Post by indagare on Mar 24, 2015 17:26:31 GMT -5
I have a lot of questions about Neopian Faeries. I decided to write an article pretending to interview Delina about them. I'd like a review of it as well as any questions I might have accidentally left out and, well, anything else - flaws in logic or similar. I included it within this message for folks who don't want to download the file.
Delina has kindly agreed to answer some of the questions most on the average Neopian mind regarding faeries. Thank you for being here Delina.
“I’m glad to help!”
The first question is: Where do faeries come from?
“Oh, wow, you don’t mess around, do you? I like that! It shows real creative drive! Well, everyone knows we faeries come in six basic types: dark, light, fire, earth, water, and air. There are also natural magical forces at work. When there’s a concentration of both in one place, new faeries come out of it. For instance, I was born near Neovia, which has a lot of ley lines and dark magic. Every year there are some new faeries born (we like to call them sprites until they’re about a hundred or so—they’re so tiny and cute).”
Okay, but while it seems to be common for faeries to call one another ‘sister’, sometimes that bond seems a bit closer than a formality: the Drenched, and the Dark Faerie Sisters Vanity, Spite, and Malice come to mind. Then, Aethia claims to be the daughter of Dreeana…
“Ah! That’s a great point! You’re really observant! You’d make a great artist! Anyway, most of the time faeries come into being alone and are later found by another, older faerie that teaches them and protects them. The older faerie is often called ‘mother’ by the younger as a sign of love and respect. Sometimes if a large enough source of a particular energy exists it creates multiple new faeries all at once or even single ones over the course of years. These faeries, coming from the same source, feel a strong bond to one another. This is what happened in the case of the Drenched and the Dark Faerie Sisters.”
And I take it that would be the same for grandmothers as well?
*giggles* “You’ve been playing too much Neoquest II! That game is okay, but it has some really odd ideas about how faeries work. No faerie I can think of would want to be called a grandmother, and it would get even stranger the further back you go. No, ‘mother’ is all we use for the person that raised us and ‘daughter’ as a sign of great affection to the ones we cared for. Of course, being raised by the same ‘mother’ is another way that faeries might feel more strongly to be sisters than usual.”
Which brings up the question: who’s the oldest faerie?
“Ooh! That’s a tough one! Most of us start to lose track after the first thousand years or so. I’m honestly not sure who was around first, but I can tell you that as long as Neopia has been around there have been faeries. There’s lots of rumors that there were originally thirty-seven faeries, one of every type and combination and one of the unique ones. There are even rumors that Mira and Queen Fyora were among them, but I’m not about to ask!”
Why aren’t there male faeries?
“That’s both easy and hard to answer all at the same time! I really like your curious mind! The trouble is that it’s sort of like asking why water isn’t dry; the magical forces that create us aren’t polarized the right way to create males. There’s just no way for it to happen.”
I see. Are there any underground faeries? Moltara would seem perfect for a lot of fire faeries and possibly some unusual earth faeries.
“You know, I’ve often wondered about that myself! I’ve never heard of any faeries from Moltara or underground at all! That doesn’t mean there aren’t any, but I suspect that despite the powerful elemental magics of the core, there may not be the right types of magical energies to mix with it. Then again, there could be a whole underground community of faeries just waiting to be found! That reminds me, I need to talk with Cog about some new crafting items.”
Alright, but what about Kreludor?
“I’ve never heard about any faeries there either! I like your drive! You’d be great at creating new things! Anyway, I’m not sure why there are no moon faeries, but who knows? They could be there but just very shy!”
Okay. So what can you tell me about wings? There seems to be quite the variety.
“Oh yeah! I just love how that works out! Did you know you can make wings with some copper wire and spools of silk thread? Oh, and then there’s tissue paper assortment and wood shavings, bottles of glitter and a stack of zippers, dye bottles and a jar of cotton, glass pieces and a jar of beads…”
Er, I mean non-crafted faerie wings.
“Oh!” *giggles* “Sorry, I get caught-up in my crafting sometimes! Well, there are six basic shapes and patterns: dark faeries have leathery wings with these interesting claws, light faeries have narrow wings with an exterior and interior pattern; air fairies have somewhat broader wings with blue stripes on cyan; earth faeries have green, leaf-like wings; fire faeries have split tipped wings with an exterior and interior pattern; and, of course, water faeries have tails that act like wings. Obviously there are some exceptions or unusual patterns; these are either the result of the faerie being unique or because the faerie in question has dual elements.”
Dual elements?
“Well, usually there’s just one element in an area, but in places like the Haunted Woods or Faerieland, there are sometimes more than one. There’s always a primary and a secondary element, though. Ilere and Jhudora are good examples of dual-elemental faeries with opposite primary and secondary: Ilere is an example of a primarily earth faerie that has darkness as a secondary element while Jhudora is a darkness faerie that has earth as a secondary.”
So the Drenched are basically water faeries but where they came from was mixed with darkness?
“Exactly! The primary element determines the shape of the wings but the secondary determines colour or patterns. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. I’m a darkness faerie but instead of having a reddish colour inside my wings, they’re purple. Dual air and light faeries tend to have pink or purple wings. Queen Fyora is a good example. She’s primarily light (which is why she has an exterior purple pattern), but she’s almost as strong in air (which coloured her wings in pink instead of cyan). Sophia, the Library Faerie, is the same way, even if her pattern isn’t the same, while Empanda (the Soup Faerie) has a similar outer pattern to Queen Fyora’s though she’s purely a light faerie. Bree won’t admit it, but she’s really primarily a light faerie with fire as a secondary element – though she’s about as strong in both. She says the key patterns on her wings are natural, but I think she used magic. Of course, using a secondary element a lot can alter how your wings look.”
How does that wing alteration work?
“Well, Aethia is a good example—she’s simply a dual fire and light faerie. You could see this better in earlier pictures of her when her wings were split. As she’s done more with light magic, her wings have started to change to the smoother look. Bree is another example from the other end, having done so much more with fire that she prefers to be called a fire faerie. Of course, you can also use magic to make unique patterns or colors on your wings too. This sort of thing isn’t usual, though, since a faerie’s powers are tied to her wings and messing with them too much can cause trouble.”
Speaking of unique, what about unique faeries? I’ve read the Tooth Faerie is the youngest of the nine unique faeries.
“Ah! Well, like I mentioned earlier, there are six basic types and, of course, you can mix the elements, but sometimes a faerie comes up that doesn’t have anyone similar. Besides Dentia (the Tooth Faerie), there’s Jhuidah (the Island Faerie), Kari (the Negg Faerie), Mira (the Space Faerie), Taelia (the Snow Faerie), Baelia (the Grey Faerie), Drakara (the Night Faerie), Scylla (the Deepest Faerie), and Anjea (the Stork Faerie).”
Uh, you lost me on those last few. I’ve at least heard of Baelia, but Drakara, Scylla, and Anjea are new to me.
*giggles* “Oh, well, you aren’t likely to meet any of them. Drakara looks like a darkness faerie but has these really cool feathery patterns on her wings and she’s got this neat black and white hair. Though she looks really mean and scary, she’s actually one of the nicest faeries around! She’s in charge of protecting Neopets from nightmares. Scylla lives in the deepest part of the ocean and generally doesn’t come out anymore. It’s pretty sad, really; she blames herself for not being fast enough to prevent the destruction of old Maraqua. She’s got tentacles instead of the usual tail. Finally, Anjea has these white, feathery wings with black tips sort of like a tomamu. I’m not sure why she’s called the Stork Faerie, but it could be that tomamu are known as storks somewhere. Anyway, she’s responsible for delivering baby Neopets to their parents.”
Baby Neopets are delivered by the Stork Faerie?!
“Of course they are! Where do you think they come from, some computer?” *giggles*
Ah, er, okay. What about Nuria, Siyana, and the Dark Faeries sisters? All of them seem to have pretty unique wings.
“Oh, well, with the Dark Faerie sisters they were born near the Darigan Citadel and that seems to be what caused their odd wings. Nuria and Siyana were both born in locations of extremely powerful fire and light energies, which is why their wings are so odd. I even know this one water faerie whose tail looks like she was painted with a water paint brush! Like I said before; while the shapes are the most usual for the elemental type, they’re not the only ones possible.”
Ah, thank you very much. Just a few more questions and we’ll be done. Can faeries die? Valeane, the previous Battle Faerie, was mentioned as being seen as a ghost while the dark faerie Ariadne is said to have faded from existence.
“The short answer is no, faeries can’t die and can’t be ‘killed’—at least not in the way you’re thinking. What happened to those two poor faeries is almost unique. In the case of Valeane, she was cursed by the swords when she answered incorrectly. She’s stuck in a sort of limbo, and I’m really not sure if there’s any way to free her. As for Ariadne, when she was freed from Tura-Kepek’s control, the magical discharge forced her to take on an incorporeal form temporarily. She’s feeling much better now. In any case, trying to destroy a faerie is a very bad idea as you saw what happened when we were all turned into stone.”
What’s the status on Faerieland? It’s been undergoing some extensive renovations—is it any closer to being returned to the sky?
“That’s actually a pretty sticky question right now. There’s a lot of internal strife about it, I’m sorry to say. While light and air faeries are all for getting it back up as soon as possible, the earth and water faeries think it ought to stay where it is. The water faeries are particularly against raising it again, since it was really hard for them to get to it before. Fire and dark faeries are staying out of it for the most part. Most of the dark faeries I know prefer the Haunted Woods anyway while the fire faeries are pretty evenly split. I’m not sure how it will end, but even if Faerieland doesn’t go back up, I kinda hope something replaces it in the skies of Neopia. Having the Darigan Citadel as the only bit of flying land is pretty sad, especially since sooner or later I imagine Lord Darigan is going to want to go back to where he came from and land it.”
Ah, okay. The last question is for you. Why are you so interested in crafting?
“Isn’t it obvious? Everywhere I went I heard how crafty dark faeries were, but can you believe none of them know how to craft one single thing that’s not a spell?! I couldn’t believe it! Here we are supposed to be the craftiest faeries on Neopia and no one crafts anything! Well, I felt it was high time someone showed those other silly darkness faeries how to be the craftiest faerie in all Neopia! Speaking of which, all this has got me inspired! What do you say to a quest? I’ll only need a couple items, and I know just where you can find them…”
Delina has kindly agreed to answer some of the questions most on the average Neopian mind regarding faeries. Thank you for being here Delina.
“I’m glad to help!”
The first question is: Where do faeries come from?
“Oh, wow, you don’t mess around, do you? I like that! It shows real creative drive! Well, everyone knows we faeries come in six basic types: dark, light, fire, earth, water, and air. There are also natural magical forces at work. When there’s a concentration of both in one place, new faeries come out of it. For instance, I was born near Neovia, which has a lot of ley lines and dark magic. Every year there are some new faeries born (we like to call them sprites until they’re about a hundred or so—they’re so tiny and cute).”
Okay, but while it seems to be common for faeries to call one another ‘sister’, sometimes that bond seems a bit closer than a formality: the Drenched, and the Dark Faerie Sisters Vanity, Spite, and Malice come to mind. Then, Aethia claims to be the daughter of Dreeana…
“Ah! That’s a great point! You’re really observant! You’d make a great artist! Anyway, most of the time faeries come into being alone and are later found by another, older faerie that teaches them and protects them. The older faerie is often called ‘mother’ by the younger as a sign of love and respect. Sometimes if a large enough source of a particular energy exists it creates multiple new faeries all at once or even single ones over the course of years. These faeries, coming from the same source, feel a strong bond to one another. This is what happened in the case of the Drenched and the Dark Faerie Sisters.”
And I take it that would be the same for grandmothers as well?
*giggles* “You’ve been playing too much Neoquest II! That game is okay, but it has some really odd ideas about how faeries work. No faerie I can think of would want to be called a grandmother, and it would get even stranger the further back you go. No, ‘mother’ is all we use for the person that raised us and ‘daughter’ as a sign of great affection to the ones we cared for. Of course, being raised by the same ‘mother’ is another way that faeries might feel more strongly to be sisters than usual.”
Which brings up the question: who’s the oldest faerie?
“Ooh! That’s a tough one! Most of us start to lose track after the first thousand years or so. I’m honestly not sure who was around first, but I can tell you that as long as Neopia has been around there have been faeries. There’s lots of rumors that there were originally thirty-seven faeries, one of every type and combination and one of the unique ones. There are even rumors that Mira and Queen Fyora were among them, but I’m not about to ask!”
Why aren’t there male faeries?
“That’s both easy and hard to answer all at the same time! I really like your curious mind! The trouble is that it’s sort of like asking why water isn’t dry; the magical forces that create us aren’t polarized the right way to create males. There’s just no way for it to happen.”
I see. Are there any underground faeries? Moltara would seem perfect for a lot of fire faeries and possibly some unusual earth faeries.
“You know, I’ve often wondered about that myself! I’ve never heard of any faeries from Moltara or underground at all! That doesn’t mean there aren’t any, but I suspect that despite the powerful elemental magics of the core, there may not be the right types of magical energies to mix with it. Then again, there could be a whole underground community of faeries just waiting to be found! That reminds me, I need to talk with Cog about some new crafting items.”
Alright, but what about Kreludor?
“I’ve never heard about any faeries there either! I like your drive! You’d be great at creating new things! Anyway, I’m not sure why there are no moon faeries, but who knows? They could be there but just very shy!”
Okay. So what can you tell me about wings? There seems to be quite the variety.
“Oh yeah! I just love how that works out! Did you know you can make wings with some copper wire and spools of silk thread? Oh, and then there’s tissue paper assortment and wood shavings, bottles of glitter and a stack of zippers, dye bottles and a jar of cotton, glass pieces and a jar of beads…”
Er, I mean non-crafted faerie wings.
“Oh!” *giggles* “Sorry, I get caught-up in my crafting sometimes! Well, there are six basic shapes and patterns: dark faeries have leathery wings with these interesting claws, light faeries have narrow wings with an exterior and interior pattern; air fairies have somewhat broader wings with blue stripes on cyan; earth faeries have green, leaf-like wings; fire faeries have split tipped wings with an exterior and interior pattern; and, of course, water faeries have tails that act like wings. Obviously there are some exceptions or unusual patterns; these are either the result of the faerie being unique or because the faerie in question has dual elements.”
Dual elements?
“Well, usually there’s just one element in an area, but in places like the Haunted Woods or Faerieland, there are sometimes more than one. There’s always a primary and a secondary element, though. Ilere and Jhudora are good examples of dual-elemental faeries with opposite primary and secondary: Ilere is an example of a primarily earth faerie that has darkness as a secondary element while Jhudora is a darkness faerie that has earth as a secondary.”
So the Drenched are basically water faeries but where they came from was mixed with darkness?
“Exactly! The primary element determines the shape of the wings but the secondary determines colour or patterns. Of course, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. I’m a darkness faerie but instead of having a reddish colour inside my wings, they’re purple. Dual air and light faeries tend to have pink or purple wings. Queen Fyora is a good example. She’s primarily light (which is why she has an exterior purple pattern), but she’s almost as strong in air (which coloured her wings in pink instead of cyan). Sophia, the Library Faerie, is the same way, even if her pattern isn’t the same, while Empanda (the Soup Faerie) has a similar outer pattern to Queen Fyora’s though she’s purely a light faerie. Bree won’t admit it, but she’s really primarily a light faerie with fire as a secondary element – though she’s about as strong in both. She says the key patterns on her wings are natural, but I think she used magic. Of course, using a secondary element a lot can alter how your wings look.”
How does that wing alteration work?
“Well, Aethia is a good example—she’s simply a dual fire and light faerie. You could see this better in earlier pictures of her when her wings were split. As she’s done more with light magic, her wings have started to change to the smoother look. Bree is another example from the other end, having done so much more with fire that she prefers to be called a fire faerie. Of course, you can also use magic to make unique patterns or colors on your wings too. This sort of thing isn’t usual, though, since a faerie’s powers are tied to her wings and messing with them too much can cause trouble.”
Speaking of unique, what about unique faeries? I’ve read the Tooth Faerie is the youngest of the nine unique faeries.
“Ah! Well, like I mentioned earlier, there are six basic types and, of course, you can mix the elements, but sometimes a faerie comes up that doesn’t have anyone similar. Besides Dentia (the Tooth Faerie), there’s Jhuidah (the Island Faerie), Kari (the Negg Faerie), Mira (the Space Faerie), Taelia (the Snow Faerie), Baelia (the Grey Faerie), Drakara (the Night Faerie), Scylla (the Deepest Faerie), and Anjea (the Stork Faerie).”
Uh, you lost me on those last few. I’ve at least heard of Baelia, but Drakara, Scylla, and Anjea are new to me.
*giggles* “Oh, well, you aren’t likely to meet any of them. Drakara looks like a darkness faerie but has these really cool feathery patterns on her wings and she’s got this neat black and white hair. Though she looks really mean and scary, she’s actually one of the nicest faeries around! She’s in charge of protecting Neopets from nightmares. Scylla lives in the deepest part of the ocean and generally doesn’t come out anymore. It’s pretty sad, really; she blames herself for not being fast enough to prevent the destruction of old Maraqua. She’s got tentacles instead of the usual tail. Finally, Anjea has these white, feathery wings with black tips sort of like a tomamu. I’m not sure why she’s called the Stork Faerie, but it could be that tomamu are known as storks somewhere. Anyway, she’s responsible for delivering baby Neopets to their parents.”
Baby Neopets are delivered by the Stork Faerie?!
“Of course they are! Where do you think they come from, some computer?” *giggles*
Ah, er, okay. What about Nuria, Siyana, and the Dark Faeries sisters? All of them seem to have pretty unique wings.
“Oh, well, with the Dark Faerie sisters they were born near the Darigan Citadel and that seems to be what caused their odd wings. Nuria and Siyana were both born in locations of extremely powerful fire and light energies, which is why their wings are so odd. I even know this one water faerie whose tail looks like she was painted with a water paint brush! Like I said before; while the shapes are the most usual for the elemental type, they’re not the only ones possible.”
Ah, thank you very much. Just a few more questions and we’ll be done. Can faeries die? Valeane, the previous Battle Faerie, was mentioned as being seen as a ghost while the dark faerie Ariadne is said to have faded from existence.
“The short answer is no, faeries can’t die and can’t be ‘killed’—at least not in the way you’re thinking. What happened to those two poor faeries is almost unique. In the case of Valeane, she was cursed by the swords when she answered incorrectly. She’s stuck in a sort of limbo, and I’m really not sure if there’s any way to free her. As for Ariadne, when she was freed from Tura-Kepek’s control, the magical discharge forced her to take on an incorporeal form temporarily. She’s feeling much better now. In any case, trying to destroy a faerie is a very bad idea as you saw what happened when we were all turned into stone.”
What’s the status on Faerieland? It’s been undergoing some extensive renovations—is it any closer to being returned to the sky?
“That’s actually a pretty sticky question right now. There’s a lot of internal strife about it, I’m sorry to say. While light and air faeries are all for getting it back up as soon as possible, the earth and water faeries think it ought to stay where it is. The water faeries are particularly against raising it again, since it was really hard for them to get to it before. Fire and dark faeries are staying out of it for the most part. Most of the dark faeries I know prefer the Haunted Woods anyway while the fire faeries are pretty evenly split. I’m not sure how it will end, but even if Faerieland doesn’t go back up, I kinda hope something replaces it in the skies of Neopia. Having the Darigan Citadel as the only bit of flying land is pretty sad, especially since sooner or later I imagine Lord Darigan is going to want to go back to where he came from and land it.”
Ah, okay. The last question is for you. Why are you so interested in crafting?
“Isn’t it obvious? Everywhere I went I heard how crafty dark faeries were, but can you believe none of them know how to craft one single thing that’s not a spell?! I couldn’t believe it! Here we are supposed to be the craftiest faeries on Neopia and no one crafts anything! Well, I felt it was high time someone showed those other silly darkness faeries how to be the craftiest faerie in all Neopia! Speaking of which, all this has got me inspired! What do you say to a quest? I’ll only need a couple items, and I know just where you can find them…”
