Seelie Court

The Seelie Court is a large, loose confederation of gods that consists of the leader Titania and her consort Oberon, as well as the following gods: Caoimhin, Damh, Eachthighern, Emmantiensien, Fionnghuala, Nathair Sgiathach, Skerrit, Squelaiche, and Verenestra. The Seelie Court stands united in opposition to the Queen of Air and Darkness.

The Seelie Court is divided into two circles. The Inner Circle is closely associated with Queen Titania, and includes her consort Oberon, their children Damh and Verenestra, their court jester Squelaiche, and Eachthighern, their steed. The Outer Circle is more loosely allied, and either do not consider Titania to be their liege, as Skerrit does not, or spend most of their time away from the court, as Fionnghuala does. Still, Titania bears them as much love as she does the members of the Inner Circle.

The Seelie Court is allied with the Seldarine, or elven pantheon. Erevan Ilesere, who is said to be Eachthighern's mother, is an especially close ally.

The Seelie Court is its own planar realm that travels between the various Upper Planes as its members desire, most frequently on the Beastlands (on the twilit layer of Brux), Ysgard, and Arborea. It normally manifests as a wooded area with many glades. Its weather changes in accordance with Titania's mood; it may be peaceful and calm or tempestuous and wild. It is normally lit by moonlight, but Titania can summon sunlight if she desires.

The members of the Court dwell in thickets, bowers, or underground halls, or hidden behind veils of magic. The souls of those who worshiped members of the Inner Circle in life dwell here as well, moving as the Court does.

The flow of time is variable and strange in this realm, so visitors may return to other realms and planes to find that more or less time has passed than they experienced. Glimpses of the past and future may be seen in reflective surfaces throughout the realm. Visitors are advised against accepting gifts from residents of the Seelie Court, as this may bind them in fealty to the givers.

Avatars of the Seelie Court may also hunt within the Fading Land known as the Court of Rings.

Originally, under the moons that shown before history began, the Seelie Court existed in a deep sylvan realm called Ladinion, on the shores of lake Cwm Glas. Ladinion was destroyed when a nearby mountain exploded due to the power of the Queen of Air and Darkness and the terrible Black Diamond that had corrupted her. Since then, the Seelie Court has wandered, never remaining on any plane for long.

The Seelie Court is named after the society of good faeries in Scottish mythology.

The Seelie Court, magical bower home of the sylvan deities, is a place which moves among the Outer Planes from Arvandor to Gladsheim and to the Beastlands, as its magnificent queen, Titania, wills. Sprites hover, brownies keep watch, and pixies and leprechauns keep their mischievous guard as the deities of the small folk pay homage to Titania. Five deities form the Inner Circle of the Court around their queen: Oberon, her consort; Verenestra, flamboyant and vain dryad-goddess; Damh, the mischievous god of satyrs and korred; Sqeulaiche, the trickstergod of leprechauns; and Eachthighern, lord of unicorns.

The Inner Circle members have many qualities in common. The gods are all strongly inclined toward chaotic alignment, with a majority tending toward good rather than neutral alignment. They have a strong affiliation with the Seldarine gods, especially with Erevan Ilesere, the trickster-god of the elves. They all revere Titania as queen, and will readily act as she instructs them, despite their chaotic nature. They have a strong sense of fellowship, again despite their chaotic alignment, and they feel very protective about each other. Disputes between them are rare and swiftly resolved. Members of the Inner Circle are all curious and playful creatures, but they are also very conscious of their small size, and are usually conflicted between curiosity and caution, and place a strong emphasis on self-protection, especially in using magic. Their avatars have a range of special powers, which are listed at the end of this introduction.

The coming into being of these deities is a complex process in myth. Titania is usually seen as a mother or midwife figure, but her progeny are born in very different ways. Damh is her wayward son by Oberon, and Verenestra is her daughter. But Sqeulaiche is believed to have been born from a magical plant in Arvandor, a case of a deity taking his being from part of the natural life of the faerie world, as some of the Outer Circle have also. And Eachthighern is always seen as a gift from a sky-god or trickster god to the faerie folk. Most often, he is seen as the son of Koriel the ki-rin god, but in some amusing tales he is the offspring of a chaotic male trickster god (sometimes Erevan) who changes form and sex to bear him (not unlike Loki's giving birth to Sleipnir in Norse myth).

The Outer Circle of the Seelie Court comprises those deities who do not pay a primary homage to Titania (such as Skerrit the centaur god) or whose concerns impel them to spend much time away from the Court (such as Fionnghuala the swanmay goddess). However, for the little folk who hover around the edges of the Outer Circle, in particular, Titania has as much love as for her inner group of fellows. Caoimhim, the grumbling and nervous little killmoulis god, is dear to Titania's heart and in her over-protectiveness she mollycoddles and mothers him, much to his feigned annoyance. Completing the Outer Circle are Emmantiensien, the grave and quiet treant-god, and Nathair Sgiathach, the impudent miniature dragon who is as unlike the other draconic gods as one could imagine. He has a grand-sounding name (which simply means "winged serpent"), which he likes to utter very pompously when introducing himself, only to fall about mocking his own feigned seriousness. The god of pseudodragons and faerie dragons is a delightful, playful being, but sometimes his endless frippery and facetiousness irritates even the other sylvan gods, and is the reason for his exclusion from the Inner Court. He makes a grand court jester, but not a very helpful adviser.

This is a friendly and cooperative group of deities who work together to maintain the integrity of the sylvan realms. "Sylvan" has two possible meanings here. First, it means the woodlands generally—the lands faerie folk share with elves, druids, werebears and other creatures which peacefully maintain the richness of their home. But it also means a magical place hidden very deep in the heart of woodlands, a "deep sylvan" realm where only the faerie folk know how to travel. Here, other creatures are rare visitors; some few stumble in, losing their sense of direction and time, and a very select few may sometimes be guided by a faerie creature into this special place. On very rare and propitious occasions, avatars of the sylvan gods may themselves meet as a Prime Material Seelie Court below earthy mounds marked by faerie rings. The location of such settings is carefully guarded by the faeries, who do not even speak to the elves of such things, and the settings may be impossible to map since they may coexist in space with mundane worldly settings. Titania's magic maintains these special places.

The sylvan gods work hard to establish good relations with the gods of gnomes, elves, nature and druids, gods of wild places and hunting (if not evilly aligned), and aerial spirits such as Syranita. Faerie creatures do not include priests and shamans, since their magical natures reflect the same power which other deities give to priests and shamans as spell-casting potential.

Of course, the sylvan gods have enemies as do their mortal followers. Ores, goblins, and similar fell creatures may despoil woodlands, and the goblinoid deities and sylvan deities are strongly opposed to each other. The sylvan deities also detest Cegilune, the cruel hag-goddess. But one dark goddess is the eternal nemesis of the faerie races. The Queen of Air and Darkness—often portrayed in myth by other races as a dark sister to Titania—has a long-lost true name never spoken in the Seelie Court. Deep in the lower regions of Pandemonium, this bitter and sadistic goddess sits among a gibbering, drooling parody of Titania's realm, in her Unseelie Court where she seeks to enslave the faerie peoples to her will. It is she who generated the dark magical forces which transformed the wretched quicklings, evil mirror-images of Titania's most-loved brownies. It is she who changed the spriggans and gave them their ability to change form. Mistress of dark illusions, the Queen of Air and Darkness is herself incorporeal and her mythic history is a tale which makes any faerie who hears the least part of it shiver and tremble. Yet it is a sad tale, which explains Titania's staying her hand against the lost sister for whom she grieves, despite the urging of Oberon and her Inner Court to wage war against the dark presence afflicting their people.

The tale refers to Ladinion, a deep sylvan land of prehistory, where the Seelie Court presided on the shores of the lake Cwm Glas. To the south, dwarven miners discovered a great black diamond below a mountain, and took it as a gift to the Court. Titania was away, swimming the waters of the river Afon Bhlu which were fed by the lake. Her sister took the gift instead. The great treasure began to corrupt the sister; the tale implies that the diamond is magical, but does not mention how it came to be fashioned. So, the corrupted goddess took the diamond away, together with the precious magical treasures of the Arcana, riding off in a great chariot billowing smoke and fire which appeared in the sky. The gem transformed her nature, and soon after the mountain exploded, killing the dwarves and sending black poisonous clouds over Ladinion, creating a smoke sickness which decimated the faerie people. The Seelie Court was forced to take flight across the planes and abandon the land.

This myth includes the theme of a lost land, although here it becomes despoiled because of an act of greed by the Queen of Air and Darkness. (Other faerie myths often refer to magical lands of their own which are shrinking or disappearing from the world of mortals.) The myth also describes dwarves as the ones who brought the corrupting evil to the Seelie Court, and because of this, faeries have no love of dwarves and try to prevent them from gaining access to the sylvan realms. However, the dwarves of the myth were not evil and their intentions were good—they thought they were bringing a gift, after all. So, while the sylvan gods do not like the dwarven gods, they are not directly hostile to them.

Finally, the sylvan gods are not hostile to or rejecting of the gods of the tall people (humans). While the sylvan gods are strongly protective of their own, they do not regard humans as necessarily enemies, and the killmoulis in particular have a symbiotic relationship with humans who show them any consideration or kindness. Brownies are also frequently helpful to human folk. Humans, though, have learned not to seek out or bother the small folk, but allow faeries to come to them—if they so choose.