FAE BESTIARY

Fairies / Fair Folk (Umbrella Category)

What it is: A catch-all for beings that live alongside humans, usually in a parallel “Otherworld” with rules humans keep breaking. Older folklore often treats them as human-sized (or size-shifting), socially complex, and dangerous when disrespected.

Where they dwell: “Thin places” (mounds, ringforts, ancient roads, old-growth woods, springs, ruined structures, boundary lines). If a location feels ancient, ignored, or too quiet, folklore stamps it as “theirs.”

Aos Sí / Daoine Sìth (People of the Mounds)

What it is: A collective name for fairy folk tied to sídhe/sìth (mounds and Otherworld entrances). This is the “don’t trespass sacred geography” branch of fae lore.

Where they dwell: Mounds, ringforts, ancient hills, barrows, certain lone trees, and old roads. Folklore treats these places like doors. Doors don’t like being kicked.

• Do: treat mounds and ringforts as restricted. Back away quietly, without apology or bravado.
• Don’t: take stones/soil, dig, camp, or joke about “proving it.” In folklore, disrespect is an invitation.

Seelie Court

What it is: A traditional Scottish grouping often framed as more orderly or “fair.” Translation: they may follow rules, but the rules won’t be written in human ink.

Where they dwell: Groves, old roads, mounds, ceremonial sites. Also: anywhere you cross a boundary without permission and suddenly feel “observed but not seen.”

• Do: be polite, brief, and non-committal. Leave first, interpret later.
• Don’t: accept gifts or make bargains. “Fair” does not mean “safe.”

Unseelie Court

What it is: A counterpart category for darker, more hostile fae hosts. In story logic, this is what finds you when you’re alone, lost, and emotionally loud.

Where they dwell: Winter woods, storm nights, lonely moors, ruins, places where people go to be reckless. The Unseelie don’t need a throne room, they need you to make one mistake.

• Do: exit calmly, seek human-lit routes, get indoors.
• Don’t: chase laughter, lights, or “helpful” voices off-trail.

Winged “Flower Fairies” (Victorian/Edwardian Depiction)

What it is: The tiny, insect-winged fairy popular in modern art and pop culture. This depiction explodes in the Victorian era and onward, and it’s a legitimate historical “fairy type” in the sense that it’s a documented tradition of representation.

Where they dwell: Gardens, blossoms, hollow stems, hedgerows in the imagery. In Codex terms: these are “nature sprites” as the era wanted them to be, not necessarily how older rural belief described the Fair Folk.

• Do: label honestly as a historical depiction category.
• Don’t: claim all traditional fairies had wings. That’s where credibility dies.

Brownie

What it is: A domestic spirit that helps with chores when respected. The “help” is conditional. Brownies are etiquette creatures, not employees.

Where they dwell: Homes, barns, kitchens, hearth areas, old farmsteads. Especially places with routine and long occupancy.

• Do: keep the home orderly; show respect quietly; leave small, traditional-style offerings in-story if you include offerings.
• Don’t: pay wages, brag, mock, or try to trap it. Folklore treats those as insults.

Hob

What it is: A rustic household or farm spirit closely related to hobgoblin vocabulary. Helpful or annoying depending on respect, routine, and how much humans insist on being the main character.

Where they dwell: Barns, mills, farmhouses, gate-lines, and tool spaces. Places defined by repeated work.

• Do: respect “house rules” (gates, corners, tools). Maintain routine.
• Don’t: renovate sacred corners abruptly or mock local customs.

Boggart

What it is: A domestic nuisance spirit: hiding objects, knocking, scratching, souring the home. Often described like a “bad house mood” that becomes a being.

Where they dwell: Homes under stress, old houses, cramped spaces, stairs, attics, underfloor voids. The more a house feels tense, the more this type “fits” the folklore logic.

• Do: reduce chaos and conflict in the narrative; document patterns calmly.
• Don’t: taunt it. That’s how nuisance escalates to torment in stories.

Domovoy

What it is: A household spirit tied to the home’s well-being, sometimes linked with ancestors. Protective when respected, volatile when insulted.

Where they dwell: Near the hearth/oven, threshold spaces, “heart” of the home. In folklore, it’s bound to domestic territory.

• Do: treat thresholds and hearth as sacred domestic borders.
• Don’t: invite supernatural “games” into the house for laughs.

Tomte / Nisse

What it is: A farm/house guardian spirit with strict expectations. If the homestead is neglected, or people behave dishonorably, the “luck” turns.

Where they dwell: Farmyards, barns, storehouses, old homesteads, and sometimes the edge of the property line.

• Do: keep routines, respect the land, don’t break the home’s “social contract.”
• Don’t: mock, starve, or exploit the homestead. Folklore punishes disrespect with sabotage.

Kobold

What it is: A German spirit category that ranges from household helper/troublemaker to mine-associated beings depending on region and telling. Temperamental and easily offended.

Where they dwell: Kitchens, cellars, workshops, mines, tunnels. Places with tools and labor.

• Do: treat tools and workspaces as “their” territory; keep order.
• Don’t: steal from the workspace, disrespect labor, or issue threats.

Knockers (Mine Spirits)

What it is: Mine-associated spirits known for knocking sounds, warnings, and mischief. Some stories treat them as protective if respected, others as dangerous tricksters.

Where they dwell: Mines, tunnels, shafts, abandoned workings. Anywhere humans dug greedily into the earth and left scars behind.

• Do: interpret knocks as warnings in-story; leave unstable areas.
• Don’t: ignore safety signs because you want a good story.

Leprechaun

What it is: A solitary fairy associated with shoemaking and hidden treasure. In many tales, the human’s greed is the mechanism, not the leprechaun’s strength.

Where they dwell: Hedgerows, lonely fields, old lanes, rural edges. Places where one person can be lured away from witnesses.

• Do: treat “treasure” as a cautionary motif; keep eyes forward and mind calm.
• Don’t: threaten or bargain. The entire point of the leprechaun tale is humans think they’re clever.

Clurichaun

What it is: Often described as a leprechaun-adjacent solitary fairy with heavy ties to drink, cellars, and nocturnal trouble. Depending on the source, it’s prankster to outright menace.

Where they dwell: Wine cellars, breweries, storerooms, old pubs, farms with hidden booze. Basically, where humans hide indulgence.

• Do: treat storage spaces as liminal zones; keep locks and routines.
• Don’t: mock, chase, or try to “trap” it for proof.

Púca / Pooka

What it is: A shapeshifter that misleads, frightens, or humiliates humans, often via animal forms. It thrives on vulnerability, not bravery.

Where they dwell: Crossroads, fields, lonely roads, hedges, night paths. Places where “a shortcut” looks tempting.

• Do: stick to known routes; speak minimally; don’t accept rides.
• Don’t: follow a strangely intelligent animal off-path.

Pixie (Pisky)

What it is: Famous for “pixie-leading” travelers into circles, bogs, and confusion. The folklore function is survival: don’t roam moors at night thinking you’re immune to getting lost.

Where they dwell: Moorlands, hedgerows, old lanes, stone circles, wooded edges. Places where landmarks repeat and humans overtrust their sense of direction.

• Do: stop, re-orient, backtrack deliberately.
• Don’t: chase music or lights. That is literally the trap.

Korrigan

What it is: Breton fairy figures associated with beauty, danger, and nighttime gatherings, frequently tied to springs and sacred water.

Where they dwell: Wells, springs, standing stones, forest edges, moonlit clearings. Places already marked as “old” by human ritual.

• Do: treat wells/springs as sacred space; keep distance at night.
• Don’t: intrude on dances or follow laughter toward water.

Tylwyth Teg (The Fair Family)

What it is: A Welsh collective term for fairy folk. Tales often involve processions, dancing, and boundaries humans should not cross.

Where they dwell: Hills, lakes, rings, old paths, and places with traditional “fairy” naming. In narrative terms: if locals avoid it at dusk, you should too.

• Do: keep your distance; observe without engagement.
• Don’t: step into rings or accept invitations to dance/eat.

Banshee (Bean Sí)

What it is: A keening woman whose cry foretells death. Usually not a killer. She’s the warning bell, the grief arriving before the event.

Where she appears: Near homes, along family lands, at night near water or trees in some tellings. Often heard rather than seen.

• Do: treat it as omen logic: record circumstances, don’t pursue.
• Don’t: chase the sound into fields or waterlines.

Bean-Nighe (Washer at the Ford)

What it is: A washerwoman seen washing bloodstained clothes belonging to someone destined to die. Fate made mundane. That’s why it sticks.

Where she appears: Fords, river bends, stream crossings, places where people must slow down to cross. Liminal water borders.

• Do: leave the ford; don’t engage.
• Don’t: mock, interrupt, or demand answers.

Sluagh (The Host)

What it is: A predatory mass or “host” associated with night skies and sudden winds. Sometimes blended with restless dead motifs, sometimes distinctly fae. Either way: it’s a “get inside now” sign.

Where it moves: Over fields, coasts, hilltops, and open ground where there’s nowhere to hide. Wind corridors and storm fronts.

• Do: seek shelter; close windows/doors in-story; avoid open ground.
• Don’t: stand watching like it’s entertainment.

Will-o’-the-Wisp (Jack-o’-Lantern / Ignis Fatuus)

What it is: Mysterious marsh lights said to lure travelers into bogs. Sometimes framed as fairy lights, sometimes spirits, sometimes omens. The consistent lesson is painfully practical: wetlands kill the curious.

Where it appears: Marshes, bogs, moors, swampy lowlands, cemetery-adjacent fields in some telling traditions.

• Do: stay on paths; treat light anomalies as hazard first.
• Don’t: chase it for proof. That’s how people die in both folklore and real life.

Kelpie

What it is: A deadly aquatic spirit often appearing as a horse to lure humans to water. The “too tame” animal by deep water is the warning sign.

Where it dwells: River bends, lochs, deep pools, remote waters where rescue is unlikely.

• Do: keep distance from unknown animals near deep water.
• Don’t: mount it, grab it, or follow it into the shallows.

Each-Uisge

What it is: Often described as a more openly dangerous water horse associated with lochs and sea in some tellings. Similar trap logic to the kelpie, with harsher consequences.

Where it dwells: Loch shores, sea inlets, isolated waterlines, especially places with sudden depth and cold.

• Do: treat “strange horse at the waterline” as an immediate no.
• Don’t: approach at dusk/night, especially alone.

Nix / Nixie / Nøkk / Näck

What it is: A water being tied to music, charm, and luring. The old pattern is consistent: fascination is the hook; water is the kill zone.

Where it dwells: Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, millponds, bridges, and dark water where sound carries strangely.

• Do: leave if you hear inexplicable music near water.
• Don’t: approach the edge at night or alone.

Selkie (Seal-Folk)

What it is: Beings who shed a seal skin to become human on land. A lot of stories involve stolen skins, forced captivity, and the inevitable return to the sea.

Where they dwell: Rocky shores, sea caves, remote beaches, and fog-heavy coasts. Places where the sea feels like a door.

• Do: frame “steal the skin” as the wrongdoing and curse engine.
• Don’t: portray captivity as romance.

Merrow

What it is: Irish sea beings tied to coastal folklore, storms, and strange objects from the water. Often alluring, often tragic, always linked to danger at the edge of land.

Where they dwell: Tide lines, caves, reefs, storm beaches, and places locals avoid in bad weather.

• Do: treat the sea as a boundary, not a backdrop.
• Don’t: take “sea-left” objects home as trophies.

Baobhan Sìth

What it is: A predatory fairy figure in Highland lore, often tied to seduction and blood-draining motifs. It’s one of the clearer “don’t follow the beautiful stranger into the wild” warnings in the tradition.

Where it appears: Remote glens, hunting shelters, night roads, gatherings where men are isolated from community protections.

• Do: treat isolation as the danger trigger.
• Don’t: accept invitations to “private” shelter or dance in empty places.

Redcap

What it is: A vicious border creature associated with ruins and old towers. In folklore terms it’s a “stay out of dangerous places” sign that bites back.

Where it dwells: Ruins, abandoned fortifications, lonely towers, places with old violence in the walls.

• Do: treat ruins at night as a no-go zone in your Codex survival voice.
• Don’t: romanticize it as a quirky imp.

Spriggan

What it is: Cornish beings associated with guarding ancient sites and treasure. Often described as grotesque or fearsome. Great Codex lesson: don’t loot the land.

Where they dwell: Barrows, stone circles, ancient ruins, burial grounds, and “don’t touch that” locations.

• Do: treat protected sites as living boundaries.
• Don’t: dig, steal, or vandalize.

Huldufólk (Hidden People)

What it is: Humanlike “hidden people” living alongside humans, strongly tied to rocks, hills, and landforms. The folklore function is respect for land and unseen neighbors.

Where they dwell: Rocks, hillocks, lava fields, mounds. Places that feel like they have “presence.”

• Do: treat land features as culturally loaded, not scenery.
• Don’t: throw stones or disturb marked rocks “for fun.”

Elves (Álfar)

What it is: “Elf” in older tradition is not just the modern fantasy archer. It’s a wide supernatural category that can include beautiful, dangerous, and disease-linked beings in some traditions.

Where they dwell: Mounds, woods, hills, remote places. Also: anywhere boundaries are crossed without respect.

• Do: distinguish folklore elves from pop-culture elves in your writeup.
• Don’t: make them uniformly benevolent. Folklore doesn’t do uniform.