In human mythology, the “people of peace”, sometimes called fairies, or fae, are a universal phenomenon, known to every country and people of the world. While similarities exists between these legends, the lore of the Neo-Verse takes the tales of pre-Christian Scandinavia and the Celtic peoples as its primary inspiration.
The fae come to us through the prism of the oldest of the stories; in the Edda, we’re told of the nine world: Asgard (Aesir, the land of the gods), Alfheim (land of the light elves), Vanaheim (land of the Vanir), Midgard (the land of men), Jotunheim (the land of ice giants), Svartalfheim (land of the dark-elves), Nidavellir (land of the dwarves), Muspelheim (land of the fire spirits), and Niflheim (the land of the dead).
~ the Poetic Edda
Svartalfheim, the home of the dark elves, was the most easily entered by humankind, because its doorways were found in the underground places. These fae were the earth-dwellers, the people of the hollow-hills, the spirits of earth and tree, stone and spring. In effect, they were the anthropomorphic representatives of the natural world.
In the history of those ancestors, when their gods (the Aesir) were destroyed in apocalypse (Ragnarok), the bridges between the nine worlds collapsed and the cosmos was divided, so all the races were lost to each other and the dominion of man over Midgard began in earnest.
Queen of Earth, Empress of the Void
In the Neo’Verse, the fae did not disappear …in our fantasy realm, a warrior queen of the elves, and those who would follow her, refused to fade from the world of men. Instead they made peace with these changes and harnessed the creative energy of humankind to create a blended empire of supernatural and mortal creatures.
To learn more about our fae, read the abridged version of “The Fae Concordance” posted to this site, join the community website or wander the Visitor’s Center in-world for a wearable book.
