The Titanian Dilemma

By Ergus Frank

Careful study of the Titanian society, and the folk that make up their culture is difficult to achieve without certain bias and misinformation. As it is, the Titanian folk are often mistrustful of those who do not value nature as they do, yet through my ingenious planning and research, I have managed to get a grip on this society and how it functions.

The goddess Titania has power on Avlis, and she used it to create many different fairy races on this world. The most numerous race is the "common fairy", though they do not like to be referred to as such. Other types of fairies exist. Among them are sylphs, pixies, nixies, grigs, brownies, quicklings, redcaps, nymphs, dryads, and a whole host of others. On other worlds, it seems that centaurs and satyrs are among Titania's creations, however none of these have ever been recorded on this planet. These fall under the domain of Skern.

Though the individual cultures of fairy races may vary, they all have some things in common. Even though some races are solitary and some are social, they all ascribe to Titania's dominion. Furthermore, there are other subdivisions, independent of race. The biggest division is that of "Seelie" and "Un-seelie". This is a phenomena not seen in O'Ma's creations.

Though a fairy will give you a long explanation for what makes one seelie or un-seelie, it all boils down to when they were born. Fairy-kin born in the light time of the year, i.e. Spring and Summer, are Seelie. Fairy-kin born in the dark time of the year, i.e. Fall and Winter, are Un-seelie. These distinctions are in large part the determining factor of the fairy's attitude.

The second denomenator is that of nobility and status. Often it is a matter of prestige.... fairy-kin all have some kind of prestige system that I cannot decipher, but it is suffice to say that some fairies are considered Noble or High, and some are cosidered Low. The nearest equivalent is that of the nobility systems found in humans and elves. It is partly based on wealth and power, yet there is an element of virtue in it as well.

It is most interesting to explore attitudes in reference to humans and O'Ma fairies. In general, the seelie types are compassionate. They do not believe in union with non-fairy folk, but they do believe that the two can coexist together in piece, under the right conditions. The high-born seelie fairies often see that the reality of this is that humans are intractable and cannot be trusted, and therefore must often be dealt with harshly, and even more so in the case of O'Ma fairies. Low-born seelie fairies are often oblivious to these realities and are most likely to push for peace. Un-seelie fairy folk have a different nature. They believe that their way is the only valid point, and that union or even cohabitation with the non-fairy folk is a blight on nature. The high-born un-seelie folk favor extermination of O'Ma's "minions", while the low-born un-seelie folk often agree.

This flavor of attitude often peppers all of their decisions. Un-seelie have been known as the most passionate of their kind. The position of the fairy in society dictates whether their views are put into practice or not.