Archfey

Ancient entities of the Feywild, the archfey are archetypal manifestations of potent faerie power. Usually known solely by their titles, the archfey are to the Feywild what the gods are to the natural world - its architects and the prime movers thereof. Though the fey do not worship the archfey exactly, they do serve them as vassals serve their lieges. Indeed, each of the Sidhe Courts of the Feywild has one or more of the archfey as overlords. The archfey consider the gods to be rivals for power, though they do not actively consider them enemies, generally speaking.

Archfey of the Summer Court

• The Sun-Stag: A mighty stag whose antlers and body are filigreed with bright gold that gleams in the sunlight, the Sun-Stag is renowned as a source of bravery and courage.
• Authlim: Called the "Light of Battle", Authlim appears as an elfin knight clad in gleaming crystalline armor, his mail splitting all light that touches it into a thousand brilliant diamond shards. He wields a great blade.
• Lord of Lions: A leonine archfey whose entourage is a great pride of pure white lions with golden eyes.

Archfey of the Gloaming Court

• Little Grandmother: The Great Hag is one of the foremost of the Gloaming Archfey, a witch-queen that demands nothing from her servants save respect and solitude.
• Carchgorgor: A massive swamp-dwelling serpent, the Fang of Fear's venom creates terrible hallucinations and night-terrors.
• Whispershade: A tall and handsome eladrin of dark features, Whispershade is a Gloaming archfey who steals the shadows of the unwary. He then affixes these shadows to himself, giving him a literal host of shadows cast behind him, each eager to serve and obey him.

Archfey of the Winter Court

• Prince of Frost: x
• Blackfingers: Predatory and terrifying, Blackfingers is a troll-like creature whose extremities are touched black with frostbite. Its breath coats everything around it in frost, and its loves nothing better than taking great, gulping bites out of frozen flesh.
• Steward of Blizzards: A mighty owl the size of a man, the Steward of Blizzards rides forever in the heart of powerful winter storms. It is not known whether she simply cannot exist outside of them, or if blizzards simply always exist around her, but she has never been seen outside of such a storm.

Archfey of the Green Court

• The Hedgerider: She who walks the boundaries between wild places and cultivated lands, a dancing witch who lightly springs back and forth between boundaries (even, it is said, those of the planes themselves). The Hedgerider is a queen of witches, fond of swearing warlocks from the mortal realms in fey pacts. She is said to ride a chariot wrought of thorny, still-living hedgeplant (holly in the winter, blackthorne in the summer), pulled by one black fox and one white fox.
• Huntsman O'the Green: Feared by those who hear his far-off hunting horn, the Huntsman leads a great hunting pack of massive, bull-sized blink dogs. The sidhe who encounter the Green Hunt have one of two experiences: they either become its prey if they are found wanting (as Unseelie and similar folk often are), or they are transformed into hounds to hunt until he no longer has need of them.
• Pânornus: The great All-Tree of the Feywild, a miles-high tree of such pervasive power that it is one of the archfey. It is a twining, great braided thing, its trunks striated barks of all kinds, from which grow branches that bear the leaves of every kind of tree ever known. Though it does not move, Pânornus' roots are tied to the roots of every tree in the Feywild (and, some say, all the planes as well).

Archfey of the Moon Court

• Rexfelis: The Lord of Cats is the master of cats everywhere, and his great feline entourage is a wonder to behold.
• Lindhal Silvereye: Using an ancient fey title (lindhal, which is a form of address analagous to "lord" or "lady" save that it denotes one who shifts between genders fluidly), Silvereye is a shapeshifting, illusion-weaving archfey of fearful provenance. They weave love-glamours and enchantments that cause intoxication and madness.
• The Wolf-Seer: A renowned prophet and seer, the Wolf-Seer is a mighty wolf the size of a lion who emerges only when the moon is full. She stares up into the vastness of the full moon, and her attendants listen closely to her mutterings of the future.

Archfey of the Sea Court

• The Shepherd of Waves: x
• Lady Abyss: x
• Taerun'aedys: x

The Unseelie

In the language of the Feywild, those who are aligned with the Archfey are referred to as "seelie", a term meaning "loyal". There are also unaligned entities, who are considered not-seelie. But there is a third classification among those who inhabit the lands of faerie: the unseelie.

The unseelie are those who are opposed to the rule of the Archfey in every way. These may be personal, political or even philosophical - there are as many reasons to oppose the rule of the Archfey as there are members of the unseelie. Most seelie believe the unseelie defy and hate the Archfey because they are wicked consorters with powers from beyond the Feywild. Traditional tales describe the unseelie as having truck with terrible shadows from the Shadowfell, or with the powers of the Primordials.

They are considered rebels, not just against the political structures of the lands of the Feywild, but against the very natural order, for they oppose the notion that the Archfey are deserving of service and emulation as beings in whom the very essence of the Feywild is concentrated and made manifest.

The unseelie serve as an all-around bogeyman and conspiracy theory - they are monster and political insurgent both. Most seelie believe that the unseelie form themselves into "courts" as well, pledging allegiance not to the service of an Archfey, but to its destruction. In truth, while the unseelie do use the term "courts" to describe their organizations, they are not mimicries of the sidhe courts. Instead, they are like cells of revolutionaries or assassins, carefully guarding the identities of their fellows from exposure.