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The Hidden Cousins; the Heron Women and Crawfish Men, are powerful creatures of the Dreaming.

Overview[]

These beings were born with Arcadia; they embody its great mysteries and serve as guardians of the fundamental seals and geasa of that realm. The history of Arcadia is littered with incidents of great heroes and sages seeking out the Heron Women and Crawfish Men in times of need, although there are also many stories of the Hidden Cousins appearing uninvited to give advice, make prophecy, and, in general, repair the skein of stories when it has grown tangled.

The Hidden Cousins are divided into eleven Heron Women and eleven Crawfish Men who serve as their spouses. It is said that the mysteries guarded by the Women are the ones that pertain to the Seelie Way, while the Men are set over Unseelieness. Both groups take the form of various hybrids of human and either heron or crawfish (as the case may be), with each individual taking his or her own unique shape. Some Seelie supremacists say that the Crawfish Men lust after the graceful Heron Women and that the Herons disdain the ugliness of their counterparts, but no one truly wise actually believes such a thing. The Crawfishes and the Herons are husband and wife, and the whole of Faerie are their children; this is indisputable truth.

Many changeling heroes and sages have quested after one or another of the Hidden Cousins in order to learn his or her associated mystery. These quests tend to contain a number of ordeals and tests before the seeker arrives at the hidden pool or lake in which the Hidden Cousin is currently making their home. Kithain who succeed must shoulder a geas in order to learn the mystery, but the nature of this geas is secret... to be known, the nature of the Hidden Cousins must be encountered face to face. At the end, though, the quester comes away from the water with knowledge of one of the old magics of Faerie, and can say that they have seen one of its mysteries.

It is said that, in the old days, the Heron Women and the Crawfish Men would, of their own volition, come to great seekers and tutor such heroes in the ways of Faerie without charge or Ban. This practice has not taken place for some time, though.

The Mwa[]

There are rumors of a single entity set above the Women and Men to govern all the mysteries, but most faeries do not concern themselves with this being. Some believe that this highest entity is the mother of the woman crowned with stars and referred to by the human mages as Luna, the High Queen of Arcadia. Others believe that it is the elusive being listed in the Green and Black Compendia as the Mwa. If so, this being, the Mwa, is the embodiment of the Sigil of Faerie, the first Gift, for which the teign to Hell is due. Still, others believe that no such thing as the Mwa exists... of the handful of changelings who claim to have met the One, nearly all are known liars.

References[]

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