Unseelie Fey

Gwendolyn Kestrel, Dragon #304

Fey can breed with anything and, except for the pure-blood-minded seelie court fey, often do. The offspring of these liaisons are unusual creatures, blending characteristics of both parents, sometimes able to pass as a parent's creature type. In turn, these half-breeds mate and pass on a blend of features and abilities. After several generations, these mixed creatures often resemble things out of nightmares or a mad wizard's experiment.

These oddities generally are spurned by their non-fey ancestor's society. The seelie court fey view these creatures at best as pathetic half-breeds to be spurned with contempt and at worst as despicable perversions of all that is fey, to be hunted down and put out of their misery.

Creating an Unseelie Fey

"Unseelie fey" is a template that can be added to any living creature type (referred to hereafter as the "base creature"). The creature's type becomes "fey." It uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Hit Dice: d6 or by character class.

Speed: Many fey have wings. Some of them are mere vestiges unable to support the weight of the unseelie fey, but most are usable, enabling the creature to fly at twice the base creature's normal speed (average maneuverability). A base creature that normally has wings might have wings unusual for its kind. Wings can be of any type listed on the table below. Select the wings or roll randomly (see the table below).

% Chance	Type of Wings
01-33	None
34-50	Unusable wings of a type listed below
51-60	Batlike
61-70	Birdlike
71-80	Butterflylike/Mothlike
81-90	Dragonlike/Scaled
91-100	Insectlike

Special Attacks: An unseelie fey retains all the special attacks of the base creature and also gains one of the season's power described below.

Season's Power: Each unseelie fey has a metaphysical connection to one of the seasons and has the related power.

Vernal Touch (Su): To receive a vernal touch is like being kissed by springtime itself, full of life and promise. At will, as a standard action, the seelie fey can touch a creature with a vernal touch. This touch removes dazed, nauseated, fatigued, and exhausted conditions from living creatures. For undead creatures, a seelie court fey's touch attack acts like a cleric's ability to turn undead with a cleric level equal to the unseelie fey's total Hit Dice -2. Unlike a cleric's turn ability, each use of vernal touch affects only the touched undead.

Summer Caress (Su): Surrounded as if by the warm, verdant air of summer, an unseelie fey with summer's caress is protected by a magic circle of nature. This ability functions much like a magic circle against evil, except that it protects against attacks from all creatures of any alignment except for those of the animal, beast, fey, or magical beast creature types. Caster level equal to HD.

Autumn Harvest (Su): Autumn is a time of endings. As a standard action, an unseelie fey can touch a creature with a special dispelling touch. This touch acts like a targeted dispel magic. The unseelie fey can use this ability a number of times per day equal to one plus the fey's Charisma bonus (minimum 1). Caster level equal to HD.

Winter Chill (Su): An unseelie fey with winter chill has a presence that disquiets nonfey. The more beautiful the creature is, the more uncomfortable other beings feel. Living, nonfey creatures within 5 feet of her feel uneasy and suffer a morale penalty on saves equal to the unseelie fey's Charisma bonus (minimum 1).

Special Qualities: An unseelie fey retains all the special qualities of the base creature and also gains fey qualities and those listed below.

Damage Reduction: Wood and silver weapons have little effect against unseelie creatures, but iron weapons do (including normal steel weapons). Once unseelie fey reach 12 or greater hit dice, this ability is replaced by normal damage reduction. See the chart below for details.

Hit Dice	Damage Reduction
1-3	None
4-7	5/iron
8-11	10/cold iron
12+	15/cold iron

Iron Vulnerability (Ex): The mere touch of iron (including steel) deals point of damage to the unseelie fey. A hit with an iron or steel weapon deals an additional +1d6 points of damage. Unseelie fey with more than 12 Hit Dice gain damage reduction, which protects them from most of this vulnerability. When an unseelie fey of 12 or more Hit Dice is hit with or touched by an iron weapon, calculate damage including the bonus for iron vulnerability (1 point for a touch or normal damage +1d6 for a successful attack) and then apply the creature's damage reduction.

Vision: Most unseelie fey have low-light vision. Some strange breeding combinations have created odd alternatives (see the table below).

% Chance	Type of Vision
01-70	Low-light
71-80	Standard; the creature can see as well as a human
81-90	Darkvision 60 ft.
91-95	The creature lacks eyes but has tremorsense 30 ft.
96-100	The creature lacks eyes but has blindsight 30 ft.

Abilities: Changes from the base creature as follows: -2 Strength, +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution, +2 Charisma.

Skills: An unseelie fey gains a +4 racial bonus to Intimidate checks. It has the skill points of a fey; equal to 2 x Intelligence score and +2 per extra Hit Die. Treat skills from the base creature's list and from the bard's class list as class skills and other skills as cross-class. If the creature has a class, it gains skills for class levels normally.

Feats: Unseelie fey have one feat for every four levels or the base creature's total of feats, whichever is greater.

Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground

Organization: As base creature

Challenge Rating: As base creature

Treasure: As base creature or standard

Alignment: Always evil.

Advancement: As base creature or by character class

Sample Unseelie Fey: Unseelie Unicorn.
Sample Unseelie Fey: Summer Unseelie Fey.

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