The Fair Folk- Navi

The Fair Folk
Glamour, Assumptions, Unshaped Fair Folk, Fae-blooded

Fair Folk, World Walking, Shinmas, Nirguna, Assumptions

    The Fair Folk are Essences that have passed through shinmaic principles that the five Graces embody.

   By passing through Nirguna makes passing through the other four shinmas and possessing all four Virtues possible. It is Nirguna that makes realising the other four shinmas possible.
   Pure dream stuff cannot exist in Creation so the Fair Folk must look like something from one of those dreams. The Fair Folk body is just an appearance and it has to expend Essence just to make it's appearance be believed by those in Creation since dreams only exist in people's minds. If no one continues to believe it, it would cease to exist.
   Lunars can also manipulate dreams like the Fair Folk do.
   Rakshas don't have 'bodies.' They just create the illusion of having one.

    Assumption Charms are how the Fair Folk enter Creation. A Creation-born would need some sort of apposite in order to enter the Wyld.

   Since their appearance is an illusion they have to spend Essence in order to maintain the lie of interacting with the physical world which as sentient dreams, emotions and desires they are not actually capable of doing. The more like their real selves they are in Creation the more difficult it is.
    The more real their appearance is the less like their real selves they are, the easier it is for them to exist in Creation. Their appearances are not real things but only appearances conjured through glamour. The more powerful this work of deceptive glamour is, deceptive to the Fair Folk as well as to onlookers for to appear to have a form when you are a dream is self-deception, the less at odds they are with Creation.

Wyld, Waypoints, Fair Folk, Lunars, Luna, Shaping Attacks, Moonsilver Artefacts, Creation of Moonsilver, Wonders

    A waypoint marks the extent a Fair Folk affects an area. That's what defines it's boundaries

   When a Lunar receives Exaltation they become something very strange, a coherent form of Wyld energy (to be able to live in their environment and combat the Fair Folk Luna was the same.) Unlike shaped Fair Folk they are self sustaining and do not need to feed on dreams or Virtues in order to maintain their presence in Creation, needing only the sustenance an ordinary mortal does. Likewise they enter the deep Wyld freely existing as a self conscious idea the way other Fair Folk do. Because they are effectively in the depths of the Wyld even when in Creation they can change their form at will.

   Lunars make moonsilver artefacts out of Fair Folk Graces (as a questor would make a Wyld artefact) or the Essences of lesser Fair Folk. They can create a moonsilver Wonder out of the Essence of a powerful unshaped Fair Folk. The Fair Folk or it's Grace as an entity is destroyed but it is still dream and is gossamer (such is the fate of the Fair Folk that are vanquished by the Lunars) which is then transformed into moonsilver and formed into the artefact the Lunar wishes to create. Only the most _____ gods of dreams whose power is as terrible as it is legendary, can be formed into the greatest of moonsilver Wonders such as Royal Warstriders.
   When vanquished by a Lunar their identity is destroyed and they become nothing but gossamer. The Lunar may then convert this into moonsilver to make their desired artefact. The Fair Folk fear this fate above all others and hate the Lunars for trying to inflict it on them and will fight the Lunars bitterly because they know their very survival is at stake, and consequently they will show no mercy if they win.
   By destroying all five of a Fair Folk's Graces they render them, their Essence into gossamer.
   One obvious roleplaying idea that comes to mind is playing emanations of an unshaped played by the storyteller.
   The Fair Folk take assaults by the Lunars very personally. Since their identity is what they are, it's the difference between them and an inchoate quantity of gossamer, they take any attempt to destroy it very seriously. Other Fair Folk challenge it and try to control it through never ending shaping combat, predators exist who try to consume other Fair Folk and make them their own, but actually trying to undo a Fair Folk so it won't exist even as part of another being is a horror more sinister to them than anything they could otherwise imagine. Luna used to hunt Fair Folk having to overcome raksha who's Essence was as great as her's through guile and trickery and was infamous among the raksha for it. Having ascended to Yu-Shan after the Primordial War, this task she handed down to her champions.

   As a person travels further into the Wyld it's power becomes more and more real. In Creation the power of the Fair Folk that does not affect matter is mere illusion, no more real than the onlooker's dreams. In the Wyld however, people are whittled down to their core Essence. Since all is Essence in the Wyld shaping attacks are real and people's Essences are completely exposed to the Fair Folk's magic.

Fair Folk, Lunars, Shapeshifting, World Walking

    Lunar Exalted do not appear to exist definitively on either side fo the gate of Sundraprisha. They exist as physical beings but can change shape at will. A feat not even the Fair Folk can perform in Creation.
   In the Wyld things do not exist in physical locations but rather in existential states.

   "Reality is a dream. We are real."
Sensory cognizance in the Wyld is a mere effect of the Fair Folk's ability to manipulate it. The phantasms they create in reality and the bordermarches are mer illusions. No one can actually perceive the Wyld. Sensory cognizance is a result of the Fair Folk or the character using Charms that affect the Wyld. Thoughts can be communicated directly through the use of Charms creating mental impressions that are completely 'real.'
   It is in this arena that Lunar Charms are designed to work, giving them a way to combat the Fair Folk. In the Wyld a behemoth is just an idea in the mind of a formless entity. Lesser beings than Chaos Lords exist within the greater ones that constitute waypoints. In a sense they live within their mind. As such they are to a great degree subject to it, or if they are stronger, can subject it.
   One doesn't exist anywhere in the Wyld in the sense that one does in Creation. A Freehold is a mind of an unshaped Fair Folk that lesser components of such beings can enter and leave.
   A Fair Folk can force an idea through the Gate of Sundraprisha to make it take on a physical form. Lunars have the blasphemous ability to walk through the Wyld in their physical form, for they are a physical entity and a self-aware concept (like the Fair Folk) at the same time. Solars can 'world walk' through their overpowering connection to Creation. By using Charms they are simply too strongly tied to Creation for the Wyld to confirm or deny.

    Shaping attacks and direct feeding on Virtues represent actions taking place between Fair Folk although such interactions are impossible to perceive directly and are visible only through mindscapes.

   Rather than               with one another through the process of physical interaction they do so directly. Although what one perceives as being indirect interaction is in fact one mind communicating directly with another.

   Conflicts between Emanations and minions in a Freehold do not truly represent conflicts between entities but trains of thought through the unshaped's mind. An Exalted champion can enter an Unshaped's mind by entering a Freehold (since that's what an unshaped is) and combat with it by assaulting it's Emanations.

   The Lunars have a fundamental connection with the raksha in that they hold the possibility for infinite potential. And yet because their nature is similar to the raksha yet different, their Exaltation makes them hostile to the raksha,

   The movements, rearrangements of an unshaped raksha's waypoints are not physical movements, since physical has no meaning in the Wyld, but simply means the order in which a character has to pass through them.
   The Wyld turns normal notions of existence on their head. Physical existence is merely an illusion within the Wyld while thoughts are reality. One raksha can consume another by imagining itself doing so as often happens when two raksha meet in order for one of them to grow greater and protect itself from consumption by another. This form of interaction is characteristic of use of the Sword. However two raksha can avoid deadly conflict through interaction through the Staff. One may supplicate itself to another through the Cup or join and work together through the Ring. Telling the strength of another raksha is inherently difficult since they often attempt to disguise it in one way or another. Either boasting false strength to scare away potential predators, or hiding their strength to conceal weakness, allow them to assess a foe or lure them to a point where they can be attacked. It's into this hellish realm of predatory horror that Lunars venture.

   "We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in order to minimise casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond the stars to eat our brains."

    The Fair Folk in the outer reaches of the Wyld often seek to subvert the existing elemental surroundings such as turning a lush forest into a mad technicolour jungle.

    In a very fundamental way Lunars are everything the Fair Folk are not. They have the potential for true creativity and innovation. These qualities are essential for them to live in the Wyld and are the basis for which the Lunar Exaltation choses it's host. In a way they are everything the Fair Folk pretend to be. Although in the Wyld what's 'pretend' is real.
   An example of the mad Wyld spawned landscapes you find in the far east are the toxic jungles of Nausicaa.

   Once again I disagree with the game canon on this. The Fair Folk should be capable of genuine creativity not merely restricted to copying. They live in a world where anything's possible. Why shoul they be confined to copying, especially when they lived in a time when there was nothing to copy.

Can I Play With Madness

    The further into the Wyld you go the more the land becomes a dreamstate. Tainted lands are the remnants of Wyld areas that have been shaped in such a way and then the Wyld has receded to leave the land unnaturally warped.
   The greater the power of the Wyld is the less Creation's laws apply and the more powerful the dreams that exit there. The Wyld is not a realm of meaningless, always changing chaos but rather a place where random notions come together to form dreams and stories and then dissolve back again. Rather than a place where fish fall from the sky like rain and then turn into trees a character could find themselves in an orchard where the fruit makes them hungrier and hungrier until they die of starvation. There is a structure to this fantasy but it works in direct contradiction to one of Creation's rules because that rule doesn't exist there. Just like dreamscapes and stories the energy of the Wyld also coalesces into consciousnesses. These are the raksha. In a way stories themselves but they can determine what happens in their story. They have the power to shape the dreamscape around them to form part of it. The further into the Wyld you go the further the stabilising sea bottom of Creation sinks beneath you and the deeper the seas of possibility are until there is no stability, there are no rules except what the crazed whims of the raksha decide to apply. Thus in a freehold you might sit down for refreshments in a palatial suite over literally half a cup of tea or fall into the intrigues of a set of man sized playing cards that have arms and legs and can talk.
   A waypoint isn't a physically measured area but rather a place where something happens. In pure chaos anything could happen. A freehold is an entire dimension in it's own right. A setting for a series of interlinked scenes. A waypoint could be as large as anything wants it to be within the notion of one tale. Although concepts such as distance, time and speed do exist in the Wyld it is not defined by them as Creation is but is defined by ideas. Such physical concepts exist within these ideas to give them meaning. From a storyteller's point of view a journey into the Wyld is literally a narrative and you could cast yourself as the freehold ruler who tells the story.
   Only in the true freeholds based on Unshaped raksha in the endless Wyld the Fair Folk have complete control over the freehold and may totally reshape a waypoint with impunity unless another Fair Folk tries to interfere. As they get closer to Creation shaping the Wyld gets more and more exerting until they finally leave it altogether where changing the land into a story is like trying to ascend an infinite cliff. It's a matter of speculation whether when Creation was first made the notion of impossibility being conceived brought about the existence of Oblivion which was only discovered when things realised they might not exist. In comparison with this uphill struggle shaping pure chaos is as easy and effortless as taking a gentle walk, something you can not only do but do with Style.
    In the Wyld there are not limits on what the raksha can or want to do. Those who become enamoured enough of Creation to dwell within it however often shape their stronghold and their minions in a way appropriate to their environment. These raksha aspire to elegantly encorporating the nearby element(s) nature into their forms. Most raksha who still live in the Wyld view this as treason becoming one with the elemental patterns of Creation instead of using their inconstrained fantasies.

   Stories exist as a series of cause and consequence of the Fair Folk's actions. Time only has meaning as the pace of the narrative and it does not flow at a constant rate or of it's own accord. In pure chaos physical concepts such as space and time are utterly at the whim or the Fair Folk. Things don't happen in the flow of time because time is a constant and always flows. Things happen because the Fair Folk say they happen. Distances exist because the Fair Folk say they do. If the Fair Folk decide for two things that were apart to become next to eachother or meld with eachother then unless they can interfere they do. Just as easily they can dissect things. Physical objects don't exist in the Wyld not because of a lack of possibility like Oblivion but because it consists only of possibilities, things which are not yet made. It is impossible for anything to exist in the Wyld save as an idea. The Wyld is better described not as a place (for such a thing denotes a concept of area) but as a mind- an inordinately vast mind. Place is a meaningless concept in such an environment. It is impossible to travel through they Wyld in the term people would understand it. Fair Folk do not exist in a place but as a chain of reasoning- reasoning to which no laws or limitations apply. Imagine living as a though within the brain of someone utterly mad with limitless intelligence. That is the existence of the Unshaped Fair Folk.

Graceful Wicked Masques

    Fantasy in fantasy

   This is the first Exalted book in a long time I've read without skipping any of it. This is Exalted on a new better level. I wish they made all the books like this. There's no agenda the characters have to adhere to like in the Abyssals or the Lunars which really brings them down. They just tell the story of the Fair Folk as they are. The hardback series about supernatural denizens is more serious than some other Exalted publications but this is easily the best I've read. I just wish they did them all like this. The description of the Fair Folk and their world is brilliant. This book has descriptions of Shinmas which are mentioned elsewhere but not described, and what role they played in Creation and how they are relevant to the Fair Folk. It also includes things like aspects of thee Shinmas and secret names, the sort of occult fantasy lore than many people mention in their work but never describe.
   After a general section about the raksha there's a chapter on Unshaped Fair Folk. These two chapters are exhaustive with Charms specifically for the Unshaped Fair Folk. Very interestingly from my perspective (because of my work on R'yuk) and probably to other with interest in Spirits as well they discuss in great detail the relationship between Spirits and their Virtues, in particular the unique way they Fair Folk relate to them. There is more magic in this book than you can shake a very big stick at. In addition to a tremendously lengthy chapter on Charms including four Fair Folk 'martial arts' styles, there are descriptions of other Grace (Virtue) magic including shaping and shaping combat (a unique form of Fair Folk battle,) Adjurations (oaths), behemoths, Fair Folk sorcery called Oneiromancy (not a direct companion to other sorcery), Treasures and how they make freeholds. There's also descriptions of Glamour and Gossamer and of course the various ways the Fair Folk feed from mortals.
   If only they did the rest of the books on spirits as well as this one. It's far more serious and interesting than The Roll of Glorious Divinity. The Charms all have proper trait minimums including Graces and are presented in flow diagrams like they are for Exalted. The comics are also better than in most other books, reflecting it's more serious nature and more complete so you don't feel like you've read half the story. This book is if anything better than the main rulebook. If only they did it in colour. I'd recommend anyone who's interested in Exalted buying this to show what the designers can do when they put their minds to it.

   With the exception of Social Attributes Lunars can learn attributes and their Charms on their own. They don't need outsiders to teach them. Even with Social Attributes, because they are so innate the Lunar improves them by interacting with others, not being trained. One cannot change what someone is, the level Lunar Charms work on, with outside training. Learning Charms and Knacks is a development of the Lunar's self.
   "the raksha takes hold of the malleable reality around him and shapes it to fit the story of his existence."
   Maybe what all Lunars desire is freedom. This is what gives the Wyld Lunar Essence the ability to bond with them and what gives them the desire to use it.
   "most are inconsistent even in defining their own inherent qualities." It is this reliance on their inherent qualities that allows Lunars to survive in the Wyld since they live by what they are not what they are defined as within Creation. It' also what attracts a Lunar Exaltation to a host. In fact they need their Attributes to be able to understand and act in the Wyld. To say Lunars are less powerful than Solars is to misunderstand their purpose. They are less powerful than Solars in Creation, which is not the realm  for which they were made. Just as the raksha are able to pass through the Gate of Sundraprisha and take on a physical form that lets them exist within Creation, so the Lunars' Essence is made from the stuff of the Wyld, extending it's power through their body and allowing the Lunar to shape it for their own purpose. They fact that they can change shape in Creation is just a side effect. Because of it they can enter the Wyld and become part of it like the Unshaped Fair Folk.
    The basic Charms of a Celestial Hero martial art are just a way of attaining an understanding of the style's true precepts that allows them to learn the later (Exalted type) Charms.
   The Wyld is a realm so inchoate and ephemeral that notions can become 'real.' As the Fair Folk can make such abstract things real, so the Lunars can turn real things including themselves into abstractions that can live within the Wyld. Or rather they can turn physical things into expressions. The most important is their beastman or Spirit Shape- nothing more than what they are as an idea- that can enter the Wyld freely. Many Lunars prefer to wear it in Creation than their human shape. Through the Sacred Hunt and the use of Knacks they learn to express themselves in different ways. A Lunar can do this at any time due to the Wyld Essence in their Exaltation that makes their body a small Wyld zone, but their true potential is only revealed once they enter the Wyld, or use their powers against those within it. For instance in  normal circumstances the Lunars' Excellencies are far weaker than the Solars', more akin to the Dragon-blooded except more flexible. Since many Fair Folk powers work in conflict with a being's Attribute + Essence however Lunar Excellencies are ideal.
   "The first thing to understant when creating a raksha character is to understand that everything about the character is a deception engineered wo facilitate an interaction between and shaped being of Creation and and an entity so far removed from Creation as to be utterly beyond mortal comprehension." In the first part Lunars must be the opposite. They must open themselves up and be so honest that their intentions can exist in and of themselves. In the second they have to so the same. Although Lunars cannot become the same unformed masses that dwell within the Wyld they are able enough to attune with this realm that they are able to become like a part of one. Although the Fair Folk would be able to tell the difference a Lunar can exist within the Wyld (with enough practise) as easily as an Unshaped Fair Folk' Emanation. The most powerful and skilled Lunars are able of venturing into Pure Chaos.
   Magical materials make for more potent stuff for creating in the Wyld. By far the best for this purpose is moonsilver.

Lunar Exaltation

    The power to be what they really are. Lunars shape their own reality just as the Solars shape the reality of the world around them.
    Lunars Exaltation comes to those who are determined to be themselves and from a quest like the Fickle Lady to realise what they really are.

    11th March The power of Solar Exaltation is to make the world anything they want it to be (best expressed through their unique mastery of sorcery.) The power of Lunar Exaltation is to make themselves anything they want to be like Luna herself.

    12th March The background of Lunar Exaltation is bad story writing with one contradiction after another. On the one hand they are individualists (good point) but they are defined by the need to protect something (which sounds more on the Sidereals wavelength and is a bit wet when written about the Lunars.) In addition to this deep seated requirement to protect something (which sounds more like something belonging to the Chosen of Gaia rather than the Chosen of Luna) they specifically have to sacrifice it according to the practices of the Crossroads Society to be initiated into sorcery.

    13th March Lunars can exist in the Wyld because of the Essence within them, their physical form doesn't have the same permanence as other physical beings' forms do, allowing them to change themselves with thoughts to cause shapeshifting and their manifestation as an expression of identity helps protect them against the warping effect of the Wyld. 'It's a bit like the Fair Folk forms in reverse. The Fair Folk must create a fixed physical form to enter Creation in order to exist within it because that's the nature of the physical world. Dreams and consciousness cannot exist within it on their own without the Fair Folk's own powers. In a similar way the Lunars have powers like those belonging to the Fair Folk, they have a close association with the Wyld since Luna was created to protect Creation against it. In a way that can't be imitated by other Exalted they can shape their bodies through belief. Like in the Wyld where the Fair Folk can be anything by thinking it the Lunars can do the same, in Creation as well. Moonsilver tattoos extend this ability making the Lunar's form ever more protean and capable of internalising new forms. The critical difference between the Primordials and the Fair Folk is that the Primordials' thoughts shape the physical world whereas the Fair Folk and the World they inhabit are dreams.'
They are what they believe they are. Whereas other beings have a permanent physical shape which can be changed equally permanently by the warping effects of the Wyld. Moonsilver tattoos are specifically designed, placed at certain points on their body to amplify this effect to change their form based on belief. Firstly they have to understand another creature and believe they are it in order to become it. They have to take the creature's nature into themselves.