Sluagh (CTD)

Called the underfolk by many, the sluagh (SLOO-ah) are often pariahs even among other fae. Though rumors persist of underground catacombs and mazelike lairs, many sluagh prefer crumbling Victorian mansions to dank sewers. Places dark and forgotten, often with a mushroom garden, attract them. Those who intrude into their inner sanctums often leave with nightmares. Just as they value secrets and mysteries, sluagh treasure their privacy, and do a great deal to foster reputations that discourage visitors.

History
Loremasters say that these Kithain were once Russian faeries who lived under mountains or mortal hearths. Now they live out of sight in the cracks of the world, hidden until they choose to venture out, sometimes to court, sometimes to mortal environs. Whether they live in parlors or crawlspaces, sluagh are unsettlingly polite and have a great love of formality. Such is even more unnerving to the other kith; boggan rumors hint at secret sluagh rituals, sacrifice and wild carnage under the earth. The underfolk enjoy the effect they have on outsiders, and are amused at the reputation they have acquired. Even redcaps fear their clammy touch.

Despite their preference for quiet, adventurous sluagh do visit the surface courts, cultivate friendships and enter oathbonds with outsiders. They will go out of their way to aid or protect an outsider who has shown them respect and friendship. These good deeds are frequently misinterpreted by other suspicious changelings, so such relationships are often brief. Still, even sluagh who find a clique they can trust need to have a secret place to which they can retreat.

The underfolk collect information ( secrets are better though), and barter their knowledge to interested parties. Revelation is joy; the more unsettling the revelation, the greater the joy. While Seelie use their knowledge for more noble ends, Unseelie can make a crooked living through blackmail. Secrets are but one commodity to them, though. Broken toys, strange knickknacks and anything resonant with nostalgia makes for an excellent item for trade. Outsiders are mystified by the value sluagh place on these items, but then again, perversity is the sluagh's trademark.

Though it is said that all sluagh follow Unseelie ways, they rarely throw in behind either Court, keeping instead to themselves. Among their own kind, these kith are generous and almost painfully formal. They regard each other with deep respect, and band together against outsiders if need be. Shrouded in mystery, the sluagh hold the secrets of their kith closest of all as they cultivate their image. In darkness they thrive.

A Night's Worth of History
As long as the sluagh have known enough to name themselves, they have walked with the dead and in the shadows. This is as much a part of what they are as who they are. Sluagh and death, sluagh and fear, sluagh and pain... they are all bound up in a knot of years and darkness. Telling their history, therefore, is in some sense an obituary. No other kith is so obsesses with the truth of their origins. They search for the moment and place where the first sluagh raised her head to the star-filled night and said "I am." you see, they do not lie to themselves about what they are or where they come from. They have no comforting myths of glories or sunny prophecies of a bright future. They instead want to know the past and what it means for the future. While they use illusion to frighten others, they have few of their own.

Primal Days
The sluagh were born from fear; on this they all agree. Every time a grandmother gave a name to the creaking of a floorboard or the groaning of stone, a sluagh was born. In the primal forests of Eastern Europe, the shadows and the noises came alive when they're given names and they knew their purpose. They were the terrors of the night and that was all they knew. Born from what causes fear, they knew they were to continue more of the same. Tappers on windows continued their scuttling; creatures of night noise made the same. In this way their numbers grew rapidly. As they made more noises and shadows, there were more noises and shadows to name, and the more named, the more that wakened. As their stories grew more complex, they too became more complicated. Their minds grew clearer, their purposes sharper, their cunning deeper. Tales assigned servants to them and creatures like the vodyanoi or Awd Goggie emerged to fill the roles.

The one thing the sluagh didn't know, though, was why, and this gnawed at them. Whymust they inspire fear night after night? Why did they receive more pleasure from a scream than a smile? Why was silent slithering more enjoyable that crafting art or plying more reputable trades?

Recognizance
The instant of self-realization, when it finally came, was the decisive moment for the sluagh, even more than their initial awakening. The moment they realized that they were to put fear to a good use created the kith as it is known today. They were no longer a collection of ragtag spirits haunting specific areas or houses. Instead they had purpose. Fear became their tool, not their master; a means to end, not an end. For countless centuries, sluagh researchers have worked to pin down the exact moment of this revelation came to every sluagh in existence simultaneously. None have succeeded. When it happened, though, they all knew they were not alone.

And so they came, slithering and gibbering, to a great stone ring they all somehow knew how to find. Deep in the Russian forest, far from human habitation, these children of nightmare met their brothers and sisters for the first time. All night long, they danced around the twisted gray pillars that had called to them, indulging for the first time in the sort of bacchanalia the other kith regularly subscribe to them.

The Sluagh Everyone Knows

 * Aleksei 13 Toes


 * Amie Randall


 * Todd the Gray


 * Eleanor Dell


 * Old Boris


 * Nix


 * Anna the Monster Maker

Chimerical Friends

 * Awd Goggie