Fae and Mortals: The relation between the Fae and Mortals has always been a complicated one. Conciliatory fae such as the Faeries and the greatly powerful Nymphs try their best to befriend mortals; make them feel more at ease so that they'll be more likely to consider the gentle approach of harmony with the planet they live on. This leads to conciliatory fae shaping their aethery into bodies that mortals find very pleasing to look at and be in the presence of; with the Nymphs being so supernaturally attractive that their appearances are a weapon of diplomacy in and of themselves; with mortal negotiators falling over themselves to try and please the Nymph delegations; usually equal parts male and female to try and ensure no mortals are safe from their wiles. They are certainly not above warring with mortals or underhandedly manipulating them, but generally try to maintain positive relations.
The retributive fae however, make no qualms about their methods of restoring nature's hegemony. Mass destruction and depopulation, the razing of cities and the slaughter or capture of whole populations; with those captured raised to be agents of the fae to spread ruin to other mortals or powers such as the outsiders or the elementals. The retributive fae are reupulsive and frightening to behold, meant to awe mortals with the power of nature and are often nightmarish combinations of many kinds of predators, natural features, and beasts. The conciliatory fae and the retributive fae themselves have very uneasy relations and the older a planet; the deeper the split between them becomes. At its worst, the fae can engage in brutal civil war to definitively settle the matter of how the planet shall treat with intelligent life that lives on it; wars that most mortals generally support the conciliatory fae in for obvious reasons.
Fae Deities: When the Fae first began to interact with mortals, they were intrigued by the concept of religion, and many began making it their own; starting their own faith and calling on their own gods; chosen from the greatest of their number. These beings of aethery and divinia would come to become part of the fae pantheons; and while many localized variations of fae pantheons exist; nearly all fae acknowledge a number of gods above all others. Perhaps chief among them are the triad of Xaranthir, Ahlohnia and Hrankath. Xaranthir the hunter, Ahlohnia the matron, and Hrankath the destroyer.
Ahlohnia: Appearing as a Nymph wearing the garb of forests and mountains, with clothes of leaves, bark, and stone and a crown of branches, Ahlohnia represents nature as the life giver and the healer, the rain and the wind maker, the grower and the forest creator, though in battle she can be as destructive as any other angered major deity. Not often prayed to by the retributive fae for obvious reasons, Ahlohnia came to being in a very early age; not too long after the rise of the eldest species. Older than even the Rune Elven deities, Ahlohnia is a font of great knowledge and the secrets of many worlds, but is generally reluctant to share the moist choice of secrets for fear that such things are better left buried. Instrumental in closing the rifts torn open by the great mistake of the Rune Elves; she was quick to direct her scions to help the shattered remnants of the Rune Elven Empire and the other species recover; reteaching them the secrets of spells to create food and drink so that they would not have to despoil the freshly rewilded areas with farmland.
During the age of strife, she repeatedly tried to call for peace in the heavens and the material realm as the universe tore itself apart in savage violence and extinguished nearly three quarters of all sapient life. She however, found herself forced to pick a side against the Alliance as it became clear that the likes of the Confederacy, the Overlady, the Royarchy of the Giants, the Vizdaki Hegemony, and the scions of Ulzondro were a greater threat to existence itself than the league arrayed against them and when the forces of the Alliance started purposely attacking the fae to pry at their secrets. After the war, many; including Yllireas whom she raised as a surrogate mother when the Elf was still mortal; criticized Ahlohnia for quickly trying to have the Fae secure the newly wilded places of the world from the exhausted and shattered mortals, causing a new friction between the fae and the mortals.
Xaranthir: The hunter and Ahlohnia's first spouse, Xaranthir appears as *the* wild hunter. An armored figure with the horns of a stag and a deer's skull on his helmet, Xaranthir would appear as a male nymph outside of his ornate bone and scale armour, but such is a rare occurance. Xaranthir hunts with lance or bow, and those he marks are almost always caught; though he thankfully practices catch and release in most cases unless he feels the target deserves to die. Mortals are generally beneath his notice as prey; and he instead focuses his hunts on great assaults on the universe itself; most notably in the age of the great mistake when he methodically hunted down the despoiling invaders; fighting their hordes day in and day out, chasing fractal beasts across the stars, hunting Kroatanga warlords the size of skyscrapers, and doing battle with the most vicious of tendriculous fiends as well as chasing opportunistic demon and elemental lords back to where they came from. When fae organize wild hunts, it is to him that they offer to for good fortune, and both the retributive and conciliatory fae regard him equally well, though he prefers the conciliatory Fae's approach to mortals, believing that the retributive fae's way will ultimately only lead to the ruination of the cosmos.
Xaranthir not only embodies the hunt, but also the plains, the seasons, and the selective power of lightning. Xaranthir is the layer of paths and fortune, and of balance. For a good predator does not kill more than it needs to to live, a trait that makes Xaranthir useful in mediating the disputes between the varieties of fae. Xaranthir thus also gets along quite poorly with those who destroy indiscriminately, and yet also often subscribes to the idea that periodic cleansings in times of strife and suffering are needed to encourage stability in population. Lest we be like the lemmings of tundra and spread so prolifically as to leave nothing behind for posterity.
Hrankath: The embodiment of nature as a senseless destroyer, Hrankath is a nightmare made real. A great musular shaggy beast with claws like the greatest talons one has ever beheld, wings like an eagle, the downy legs of a predatory dinosaur, a head wreathed in the shadow of its mane of moss that shows only piercing white eyes and horns like a water buffalo, while a crocodilian tail emerges from behind and branches protrude from many odd places on its mane; Hrankath is as indiscriminate as a wildfire. And like a wildfire, civilization provides great fuel for the worshippers of Hrankath. While even conciliatory fae may pray to Hrankath in times of war, it is usually the monstrous retributive fae that pray to it; particularly when they wage war on the mortals. It was Hrankath who created Therothropes as a means of making mortals suffer, and when the age of strife occured, Hrankath at first did its best to prolong and heighten the war by any means possible; though even it saw the folly in allowing the likes of the Overlady run free in time. And yet, there are times when Hrankath had proven useful to civilized life, helping to contain the madness of the great mistake in that great conflict with all and sundry. Though to call Hrankath a net positive for civilization would be a mistake.