"Listless and bored you might see them, making no effort to hide themselves. Staring for hours at cold stone. I have seen men scream and rage at them and their eyes not even flicker - and I have seen them pour forth from their burrows and dens and cut down a host of men with the savagery of beasts. They are ruin."
The Court of Fade and Fall
Domains: Decay, Rot, Ruin, Despair, Fatalism, Depression, Prophecy, Ennui, Disease, Atrophy, History, Nostalgia, Sorrow, Memory, Secrets and Inaction.
Heraldry: Three crows on a red field, wings displayed.
Unique among the Courts of Fey, the Court of Fey and Fall has accepted their defeat and the primacy of man, and exists in a state of vassalage to the throne of Brumaire. The terms of that vassalage limit their territory to their ancient seat of Eigatýn and a small hinterland, and they are promised to supply a tribute to the King's Court in mystics, seers and fortune-tellers, who trickle forth from the ruined city. Whilst centuries ago the auspices and haruspices of the Court of Fade and Fall were regarded as great boons to the king, and stood high in his counsel, they have become an oft-forgotten curiosity. The current revolution leaves the legality of this arrangement in highly-suspect limbo, as there is currently no one sitting on the throne of Brumaire. Once, the Court in Eigatýn was a vast and puissant kingdom - now it is a ruin haunted by ghosts of flesh.
The rest of the Court of Fade and Fall dwell in the sacked city of Eigatýn, creeping amidst the ruined mansions and shattered fountains, digging hovels in the great cracks in the antideluvian roads and bridges of this valley city. Here some gather and hoard books and scrolls and testimonies, and work towards a complete history of the Court of Eigatýn and its ancient grandeur. Others gather trinkets and trophies of Eigatýn's exalted past and build small shrines. Others simply crawl, listless, scarcely bothering to eat, sleeping fitfully - the psychic shock of the Sack of Eigatýn having broken their spirit forever. These denizens of the Court can scarcely dare to desire that which was taken by humanity, can scarcely name the emptiness within. In faded robes, wearing a motley assortment of plundered and greening jewellery, bedecked in warped and bent crowns - In this cyclopean limbo they persist.
Men visit Eigatýn at their peril - the reputation of the City of Loss keeps most at bay - but the prospect of hidden treasures guarded only by broken fey, or the hoarded knowledge of immortals is too great a temptation. Plunderers in Eigatýn face the ancient ward-magic of the fey, the dangers of a city crumbling around them and the sudden violence of the Court of Fade and Fall, who can strike like cornered animals with the slightest provocation with incredible ferocity. Atrophied limbs and sunken cheeks give way to bouts of sorcery and sudden urban ambush - from sewer tunnels and basements and the cracked roofs of dead palaces they come with a wolf's mercy.
The Queen of Fade and Fall is a witch-queen; a shape-shifter; a crone; an immortal rotting in her living body yet clinging to life. Preserved in a tomb of jade, her only motion is to dispense whispered prophecies to the cringing petitioners that crawl in the dust to her throne. Every augury she gives is one of tragedy and ruin and she is always wholly correct.
Fealty
Any Fey may swear lasting fealty to the Court of Fade and Fall, and gain their protection. To do so will earn the lasting enmity of the Court of Spur and Spring even if the oath is rescinded.
A vassal to the Court of Fade and Fall may grow in status by adding to the libraries of Eigatýn or by living a life in accord with the mores of the Court of Fade and Fall, or by serving the Queen in war and peace.A Fey Pact Warlock who compacts to the Court of Fade and Fall may instead use the following bonus spells:
1st: Ray of Sickness, Dissonant Whispers
2nd: Augury, Ray of Enfeeblement
3rd: Speak with Dead, Slow
4th: Confusion, Blight
5th: Legend Lord, Antilife Shell
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