#idk what thor and odin the gods are known for but the cats were pretty chaotic so I feel like the names probably suit them

[airborneice]

in hindsight my last flatshare kinda sucked BUT did I ever tell you guys abt the sheer delight and amusement I felt when I first moved in and found out that the pets there just happened to be two black cats. with yellow eyes. who are named after Norse gods. felt like i was living with Freyja’s long-lost brothers fr

[miss-rhea-silvanus]

Buckle up, kids, it's time to for a just left of half-assed fey post. IDK if anyone still wants it, lol, but here we are.

Shorter cheat sheet courtesy an old Q&A here if you aren't on the discord server/missed @overlycaffeinatedwarmage sharing it.

Ride the Storm spoilers ahoy. The Dory books are a lot heavier on the fey side of things, though.

*claps hands* While doing this I realized I should just update the wiki, but I hate working on wikis! Some day...

Some History

Absolutely everything is goddamn hearsay from random vampires and bb Pritkin, SO. Grain of salt.

Basically the gods discover Faerie, decided the current inhabitants didn't meet their standards for servants, and proceeded to breed with them to fix this. Thus were born the current inhabitants of Faerie.

Superficially the fey are broken up into the Light Fey (who are the pretty, elfen fey) and the Dark Fey (the ugly cousins that nobody cares about). The light fey have three great houses: the Blarestri, the Svarestri, and the Alorestri.  (These are the names people on Earth use for them. The real names are long and lyrical and not shared with random humans. Sky Lords, etc., are seemingly slightly more proper.)

The gods had two main warring factions, the Vanir and the Æsir. The Blarestri worshipped the Vanir, who were gods of nature/fertility (including our fave huntress). Meanwhile the Svarestri worshipped the Æsir, aka gods of war (such as our Ragnarok starring faves: Thor/Apollo, Tyr/Ares, and Odin/Zeus).

At some point the Æsir displaced the Vanir and "banished the Blarestri from Faerie," leaving their followers the Svarestri to rule.

When Artemis' spell kicked all of the gods out, the Blarestri and Svarestri went against each other in the most brutal war Faerie has ever seen. More than ten thousand died, which is... a heck of a lot when you're nigh-immortal and have the birth rate to match.

Neither side really won, per se, but the Blarestri eventually retook the throne and remain in control until today. Æsubrand mentions in passing that Caedmon's sword, the Sword of Kings, was used to take the head of a Svarestri king, which could be related to this war, but there's no confirmation.

(What the other fey were doing during the war is sort of up in the air. Some of the dark fought on the side of the Blarestri and some on the side of the Svarestri. A lot of the animosity from this remains today, though we've yet to actually see any of it. There's been no mention of the Alorestri and the war.)

So. Some basic info.

The Blarestri (Blue Fey, properly known as the Sky Lords)

* The current ruling house of all of Faerie, their colors are blue and gold. * Natural affinity for air magic, and gifted with nature magic by the Vanir. They can connect to plants/animals. * The area they live in is sorta mountainous, but growing food isn't a problem thanks to said gift from the Vanir. * Only male heirs with majority fey blood can inherit the throne. * Claim no involvement in human slave trade and smuggling things that would make the Circle angry, but they definitely were involved in the former and are still involved in the latter...

* Caedmon: (supposedly Great King in Gaelic) Current ruler of all of Faerie. All the usual Blarestri powers you'd expect, plus he can throw lightning bolts. Cassie thinks he's a demigod. Forward as hell and Heidar says his family "has a reputation for being irresistible," which could just be how they are or could be something else. Overall fairly pleasant and jovial for a super ancient fey demigod. * Heidar (meaning bright lord, for his pretty hair, or Alarr more officially, meaning general): Caedmon's half-human son. Fell for Dory's roommate Claire Lachesis, who is just barely over half (dark) fey, making their son Aidan a contender for the throne. * Efridís: Caedmon's sister. She married the Svarestri leader as part of the treaty to end the war (and supposedly because anything else would be beneath her). She's particularly skilled at glamourie and "farseeing," which allows her to watch through the eyes of animals, though the specifics are fuzzy.

The Svarestri (only ever referred to as the Svarestri to my knowledge)

* Colors are black and silver. * Affinity for earth magic. * The Æsir gifted them with control over storms. Rain/snow/lightning bolt energy spears/etc. * Live in the rocky, cold, infertile (just like them) northern area of Faerie. It's great for ore, but not for feeding themselves. * Took losing their place when the gods left really hard. They remain religious zealots bent on bringing the gods back and retaking Faerie. * Compulsory marriage and childbearing, since they need to bulk their army back up. * The bigots of Faerie. Consider other light fey to be "thin-blooded" from centuries of marrying humans and Dark Fey to be monstrous experiments by the gods. Never shut up about it. * They don't spend much time on Earth because of said bigotry (to the point of making traders come to them instead of vice versa iirc, but I can't for the life of me find where it said that to confirm it), but necessity forces their hand more and more. Their plot to bring back the gods means they're now working alongside the Black Circle and other groups/individuals to this end. (If you haven't read the Dory books you're missing them being a large part of the attack on the Consul's home, etc.) * Have I mentioned the bigoted religious zealots thing?????? * Incite of a lot of the stuff going on between the Alorestri and Dark Fey, taking land from both and pushing them to fight with each other. Nimue accuses Aeslinn of supplying the Dark Fey with weapons, even.

* Aeslinn: Religious zealot asshole. This has probably been reinforced by wearing a helm infused with part of Ares' spirit for centuries. Sometimes called the Winter King. * Æsubrand (meaning sword of the Æsir): The son of Aeslinn and Efridís, making him a pureblooded fey with royal Blarestri blood and giving him a better claim to the throne than anyone else until Heidar and Claire meet. Just wants to "unite Faerie." Gifted in the use of all four elements.

The Alorestri (or Green Fey, Water Lords)

* Affinity for water magic. * Ruled by Nimue and considered pretty weird for it by the rest of Faerie. Women? In Power? Yikes. Only the weird green fey would do something like that. * Supposedly not too interested in politics. * They spend a lot of time in the woods (probably fighting the Dark Fey), hence the green. It's camouflage. * Share a border with the Dark Fey and the Svarestri. The Svarestri take their land, so they turn around and fight the Dark Fey for their land or vice versa. Rinse, repeat. * Which is also why the Alorestri spend the most time on Earth of all the fey, trading for things they need and kidnapping human women to bolster their own numbers. Or exchanging help against invading armies, etc, for human women.

* Nimue (the Lady of the Lake): Leader of the Alorestri and former wife of Caedmon. We don't know what exactly split them up, when, or why. Big on human trafficking. She had and used Achilles' shield for centuries, allowing Ares to influence her and use her fear for her people to push her further and further over the edge. * Igraine: Half human daughter of Nimue. Married Gorlois and facilitated alliance between the fey and Britons with terms that were increasingly more beneficial to the fey than the humans. Saw to the human slave trade for her mother as a way to prove herself, not that it would have ever made a difference. * Morgaine: One of Igraine's daughters. Wanted to be accepted by the fey like her mother, but she was only a quarter fey and refused to continue her mother's endeavors and was kicked out of court. Rosier attempted to seduce her by teaching her magic and she turned around and used him to get all four elements. Both got what they wanted, but it didn't work out as planned for either. The fey were no more accepting of her and Nimue hid her away and refused to let her leave. After escaping she taught and helped organize the covens specifically to help fight against her grandmother's slave trade.

The Dark Fey

* Affinity for fire magic. * Not as pretty and seriously treated like crap, basically. * There are a lot of different clans, but they're together enough that they, say, honor the blessing of another clan (if they're not currently fighting each other and don't still hold a grudge over The War). * Continue to be displaced by the border disputes with Alorestri and Svarestri, forcing many to flee to Earth. As illegal immigrants that don't easily pass for human with little to no experience on Earth, this isn't ideal.

* The Morrigan (her celtic title meaning great/terrible/phantom queen): Daughter of one of the Dark Fey and Ares. Forced to help try to kill Cassie in Hunt the Moon. * The Dark Fey King: Cool name or title other than the Dark Fey king? Who knows. Super tall. Wanted the Codex for some reason... As of Hunt the Moon, the Dark Fey king has apparently been kidnapped by the Alorestri, who may or may not be working with "the bad guys" only "nobody seems to know." The Morrigan claims she only helped the Spartoi for this reason.

We kinda know less about the Dark Fey while having met more of them? And idek who else to include as notable.

* The Spartoi: Demigod sons of Ares. Fairly memorable...... * Olga and her troll family: Dory's friends/housemates that moved in after Drac killed Olga's husband. They eat a lot. Olga's a kick ass secretary and always has nice nails. * Radella: Mouthy pixie, captain of the night Guard, etc. KC said she's coming back at soooome point. * Miranda and co.: The kitchen staff at Dante's. Love kids and trying to come up with new dishes. (I just miss my grumpy cat gargoyle lady....)

Random/General Stuff

* All fey can control the elements to some degree. * I can't tell if it's a general light fey thing, but the Blarestri, at least, cast "light shadows" (they glow) in the human world. It doesn't come up often. * Fey that are half-human have their fey side come out at puberty or when they... first have sex with another fey... (Honestly, who needs fanfic when there's Karen Chance's endless ingenuity when it comes to coming up with plot reasons for characters making out.) * There's an assembly of elders called the Domi (that Caedmon claims sent him in MD), though idk if they're Blarestri or a more general light fey council. * Names have power, etc., so everyone goes by titles and names given to them by others.

If you're writing fic and prone to too much research: Most names and words are at least vaguely Norse/Gaelic (with the meanings occasionally fudged, I think) (and there's one weird case of middle english that KC never brought up again...). Stuff like the Old Norse section of nordicnames.de would probably be helpful.

And, while I'm here: the Ruins of Langgarn. Attributed to Egil Skallagrimson, though some stories say he stole them from a witch with fey blood. Later we hear they're rumored to have been made by Odin himself. Hmmm...

* Hagalaz - cast upright: creates a storm, cast inverted: calms a storm * Jera - fertility * Dagaz - time * Naudiz - wearer can't be killed * Thurisaz - turns the user into a giant ogre for an hour * one that lets the user open a portal directly to anywhere in Faerie they want to go that Claire apparently absorbed in Buying Trouble and is gone???? (This story is a decade old now, so.......)