Faerie

The realm of Faerie is a magical plane, very close to the material plane (which is called 'Gaia' on Faerie), and thought by some to be the origin of life.

It is a place of chaos and change, where its most powerful residents, the Sidhe, possess a mysterious power known as gramarye; the power to manipulate Faerie in a way which appears magical, or miraculous.

Faerie and its residents have always been close to the Embar, and in the past sightings of the Sidhe were not uncommon. This perhaps has something to do with the migration of the Elves from Faerie to the Embar. Indeed, in the past, during one of Emberglow's most difficult times, Faerie was supposedly one of the nascent kingdom's allies.

Peoples of Faerie
Faerie is the first realm of life. It is where the first tree emerged from the earth, where the first thing breathed, and it is a place of great magic and change. Four were the races of Faerie:
 * The Elves. Aristocratic, artistic, gifted in magic and swordplay. They invented many of the magical arts we know today, and may even have taught wizardry to the race of Men. They lived in the High Forest, which the other races called Elfhame.
 * The Trolls. Mighty warriors, masters of the martial forms and giftwd with what in their own tongue they call berserkergang, the fury by which they forestall their pain and gain great strength. A proud and fierce people who call the Mountains of Gloomhold their home. They practise little magic, and are nigh impenetrable to it.
 * The Gnomes. A crafty folk, given to tinkering with curious machinery and their own eccentric flavour of magic. They know the potential for all things, from the tiniest pebble to the greatest tree, and theirs is to enquire, to pick apart, to understand. They are a relatively solitary people.
 * Most powerful of all, the Sidhe (SHE-thuh). They are of Faerie itself, and are more diverse than any other race: one might as well say that every flowering plant is the same species as call the Sidhe all the same. The Sidhe are as kind as a gentle rain on a summer’s day, and as cruel as a snap of cold which kills buds on the branch. As ancient and constant as the earth beneath the sky, as changeable as the wind. Creatures of air and light and flame are the Sidhe, flickering, ephemeral, blown by the winds but never extinguished.

The Seelie Court
These four races were as any in Gaia: they would fight or befriend one another over this issue or that. Most often the Trolls and Elves would go to war, for the Trolls were covetous of lands which were not theirs, and most of all the vast green expanses of the Elves. The Elves for their part were happy to oblige the Trolls in a fight, to demonstrate their own prowess. Battles between the two would be long and bloody, and rarely to the benefit of either.

Less violent grievances would come about: debts owed, unfair treatment, insults and crimes and so on, and amicable solutions could not always be found. So, before coming to blows, many came before the Sidhe.

The Sidhe are as catlike in change and indifference as they are in grace and elegance, but they also have the cunning of a fox and the wisdom of an owl. The wisest and most cunning, and most changeable of all of them was Auberon. To call him king is as correct as to call Constantine a king, for all in Faerie owe their fealty to him. But one might also use the word ‘God’, for in Faerie his wishes are paramount. The grass would wither at his word, or the mountains quake until they were sand.

So Auberon spoke his justice, and all would adhere to it. He attracted advisers from all the peoples of Faerie, and their voices were well heeded. Soon he became King indeed, and his parliament was known as the Seelie Court. It is called for the word seelie, which means all manner of things surrounding rightness, goodness and so forth.

Rebellion of the Elves
All the kings and lords and princes of Faerie would come to pay Auberon homage, assured that he would deliver justice to them and their people. They would come every summer at the solstice, to renew their vows of fealty to Auberon, and peaceful conduct to each other.

A thousand years or so into this arrangement, a summer solstice arrived, and the Festival of Concord was held. Yet no delegation of Elves made itself known. The Elf-king had sent no word of his absence in advance, and all were concerned. Auberon, though capable of quick temper, waited. He waited through the high summer, through the autumn and into the winter, and finally, when the solstice of winter came, so too did an envoy of the Elf-king.

The envoy said that the Elven people were henceforth independent; respectful of the Seelie Court and of Auberon, but their king would swear fealty to no-one. Auberon heard none of the conciliation, and all of the insult. He tried to rally the peoples of Faerie, but was not successful: the Gnomes would not go to battle except to defend themselves; and the Trolls, though ancient adversaries of the Elves, feared to stand in the crossfire of such a war. And so the Sidhe marched alone, all the way to the High Forest, to bring Elfhame, its King, and all its people to their knees.

When the battle came, it was beyond horror, beyond blood. The Sidhe unleashed the full wrath of their gramarye, their command of the very realm. Yet the forest itself bent to the will of the Elves, whose druids commanded even the trees. The Dryads and Treants fought any and all who harmed the forest, slaying many on all sides. Worse still for the Sidhe, the elves were masters of metalwork, and did not share the aversion to iron which the Sidhe possess. Iron armour repelled the spells of the Sidhe, and iron swords cut through their flesh as easily as fire through dry straw.

In truth, for all that the battle was long, and every moment of it unpredictable, the outcome was foregone. None could defy the Sidhe or long withstand their wrath, and the ravages of so much violent magic had killed the heart of the Forest. When the Elf-king came to surrender to Auberon, their meeting was surrounded by twisted, deadened trees, and shadows that were too dark and stretched too far.

Seeing the devastation that was the Elves’ new home, Auberon was happy to accept their surrender, with only one condition: that the Elf-king relinquish his newborn son as a hostage against the loyalty of the Elven people. The Elf-king accepted, though not without remorse, for the Elves did not breed often, and loved their children deeply.

Lenwë: The Exodus of the Elves
Many years passed. Auberon was content not to receive word from the Elves, knowing that they were duly ashamed, and the Elf-king’s son grew up among the Sidhe, believing himself to be one of them.

Much later on, Auberon sent an envoy to find the Elves and discover whether they still thrived in their dead, blackened forest. Yet when the party from the Seelie court arrived, they found nothing but shadows and spiders and an unseelie place, a perversion of life and light where the forest once stood.

The Elves had gone, fled to the Embar, a greener place where the divisions of their past would not haunt them.