It was new.
It was tasty.
It was addictive.
Naturally, on the heels of this discovery fairies decided to see what all different types of meat tasted like. That was when they discovered that the most delicious meat came from other fairies.
Now the fairy tribes are locked in war, with each individual born with an addictive hunger for the flesh of their fellows.
Fairy Meat is a tabletop miniatures-based wargame published by Kenzer & Company, the mad geniuses behind Knights of the Dinner Table and Hackmaster.
In addition to the main game, there are four expansions:
- Clockwork Stomp, which introduces Gnomes, Clockwork Fairies, and Gremlins.
- Sugar and Vice, which introduced the Moon Faries.
- Wicked Things, which introduced the titular faction.
- WAR, which introduced the Straightedge Rebellion.
Fairy Meat contains examples of:
- Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Common fairies literally spring to life out of certain special plants every Spring. Moon Fairies (who live on the Moon) emerge from tiny ice crystals on the lunar rock. How Gnomes do so is unknown — even Gnomes actually don't know how it happens; baby Gnomes just sort of pop up in baskets on their doorsteps.
- Born from Plants: Common fairies literally spring to life out of certain special plants every Spring.
- Cannibalism Superpower: A key part of the backlore is that fairies eating fairy flesh (or sucking their souls out with Pink) gain increased strength and vitality. Mechanically represented by the fact that Wild and Moon Fairies can heal themselves by eating opponents.
- Extreme Omnivore: The Goblikes, a race of Goblin-like Pixies whose sole goal seems to be to eat everything: animal, vegetable, and mineral.
- The Fair Folk: Of course.
- Griping About Gremlins: Gremlins are a species of rabbit-lizards with an instinctual knack for sabotaging machinary. Despite naturally being a bane of Gnomes, they can be bribed into working as lab assistants, or at the very least, sabotaging their rival's equipment.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Enthusiastic cannibalism has become the chief aspect of fairy culture.
- Averted with the Straightedge Rebellion, which consists of fairies that are born without the same twisted glee that other fairies have, forcing them into exile. Not only they avoid anything associated with typical fairy culture (including cannibalism), but they also wage a war of extermination against all other fairies, whom they revile as cannibals.
- Metal Slime: When a Goblike is killed, any and all meat it has eaten is dropped.
- Monstrous Cannibalism: The Role-Playing Game.
- One-Gender Race:
- All Gnomes are depicted as male. The obvious questions of reproduction are handwaved with newborn Gnomes either delivered on doorsteps or found wandering in tunnels. Where these children come from is a mystery, though one Gnomish philosopher has brought up the theory of an 'Uberstud'.
- All known fairies are depicted as female.
- Our Gnomes Are Weirder: They're a race of Mad Scientists with a Napoleon Complex who are out to take over the world, have all but exterminated their kinsfolk the leprechauns to use them as fuel, and frequently cut the heads off of fairies to graft onto clockwork robot bodies and use them as servants.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: Gnome technology frequently involves the body-parts or similar "extractions" from other fairies. The most notorious and well-known of these creations are the Clock-Fairies, constructs built with a dead fairy's head or brain as the servant of a Gnome.
- Moon Fairies use magical lipstick to suck the souls out of others to give them the power that Wild Fairies gain from cannibalism. They usually do it after their targeted foes are dead, because the slain are less likely to resist than a living enemy.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: Straightedge Rebellion Fairies revel in combat and practice a simple lifestyle that avoids a lot of fairy art and entertainment. They behave like American soldiers from the Vietnam War.
- To some extent, all Fairies have become a warrior people, to get the delicious victims and meat they crave since their spawning. Many of them are organised into warbands, such as Circles.
- The Masquerade: The Gnomes have The Law of Hermitage, which (among other things) forbades Gnomes from revealing themselves to humans.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The main tactic Gnomes have to deal with humans who discover evidence of Gnomish existence, most commonly with a Spontaneous Combustion Ray.
