RPG/Book Review: The Memoirs of Auberon of Faerie by Jeff Grubb

(Note: The original version of this review was written for an issue of Astrovitae, a magazine of speculative biology. The magazine is currently on hiatus, and that issue has not been published, so I figured I'd share my article here.

Astrovitae is an awesome magazine, by the way. Anyone with an interest in speculative biology should definitely check it out. Every issue is available for free here.)

 Speculative biology is a subgenre in science fiction and fantasy that looks at imaginary life through scientific lens. This includes designing plausible alien creatures, animals from the far future, and alternative paths that life could have evolved on Earth such as non-avian dinosaurs that survived the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact.

Then there is fiction that examines the biology of beings from mythology and folklore to see how they could exist as natural organisms. Some creatures are easy to explain- dragons, sasquatches, unicorns, etc. More explicitly supernatural entities such as faeries take more work and the scientific explanation can be just as bizarre as the magical one.

The Memoirs of Auberon of Faerie, written by Jeff Grubb, is a fictional field guide to the nature and culture of beings from the Faerie Veil. It’s a sourcebook for the TTRPG game Castle Falkenstein by R. Talsorian Games, set in a magical steampunk version of 1870s Europe. On the surface, the game seems like a fantasy setting with sorcery, dragons, dwarves, and fey. But it is actually pulpy science fiction. Dragons are evolved, intelligent pterosaurs. Magic is done through manipulation of probability and quantum strings using electromagnetic waves. And faeries are entities of pure energy from another dimension that have taken on material forms.

King Auberon, the narrator of the book and ruler of the Seelie Faerie Court, tells readers that the first members of his species entered the solid matter universe thousands of years ago, taking on the aspects of the beings and world around them. These forms were subsequently copied by other energy beings who came after, and since faeries are creatures of habit, the same features have been retained down through the centuries with occasional refinements. Thus there are beings like brownies and gnomes who took on the industriousness of rural humans. There are undines, and selkies who assumed aspects of water and the people who work near it. There are faerie animals like the cait sith and black dogs who take bestial forms but still have the intelligence and culture of other fey. And many more.

Some fey misinterpreted what they saw, leading to horrific results. Nuckelavee, for example, are descended from a faerie that took its form from the rotting corpses of a rider and horse- thus they appear as a nightmarish melding of both. The fachan- a creature with one foot, one arm, and one eye- originated from a faerie who found a corpse lying on its side in a shallow puddle and thus took the form a human bisected vertically down the middle.

The book also explains the alienness of faeries in scientific terms. As energy beings from a dimension where time does not exist, they don’t understand concepts like aging, sickness, or permanency. They also have a hard time comprehending death since they can easily reform their bodies in the Faerie Veil if they are destroyed in the material world. In fact, the only way to truly kill a faerie is to attack them with meteoric iron, which permanently dissipates their energies. 

 Odd faerie habits are also explained as consequences of their unique nature. Salt deters them because the charged ions in these minerals mess with their electromagnetic bodies. Holy symbols have a similar effect because they are focuses of strong mental energy that interfere with the faerie’s own. Even the dislike some fey have towards gifts of clothing is explained as a repulsion because they originally thought clothes were part of humans’ skins.

As an accessory for a Victorian Steampunk game set in Europe, The Memoirs focus on faerie creatures of this region- particularly creatures of Ireland and the British Isles such as Leprechauns, Daoine Sidhe, Trolls, Pixies, and others. There are a few from farther afield such as the Leshiye and Rusalka of Russian mythology, and the nymphs of Greek myth. It would have been nice to see more beings from other cultures, but that is an opportunity for other speculative biologists to explore.

 As a gaming supplement, the book includes stats for each species of faerie along with game mechanics for using their unique powers in the game. A speculative biologist who likes to game could find lots of interesting ways to explore the physics and natural history of these entities. But even if you don’t roleplay, the book is great inspiration for a creator attempting to explain magical creatures in a more grounded, scientific way.

You can get a print or digital copy of The Memoirs of Auberon of Faerie from R. Talsorian Games.