The Three Fey Folk Types

⚠ DM-ONLY — CAMPAIGN SPOILERS. Players should not read it.

Type: Fey taxonomy  |  "Household spirits, court citizens, and the lost."

Three kinds of fey connected to the Pale Carnival: Brownies, ancient household spirits of the di Errante compact; Carnival Fey, court citizens who cross over during the Masquerade; and the Maskless, fey who lost their identity entirely — the horror element among the Leaked.

Brownies — Sacred Covenant

Ancient fey who crossed from the Liminal Deep generations ago, when the di Errante estate was thriving. They were essentially household spirits, maintaining the relationship between the mortal family and the Reverie Solenne. The brownies enslaved in Vallombrosa (Roxy's hook) are being used in violation of something sacred — which is why Garl Glittergold cares. He isn't merely protecting gnome-adjacent fey; he's watching someone desecrate an ancient covenant.

Carnival Fey

Citizens of the Pale Carnival who occasionally cross into Venturia when the veil thins — usually during the Autumn Masquerade, because the mortal ritual resonates with their home court. They look almost human but slightly off in ways hard to articulate: too still when they should move, too fluid when they should be still. Some have formed lasting arrangements with mortal families across centuries.

The Maskless — Horror Element

What happens when a fey loses its identity entirely in the fractured Carnival. They've forgotten which face is theirs and now wear a rotating collection of stolen ones. Not evil, exactly — hungry, the way someone starving for sleep is hungry. Witnesses report the creature "looked like it was practicing being me." They are the middle-phase Leaked: stumbling through tears in reality, trying to wear the identities of those they encounter by mimicking speech, posture, and mannerism. Deeply unsettling before any combat begins.

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