The Fairies are a playable faction. The Fairy folk reject technological progress and live in close harmony with nature, relying entirely on magic. They are not particularly social: they tend to be shy due to their small size and are also somewhat territorial. The Fairies are made up of insect-like creatures (including arachnids and other categories often associated with insects in popular culture), and like real insects, they are quite small. However, they possess hidden portals that allow them to alter the physical size of objects and beings. Visitors of larger size who pass through these portals are shrunk down to fairy scale. The portals also work in reverse, but Fairies generally dislike enlarging themselves to the size of other races, as it might harm the natural world — except in extreme cases like wars and battles.
Their cities are hidden among the trees or underground, far from the eyes of the curious. They have a strong inclination for poetry and music, and often celebrate together, dancing in their city squares. They speak in riddles and poetry, and are known for their politeness and elegance. They become easily enraged if someone pollutes or harms nature, and tend to punish offenders with various magical curses. In battle, in addition to enlarging themselves to match the size of other Enchantia factions’ citizens, they can control Treants and stone golems, and their entire combat style is based on magic. They have a deadly rivalry with the citizens of Phoenix Canyon.
The characters of this faction were among the most difficult for me to create… actually, calling them difficult is an understatement: they were a real nightmare and took up a lot of space within the object limit. Some specimens, like bees and moths, have elongated, egg-shaped snouts—an aesthetic choice of mine. I was inspired by the bee Fursona of the YouTuber Ivycomb, as well as a bit by Protogen visors. Additionally, they were supposed to have slightly serrated mouths, but I didn’t know how to achieve that, so they have “normal” mouths instead. The red butterfly, Miss Scarlet, the first true mascot character with a name and face of Enchantia, has a pointed snout because I wanted to take inspiration from the butterfly character in the Pixar film A Bug’s Life, who has a spiral horn at the tip of its snout.
The second character, instead, is Aracnea, that gigantic spider witch with the cauldron. Her twenty little spiders are her twenty adopted children, since fairies cannot reproduce in a “traditional” way. I had created them for Aracnea’s restaurant, but due to space limitations, I couldn’t use them all in the same way. In fairy society, spiders are seen as evil and dark creatures, always considered dark witches. In fact, this aspect is rarely explored in lore manuals, but fairies are very “speciesist”: they believe that the species you are born into determines who you are and your fate. For this reason, bee fairies are assigned and raised from a young age to be soldiers; likewise, ants are assigned to the mines. Predatory insects, like spiders and praying mantises, are viewed as ruthless killers and witches, while the more beautiful insects, like butterflies, are seen as celebrities, artists, and nobles. In fairy society, “clothes make the fairy” — very few fairies can choose their own destiny.
Oh, fairies are 80% female. Male fairies do exist, but they are a minority, except among bees and ants: all bees are female, while ants are 98% male.
NOTE: If you have read the lore about Red Eye Corp, you will know that the mascots are humans transformed into real creatures by merging them inside the costumes. Since fairies are insects and have multiple limbs, usually a single fairy mascot requires at least two individuals to be fused into one. Aracnea, the giant spider, being a very large creature, required many more than just two people fused together; just think that a single arm of Aracnea requires an adult man. Aracnea’s little spider children are special because they are small in size: they are actual children transformed or assimilated.