Mosters: Lil Fey stuff

I’m back after a little break to discuss a grouping of “monsters’ that I avoid and sort of abhor as well.

These are some of the “monsters” that are now counted among the Fey and the Feywild.

You know the little winged and usually cheery critters from the magical woods in every D&D setting. The high pitched voice and whimsical fey creatures that frolic and sing.  A group of creatures that are best known for making Peter Pan fly. Known for living in their little mushroom villages, magical trees making cookies, guarding some mystical pool or spring,  singing songs all day long, hanging out braiding unicorn manes, or even worse just messing with people in most annoying way possible if they stumble through their magical secret forest.

These are: Pixies, Sprites, Redcaps, Brownies, Quciklings, Atomie, Buckawn and all their ilk. They are just tiny, happy, sparkly, fun, annoying garbage creatures.

Now I keep referring to them as “monsters” well they are more tiny humanoids and not really monsters to me. I mean an owlbear, ankheg, umberhulk, hook horror, gaint (insert animal breed here) seem to fit the monster category better than a wee lil elf person. You know monsters have some threat a look or substantial size.

That actually starts my dislike right there for this class of “monsters.” They are all tiny. You know what is scary for a party to face down? A few tiny winged creatures that can easily fit in your hand. A warband of tiny winged minions that could and should be put down with a rolled up newspaper and not a longsword. I am no fan of tiny creature encounters. They just don’t feel like a threat to the party. I mean come on what party is going to feel threatened by an angry version of Tinkerbell?

None!

They are just small little fairies and I can’t abide using them seriously. They would feel like a joke encounter if  I tried to use them seriously. I have no time or want to run a humorous encounter where a band of sprites attacks/annoys the party.

Even better are the evil lil Fey people!

Then there are Quicklings who are wingless pixie/sprites that can run really fast. They hate people and are also evil because…..well….why not? Their whole shtick is moving fast and…well attacking with lil weapons. Sure it is multiple times with a tiny weapon, but it is still a tiny little annoyance creature. They may be hard to hit…but one hit are they are mush. Their whole concept just hurts my head because it is just dumb!

WAIT!!!

What D&D wants you to see with a Redcap....

Even worse are the Redcaps. These little guys carry a tiny scythe and wear a fun little red hat. Then they and have to constantly murder to keep their hat red. You see this keeps them from fading out of existence. The color of their stupid hat, which is based on murder, keeps them existing! Yup kill crazy tiny lil not garden gnome (or maybe vicious Papa Smurf), but totally a kill crazy garden gnome. This is even dumber than the rest of these stupid “monsters!”

.....all I see with a Redcap.

Now tack on that the majority of the lil Fey people abilities are just annoying. They are not real damage dealing threats, but more lame status effects. If your party is afraid of: sleep, charms, polymorphs, invisibility, some minor poisons ( that probably cause sleep ) or piddly damage from tiny weapons, then this class of monsters to use. Any gaming group worth their salt is going to have some version of elf in the party. You know who is great against charm and sleep based attacks? Yeah elves neuter a lot of the inherent abilities of fairy folk.

I’ll pass over the people who try to or want to run lil Fey folk as characters. Ugh!

Sure they were probably one of the best parts of the movie Willow, but Brownies and their Fey ilk are just garbage!

Finally, toss in the fact that the majority of the lil Fey are good guys and then you have another issue I loathe. The good guy monsters. They just make for utter drek encounters when they are normal sized (or larger) monsters. The fact they are mostly good alignment critters and also tiny and you have a perfect mix of no thank you/ do not want!

I think I’ll move next toward a critter I think I used just once long ago. I need to dive into the why and what of this guy to maybe understand how to use it better. I’m looking at the wyrd multi-appendage top of head mouthed Xorn.