Draft — needs rewrite.
Overview
The Otherworld is a liminal reality that exists alongside the mortal world, reached through places where boundaries thin: Hollows beneath hills and stone, Trods winding through deep and untouched landscapes, and the rarer Deeps that open onto its seas. Time and space behave unpredictably there, and those who cross into it rarely return unchanged. Whether this Otherworld is a single vast realm or a network of separate worlds connected by fragile crossings remains unresolved. Fae courts insist it is one place with many regions; other traditions deny this, and the evidence supports both claims in equal measure.
The Faerie Courts at Their Height
In the West, the Otherworld was once dominated by the faerie courts, a sophisticated and deeply hierarchical civilization. At its height, it was ruled by a High King or Queen, a figure meant to embody unity across the Seelie and Unseelie divide. Beneath the High Crown were lesser Kings and Queens, each ruling a major domain anchored in a great Hollow, a network of Trods, or a coastal stronghold. Lords and Ladies governed smaller territories or held influence at court, and beneath them lay a web of sworn retainers, allies, and rivals. Fae society was defined by ritual, hospitality, and constant political maneuvering. Even in times of peace, the courts were never stable; rivalry between Seelie and Unseelie factions simmered beneath every alliance. Knights existed not as a formal rank but as a matter of oath — individuals bound to service, quests, or ideals, often carrying out the will of their patrons in both diplomacy and violence.
The Enemy and the Long Retreat
This world began to fail in the early nineteenth century. Accounts differ on why, but all agree that something entered the Otherworld: a force now called the Enemy. It is not well understood. Some describe it as a place rather than a being, others as an intrusion from outside creation, and still others as something the fae themselves unleashed. What is known is its effect. Where the Enemy spreads, the land withers into what is now called the Waste Land. Glamour fails, structures decay or warp, and living beings are twisted into feral or monstrous forms. The Enemy does not conquer in the conventional sense; it unravels.
As the nineteenth century progressed, the faerie courts entered what later generations would call the Long Retreat. Entire regions were abandoned as they became uninhabitable. Trods failed or were sealed, isolating courts from one another. Internal tensions worsened. Some fae blamed industrialization in the mortal world, claiming that railways, iron, and the destruction of wild places weakened the boundaries that sustained their realm. Others blamed the Franklonian system and the growing human effort to regulate and suppress magic. Franklonian doctrine, in turn, held the Enemy up as proof that magic must be controlled to prevent further catastrophe. Independent mages offered yet another explanation, arguing that faerie excess, ancient experiments, or the reckless manipulation of reality had opened the door. No account has ever been accepted as definitive.
The Fall: July 16, 1945
The end came on July 16, 1945. On that day, the last great Occidental court fell, and the final High King died. The circumstances of his death are disputed. Some say he fell defending the last city against the Enemy. Others claim he attempted a great working to seal the invasion and failed. There are whispers of mortal involvement, of bargains struck and broken. What is certain is that with his death, the last unifying authority of the faerie courts vanished. The political structure collapsed almost immediately. Kings died, fled, or vanished into the Waste Land. Lords and Ladies scattered. The courts ceased to exist as a coherent civilization.
The Otherworld Today
In the years since, the Otherworld has become a fractured landscape. The Waste Land dominates what were once its heartlands, vast regions where fae cannot survive for long. The remaining habitable spaces are limited to Hollows, especially large enclaves known as Hollow Hills, and a handful of functioning Trods that connect them. The Deeps, the sea-realms of the Otherworld, are said to have fared better, but their inhabitants are distant and largely uninvolved in the struggles of the surface. Travel between safe regions is dangerous and often impossible without passing back through the mortal world.
Modern fae society exists in exile. The old titles — King, Lord, Lady — are still used, but often reflect memory more than power. A "King" may rule nothing more than a single Hollow or a handful of followers. Political unity is gone, replaced by shifting alliances and quiet rivalries. Many fae have embedded themselves in the mortal world, where survival now depends as much on influence as on magic. Chief among these structures is the Syndicate, an organized crime network through which fae and mortals alike traffic in magical goods, artifacts, people, and lachryms. These crystallized units of suffering have become one of the common currencies of supernatural trade. Control of crossings, resources, currency, and territory has replaced the old courtly order.
Fae in the Modern Era: Two Populations
Modern fae exist in two distinct conditions, and the distinction matters more than any question of Seelie or Unseelie alignment.
The first group is the exiles — fae who have left the Otherworld and established themselves in the mortal world. They retain their identities, their politics, and their sense of self. They are diminished in various ways, constrained by the mortal world's rules and the Authority's surveillance, but they are still recognizably themselves. Seelie and Unseelie factions persist among the exiles, as do the old titles, old grievances, and old loyalties. The Syndicate is primarily an exile institution.
The second group is what remains in the Waste Land: the Briar Court. This is not a court in any meaningful historical sense. It is an ecosystem shaped by decay, scarcity, and survival. The Briar Court has no Seelie or Unseelie alignment — those distinctions belong to a world that no longer exists in the Waste Land. What it has instead are Briar Lords, stronger figures who hold territory and command lesser Blighted fae and beastlike servitors, beneath them a broad, unstable population of warped fae and fully devolved creatures.
The condition that defines the Briar Court is called Blighted. Any fae who remains in the Waste Land long enough risks it. Blight manifests physically and spiritually: thorn growths, bark-like skin, antlers or branching bone, and a cracked, feral form of glamour that no longer resembles the controlled glamour of the courts. A Blighted fae is not dead and not wholly other — they are transformed, adapted to an environment that is slowly consuming everything.
This is what makes the Briar Court significant to exiles. It is not merely a distant problem. It is a possible future. Given enough time in the Waste Land — whether by choice, accident, or capture — any fae can become Blighted. The exiles know this. It shapes how they think about the Otherworld, about return, and about how long they can afford to be away from stable ground.
Contested Questions
Even the most basic questions about fae life are contested. The matter of changelings is one such point of dispute. Fae generally maintain that stories of widespread child-stealing were exaggerated, and that they once reproduced naturally. Many human scholars argue the opposite — that fae have never been capable of natural reproduction, and that changelings were not exceptions but the foundation of their existence. In the modern era, the truth is obscured further, entangled with Syndicate activity and survival pressures.
Other Otherworlds
Beyond the West, other cultures describe their own otherworlds: the realms of the jinn in the Middle East, the courts of yakshas and nagas in South Asia, the spirit domains of East Asia, the ancestral and forest worlds of Africa, and the sky worlds and spirit lands of the Americas. Some believe these are all aspects of the same underlying reality, shaped by culture and perception. Others insist they are entirely separate, connected only by rare and unstable crossings. The spread of the Enemy into multiple traditions lends weight to the idea of a shared structure, but differences in magic, geography, and access remain difficult to reconcile.
North America
In North America, the Otherworld now appears almost entirely in the form of the Occidental faerie realm. Hollow Hills, Seelie and Unseelie politics, and fae court structures dominate what crossings remain. The older indigenous otherworlds that once existed there are largely gone. Some were destroyed, others displaced, and some perhaps absorbed into the expanding fae domains during the colonial period. What remains are fragments: ruined crossings, isolated spirits, and places where something older can still be felt but not fully reached. As with so much else, the cause of this erasure is disputed. Some blame fae expansion, others the Enemy, and others still the combined pressures of both.
Key Terms
The Otherworld — The liminal reality existing alongside the mortal world. Whether it is one realm or many connected realms is unresolved.
Hollows — Places where the boundary between the mortal world and the Otherworld thins enough to cross. Ranging from small gaps beneath hills and stones to large habitable enclaves (Hollow Hills).
Trods — Pathways through the Otherworld connecting Hollows and other locations. Many have failed or been sealed since the Long Retreat.
The Deeps — The sea-realms of the Otherworld. Less affected by the Enemy than the surface domains; their inhabitants are largely uninvolved in current struggles.
The Enemy — The force that entered the Otherworld in the early nineteenth century and has been consuming it since. Its nature is unknown and disputed. Its effect is the Waste Land.
The Waste Land — Regions of the Otherworld destroyed by the Enemy. Glamour fails there; structures decay or warp; living beings are twisted into feral forms.
The Long Retreat — The name later generations gave to the progressive abandonment of the Otherworld by the faerie courts throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Seelie / Unseelie — The two broad factions of the faerie courts. The divide between them predates recorded fae history. Neither term has a fixed meaning that all fae agree on.
The Syndicate — The organized crime network through which fae and their mortal associates now operate in the mortal world. Traffics in magical goods, artifacts, people, and lachryms. Has replaced the old courtly order as the primary structure of fae power.
Exiles — Fae who have left the Otherworld and established themselves in the mortal world. They retain their identities and their factional alignments. The Syndicate is primarily an exile institution.
The Briar Court — What remains of fae society in the Waste Land. Not a court in the historical sense, and not aligned as Seelie or Unseelie. An ecosystem of decay, scarcity, and adaptation, organized loosely around Briar Lords and the Blighted fae and servitors beneath them.
Briar Lords — The stronger figures within the Briar Court, holding territory and commanding lesser Blighted and devolved creatures. The title is descriptive rather than formal.
Blighted — The condition of fae who have been transformed by prolonged exposure to the Waste Land. Manifests physically (thorn growths, bark-like skin, antlers or branching bone) and in a cracked, feral form of glamour. Not a death — a transformation. Any fae faces this risk if they remain in the Waste Land long enough.
Changelings — A contested subject. Whether fae historically stole human children and left fae substitutes as a reproductive necessity, or whether this was rare and exaggerated, is genuinely disputed between fae and human accounts.