I purchased Shadows of Europe, and am impressed, but there is one matter I am curious about.

While there are numerous mentions of various fey and legendary faerie-like creatures from various European mythologies, the only new creature to be given actual game statistics, in the rules section of the book, was the much-less-often-discussed Golem(and its statistics are pretty out of the ordinary for a spirit being).

Was there some judicious editing of the book before it hit the shelves, or was there never an intention of providing statistics and rules for the fey and their powers? Before anyone jumps down my throat about it, incidentally, I am well aware of the writeups in Paranormal Animals of Europe, that got mostly 3rdified with Critters.

It's just that a majority of the creatures mentioned in Shadows of Europe do not appear in any material I have encountered. Can anyone involved comment?

Actually, therre was a long discussion ¡n the group about how the Fae should be handled and what should be shown openly and what should be kept "at gamemaster's discrection". The biggest problem is that Fae is a term that covers an ingent amount of different creatures, with different powers, personalities, and so on... and each country (and often inside each country) treats them in slightly different manner.

So, the final choice was to leave them out of SoE because of wordcount mostly. I'm not sure, but I believe that SOTA: 64 gives some info on them. Still, don't hold your hand over the fire for my words.

Theres also the problem with classifying such a diverse catagory of creatures. Fae covers so many different critter types that you really need a whole section just to cover the basics. Then there are several different names and identities for the same essential creature depending upon which country's folklore you are refering too.

But yeah, overall there just wasn't enough room to fit it all in. SOTA '64 might expand upon it (I'm unsure of exactly what was covered therein, but it was one of the topics originally suggested). Most likely there will be further details in the forthcoming Running Wild sourcebook.

As far as I know, there was no plan to develop the Faeries more than what has already been done in SoE.
Faeries are left open to GM interpretation, so don't fear to be contradicted by canon in a few months. They can be seen as either paracritters or spirits (or something else entirely, I let your imagination do the rest).

Both Beeste and Mike have nailed it on the head. The Fey represent an immense variety of different critters and beings, with different abilities, behaviour, and background folklore - which on top of everything else may or may not be spirits depending on the GM's interpretation and needs. It was discussed and decided that in the available space we'd never be able to fit anything resembling a representative sample and that putting a small sample in might lead to a restrictive interpretations which were just as undesireable.

As the Game Info indicates the decision was made to keep the Fey a flexible and mysterious quantity in the hands of the GM. Afterall the writers are always being accused of putting stats up for things they shouldn't and excessively shackling GMs. If there's one case where keeping things mysterious is justified I think the Fey are it.

That being said if there's enough interest in it, we could look into providing some background and suggested stats for some of the best known Fey as web content.

that would work. i wouldn't worry a whole lot about missing this or that region's folklore if/when fey get a writeup; SR has been defining its own folklore since its inception, vis-a-vis vampires, werewolves, etcetera.

As a suggestion, if you do decide to tackle a website write-up, perhaps you could do just a representative sample from just one region. With a continued caution that it's only representative for that region, and others may or will be different, that should be enough to keep fans happy I think.

Or a general entry could be kept for the most common Fey (teasing elfs, for example), with a small section in it to cover names in different countries and small changes in their mechanic according to those folclores.

So, the info would be there and cover most of the Fey, without taking the mystery from them (many of them would still be left uncovered) and giving hints as to the differrents views that exist on them.

I like how the faeries were handled. They are so diverse that even and SB would get grief, but I always thought it was wrong that this ancent legend was not touched on. This really give something to work with, just a little imagination and go to town.

The problem I have is that there are already statistics for some fey. Also, some creatures that are standard paranormal animals in Shadowrun are based upon fey creatures of legend. If they're supposed to be like unique spirits, the not-spirit fey for which we have statistics contradict this, and we are introduced to the question of whether or not we should adjust or discard the statistics for the paranormals who are, in legends, fey.

As far as fey who already have statistics go(I am including legendary sorcerous creatures from other regions as well, since it seems fey include fey-like legendary creatures), we have the Bean Sidhe, the Baba Yaga, the Domovoi, the Each-uisge, King Frosts, Knockers, Kluddes, Sprite, and Tungak.

As far as "fey" who seem to be just regular paranimals, and mostly pre-date the introduction of the "fey are special" system of paranormal classifications, are the Black Annis, the Corpselight(Will-o-the-wisp?), Fomorians, Goblins, Leshy, and possibly Satyr.

I was going to mention munchkins(the apelike creatures from Paranormal Animals of North America), but it seems that they, and a whole lot of other creatures, disappeared between editions. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed this before.

Likewise, on a sidenote, does anyone else think that it was a bad decision to make goblins the dwarven equivalent of the human vampire? They're strong, fast, immune to fire, drain essence through some unexplained method, and regenerate. That just doesn't seem right to me.

I agree. Goblins in literature fall into the general catagory of evil fey. Either small orks(note in The Hobbit the "orcs" are refered to as "Goblins") or as malignante faeries.

The most famous fey have been around for a while in SR, the sidhe.


As for the fact that some creatures from faerie have appeared in the critters books, easily explained.
1)Some fey have always been more spirit than flesh, just because we lump them all under one umberella (or would that be under one hill?) doesn't mean they are.

It may be that the satyrs always were a type of ork, but in the muddle of legends they got dropped in with the fey, with whom they have nothing in common.

2) It may be that remembering the things called "water horse" (I can't remember the celtic spelling) are not the real fey but was close enough that people coping with the awakening attached the label just out of relief "ok got that one taken care of."