The Gossamer Isles

[Steerpike]

The Gossamer Isles

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Tucked away in the misty northwest corner of the world, the Gossamer Isles are largely aloof from the bickerings of monarchs and the crude wars of the Continent, unless of course you count the occupation of the Isles by the Eldain Empire (and there are many who resent their presence).  Once ruled jointly by the Giants and the Fair Folk and later by the ancient Gwelds, Twercs, and Maugen, the Isles were invaded in ages past, first by the pallid warriors known as the Nesgrim, then by the swarthy, raven-haired folk of Vassen, and finally by the stoic, hard-hearted Eldain, a burgeoning industrial and military Empire and the most powerful nation of the Known World.  Once a place of magic, wonder, and mystery, the Isles have now been thoroughly colonized; and yet, hidden away in the wilder places on the Isles the old ways still hold strong.  In circles of glyph-graven stone on Maug-Morna or Gweldfyr the druids spill the blood of lambs on their sacrificial slabs and invoke the gods of Moon and Sun, of the Stars and the Sea.  The Giants brood over slights forgotten by their erstwhile usurpers, nurturing grudges now many millennia old, and in the dread depths of the Tangle the Faerie still wander, thinking their inhuman and esoteric thoughts and pondering their closely-held and unimaginable secrets'¦

Gweldfyr[/b]

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The Tangle

Prodigious and ancient beyond reckoning, smelling of nightshade and gently rotting wood, the brooding vastness of the Tangle lies at the shadowy heart of Gweldfyr, called the Isle of Whispers, foremost of the Gossamer Isles.  Eerie, alien, otherworldly, the Tangle is a universe unto itself.  Its twisted oaks stand close together, their notched trunks echoing with malformed murmurs and half-heard snatches of ethereal sing-song, branches knitting tightly overhead to form twilit tunnels through the wood.  Amidst the dense green gloom odd and often strangely shaped creatures soundlessly creep, or else squat amidst misshapen roots, giggling in the thick arboreal darkness.  Forgotten things skulk along the cobwebbed green corridors or linger at the banks of the many wine-dark and oft enchanted pools '" things belonging to an elder time, whose motives are inscrutable and whose draconian rules are not those of mortals.

Known as the Fair Folk or Faerie, the Elfin denizens of the forest are many and variegated.  Governed by whimsies and lusts as perverse and malleable as their changing, often grotesque forms, the Fair Folk are wholly alien.  Their passions are not human passions; they are incapable of true friendship or compassion, of empathy or pity.  Some are malevolent beings who feed on mortal terror, hunting mortal intruders through the Tangle and subjecting them to indescribably cruel tortures in hidden palaces of human bone.  Others are predators of a different stripe, seducing wayward men and women with their eldritch, irresistible charms.  Still others are reclusive, enigmatic creatures indifferent to the ways of mortal-kind, save perhaps when bumbling humans trespass the boundaries of their unfathomable demesnes.  Though they can leave the Tangle for a short while, Faerie who stray too far from the forest eventually lose their powers and succumb to a wasting sickness; only returning to the Tangle allows them to recuperate.

The Grinning Hills

Littered with the dolmen, menhirs, and druidic circles of the dwindling Gwelds and the rubble of Giantish ruins, the cold and all but treeless region of the Grinning Hills stretches from the northern eaves of the Tangle to the Moaning Mountains.  Now only a few settlements of the original indigenes remain, but the hills are now dotted with mines established by the Eldain.  Most of the iron of the Gossamer Isles is bog iron: these mines are mostly for gold and precious jewels.  The miners themselves are mostly of Gewldish race, while the masters are predominantly of Eldain extraction: it is in these northern foothills that racial tensions run deepest.

The Grinning Hills are wilder and more rugged than most regions of Gweldfyr.  Wolves roam the highlands, preying on cattle and occasionally even humans, and Giants from the Moaning Mountains descend intermittently to wreak their terrible vengeance upon mortalkind.  Some have even claimed to have met with a terrible monstrous dog or ghost-hound, called the Cu-Sith or Gadhargest (depending on whether you're talking to a southern Gweld or a northerner with Nesgrim-Vassen blood), or to have heard its bloodcurdling howl; this beast has also been sighted on the Murmuring Moors further south.

The Moaning Mountains

Once the giants of the Moaning Mountains ruled all of Gweldfyr north of the Tangle, but humans '" first the native Gwelds, Twercs, and Maugen, then the Vassen and the Nesgrim, and finally the Eldain '" have driven them gradually into the Grinning Mountains, reducing them to crude shadows of their former glory.  The shattered monuments of their primordial reign can still be glimpsed amongst the Gnawed Hills, but the Giants themselves are rarely seen, dwelling for the most part in dim caverns and becoming more and more kin to the rocks themselves, their skins gradually greying and hardening, sprouting lichens and pallid alpine moss, their eyes growing dim and blind from the darkness of the caves.

Though most Giants have grown stooped and senile a few hold on to their centuries-old grudge against the humans, cultivating a hard, bitter hatred against the usurpers below.  These vengeful troglodytes have been known to emerge from their subterranean homes on stormy nights and descend from the Moaning Mountains into the hills and moorlands below, pillaging human settlements and taking captives back to the Mountains to devour in gory feasts.  Unlike those sleepy, sluggish Giants turning slowly into stones, these Giants have been warped by their bloodthirsty inclinations, their bodies misshapen by rage, veins swelling with boiling blood, faces dark and disfigured.

The Murmuring Moors

Once forested by the gnarled oaks of the Tangle '" hewn in ages past by Giants and mortals '" the now-treeless region called the Murmuring Moors is inhabited by shepherds and peat farmers who trace their lineage back to the ancient Gwelds, former rulers of the Gossamer Isles.  Cairns dot the landscape, marking the burial places of nigh-forgotten kings and heroes; spearheads and arrowheads of bog iron can be found slowly rusting amidst the gorse and heather.  The region is largely peaceful, though sometimes troubled by bandits about the crossroads operating out of Ravenswood or Trowe-Hole Heath, or by wolves from the Grinning Hills.  Sometimes even the Giants of the Moaning Mountains have been known to stray as far south as the Moors, though they rarely cross the Water-of-Srach.

The Moors are known to harbour a number of Gweld rebels, as do the Grinning Hills to the north.  These hardened men and women would see the Eldain overthrown and driven out of the Gossamer Isles; for nearly fifty years, however, the resistance has lain quiet, having been put down in the Pretender's Insurrection (as the Eldain named it) during the previous century.

The Gnawed Coast

Marked by the abandoned forts and mouldering barrows of the hardy Nesgrim who, legend tells, descended upon the Gossamer Isles from the mythical ice-lands of the north (said to have sunk beneath the waves, or perhaps to have simply melted), the Gnawed Coast is bleaker and colder than the murkier shores to the south, home to gulls and grizzled fishermen rather than pirates and smugglers.  Occasionally, however, the coast does attract treasure-hunters and grave-robbers searching for the fabled hoards of the Nesgrim kings, buried with them in their rune-graven crypts.  Few of these foolhardy tomb-raiders return, however, for those who disturb the remains of the noble dead awake their angry wraiths.

Some who've traveled along the Gnawed Coast have reported sightings of the strange, squamous creatures called Merrough or Merelings '" brine-blooded fishmen from the deeps of the Sobbing Seas also glimpsed on the shores of Maug-Morna.  A hundred folktales tell of meetings between mortals and Merrough in which humans are lured to the scaly creature (often cloaked by a glamer), sometimes by a magical song.  Most of these tales either end in the seduction  or the grisly death of the human protagonist '" sometimes both.  Legends persist that the couplings between fisherfolk and Merrough have produced half-human children, and that if one looks closely at the notoriously secretive men and women of the Gnawed Coast one will discern a certain fishy cast to their eyes, a certain dried-out scaling to the skin, and distinctive gill-like birthmarks that betray them as Merekin.  Whether fully human or no, the folk of the Gnawed Coast are known to keep to themselves and to older, stranger gods than most inhabitants of Gweldfyr, notably worshipping some of the darker druidic deities such as Nuedda, lord of the sea and of the watery underworld.

Trowe-Hole Heath

Named for the old mounds that dot its scrubby, barren length, Trowe-Hole Heath is now primarily the haunt of highwaymen rather than the diminutive trolls that once infested the region.  Though a few of the old mounds are still home to the odd tribe or family of trowe '" a pesky breed of hob known for their jackdaw-like love of shiny objects and their penchant for eating house pets and even unattended infants '" most of the Heath's namesake are abandoned, the trowe-troves within turning slowly to rust.

The Basilisk Fens

Though not afflicted by sluagh or other restless spirits as the Witch-light Bogs are, the Basilisk Fens are riddled with basilisk lairs; however, much like the trowe of Trowe-Hole Heath, the once numerous beasts of this region have been hunted nearly to extinction.  The statue-like remnants of their victims, however, are evident throughout the Fens, sinking slowly into the soft earth, their features forever fixed in expressions of anguish.  The basilisks themselves were prized largely for their jewel-like, iridescent scales (which make excellent hide armour) and for their alchemical uses '" the ashes of a basilisk can be used by magicians to transmute silver into gold.

The Witch-light Bogs

Haunted by uncanny corpse-candles, slavering swamp-ghouls, and vengeful ghosts called sluagh '" such as Mad Mary who was raped and murdered in the swamp and whose lunatic screams freeze the blood of any who hear them, or Crimson Jack, a highwayman whose gang betrayed him and dumped his cadaver in the stagnant waters and whose spectral blade ever hungers for vengeance '" the Witch-light Bogs are feared nearly as much as the Tangle.  A stinking morass of brackish water, moss, lichens, and peat, the Witch-light Bogs are fringed by peat farms, which also predominate on the nearby moors and heathland; even the weather-beaten folk of these farms rarely venture deep into the Bogs, however.  The river that flows out of the Tangle '" the Murk '" is the probably source of the strangeness of the Bogs; those who sip of its fell waters after sunset, or bathe in them by moonlight, are said to suffer from peculiar transformations.  Most notorious of the Witch-light Bogs' inhabitants is the infamous hag Millie Muckblood, a green-fleshed horror of a woman said variously to be half-faerie or half-demon (or both) who dwells in a hidden grotto on the river-bottom and savours the flesh of virgin men.

Though no formal roads cut through the marsh, those in a hurry to get from the southwest parts of the Isle of Whispers to the northwest occasionally risk the perils of the Witch-light Bogs rather than taking the long way round the Tangle via the Queen's Road and the Thornroad (a journey of several days).  Such travelers are advised to stick to the coast as much as possible, as it is easy to get lost in the fog of the swamps, or be led astray by some mischievous spirit counterfeiting a lanthorn.  Those who lose their way in the Bogs rarely return.

The Tatterdemalion Coast

A jagged stretch of fog-shrouded, wave-eaten cliffs and rocky beaches, the misty length of the Tatterdemalion Coast lies along the southern edge of the Isle of Whispers.  Named for its irregularity '" or perhaps for the numerous shipwrecks that litter its treacherous shoals '" the Coast is the favoured hiding place for smugglers and corsairs, dotted as it is with numberless caves and hidden bays, secret places known only to the initiated.

Hewtown

Home to a race of prodigiously tall, strong folk called the Huldren, Hewtown lies north of the Tangle in the shadow of the Grinning Hills and the Moaning Mountains beyond.  Huldren size is often attributed to Giantish blood somewhere in their ancestry; whether or not there is any truth to this legend, the average Huldren stands several feet taller than most men and is muscled like an ox.  Due to their powerful physiques the Huldren make natural lumberjacks, able to hack through the trunks of even the most massive oaks of the Tangle.  Hewtown itself reflects this predisposition: the buildings are all formed out of the trunks of gigantic, primordial trees, their insides hollowed out with high-ceilinged chambers.

Though seemingly never molested by Giants '" possibly another proof of kinship, however distant '" the Huldren proclivity for tree-cutting has earned them the ire of the Faerie.  Cold iron horseshoes are hung round every window and door in Hewtown to ward against the depredations of the Fair Folk.  The hulking folk of Hewtown, though sometimes feared, do maintain amicable relations with the other human inhabitants of the Isle of Whispers, trading mostly in raw lumber and furs in exchange for metal goods, especially iron.

Finchport

The capital city of Gweldfyr, Finchport was once a Vassen fort that was taken over and expanded by the Eldain during their conquest of the Gossamer Isles.  A trading hub and major population center, Finchport has long since overflowed its walls of ancient, ivy-covered stone to sprawl haphazardly along the banks of Mirthful Cove.  Now that area encircled by the walls is called Elder-town.  Here are the baroque churches and the temples of the primordial Gweld and Vassen gods (many of them since converted into shrines to the Supreme Architect), the grim spire of the Old Keep, the squat, turreted bulk of the Imperial Armoury, and the stately house of Vincent Mellmouth, Duke of Gwedlfyr and hero of the Gloaming Wars.  Here also are the opulent homes of the wealthy, encrusted with marble statues and glittering cupolas, as well as the ornate banks, courthouses, guildhouses, and civic buildings of the city.

Outside the walls the city grows decidedly tawdrier.  From the pestiferous slums of Grimebank to the dilapidated thieves' dens of Rookside to the lurid brothels of Fondle Gardens, the outer districts of Finchport are a twisting warren of labyrinthine cobblestone streets.  These give way to farms and mills in the hinterlands and to the highwayman-infested Trowe-Hole Heath to the south.  Northwest broods the Tangle, dark and otherworldly as ever, and southerly winds carry the reek of the Witch-light Bogs to the north. [ooc]This setting is an expansion and reworking of an older setting that I started posting up awhile ago.  More to come.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ic=The Fair Folk]'We should never '˜ave come '˜ere,' Faud muttered through chattering teeth as he pulled up his hood.  'You've '˜eard the stories, Edwin.  If we're still '˜ere by nightfall'¦'

'Shut up Faud.  We'll be out by sundown, you craven mongrel.'  Edwin peered into the dense mist, one gloved hand lingering at the ornate flintlock at his waist.  Trees rose out of the haze like writhing shades, clawing at the pair with twisted black fingers, draped with old man's beard; some scuttling thing rustled in the forest gloom.

'We'll never find our way out in this fog.  Can't we '˜ave a bit o' light?'

'Those bounty hunters could still be following us.  A light will draw them straight to us.  Do you want to end up like Joff?'

'They won't '˜ave dared come in '˜ere after us!  Can you blame '˜em?  We're done fer if we don't get out of '˜ere sharpish.'

'Damn your superstitions, Faud!' Edwin snapped, stopping in his tracks and turning to face the grizzled highwayman.  Tall and handsome with aristocratic features, Edwin claimed to be the bastard son of a highborn lady.  Currently his breaches and waistcoat were sodden and filthy, his face was flushed and smeared, and his long, usually immaculate hair was matted and damp from the mist.  He looked less like a gentleman robber and more like a mangy thief who'd spent a week sleeping under hedges '" which, in point of fact, he had.  'Excuse me if I'm not resigned to the gallows just yet.  Think of the things we'll buy with that old duchess' jewels '" and with Joff dead we can divide his share.  No more piss-poor ale and pock-faced slatterns for us!  We'll be drinking the finest Tintalaemon burgundy and fucking the plumpest whores in Finchport!'

A far-off glimmer had entered the youth's large brown eyes, but Faud's eyes were wide with fear.  The small, scraggly man stammered something incomprehensible and fumbled for the blade tucked into his belt.

'What are you pissing your breeches for now you bloody fool?'  Edwin frowned, turning back around.  'There's nothing this close to the Edge but a bunch of bloody squirrels you cowardly '"'

The figure had materialized out of the fog without warning.  Slender and elegant with porcelain-white flesh and a lurid grin the creature regarded them with coy predation, head cocked, violet eyes full of mocking laughter.  Long hair blacker than midnight spilled down its back and shoulders, nearly to the forest floor, a pair of antlers emerging from this tenebrous mane; it wore no clothing but carried a long, silvery blade, dripping with crimson.  In the other hand it held up a severed human head which Edwin discerned as belonging to one of the bounty hunters they'd been running from, despite the rictus of terror disfiguring the face.

'Hello, gentlemen,' the thing said with a voice like the sound of a knife being whetted.  'I'm afraid you're both trespassing on my private hunting grounds, for which there is a rather severe penalty.'  It chuckled, held them with its eyes.  For a moment Edwin was hypnotized; then, snarling and breaking free of the violet gaze, he drew his pistol, aimed, and pulled the trigger in one smooth motion, an expression of savage triumph on his face.  

There was a disappointing click.  Edwin looked at the flintlock in horror.  The Faerie twittered gaily, a high, incongruous sound.

  'You mortals and your little toys!  When will you learn?  It's impossible to keep your powder dry in a fog like this!'  It raised one eyebrow and tilted its head to look behind Edwin.  'It looks like your comrade has disappeared,' it noted.  'Ah well!  Two new heads for the trophy wall are better than nothing'¦'

Running through the fog Faud heard from behind him the clean whir of a blade through the air, followed by a muffled scream.[/ic]

[Steerpike]

Creppid

Once Creppid was a thriving island with its own distinct peoples and culture, but five hundred years ago an outbreak of Greyblight decimated the population.  The island was quarantined by the Eldain, who maintained naval patrols to prevent any escape.  As a result, almost everyone on Creppid died, leaving its towns forsaken and empty, draped with the etiolated dead.  A few attempts were made at resettlement, but the shades of the plague victims are said to haunt the isle, deterring reconstruction.

Now, many years later, the Eldain have found another use for Creppid.  In the aftermath of the continental Gloaming Wars between the Eldain and their allies and the Vassen Empire, the self-crowned Emperor Maxmilien Erx, called the Hunchback Emperor by his enemies and the Invulnerable by his followers, was deposed from his throne.  A military and political mastermind of extreme deviousness and massive popularity '" despite his several deformities '" the dwarfish, twisted Erx was not executed following his fall from power, for fear of insurrection.  Instead he was exiled to Creppid, to be kept under close watch by the Eldain lest he attempt escape.  Now he dwells amidst the husks of buildings and the bone-strewn streets, living in an abandoned manse near the water's edge, attended by stern-faced guards.  It is said that the Duke of Gweldfyr, the brilliant Vincent Mellmouth (one of the very few generals to have ever defeated Erx on the battlefield), occasionally sails to Creppid from Finchport to converse and play chess with the erstwhile Emperor; despite their past enmity the two reputedly get along famously, each having earned the other's respect during the Wars.

Eldain

The neighbouring, continental empire of Eldain has long claimed ruler-ship of the Gossamer Isles, having conquered the indigenous inhabitants centuries ago.  The once proud line of Eldain warrior-kings has, in the current age, diminished greatly.  The reigning monarch is one Ambrosius III, called the Gibbering King: a raving, drooling lunatic by turns imbecilic and psychotically violent.  Treated by daily leechings, the mad King is confined to his chambers in the Royal Palace while his son, Prince Ambrosius, rules as regent.  Unfortunately Prince Ambrosius, sometimes called the Wineskin Prince or the Purple Prince, is scarcely an improvement from his father.  A lecherous, debauched, and decadent ruler with no taste for the niceties of politics, Ambrosius the younger spends most of his time drinking and whoring, and rumour persists that the regent harbours darker desires as well '" rumours corroborated by the screams of pain, or perhaps obscene pleasure, that emanate from the Palace's east wing late at night.  Ambrosius' younger brother, Prince Eldred, is the more consummate politician, a scholarly and restrained youth who unfortunately will not reach the throne for many years, barring the premature death of his brother.

[Xeviat]

Real fast observation, more will come when I get back from dinner tonight, or some time tomorrow if homework occupies all my time.

Your naming convention is very somber, with lots of references to crying and sadness. What's the reason for this (forgive me if you answered that already).

[Steerpike]

[blockquote=Xeviat]Your naming convention is very somber, with lots of references to crying and sadness. What's the reason for this (forgive me if you answered that already).[/blockquote] [ooc]You're the first person to comment so no worries!

I want a feeling of deep melancholy in the landscape - of the natural (and magical) world in retreat, of nostalgia for things lost, etc.  I'd also point out that the opposite is also present (the Mirthful Cove, the Grinning Hills), that tears can be of laughter or joy as well as sadness, and that moans and murmurs could even be more sexual than sorrowful.[/ooc]

[O Senhor Leetz]

I like this alot. I hate to steal thunder, but I created a setting/world not unlike this years and years ago, it was called something like Evergloom or something (I actually may have named it Evermoor after a Led Zeppelin song, but I digress.)

It had a really somber and introspective feel with lots of fog and moors and swamps and ghosts and stuff. In so many words, I like this alot so far.  

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Thanks for the feedback.  It's definitely not as... "out there" as Cadaverous Earth is, nor as flat-out dystopian.  I definitely want a feeling of palpable gloom and Gothicism, and eerie beauty as well - stuff like Pan's Labyrinth,  Brotherhood of the Wolf, Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel are the sorts of things I'm trying to emulate.[/ooc]

[SA]

That map is the bickity-bomb.

[Mason]

[ooc]Thanks for the feedback.  It's definitely not as... "out there" as Cadaverous Earth is, nor as flat-out dystopian.  I definitely want a feeling of palpable gloom and Gothicism, and eerie beauty as well - stuff like Pan's Labyrinth,  Brotherhood of the Wolf, Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel are the sorts of things I'm trying to emulate.[/ooc]

Love that book. I like the 'mood' of this setting as well.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Thanks - mood is one of the things I try hardest to evoke in a setting.

And Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is one of my absolute favorites... a bit difficult to get into at first but incredibly rewarding.[/ooc]

[LD]

The Basilisk Fens

Though not afflicted by sluagh or other restless spirits as the Witch-light Bogs are, the Basilisk Fens are riddled with basilisk lairs; however, much like the trowe of Trowe-Hole Heath, the once numerous beasts of this region have been hunted nearly to extinction. The statue-like remnants of their victims, however, are evident throughout the Fens, sinking slowly into the soft earth, their features forever fixed in expressions of anguish. The basilisks themselves were prized largely for their jewel-like, iridescent scales (which make excellent hide armour) and for their alchemical uses '" the ashes of a basilisk can be used by magicians to transmute silver into gold.

I like how the statues are sinking- it's a very evocative touch that makes your basilisk area quite special.

[LordVreeg]

[ooc]Thanks - mood is one of the things I try hardest to evoke in a setting.

And Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel is one of my absolute favorites... a bit difficult to get into at first but incredibly rewarding.[/ooc]

And just about nobody does it better.  Keep it up.

[Endless_Helix]

This seems like a really interesting take on the whole celtic folklore world. I can see that you really did enjoy Susannah Clark's vision of Faerie; I keep expecting to see a dot on your map marked 'Lost Hope'. Or 'Pity Me'. Your faeries seem really quite intriguing, and I'd love to see more developed with them. I'm interested in the role magic would play in this world. Is it something that is beyond human comprehension, that toys with them like a cat with a mouse before it kills them? Or is it a mysterious force that slithers in the secret corners of the world, before pouncing out suddenly, only to blink out of existence before you can truly get a grasp of it? Is it a furtive, silent song that only the destined can hear, a song that calls them onward to a mysterious, subtle realm?

Is magic the supernatural enemy, a hidden natural power that some creatures and people use, or an ephemeral pulse in the night that one cannot quite quantify?

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I want two in some senses antithetical styles of magic in this setting (though decidedly not the arcane/divine binary of D&D).  On the one hand there's the style of magic mostly practiced by humans, which is treated entirely like a science: rational, rigid, rule-based, and precise, almost mathematical.  Scholars of the Royal Society of Magic study magical theory in academies; being able to perform magic is generally the sign of a formal education.  There are a few self-taught magicians or those who have stumbled upon some of the theories of magic, such as the druids; however, most human magicians are gentlemen.

On the other hand there is the magic of the Faerie - inborn, organic, and primordial.  Though "powered" by the same "source" as human magic, the magic of the Faerie is unthinking, untaught, natural - and frequently terrifying.  Faerie magic tends to be far more powerful than human magic.  Those humans with some Faerie blood might manifest some small degree of Faerie magic, as well.

For all its power, Faerie magic is something on the retreat in the Gossamer Isles.  The Giants have been driven into the Mountains, the Faerie into their twisted wood; the basilisks have been hunted, the trowe exterminated, the old gods of Moon and Sun and Sea supplanted by the deistic Supreme Architect.  Old magic has been driven into "the secret corners of the world" (to use your phrase); like the rest of the Gossamer Isles it has been colonized, domesticated, brought under the scrutiny of rational minds.[/ooc]

[MythMage]

I really like the idea of magic being a sign of formal education; that was long the way I played arcane magic in my homebrew setting.

I'm not sure what game system you'd use for this, but in 3.5e or Pathfinder, it seems like that dichotomy between human and faerie magic would play out well by playing prepared casters against spontaneous casters. Just use the shaman class for faerie nature magic instead of druids and perhaps the oracle or favored soul for the magic of the gods.