The Foxes and their Laughing Children

by Gop Gap

 

A fox is a fae of fiery fur and feline form. They are never seen, only heard, gekkering in the hidden spaces between blades of grass where mundies never think to look, unless of course they want to be seen, which they never do.

(They’re also huge. Like, bite-your-torso-in-half huge. You don’t notice because they’re hiding themselves in fox space.)

Like all fae, foxes are obligate chronovores, and survive by eating the lifespans of others. They are fond of children, who have more remaining years and are much easier to spirit away from home. A fox’s den is full of these children (2d4), stuffing their faces with wild berries and playing in the glimmer-grass as they die swiftly and painlessly of old age.

Life in a fox den is like a daydream where everything tastes sweet and is soft to the touch. This is according to the wishes of the fox; fox space is especially labile in the face of a powerful will.

Most children live for a few weeks at most. Only a select few last long enough to learn the Laughing Language. These are the fox’s favorites, cheerful and clever and strong of heart. She teaches them to see the corners where fox space intersect the planes, and they use this power to play hide and seek across dimensions.

The laughing children are allowed free rein of the den, and act as older siblings to the fox’s other children.

Some leave the den to establish their own dens, while others become agents of the fox. None of them live longer than three years.

Laughing Child
HD 1  Defense as chain  Nails 1d4
Move as halfling  Morale 3 (Flighty)
Special teleport within line of sight (fox space), the Laughing Language

You can follow the laughing child through the fox space if you’re quick, but every turn spent in fox space without a fox to escort you incurs a Save vs mutation.

Much like Dwarven and Cheoxic, the Laughing Language has special properties. Creatures in earshot feel their hearts lifted, and become more trusting. All reaction rolls improve by one degree, and Saves against charms and hypnosis are more difficult.

Fox Baron
HD 6  Defense as chain  Claws 1d6/1d6/1d6
Move as an elephant-sized wolf  Morale 7
Special teleport within line of sight (fox space), the Laughing Language, chronovory

The fox eats away at your lifespan as you fight it. Any damage it deals ages you an equal number of years. If you would age past your natural lifespan this way (default 80), Save vs instantaneous organ failure.

Foxes are more fur than flesh. If you kill one, it and its den collapse into a dense red garnet, which are valuable to big game hunters and wizards, who can turn them into bags of holding. 

by Cecile Berrube

 

Foxes are found near villages where food is plentiful. They may be reviled in local legends as crib-snatchers, or revered as whimsical gods. Foxes often have direct relationships with humans; you might encounter a town which serves a local fox baron in return for its supernatural protection. Fox barons pay close attention to human settlements under their wing; the more populous the village, the more children are born, and the less people will notice when someone goes missing.

Unlike most fae, foxes are capable of complex moral reasoning. They observe the many hardships of our world from the safety of their dens, and they weep for our long, miserable lives. They see themselves as agents of good, rescuing unloved and abused children from a lifetime of trauma and destitution. In their mind, the fox is saving the child from a lifetime of being human.

To live as foxes do, without worries or cares, is a blessing afforded to few out of the goodness of the fox’s heart. It is a great kindness that the children never grow to remember their previous trauma.

In this way, foxes convince themselves of their moral superiority. They’re like people who eat burgers and say “if the cow understood its situation, it would have wanted it this way”.

It is rumored that foxes were mundane animals who became fae to avoid divine punishment. This is silly, and probably true.