Spriggan

Born of shadows in a forest that has never seen noon, the Spriggans are the Kingdom's illusionists, its thieves, and — by a margin nobody at court will acknowledge — its most important merchants. Nothing shines in the Twilight Forest, which is precisely why Spriggans covet things that do. Light itself is currency there, hoarded as bottled foolsfire, polished chitin, and stolen dew-glass.

They have a reputation among the other Faeries as treasure hunters at best and outright thieves at worst. It is deserved. It is also, they will point out, a strange thing to be scolded about by a nobility whose gardens are built from soil hauled out of the provinces.

Appearance

Grey through charcoal, with matte skin that does not catch light and wings patterned like bark or the shadow of leaves. A still Spriggan in dim conditions is genuinely difficult to see without magic, and Spriggans are still very often.

Attuned Magic

Shadow. A nascent Spriggan dims a lamp, deepens an existing shadow, or blurs their own outline. A powerful one raises full illusions, walks unseen through a lit room, and can put a convincing double of themselves in one place while standing in another. It is the subtlest of the attuned magics and the only one that regularly beats a glamour at its own game.

Society

Mercantile and clannish, organized around the Duskmarket — a settlement built on and inside a fallen giant of a tree, where anything at all can be bought and nobody asks where it came from. Grismer, the Hollow Baron, presides over it without holding any office the Kingdom recognizes.

Relations

The Kingdom's official position is that the Duskmarket is a den of thieves. Its unofficial position is that the Ring's noble houses do a great deal of business there through intermediaries, particularly in items they would rather not be seen buying. The Twilight Forest borders the Nightwood and the border is not marked; Spriggans and Bugbears understand each other rather better than either admits in mixed company.