Welcome to Faerie Tales of New York.

The premise of this game is that Faeries (of many kinds) are real, and there exists, in New York City, a secretive, private agency that deals with their problems, under cover of one of the city's grand cultural institutions (a very real institution).

The story here weaves around those working with the Morgan Library and Museum, a renowned institution in New York City housing some famous works of art and history, and a secret well kept for generations before the Morgan was built:  Fairies and their magical kin are real, and many live in the New York City area.   The existence of these beings, collectively called the Fey, must remain hidden.  Revealing the Fey Folk would disrupt both worlds, Human and Faerie, and not for the better.

There are two types of characters available for this game, Human and Faerie. The Game System is mostly free form, with the GM’s very minimalist rules laid over it, mostly to help define characters and compare what they can do to what others can do.  The GM will assign scores and skills based on the finalized character descriptions.

All the characters are associated with the Morgan Library.  The Library has a mission, and that is to keep the Faerie population of the New York City area out of trouble, and prevent them from causing trouble.  The characters can be closely associated, even working for the library, or loosely connected.

The Morgan Library:

Of all the regions of the Earth, none has a richer and more complex Faerie history than the lush green islands off the northwest coast of Europe, known as Great Britain and Ireland.  The Celtic culture that thrived here created a rich Fey lore, with stories and descriptions of a wide variety of Faerie beings.

Some of those were actually true.

So perhaps the connection with the Morgan Library is not mere happenstance.

The Morgan Library, of course, is one of the great private historical libraries of the world, and located in midtown Manhattan.  It’s not the big library with the stone lions everyone knows about, it’s a stately building a few blocks away, once the private residence of the Morgan family.  That would be the family of JP Morgan, the wealthy and powerful banker. His son JP Morgan Jr established the Morgan Library from his own collection.  JP Morgan was descended from Miles Morgan, who emigrated to the New World in 1636.  Miles Morgan’s lineage stretches back to Welsh nobility, and to Celtic chieftains long before, but for reasons known but to a select few keepers of ancient lore,  in the 16th century, Gwilym ap Llewelyn  changed his name to William Morgan.

People who know a little more know that JP Morgan Jr’s establishment of the library wasn’t solely philanthropical.  The problem with having a banking empire is that it is hard to keep out of the spotlight, especially in the modern era, with its radio and television and journalists eager to expose everything they can about the rich and powerful.  JP Morgan Jr. needed to isolate his library from the scrutiny of the world, yet keep it a permanent institution.  There was too much the library had to do.

The Morgan Library is the New World’s epicenter of magic and the faerie world, as well as being a foundation devoted to art history.  Mortals, except for a chosen few, know nothing of this.  Over the years, the library has become the headquarters for a small secretive organization, dedicated to keeping New York’s Fey population out of trouble, and keep them from causing trouble.

Naturally, the official website of the library says nothing about all this.  Absolute secrecy concerning the Fey is essential.  Magic and faeries and all that… very disruptive, to the modern world.  No one wants disruptions.  Especially not the Fey themselves.

And so they are hidden... but their effects can be real. Not all the reported “Pit Bull” attacks are caused by Pit Bulls.  Some weren’t even caused by dogs.

A couple of notes on how I like to run things:

The game will run slowly, but it won't vanish quickly.  Slow and steady, that's how I go.  I'll post at least a few times a week, but not a few times a day.

Don't expect a lot of combat.  In fact, you'll probably want to avoid it.

Do expect things that have to be figured out.

Because my games run slowly, I allow some leniency with timing.  If your character is doing something in one thread- talking, shopping, etc- and wants to finish up before the action continues in another thread, feel free to be in both threads at once.  Just don't mess with temporal continuity and everything's okay.

All good?

Feel free to poke around, read the information (in the information thread!), and if you are ready for the bizarre, magical, and confusing world of New York City, made slightly stranger and more magical by the addition of Faeries, pop over to Request To Join.


I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

From the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York"
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:54, Thu 07 May 2020.