The Fae – Desire raw, in myth masked and by courtesy bound

Fae are not born.

They are felt into being—by their old selves. In longing that names them. In the outburst of a gaze that shapes them. In the ruins they leave, that become their sanctuary. They are not more or less real than humans. But they are more felt.

They are not symbols. They are people—unfathomable and exacting, shaped by emotion, haunted by beauty, bound by their history.

A fae is emotion made manifest. They wrench the world into a shape that suits them, and call it a dance. They live by beauty, pattern, and desire. They obey rules—but only the ones they feel are true.

To love a fae is to risk becoming something else. To be loved by a fae is to risk never being alone again—because they may remake you as part of themselves.

They do not lie. But their meanings are not yours. They do not age. But they do change. They do not sleep. But they dream—through you, if you let them.

They do not only hunt mortals. They also adore them. That is worse.

Fae attention reshapes the world. Not always on purpose. To be seen too clearly by them may make you more yourself, more theirs, or something entirely new. They can love you just as you are—but their love still changes you. They cannot help it. Their emotions bleed. And they do not always notice until it is too late.

They wear identities: The Queen of Summer. The Thorn That Hungers. The Hundredth Son. These are not titles. They are truths with masks. There are a hundred Queens of Summer, each a shade of the same. Each dances the same pattern with a different footfall. Each is real.

Beneath the mask lies the self: Vulnerable. Unguarded. No rules to shield them. No name to wield as glamour. To remove the mask before you is a terrible act of trust. To do the same in return may mean being taken—not stolen, but accepted, and changed.

What they want becomes real. What they treasure transforms.

A fae is not a template. A fae is a rule that loves you back. Or hates you. Or needs you so much it bends the world until you match.

All fae magic comes at a cost. To take power is to give something up—and what is given freely, the fae cannot resist. To show who you are in the presence of a fae may be named a forfeit—and that gives them equal power over you. A demand is made: A favor. A thing. A name. A memory. A promise. A shame. A shape. A self. And you too may declare their transgression a forfeit. This is their play.

This is how you become one of them. This is how you become theirs. further down you will see how.

A Fae. MON

---

You will need the play aid for character creation in Victories & Miseries to understand Fae.

Humans can become them, or become theirs. To imagine that orthogonality in play, you will also need to read about us humans.

This is part of the RPG blog carnival. The theme is Promises. This time I interpret that as forfeits, law, the unspoken promise of common courtesy that inflicts terrible and loving consequeneces.

Full discretion: I played Midsummer Woods by Vincent Baker - and it quickly became what i think as the primary fuel for smutty "player-with-player" play. The Fay forfeits below are stolen, yanked, quite violently, from that beautiful game.

---

Fae Courtesy and the Law of Forfeit

Fae Magic: Sympathetic, directed

Fae do not cast spells. Their emotions are magic—especially their ruling one.

Magic flows from the consistency of their feeling, the logic of their beauty, and the power of what they are willing to lose.

Each fae has a primary emotion. It defines their sanctuary. It shapes their truths. It shapes their instincts.

Each fae has five Feats Heroic, called Fae Heroic—emotional truths earned during their transformation, rooted in history and feeling. These truths are always real when unmasked. They may be invoked by letting their ruling emotion dictate their actions. (The GM may offer additional consequences when you invoke one)

When a Fae Heroic is invoked:

• The player uses it as a feat heroic, and states the ruling emotion and their intent.

• The GM determines how the emotion reshapes the action and affects the world, in addition to the player’s intent. This cannot be avoided in its entirity as a consequence.

The fae are so ruled by their emotion that it may affect others near:

If another character feels the same emotion and consents, the fae may:

• Gift them a single invocation of one Fae Heroic, to use when that emotion is true.

• Add a mirror of one of their own traits to the other character. It disappears when the other character wants.

• Or, gift them the temporary truth of a fae heroic while near the fae—as long as the emotion remains shared.

If the character does not consent, the fae may:

• Inflict a temporary, maddening urge of that emotion—unwanted, uncanny, unresolved until either fought off or given into.

Bleed

Fae can also bleed their emotion into a place. Over time, it saturates—becoming a sanctuary. There, the world bends to their logic. Grief fogs the air. Joy spills into bloom. Hatred warps all beauty.

A fae’s emotion changes the world. Not because they want control. Because their want is control.

When they grieve, the air grows heavy.
When they love, the wind listens.
When they hate, beauty withers.

This bending of the world is:

• Relational — Power flows from connection, not command. Only the garden tended will change.

• Emotional — What is felt becomes real, reflected in surroundings. The Fae's ruling emotion is what reshapes their sanctuary.

• Ritualistic — Repetition, beauty, and intention create meaning. Prune it only with gold scissors.

Where a fae has walked many times becomes a sanctuary to them.

Where they invoke their Feats Heroic, the world—for a while—bends to sheer emotion.

What a fae takes from their sanctuary, or otherwise inlays with their emotion, is considered a fae artifact. Magical when gifted to others, bearing that emotions power and a fae heroic for who-ever wields it. This can be the starting point to becoming fae for the user. See play-aid: Becoming Fae, further down.

A Fae, in her sanctuary. 시리온

---

Fae Courtesy and the Law of Forfeit

There is no fae hierarchy. No kings or queens, save those who act as such. But there is fae order. And that order is built on courtesy.

Courtesy is not kindness. It is recognition. Of power. Of transgression. Of beauty. Of debt.

A forfeit is the coin of fae society. A debt owed when you overstep. A cost paid when you reveal too much. A charity of trust to those dear. A ritual gift taken, or demanded, or claimed. Hung over anothers head, or tied tenderly around their neck. Both a noose and a silken collar.

They bind these thousand monarchies of one together in an intersecting web of mutual strings.

Masks, costumes, glamour, shunt the forfeit onto the role: A masked ball is as much a place for intrigue and trade as levity. It is intrigue and trade as levity. (More about masks further down)

Forfeits replace law. They are social gravity. 

You owe a forfeit when:

• You back down from a challenge or a disagreement.

• When you do not uphold your word.

• You show yourself greedy or meddlesome.

• You wrong or insult someone.

• Your interaction is directionless or dull. The blandest owes a forfeit.

• You reveal your identity.

• Directly committing to a forfeit task without being asked. Doing so demands another forfeit.

A fae (or anyone present) may declare a forfeit when near a fae. Doing so is power. To overreach is dangerous. The one who declares must be willing to pay if they are wrong.

Both sides, the person owing a forfeit and the wronged knows that a forfeit is owed, and how many. They may be invoked at any time, stacking up. To navigate how a forfeit is given, remember to SEE who you make the demand of.

A forfeit may be relinquished as part of a trade or bargain. Therefore, they are a form of leverage.

A task from a forfeit cannot cause another forfeit. It is a stopping point. It must be accepted to hold weight. But refusal stains you.

Asking for a task can cause a forfeit: Asking for the entirity of someones riches can be considered greedy.

Forfeits are always:

• Affection: Give a kiss to the next person who asks.

• Trade: Make a trade. Accept the first offer.

• Gratitude: Grant a gift. Whatever is asked, give it.

• Service: perform a specific service. Whatever is asked, do it. ("Kill yourself" is invalid. "Stab yourself" is not.)

• Champion: Stand as champion in a challenge of their choice.

Types of Forfeit:

• Voluntary — A name offered. A kiss given. A promise sworn. 

• Assigned — Given by a fae after a social transgression.

• Claimed — Taken by another when a fae falters.

Some forfeits are gifts. Others, games. Some hurt. All are binding.

A forfeit accepted becomes truth. A forfeit refused brands you with shame.

Even mortals can play this game. Even mortals can win.

To live among the fae is to understand: Magic is not dominance. It is reckoning. It is what remains when all masks fall. It is what you owe—and what is owed to you

A fae. Unkaing with forfeits. Ahad

---

Masks and Identity

When masked, they cannot act from their ruling emotion. Emotion cannot pass through the mask.

A fae wears a mask not to deceive, but to remain intact. To be fae is to feel so much you might dissolve into it. Lash out. End things. Stay forever in your grove and weep. The mask gives shape, form, and logic. It is both armor and offering.

A mask is not false. It is a chosen truth. A curated self, dressed in aesthetic, law, and myth.

It gives the fae a name known to others by way of legend from mortal minds. What the outside know sthe fae by. A role. A rule to move by. It holds their ruling emotion in check, but stuffs it down. It lets them act without unraveling that around them.

A well-played role is a mark of honour among fae. So much so it may fill with jaelousy. Can we get that mask to crack?

Few fae go without a mask. They are equally feared and revered. Brave souls burning the world around them.

What a Mask Does:

• Stabilizes identity. Prevents emotional collapse.

• Restrains the ruling emotion. It cannot be used while masked.

• Shapes the rules of forfeit:

  • Forfeits made or owed while masked do not bind when unmasked.

  • Forfeits made or owed while unmasked always bind—even after the mask is worn again.

• Masks define perception:

  • Others treat the mask as real. It becomes the story they remember.

  • Unless they glimpse the crack. Or are chosen to know more.

Wearing a mask is a public act of self-mythology. Removing it is vulnerability, violence, or intimacy.

Some fae wear many masks. Others, only one. A rare few go bare. They are feared.

How to Craft a Mask:

When you become fae, You may take a part of your sanctuary. Easily. Break of a twig. A stone. A birdsong plucked from a throat. This forms your first mask. You may also find masks in the world. They may be made, gifted, or stolen.

They are simply made of materials from a fae's sanctuary, painstakingly crafted by mortal hand or at a moments whim. The titel, theme, law and forbidden act is unique to the mask. 

The law, forbidden act, and truth and invocation forms the legend of that mask, that all know.

A mask must have:

• A Name or Title (e.g., Red-Ruin Iron Boots, The Queen of Summer, The Knife That Loves)

• An Aesthetic Theme (clothing, color, texture, scent, gesture)

• A Law (e.g., Never enters unbidden. Always dances before striking. Never speaks a lie.)

• A Forbidden Act (e.g., Showing mercy. Killing with their own hands. Speaking their birth name.)

• A Truth and a invocation - a feat heroic (e.g., truth wounds will never stop bleeding, invocation "Roses bloom from red-running-rivers, stopping dead the wielding arm.")

And it should include:

• A Ritual Phrase (e.g., "And so the summer begins again.")

• A Signature Emotion (expressed differently while masked—e.g., joy becomes weeping)

• A Gesture or Symbol by which others recognize or invoke the mask

Every Mask Has a Crack

No mask is perfect. Each one hides a flaw—a slip, a tell, a gesture that betrays the fae beneath.

A laugh too sharp. A pause too long. A glance that lingers.

When someone notices the crack, they may:

• Seek your identity beneath.

• Hold the crack as leverage.

The crack cannot be sealed. Only concealed. It is how the self bleeds through the role.

Mask Mechanics:

• While masked:

  • You cannot use the truths of your ruling emotion without directly revealing the crack in the mask.

  • You cannot invoke your Fae Heroic.

  • You may gift emotion echoes, but not inflict them.

  • You are judged by the law of your role, not your true self.

  • Forfeits you accept or cause only count when the mask is on.

  • The forbidden act crumbles your mask.

• When unmasked:

  • Your ruling emotion is allowed to spill.

  • Because the ruling emotion is allowed, yout five Fae Heroic are now usable.

  • You may gift or inflict emotion echoes.

  • You are fully subject to the law of forfeit.

  • The mask's protection ends. The self is bare.

Your mask is your throne. Your shield. Your lie. It makes you legible (to yourself), not safe, but slightly more out of reach.

Fae, one masked, one not. Both in love. Sorry - don't know the artist. I love the eighties style

---

Becoming Fae – A Play Aid

To become fae is not a reward—it is a rewriting. Of body. Of name. Of desire. Of truth.

To begin your transformation:

• Complete all five of the Transformation Triggers

• Lose your name by using your fae Fae Heroic.

• Then perform the Final Rite of Becoming

Each completed trigger grants one Fae Heroic—a truth of magic born from your past and your emotion. Once you use any of them, your old name begins to fade. One. Letter. At. A. Time.

Transformation Triggers (choose any three)

1. Use a Fae Artifact
You wield or wear something fae-made during a moment of deep meaning or need.
→ Mark the artifact. It becomes one of your Named Elements.
→ Describe how it alters your body, behavior, or fate.
→ Gain one Fae Heroic.

2. Speak a Binding Oath with Witness
You swear a vow that matters to a fae— in the presence of one. It need not be the same. You make good on a promise. You swear a grudge through gritted teeth.
→ Write the oath. It immediately begins reshaping reality.
→ Breaking it causes pain, but may sever your faehood.
→ Gain one Fae Heroic tied to the vow. 

3. Perform a Deed That Shapes the Land
Your passion changes the world. A place begins to remember you.
→ Describe the warped glade, the scarred ruin, the river that now sings your name.
→ Mark your body or name with its echo.
→ Gain one Fae Heroic tied to the passion. If you reach the final rite, it may be your primary emotion.

4. Lose Your Name
You forget, trade, or give away your true name.
→ Gain a new one. It alters how you speak and are known. If given to some one, the name is offered by you. But during the final rite, the name you take is utterly your own choice.
→ Gain one Fae Heroic linked to your new name.
→ When you invoke this feat, your name becomes unreal to all but those present now, and at your Rite of becoming. It is already unreal to you. With your name your past is unmoored: All forget you, save those near now or at the final rite. To you they are hard to recall, a dream.

5. Be Changed by a Gift or Wound
You are marked by another fae—kissed, crowned, scarred, or cursed.
→ Describe what remains. It is beautiful or terrible, and cannot be undone.
→ Gain one Fae Heroic, One most powerful in moments of vulnerability.

Two fae, their human child. One of them has just turned fae. Birth can be that gift or wound. Tomoma Kobayashi

---

 The Final Rite: Becoming

When three or more triggers are complete, you must perform the Rite of Becoming. It is a ceremony of truth and transgression.

Others may join. It is many times it is sorrowful and lonely.  It is often witnessed by boon companions. Sometimes, those boon companions become thralls. 

1. Choose a Sanctuary
A grove, a ruin, a mirror, a body, a memory. A place tied to your history, or with no ties. This is your anchor to faedom.

You must swear an oath to it. Name what it forbids.

Only those present during the ritual, the bidden—or utterly unwelcome—may enter.
They may find it too. Your presence bleeds out from that palce.

2. Choose Your Ruling Emotion
Look back at your story. What emotion ruled it, or never ruled it. Joy, Rage, Grief, Lust, Longing, Terror, Jealousy, Ecstasy...

When unmasked and acting from this emotion, you may invoke Feats Heroic.

When masked, this emotion is sealed.

An act relating to the emotion must be accomplished. It is wild and uncontrolled. You say what you offer. The world-player will make it more extreme.

3. Choose a Law You No Longer Obey
Name one rule of the world that no longer binds you.

"I need no invitation to enter."

"My words strike truer than iron."

"I will not die while the moon sees me."

Your sanctuary writhes to reject that law too.

A Fae in making. Toof

---

Relinquishing Faehood

To return to being human, you must undergo a reversal, a rejection of what makes you, you.

You must go without a mask throughout it all. Bare yourself, without glamours.

For each letter of your name, or five times - whatever fits - you must:
1) reject your ruling emotion—without succumbing to it. Each time, you must speak what you feel aloud, and turn away the impulse.
2) Find your forgotten past in your head, by way of memento or anothers words, and seek it out to remember. Reconnect yourself with old reality.

For each time you do so, a Fae Heroic you earned unwinds.

You are still fae until the end, and may take steps to become fae again. A rite will still be demanded.

If you go through this trial of cleansing, you are human once more. Your old name returns to the world. And the world remembers you again.

A fay, again. Anna Bachelier

---

Playing Fae - a play aid

You are felt into being. You are ruled by feeling. You reshape the world by wanting too hard. Others change around you. And you are changed by them. You do not cast spells. You are the spell.

Emotion & Magic

• Choose your Ruling Emotion: Joy, Grief, Rage, Lust, Longing, Terror, etc.

• When unmasked, you may act from this emotion to invoke Fae Heroic.

• Your emotion bleeds into places you care for. Over time, they become Sanctuaries: dream-logic terrain ruled by your feeling.

• Fae Artifacts carry your emotion. Given to another, they may begin someone’s transformation.

---

Fae Heroic (5 Total)

• Earned during your Transformation Triggers or through Schrödingers rules when starting as a fae. Consult the transformation triggers for how each thing could be constructed. Remember though, I am not your mother.

• May be invoked when unmasked, acting from your ruling emotion.

• When invoked:

  • State your emotion and intent.

  • The GM adds emotional consequences or reshapes the world accordingly.

  • The feat becomes true—or the moment becomes worse.

---

Gifting & Inflicting Emotion

When another character feels your ruling emotion:

• If they consent, you may:

  • Gift them one use of a Fae Heroic.

  • Gift them a mirrored Trait (disappears when they choose).

  • Let them carry one of your Fae Heroics while near you.

• If they do not consent, you may:

  • Inflict a maddening emotional echo—lasting until resolved or resisted.

---

Masks & Cracks

A Mask is a ritual identity: a name, an aesthetic, a rule, a law.

• While masked:

  • Your ruling emotion is sealed.

  • You cannot use Fae Heroics unless you expose your crack.

  • You may gift emotion echoes, but not inflict them.

  • Forfeits bind only while masked.

• When unmasked:

  • Your emotion and Heroics are fully active.

  • Forfeits are always binding.

  • You are raw, exposed, powerful, vulnerable.

Every mask has a crack—a tell or slip. If someone names it, they may demand a forfeit, or invite you to drop the mask.

---

Forfeits: Fae Courtesy

Forfeits replace law. They are emotional gravity. They bind fae to fae, and fae to mortal.

• A forfeit is owed when someone near a fae strays from social or emotional norms.
  

• Others (even mortals) may invoke a trespass when someone:

• backs down from a challenge or a disagreement.

• Do not uphold their word.

• Show themselves greedy or meddlesome.

• Wrong or insult someone.

• Interactions directionless or dull. The blandest owes a forfeit.

• Reveals their identity.

• Directly commit to a forfeit task without being asked. Doing so demands another forfeit.

• Forfeits may be:

  • Affection: Give a kiss to the next who asks.

  • Trade: Accept the first bargain offered.

  • Service: Perform what is asked. ("Kill yourself" is invalid. "Stab yourself" is not.)

  • Gratitude: Offer a gift, no matter what is requested.

  • Championship: Stand for another in their challenge.

A forfeit accepted becomes true. A forfeit refused stains you with shame or admiration. The accuser and the ower knows.

A fae. Yoneyama-Keisuke

---

SO HOW DOES THIS SMUT?!

It is not hidden. Their history and emotion are writ into the bones of the fae.
And it writes itself into those who feel as they do.
Their want leaks, bleeds, twines like ivy around the wrists of those too near.
To be fae is to become desire—so vast it must be bound by a mask, lest it unmake the world.

You do not swear oaths. You demand courtesy. And others may demand it of you.
You do not wield magic. You are the spell. You are the risk.
Fae do not flirt. They dare.
They do not seduce. They reshape.
They may ask for your name—but when given, they take it into themselves.

A kiss is not affection. It is a two-sided conquest.
An invitation to unravel.
A tender dance declared through gnashing teeth.

Every emotion is a ritual. Every mask, a rule. Every crack, a door to your vulnerability.
To be fae is to burn with too much feeling—
And to make others feel you back.
Sometimes that feeling is love. Sometimes it is ruin. Sometimes they can’t tell the difference until it’s far, far too late.

You are not above forfeits. You live by them.
You are undone when seen too clearly. Marked by your own attention, like you did when you first became fae.
Even mortals may call your shame, demand your gift, name your trespass.
And you must choose: bend to it, or break.

To become fae is to be rewritten by your own story.
It is to weep, and watch the sky, your sanctuary, answer.

You are the rule that wraps around a heart and makes it beat differently.
You are the reason the orchard and the lover blooms out of season.
You are what mortals mistake for godhood when they come with your name in their mouth.

That is what it means to never stop wanting.
That is what it means to be felt into being by yourself 

That is faedom.

A fae, a human. A forfeit can be a tender thing. Yoshitaka Amano

---

Fae Thralldom

To be loved by a fae is to be seen too clearly. To be wanted, transformed. Some who linger in their gaze change. Some who serve, who fascinate, who fight—become something else. Not fae. But not quite what they were.
We call them thralls. And they are beautiful.
My next post encapsulate them - and tells of how to become one. I simply do not have enough space here - i think the fae are plenty to take in.
It may one day be part of this blog post, but I can't see how to make good on that promise now.

A forfeit can become a terrible thing. Takato Yamamoto