The fey are a race born from human or dragon souls who cling to life. There are a large number of fey races with varrying degrees of power. For the most part, the power of the fey is directly proportionate to the power of the human or dragon in their cultivation before their death.
The fey are also primarily divided into 3 classes. The Faerie class, the Humanoid class, and the Fused Spirit class.
The Faerie class
The Faerie class is the most powerful of the 3 classes of fey, and can possess tremendously powerful magic that can put most human mages to shame. However, the faerie class of fey also has a weakness in that they have a difficult time progressing beyond the level of power they are born at, especially for the strongest fey dragon class who are unused to the process of cultivation even in their previous lives.
-Fey Dragons.
The fey dragons are the strongest class of faeries who are already the strongest class of fey as well. The fey dragons are also further sub-divided into greater, true, and sub varieties. This is believed to relate directly to the age of the dragon at the time of their death.
All dragons who cling to life are capable of becoming fey dragons, and there is no case in which they have been known to become any other class of fey. However, the older a dragon is at the time of its death the less likely it is to cling to life. As such, there are very very few fey dragons of the higher tiers with the greater fey dragons often being the only ones of their size and power in an entire fey community. A greater fey dragon is known to have power to change the very weather and have magic that can scoop up entire chunks of earth and levitate it into the sky. They can be said to be among the most powerful forces in the world.
True fey dragons are thought to be born from adult dragons and are also exceedingly rare, often being held in high regards in any fey community. The more common sub fey dragons are the most common, and are thought to be born from juvenile dragons. While true fey dragons and greater fey dragons are often wise and powerful leaders among the fey, the more common sub fey dragons are known to be bitter toward their own state and often act rashly and are prideful and short tempered.
-Great Faeries
Great Faeries are the most powerful of the human-based faeries, and hold the strongest potential for growth of all the faeries. This is because of the fact that most of the great faeries manage to retain a large amount of their human memories, and most of those who die with the power to become a great faerie and the drive necessary to cling to life will have it in their nature to imrove and further advance their power. While fey dragons are often born stronger that even the great faeries on average, with age a great faerie can usually quite easily rival or surpass the strength of a true fey dragon.
-Faeries
The average faerie is born with the ability to cast powerful magic of the 4th and often even the 5th tier, likely indicating that they were mages in life with the ability to cast spells of the same level of power. Regardless, they possess unique magic than no human is able to use.
However, faeries possess a critical weakness. They often forget large amounts of what made them human when they are reborn as a faerie. Often, one of the few things they remember is the fact that they were humans before, but they usually do not seem to think that matters all that much. Faeries often seclude themselves away from humans, but become curious whenever a human comes into their forrest.
-Demi faeries.
Demi faeries are small humanoids thought to be related to the faeries due to their size and the fact that they are capable of using faerie magic. However, their faerie magic is far weaker than that of regular faeries, normally only being as strong as the 2nd tier.
Also unlike regular faeries, demi faeries are almost exclusively found in human territories, often keeping themselves hidden using invisibility magic in people’s houses. Demi faeries are known to imitate the work done by humans, often when nobody is looking. If they are in a house, they will imitate the woman of the house by cleaning the place. If they are in a trades shop, they will imitate the tradesman by crafting whatever item the tradesman makes. Demi faeries are often seen as a blessing to those whos’ houses they choose to reside in, and it is suggested that anyone who is fortunate enough to have this should leave some kind of sweetened treat out for the demi faeries to enjoy as thanks for their help and to encourage them to remain in their house or place of business.
Humanoids
There are a handfull of fey races that are not simply born into existence as most other fey are, but instead are born from their parents as a human would be. These fey races are known as the humanoid fey. The humanoid fey have both powerful physical and magical ability, and are often able to progress very well in terms of developing their magic or other cultivations.
-Elves
Elves are known as the master race among the humanoid fey. They are said to be the parent race of all the other humanoid fey races, and are also often more long-lived. However, they are also more limited in their ability to progress magically. Elves are known however to have superior hunters and warriors that serve as the foot-soldiers for the fey races in times where they need to go into combat.
The weakness of the elves is that when they are in their infancy they need an excessive amount of spirit energy in quantities that can only be gained from human children. Because of this, elves have been known to regularly lead raids on small human villages in order to kidnap human children whenever a new baby is born among one of their tribes.
-Gnomes
When a human male mates with an elf female, the child that is born will be a gnome. However, the gnomes also have the ability to create viable offspring with one another, and most gnomes are born in this manner rather than as the mix of human and elven parents. Gnomes look in every way to be small elves, with the same pointed ears and slender features.
Gnomes are able to combine the magical growth potential of humans with the longer lifespan and natural magic of the elves, and even have the ability to produce their own mana and spirit energy. This allows gnomes to have the greatest magical growth potential of any race.
-Dwarves
Much like how Gnomes are born from a human father and elf mother, the mating of an elven male and a human female will produce a dwarf. Also, much the same as gnomes, dwarves have the ability to produce viable offspring with one another in addition to being born from this pairing of humans and elves. Dwarves look in every way to be small humans.
Dwarves are unoficially sub-divided into sun dwarves and dark dwarves. Sun dwarves can often be easily mistaken for human children unless one looks at their face up close with a discerning eye and recognizes the signs of adulthood to them. They usually make their homes in small settlements and communities and are known to be somewhat nomadic in their lifestyle.
Dark dwarves usually live underground. There are some rumors that the male parent of their race was actually demonized elves, but they insist that they are very different from those ones which live much deeper under the ground and call the results of such a pairing the “Duergar,” stating that these duergar have darkened skin and are skinnier like the sun dwarves.
It is unknown whether the dark dwarves are telling the truth or not as few people on the surface have ever seen these duergar of which the dark dwarves speak, but one thing is for certain, the dark dwarves, especially the males, are very differnt from the sun dwarves. Dark dwarves are often stockier in build, and have large bushy beards. There is no mistaking a male dark dwarf for a human child.
Sun dwarves and dark dwarves alike both have physical strength that is quite desceptive for their size, thought to be inherited from their elven parents. A sun dwarf has a level of physical strength that is equal to the average adult human. Dark dwarves meanwhile are even stronger and heartier and even surpass the elves, some have been known to have the ability to lift and throw an ox with a single hand.
Fused spirits
The fused spirit class fey are the weakest class among the fey, and are thought to be the results of normal humans who have never cultivated in their lives becoming fey. However, there is still a great deal of variation within the fused spirit class fey in terms of both power and growth potential.
The fused spirits, just as the name implies, are the fusion of a human spirit and the spirit of another formerly living creature. There are truly too many fused spirit class fey to list, but there are a few special noteworthy cases that should be called out.
-Une
An une is the fusion of a human, normally female, and a flower or other small plant. They are usually rooted to their spot and are not of particular note on their own. However, if an une is exposed to arcane energy they become a particularly ferocious type of demon known as an Arla Une.
Alra Unes appear as large flower that, upon blooming, reveal a particularly attractive woman. Arla Unes like to suck the blood of humans, fey, and even animals. They grow thorny vines that can stretch for several hundred feet from their stock which will capture their prey and drag their victim toward the flower where they are devoured.
-Satyr
Satyrs are the fusion of a human and a goat, producing the most animalistic looking of all the fey races. Unlike most fused spirits which seem to have the visible exposed skin of the upper torso of their human form, satyrs are covered head to toe with fur and also have the head of a goat in addition to the lower half. About the only human thing about them is their hands, the ability to walk upright, and the ability to talk.
While this appearance is striking enough, the most noteworthy thing about Satyrs is that they have far greater magic ability than any of the other fused spirits. A satyr has as much magical growth potential as the typical elf, and almost all of them have at least the ability to cast spells at the 2nd or 3rd tier with some reaching as high as the 6th. Due to their increased access to magic though, they also have a higher tendency toward demonization and upon becoming demonized they make for particularly powerful demons.
-Merfolk
Merfolk are a fusion of human and fish spirits and live under water away from the other fey races. Merfolk are noteworthy because even in their normal non-demonized form they are quite dangerous as they become attracted to a human’s spirit energy and are known to drag humans under the water and drown them.
-Sphinx
A sphinx has a human head on the body of a lion. The sphinx are an exception to the rule of the fused spirits being the weakest among the fey. Sphinx are often rather powerful both physically and magically and, while they have the appearance of a human head on a lion’s body they are far larger than real lions.
The sphinx almost always have spell casting ability above the 5th tier, but due to being a fused spirit are often not held in the same high regard that a fey dragon would be given despite universally being stronger than the weakest classes among the fey dragons and often even being able to match up to true fey dragons.
Much like true fey dragons, the sphinx are known to be wise and intelligent. However, they usually live apart from other fey races.
-Other Fused Spirit fey.
There are many more fey of this class. Above were the most noteworthy for their danger either in normal or demonized form, but there are still far more to the fused spirit fey and even this list is not going to be comprehensive enough to cover them all. However, some other fey of the fused spirit class include…
Adlet: Human body, dog head
Arachne: Spider below waist, human above waist
Bastete: Human body, cat head
Centaurs: Horse below waist, human above waist
Echidna: Snake below waist, human above waist
Fauns: Deer below waist, human above waist. Also has small horns on head.
Khnm: Another goat-human fusion, this one with only the head of a goat. Unlike satyrs, khnm have no magical inclination.
Lamia: Human head on a serpentine legged reptilian body. Thought to be a fusion of human, snake, and lizard.
Manticore: Lion-human-scorpion fusion. Human head and scorpion tale on a lion’s body.
Minotaurs: Human torso and arms, bull head and legs.
Onocentaur: Donkey below waist, human above waist
Scorpios: Scorpion below waist, human above waist.
Scylla: Octopus below waist, human above waist.
Sekhmet: Human body with a lion head
Siren: Female only, head and body of a woman, legs and wings of a bird.
Author's note
Thanks to a suggestion by LookingForKeys, there will be 2 lore chapters posted today. The 2nd lore chapter will be the IRL lore that much of this in-world lore is based off of and explain how it is I took it from there to what you see here. It all has an actual rational behind it, and at the end of the arc is the perfect place to put something like this.
I have not finished writing the IRL inspirations lore chapter yet, it will be up later as soon as I finish it.