"Faeries talk all in riddles and tricky bits, 'cept the Nobles. Now, there's some straight talkers."
—Joskun, An-Havva Constable, Magic: The Gathering, Faerie Noble
The story seems to be that hunters sometimes face Real Actual Fairies, while other times they face changelings. Real Actual Fairies are... well, who knows? Nightmares made manifest? Ancient spirits, puckish and cruel? Some seem to look human, but they stride with such eerie, lordly grace through this world that they must be something far stranger. Others are nothing more than shadows, shapes, colors, smells: an alien glimmer of light down an old wood path, the smell of funeral flowers drifting up out of that sewer drain.
—Hunter: The Vigil, First Edition corebook
"Spites? Oh, you mean sprites! Why, they're the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. I leave saucers of milk out for them every night so they don't play tricks on me, the little mischief-makers! They don't mean any harm by their pranks, though."
—Lady Garnsley, Imperial noble, on spites, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The WFRP Companion
"Vicious sons of bitches they are. I once saw a swarm of pixies strip one of my men's flesh from his bones with their tiny teeth in two minutes flat. Don't go near 'em if you know what's good for you, least not if you value your flesh."
—Marshal Senf von Scharf, on spites, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The WFRP Companion
"You want to put me in a book? What, squished between the pages like a flower? Just try it, big man, I'll slit your jugular quick as blinking."
—Dixiebell Buttercup, spite, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: The WFRP Companion
In my dream, I placed the Three Oranges in an orange car. They drove away, my beautiful fairies still encased in their peels. I wanted to watch my oranges drive an orange car, but the Cockroach nipped, nipped, nipped, and drew blood. My gun liquified in my hands. I vomited bullets. He cut me down, and I fell to my knees, screaming.
"Do you really think us so helpless, Stepan?" the Oranges said as the Cockroach dragged me back to Moscow. Their voices were beautiful, calm, bright. "Our magic is unexplainable, and yours comes from mere terror. We're fairies, Stepan. You're only a man."
—Three Oranges, by D. Elizabeth Wasden
Enigmatic, whimsical, often powerful, fairies exist on the border between flesh and spirit. Some grant wishes; others steal babies. Their physical forms are to some extent malleable projections, but many lesser fairies are fixed to one shape; sometimes, the effort of manifesting physically drains their powers so much that they can’t change back.
"Wood sprites, or forest sprites, are tiny creatures that make their homes near hearths. Their clothing is made of spun moss that hangs in ropelike strands from trees. We think of them as enchanted beings hounded by phantom hunters. They live together as married couples and bear children. Their enemies are the phantom hunters, who rage through the lands like wild beasts during autumnal storms. The wood sprites' only protection against them is to take refuge on a tree stump that has three crosses carved into it."
— Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's on German wood sprites, "The Three Flowers"
