Earth Spirits

[Fae Oonagh]

Earth Spirits
The spirts of the earth are the most common type of faerie, although it is their winged cousins that are most thought of when dealing with faeries. They have often been portrayed as gods or spirites of the forest or earth, such as the Satyr, Pan, but they are neither, they are just faeries, as much as any other.

Dryads

Dryads. These are the most famous and most peaceful wood faerie, and the most powerful. They are attatched to oak trees. They gain their magic and their very life essence from the trees so they cannot go very far, and they are all peaceful and strongly magical faeries. They are wild and mysterious faeries, very apt at seducing mortals, who then pine away for them once discarded. But, despite their wild nature, it is a natural wildness. They do not need drunks or alochol to dance in the forest, and indeed, find that drugs and alochol impare their magical ability. Magic is formost on a dryad's mind.



Nymphs
These are one of the most promiscious of faeries. These are all women, and there are two main types, water and earth nymphs. Earth nymphs are close cousins to the dryads, they live in forests or open fields but many more of them have started to drift into court, as they are not finding nearly enough men to satisfy them out in the fields and forests. These women will sleep with more or less anything, except satyrs, which is odd, as they are much more promiscious than the nymphs, and you think they would get on well together. But although the satyrs try, the nymphs will, for the most part, have nothing to do with them.

One famous nymph is Echo. She used to chatter madly so that Hera couldn't detect Zeus having sex with the nymphs. She fell in love with Narcissus, who was an amazingly vain young man, and she wasted away out of love until only her voice was left. Narciuss himself wasted away when he fell in love with his own reflection in a woodland pool. The wood nymphs all mourned his death, and echo was only able to re-echo their lamnets, being nothing more than a voice on the breeze.


Dwarves
Dwarves are small, squat, ugly faeries, coming up to almost knee height. They are surprisingly strong creatures, however, and unlike most faeries, they actually enjoy hard work, choosing to spend most of their lives working down mines, mining valuable resources which they sell at ridiculously high prices. They are stingy creatures and very untrustworthy of any other faeries, especially elves and other dwarves. Also, some dwarves have the grave misfortune of being turned to stone should a ray of sunlight touch them. Some dwarves get around this by appearing as toads in the daylight, but most choose to stay in their mines.

Elves
These faeries are tall and slender with sharply pointed ears. They are very cat-like in appearance and are amongst the most common type of faerie. They are also amongst the most vain, selfish and self-obessed, for this reason they do not get on well with the ugly, hard working dwarves.

Satyrs
There are two different kinds of Satyr. The first is the most well known, a creature with goat's legs and tail and horns and a man's upper body and face. One such Satyr was taken by the Roman's to be a deity of the forest. The Greeks had a horse satyr, a faerie with the legs of a horse and horses ears (not a centaur) as their deity of the forest. These creatures are promiscious, almost revilling the nymphs, and creative. They love music, dancing and wine, to the extent that one of them, the famous Pan, challenged Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of music, to a tournement. He lost and was flayed alive for his trouble.


Centaurs
These faeries have the top half of a man or a woman, and the bottom half of a horse. They were seen in, Greek and Roman mythology, for the most part, as being barbaric, the eaters of raw flesh, rapists, and drunkards. The only exception is Chiron, who was friend to Apollo, and the tutor of Achilles.In truth, most centaurs are intelligent, knowledgeable and are amongst one of the eldest Faerie races.

Pixies
Pixies are small, slender creatures, with pointed ears and noses. they are mischevious, like goblins, although not as cruel, and most of their pranks are directed towards other faeries. They tended to shun the mortal race.

Leprechauns
Everyone knows the story that leprechauns have a pot of gold hidden at the end of the rainbow. In truth, this is a alleogory. there is gold at the end of the rainbow, but the gold is really an entrance to Faerie. Leprechauns guard the entrance to Faerie and protect it by putting forward a crock of gold that mortals will take rather than seek entrance to the Faerie realm, should you catch him, of course. Like all faerie gold, it will either turn to leaves, dust, or cause its new owner bad luck. Faerie can never be taken, only given. should you steal it, bad things always follow.

Trolls
Trolls are huge, ugly creatures. They are amongst the biggest inhabitants of Faerie and prefer solitude of forests and caves than to be amongst other faeries in the splendour of Court life. They portrayed as monstrous and barbaric creatures in mortal myths, creatures that live under bridges and eat goats. They are distantly related to ogres, but are much more gentle. They are easily frightened, embarrassed of their ugliness which is the reason that they prefer to make their homes in dense forests, dark caves or mountain tops.

Brownies and Hobgoblins
These are helpful faeries that will tidy up your house while you are asleep. They really don't have anything better to do. They are very fickle, and can turn nasty if you don't appreciate their work, so leave out some food for them, that always works. These faeries are often male, and naked, which mortals believe is a representation of maleness, but really, they just hate clothing. Clothing will drive a brownie away.