Aes Sidhe

Where the peoples of earth have lifespans that are measured in decades, the Aes Sidhe live for millennia due to their solar year being around 1,200 times longer than earths. As such their society and development has adapted to this. While there are still the daily tasks that need doing, their magic makes short work of things like food preparation and cleaning. Instead, they take life slowly, observing their surroundings to a level that would leave shorter lived races exasperated. This however means that they are unparalleled trackers, as even the people that don’t learn to track properly have learnt the differences in the environment that are the tell-tale signs of tracks.

This attention to detail also applies to their arts and crafts, as they will spend years building a wall. Inspecting every single stone to ensure that it’s absolutely perfect for the space it’s going to occupy and manually shaping it to size. If the stone is particularly pleasing to them, they may even take the time to carve patterns into its surface. In many of the palaces and halls, the ornate artwork that’s engraved onto the walls is often only one facet of the work that has gone into each stone. As the stones taken individually would be considered works of art of the highest calibre on earth. They also take similar care to learn exactly how hard they need to press in order to carve a line perfectly, paint the perfect line, or deliver the perfect blow with no wasted energy. This attention to detail is also why they are the only species that is known to be able to conjure permanent items. It is considered the mark of a master warrior that they can dissipate their favoured weapon, and then re-create it exactly and have it successfully resist all attempts to dispel or disrupt the magic holding it together in the same way a made item would.

Unlike most life on their planet, they evolved in the deep Valleys of the mountains where the impact of the Solar events that happen four times a year are blunted by the mountains surrounding them. The shade provided preventing the living fire from forming, and the caves providing protection from the hoarfrost, the isolation also preventing the Slaugh that form from wild magic during the triple dark from becoming too strong. As such the oldest settlements outside the mountains bear a strong resemblance to those same mountains, and they still prefer to make their homes in places where there are no clear lines of sight to the horizon. Another side effect of this and their long lives is that a temporary shelter would be a solidly built wooden house that many on earth would consider a multi-generation home, while their permanent buildings are solid works of art that are put together almost seamlessly.

While all of the previous points may make it seem like they should be a very stoic people that are prone to deep thought. This couldn’t be further from the truth. They are a very social people that show exquisite beauty in their song and dance and ability to love and laugh. Their one cultural flaw is really only that they have a tendency to view shorter lived races as transitory and as such often the subject of rather cruel entertainment in the jaded courts that are led by true immortals that have visited the shores of the sea of magic and survived to tell the tale. This is because even the lesser fae that are brought to their world will usually die of old age before a complete solar cycle has run its course. The only exception to this seems to be Urisk [House-elves], whose lifespans seem to adapt to the level of magic that their environment or bond provides. Because of this, their world has become a large scale nature reserve/safari park where the population of predators is strictly controlled so that the Urisk can live as naturally as possible, a few taken every few of their solar cycles to provide fresh blood to the ones that live in their communities. The only other species that is commonly found living in Sidhe communities are humans because they breed like mice, and are so much more industrious than Sidhe are for menial tasks like cleaning and cooking. However, as they’re unlikely to survive longer than one cycle of Bethnes, which is how they mark their age, they’re not considered to be worth teaching as by the time they’ve been taught the basics properly they’re dying of old age. Though human’s ability to pick up crude skills does mean that they’re often taught the positions of various weapon forms and then put up against their younglings to be able to see the flaws in their movements more clearly. Particularly skilled humans may even be put into the ring to fight against blooded warriors as sport.

Society makeup

Family

A family is an independent group of Sidhe that haven’t claimed land and haven’t created a heart room.

Clan

A family becomes a clan when they are able to construct a Heart Room together, usually this is on their claimed land. Although the heart room can be anywhere.

Heart Room

A space carved out of the barrier between realms. This is held in place by the magic supplied to the central runic altar. This alter needs to be made from the stump of a tree that has survived at least four triple lights, and was harvested shortly after a triple light. The room is bounded by the trunks of winter trees, these are young trees that grew between one triple light and the next triple dark and survived the darkness. The runes placed on both ensure that the magic invested in the space is not wasted by being drawn into the veil between realms.

To create a Heart room needs a person with sufficient knowledge and experience with travelling the realms, along with someone that can carve the runes. As this is a ritual, it tends to have a very noticeable signature that can be felt across large parts of the world. Clan Yewglisten appear to have discovered a way to hide this effect and create a Heart room in the middle of the Winter Court’s city.

The room itself doesn’t provide any protection against the triple light or triple dark as the magical fluctuations affect everything. As such it is very rare to find such a room built above ground. Those places where one can be found above ground are all within the boundaries of one of the courts cities.

Court

A court is a clan and it’s vassals that are led by a Titania and an Obereon, Sidhe that have spent 24 hours at the shore of the sea of magic and taken control of the court. Due to the oaths given to a court, vassals cannot create their own Heart Rooms. Indeed, even attempting to do so in court lands is liable to bring down the wrath of the local leaders. Due to the way that a Heart Room is tied to the oaths of loyalty to a clan, a clan that gives oath to a court will usually lose access to their own Heart Rooms.