March Rewards 7 (Patreon)

Darkfire57 

 - A marionette show full of uncannily life like puppets that are absolutely not misbehaving children/teenagers. 

- A reminder of why you should never accept food nor drinks from the fey.

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This is a caravan of Fae creatures. The Darklings make up the majority of the troupe here. At the top is a Darkling Collector, and next to him is a Darkling Tickettaker. Down below is a Darkling Puppeteer with two soulbound dolls, and the round headed one is a Dark Magician with two JubJub birds behind them.

These are the Darklings. Also known as Dark Folk or sometimes Nightfolk. The Darkfolk are gray skinned creatures and are all a kind of Fae that exist within the nameless primal forest of the Fae. Unlike most other Fae, the Darklings actively present themselves to some humans (Though they still won't enter or target villages or towns with huge numbers of people). The Darklings are called such as they exist deep within the foliage of the trees in the Primal forest, existing in the shade, or hail from the dark woods, where the Nuclear Chaos blasted apart the beautiful realms of the fae and tore apart the universe into a dreaded nightmare place. The Darkfolk scavenge these places and adventure through the black forest, and the ashen wastes, the dreamlands and other strange and distant lands. They also traverse the woods and find interesting odds and ends and make deals with other creatures which they then use to barter with humans and Fae alike to trade, often collecting names, concepts, and ideas as well as children. Though they are known by all Fae, they aren't accepted by all, and are outsiders to even their own species both Seelie and Unseelie alike. It is believed that they may have been cursed at some point, and that they search for interesting things to one day trade something to lift their curse.

The Darklings are very interested in humans and like to capture them to use as labor in their circuses and side shows which they travel around with often times. Darklings are very acrobatic and can tumble about and leap extreme distances into the air or even long jump with very little buildup. They are supernaturally nimble and rarely trip or stumble if it isn't on purpose.

Darkling Childstealers, also known as rogues or collectors, are Darklings that enter towns and villages late at night and will trick children out of their homes and windows, or collect them off of the streets. When a creature is whisked away by the Fae, it may be because of these guys collecting. They never simply take a child, and will often leave something in it's place, sometimes a gemstone, sometimes a wooden replica of the child, but always what is in their eyes, a fair trade. Childstealers are larger and more powerful than most other Darklings and often possess the ability to summon Will-o-Wisps from their lanterns and control darkfire, a special kind of fire which burns forever and burns cold. They can use their various tactics to immolate themselves in flame and teleport, or burn their foes into nothing. They often carry Darkflame knives on them, which can burn a creature from the inside out.

The Dark Tickettakers or Ticketmasters, are deformed little Darklings with twisted faces. The location of the eyes, mouth, and nose are always random with a Ticketmaster, and they can change their faces and twist them around when they feel various emotions. Their arms are excessively long, and their legs are short, leading to them often walking with their hands, or springing around places. They are called Ticketmasters as they can produce strange tickets that appear like those one would find in an arcade or at a theater. These tickets often carry with them horrible implications for those who take them, or for those who give a ticket to the ticketmaster. This is because it often has information like your name on it, or the ticket is for some form of favor or show, and then means that you are in debt to the fae. Ticketmasters can produce tickets that can work as vouchers for anything you would possibly want, and if given to a creature who possesses said item, they will often give it to you no questions asked for the ticket. Some can even cause things to happen that are normally impossible, such as giving a ticket to a normal ticket man at a theater and when you enter it leads to a Dark Circus or Carnival. Ticketmasters can get very angry if you don't accept their tickets or give them one, and they can become like horrid screaming apes quickly.

Darkling Puppetmasters are ones that specialize in controlling puppets. They are specialized in strange magics that allow them to imbue the power of a soul or similar energy into a receptacle and make it move. For instance it could bind a soul into a rock and the rock may be able to totter around and speak, and they can throw their voices to it. They have a much better time when the object takes a shape more able to move and change it's form, or which at least possesses the ability to emulate limbs, such as a chair having legs or a shirt having arms. This allows for creatures with a consciousness to be able to maneuver such objects and items, and some magic items found with personalities and voices can be traced back to the Darklings. While they sometimes bind creatures personalities into furniture or transform the creatures into various forms of furniture, the Puppetmasters excel at slowly turning human bodies into wodden puppets that can only be controlled by other Darklings, but whom still possess the memories and abilities of the children. They are often hard at work, and will mingle mostly with collectors to find parts and materials, and also disassembling child puppets already created and re-purposing them, mixing and matching, and trading their parts with other Darklings to use in their dark circuses. They can create puppets other than simple humanoids and humans, and are known for creating some fairly horrifying creatures made of various souls and human parts for use in their circuses. The puppet shows they put on can steal the voices, screams, and various emotions of the children there, leaving those who do make it home to be very different people forever.

With the Puppetmaster are Soulbound Dolls. These are the bodies of children whom have been transformed into puppets for use in the Darklings puppet shows and circuses, or to be sold to human and Fae alike. They are creepy dolls that work like marionettes and are usually slumped over, however they can occasionally talk and use the normal children's voices, though only somewhat as the puppetmasters usually own the children's voices and choose what they're allowed to say, though sometimes cries and calls for help escape. The Soulbound Dolls can be loosed by a puppet master to go off on their own, following the Puppet Master's commands, often to kill or collect. It is unknown if a child can be changed back after undergoing this process, only that the child is usually rather immortal, and their consciousness will remain even in the smallest pieces left behind of them if destroyed. Occasionally they can gain control and go rogue, often running away or stabbing their leaders and trying to live their own lives.

The round headed man is a Dark Magician. They, unlike other Darklings, seem to wear masks, however it is in fact their faces that look like that. The all have strange smile like faces, though not always smiling, and some with various expressions. It is believed that they look like this as they have been cursed, or that they have replaced their head with something else after it was decapitated by a Fae Lord, or other various rumors. Some even believe that it hides their true self so that the darkness cannot find them. Dark Magicians are able to conjure things from seemingly nothing, teleport with puffs of smoke, and perform strange feats such as sawing a person in half. Strange feats which they actually accomplish. They love to offer things to creatures, that which their hearts desire, and are often whom ticket holders take their tickets to. They can provide unlimited sweets and strange delicacies to those who ask, or imbue you with mysterious powers and otherworldly capabilities. Dark Magicians use this to their advantage, as it means you owe them a favor, which they may take from you at any time, and it also puts you at risk to their magic and makes it so you can no longer resist the magic capabilities of the Fae. They may offer you things that cause you to return more and more, offering more of yourself to the Dark Magician for more power. The Dark Magicians can master primal and wild magics, becoming Chaos Mages if they grow in power enough, and some even become much more strange and dark if they begin utilizing the ash of the dark place, though many dark magicians who go down that route are found murdered by the rest of their own troupe for their own safety. 

Here we see Victoria following her stomach and being given multiple Fae mushrooms to eat. They're known as Banquet Caps or "Poor man's Feast" as a single mushroom can taste like a variable feast of your favorite foods, emulating the texture and the temperature at which the food is usually enjoyed. A single mushroom can actually sustain a creature for over a week, though long term ingestion is unhealthy as they can have adverse side effects such as growing inside of you, turn you into a mushroom or something similar, actually producing the foods within you in strange amounts, or simply causing a creature to die of over consumption, or sensory overload. Creatures that die from these mushrooms tend to produce them from their body, which often taste like the person whom died or like their favorite foods. This stems from the fact that they grow in the Fae Realm and are grown mostly for consumption by the Fae. Victoria seems to be stuffing herself with these things so it will no doubt leave her in a rather rough patch....

Finally we see Jub Jub Birds. In their natural state, Jub Jub birds are colorless grey creatures that possess many pairs of arms. Their beaks have human like faces stretched across them and large biting teeth, and their behinds possess huge mouths which loose terrible screams. Jub Jub birds live in the Nameless forest, as well as in the Tulgeywoods. They often live in narrow, dark, depressing valleys, and have a voice like a shrill scream. Those that hear the scream of the Jub Jub Bird turn pale, and leave their color behind if it makes them jump or start, their colors pooling beneath them in a slurry of liquid not unlike wax. The birds can smell the colors from miles away and will more often than not approach the colors with great speed. Jub Jub birds consume color, and the colors will fill their bodies, giving them vibrant and strange plumage across their bodies, causing many birds to be of random and loud colors. A creature can try to regain it's color through a process of re-binding, though it can be difficult especially with a Jub Jub bird on your tail. 

If your colors are eaten by the bird, you will slowly become more and more depressed and emotionless, and will eventually reach a state in which you wish to have your colors back so badly you allow the bird to eat you so you may be one with your color. If the bird spots you with your colors, or with other colors or things that possess color, they will often attempt to kick, peck, and tear you apart to have it. They are in constant passion, and seem happy about everything, and even when trying to pick a creature to pieces they will do so in a playful manner, and they never forget a friend whom they have met, meaning that if you have met a JubJub bird it will remember every second of your encounter, making it harder to deal with the next time you encounter it.

Some can live long lives without their color and are known as the Grey or the Colorless, and it is thought that some of them can become Darklings eventually. Spellcasters sometimes collect the colors left from Jubjub screams as they can be used as powerful spell ingredients for casting spells that cause prismatic effects and various wild magic.

They are occasionally used as mounts, fed colors and flesh to keep them happy, but for many Fae they are too vibrant and beautiful, and cause the birds to become unruly. The Darklings however can use them much more often as they possess little color, and can barter for other colors to keep the birds fed. The JubJub Birds can speak from both mouths, and will speak in the voices of those who's colors they've stolen. They can steal colors from inanimate objects as well, and can mimic the sounds they make perfectly, some opening their mouths to sound like squeaky tires or rustling leaves. 

Jubjub birds often live in the same areas as Snarks, Boojums, Snipes, Squonks, and Elwedritsch, other strange and sometimes dangerous Fae.