mark the anniversary with rituals of renewal, where Court members re-enact the collision through dance, spell, and song.
Fae do not truly die. They believe in the Eternal Return — when a Fae's material form ends, their essence cycles back into the Feywild, eventually reforming as a new Fae with fragments of old memories. This is why some Fae children speak of things they should not know.
Where They Dwell
Major Fae Cities
Caelith
The Sky Realm
A vast realm of floating islands above Lumeris's northern reaches, created by the Zephyr Fae. Perpetual wind, light so clear it makes everything visible at once. Home to couriers, scouts, and diplomats of the Court of Gales. Reachable only by flight or the few tether-bridges that connect the lowest islands to the ground.
Known For
Common Classes
Sylvanthe
The Heartwood Court
The seat of the Court of Deep Roots — an ancient forest-city grown rather than built, where the trees are older than most civilizations. Buildings are living spaces shaped from bark and root over centuries. The Verdant Fae who dwell here tend the oldest groves in Lumeris and guard the guardian lineages of wild creatures.
Known For
Common Classes
Luminara
The Radiant Citadel
The seat of the Radiant Court — a citadel of white stone and captured light that glows visibly for miles. Its halls are lined with mirrors that amplify and redirect the innate luminosity of the Lumin Fae. The political heart of Fae involvement in mortal affairs, and the place where the Radiant Court conducts its diplomacy with other races.
Known For
Common Classes
Emberforge
The Crucible
The Embers Court settlement built into the volcanic ranges of southern Lumeris. A land of perpetual golden light, fire-flower fields, and forge-fires that never extinguish. The greatest magical artifacts in Lumeris have been forged here, where Ember Fae fuse raw elemental energy into physical form.
Known For
Common Classes
Tidemere
The Drowned Library
The Tides Court archive-city, partially submerged in a deep coastal bay. Its lower levels are accessible only to those who can breathe water or hold their breath for extraordinary lengths. Contains three centuries of direct memory in living oral archives, plus the oldest written records of pre-Sundering history.
Known For
Common Classes
Gloamhold
The Whispering Keep
The Umbral Court's hidden fortress, whose location shifts with the tides of shadow. Built in spaces that exist between the material and the Veil. Home to information brokers, truth-speakers, and those who perform tasks that more respectable organizations cannot be seen doing. Its library contains truths that other races have tried to destroy.
Known For
Common Classes
The Division of the Primordials
The Six Eternal Courts
The Court of Embers
Fire & WillThe oldest of the Six Courts in the reckoning of flame. Embodies fire, ambition, transformation, and the force of will that burns through obstacles. Their Fae carry warmth that is almost physical — a heat radiating from skin and eye that intensifies in emotion. Proud, direct, and often reckless. Their Feywild territory is a land of perpetual golden light and fields of fire-flowers that never consume themselves.
The Court of Tides
Water & MemoryEmbodies water, memory, grief, and the slow patient power of things that wear stone down over centuries. The most introspective of the Six, the keepers of the oldest oral traditions, and the ones most likely to remember something from an age others have forgotten. They do not rush. They do not need to. Time moves differently when you are made of water and patience.
The Court of Gales
Air & ThoughtSwiftest of the Six Courts. Embodies air, intellect, communication, and the speed of an idea moving between minds. Their Fae are the most likely to appear suddenly, say something cryptic and precise, and vanish before the response is fully formed. Not cruel — they simply move at a pace that makes lingering feel like a waste. Their Feywild territory is a vast sky-world of floating islands, perpetual wind, and light so clear it makes everything visible at once.
The Court of Deep Roots
Earth & EnduranceEmbodies earth, growth, endurance, and the slow wisdom of things that have grown in one place for a very long time. The most patient, the most settled, and the least likely to engage in the political games the other Courts play with such relish. They do not move quickly. But when they do move, the ground moves with them.
The Radiant Court
Light & CreationEmbodies light, creation, hope, and the force of the Radiant Weave from which the world was first born. Closest in nature to the divine — or consider themselves so. Their Fae carry a luminosity that makes them instantly visible in any crowd. The most politically active of the Courts and the most likely to involve themselves in the affairs of mortal races. They believe it is their responsibility. Most of the other Courts find this exhausting.
The Umbral Court
Shadow & ChangeEmbodies shadow, change, emotion, and the deep chaotic potential of the Umbral Veil. The most feared and the most misunderstood of the Six. Their power over shadow and emotional resonance makes other races deeply uncomfortable, and their tendency to change forms, allegiances, and perspectives without notice makes them difficult to predict. They are not malevolent — they simply carry the parts of existence that everyone else would prefer not to look at directly.
Names of the People
Common Fae Names
Feminine Names
Masculine Names
Neutral Names
Court Surnames
Game Mechanics
Playable Race Traits
Starting Attributes
STR
+1
Strength
INT
+5
Intelligence
DEX
+5
Dexterity
CON
+1
Constitution
STA
+2
Stamina
WIS
+5
Wisdom
CHA
+5
Charisma
HP
+2
Health
SPL
+6
Spells
Upon creation, Fae are allowed +6 SPL.
This can be used to buy more levels of a single spell, up to level 5, or to buy new spells available to their race.
Racial Abilities
Age
Fae are effectively immortal in ideal conditions. They mature around age 50 by mortal reckoning and do not die of old age — they cycle back into the Feywild.
Size
Medium (adjustable). Fae stand between 5 and 6 feet in natural form but can alter size from Tiny to Large via Veilshift.
Speed
30 feet. 60 feet flight speed with wings extended.
Darkvision
Fae can see in all lighting conditions, including magical darkness, as if it were bright light.
Veilshift
Alter size from Tiny to Large at will. Cross the boundary between the material plane and the Feywild once per long rest.
Glamour Weave
Project illusions and alter emotional impressions within close range. Advantage on all charm and deception checks.
Court Attuned
Innate mastery of the element of your Court. Related elemental spells cost no resources and cannot be interrupted.
Bargain-Binding
Oaths you swear carry magical weight. Breaking them is structurally penalized. Oaths sworn TO you by others hold longer than normal.
Feywild Step
Once per short rest, step briefly into the Feywild to teleport up to 60 feet, bypassing all physical obstacles.
Languages
You can speak Common, Sylvan, Fey, and Primordial.
Allowed Classes
Advanced Classes
Advantages
- ▲Primordial magic — innate magical ability that requires no training and draws on the world itself
- ▲Veilshift — ability to alter size and physical form; cross the boundary between material and Feywild
- ▲Court attunement — deep affinity with the element of their Court; elemental magic costs nothing
- ▲Glamour — ability to alter perceived appearance, create illusions, and shape emotional impressions
- ▲Bargain-binding — oaths sworn by Fae carry magical weight; breaking them is structurally difficult
- ▲Flight — all Fae carry wings capable of sustained aerial movement
- ▲Temporal resilience — age at an enormously reduced rate; effectively immortal in ideal conditions
Disadvantages
- ▼Iron vulnerability — iron disrupts Fae magic in its presence; iron weapons ignore some natural resistances
- ▼Bargain-bound — the same magic that enforces Fae oaths constrains the Fae giving them
- ▼Temporal disorientation — mortal urgency is instinctively difficult; short-term tactical urgency is a learned skill
- ▼Court obligation — deep allegiance to Court may override personal judgment in conflicts of interest
- ▼Emotional resonance — strong emotions bleed visibly into Fae appearance and magic without full control
- ▼Feywild pull — prolonged absence from Feywild contact causes gradual magical fatigue
- ▼Unpredictability penalty — others' distrust of Fae nature creates social complications in formal contexts
Fae Are Often…
- ✦Whimsical
- ✦Creative
- ✦Ancient wisdom
- ✦Deeply emotional
- ✦Loyal to Court
- ✦Curious
- ✦Playful
They May Struggle With…
- ◈Unpredictability
- ◈Temporal disorientation
- ◈Court obligation
- ◈Emotional bleeding
- ◈Distrust from others
- ◈Difficulty with mortal urgency
Society & Laws
Fae law centers on the Bargain — a system where spoken oaths carry the weight of magic itself. There is no Fae Council or universal code; each Court maintains its own traditions. Breaking a Bargain has tangible consequences at the level of the breaker's magical nature. Fae justice may involve Bargain-binding, glamour stripping, Court exile, or the extraction of a memory as payment.
The Worst Crimes
Relationships With Other Races
Humans
Find them young, impatient, and endlessly interesting. The feeling is cautiously mutual.
Felari
Fascinated by their moon-touched nature and their existence between beast and mortal.
Centaurs
Respect their ancient oral memory — one of the few traditions the Fae acknowledge as comparably old.
Drakari
Respect their draconic inheritance and elemental power. See them as younger kindred of primordial forces.
Duessa
Deep affinity — both peoples walk between worlds, the Fae from the Feywild side and the Duessa from the Veil side.
Elves
Respect their longevity but find them too structured and rigidly material for their taste.
The Chronicle Ends… For Now
Final Lore Summary
The Fae are the first born of Lumeris — ancient spirits of magic, emotion, and raw nature, divided across Six Eternal Courts. They are not rulers and have no interest in being so. They think in spirals, in seasons, in the long arcs of centuries. Their power is not learned but constitutive of what they are. They are the oldest living beings in the realm, and they carry the memory of a world that existed before any other race arrived.
They are the breath that shaped the world.
They are the song that never ends.
They are the First Born, and Lumeris is made of them.