[quote=@Prince of Seraphs] There's a few things I wanted to ask about. I'm just going to go through it piece by piece, it is the easiest way to keep things straight in my head. Not all of it will be strictly relevant to actually having the character accepted as that is LadyRunic's department but most of it would probably be good to think over just so the details look right. This isn't really so much a grievance as a note about the character but by whatever criteria he discerns accounts to be "true" or not there should by the nature of the fae be just as many accounts of people losing everything to their faerie deal as there are accounts of them getting what they want from good natured fae. Assuming that whatever information available about the fae rivals that of what is on our own internet the fact that he could get [i]all[/i] of these points exactly right seems rather unlikely. If you couldn't tell by me being here I'm rather a fan of ancient folklore. Your points essentially boil down to this: One: Fae reside in two Courts, Winter and Summer, Summer is kind, Winter is vicious. Two: Fae fear iron. Three: Words hold special power in the land of Faerie. Four: Humans and Fae can cross into the other's world. I'll grant you that these are all very common interpretations but they are far from the [i]only[/i] common themes and a thousand and one variations of these themes exist through folklore, games, novels, legends and so forth. The idea of separate courts ranging from the names to temperament of fae that live there, the effects iron actually has on a fae etc. My point is that Gideon is a high school student. You have yourself said that he does his research between "homework and scheduled events" which means outside of faerie research time he has a life that takes up a good portion of his time and given that he has a life he's not traipsing around various areas looking for fae or interviewing locals about anything so his research basically boils down to the internet. With that as his only source being able to say with confidence "this is true and this is false about the fae" makes him either very arrogant or have incredible tunnel vision regarding his research. You can find sites that say fae live in four courts, in two, some that say the Seelie and Unseelie courts are a figment of human imagination and the fae live together as a single people. Some sources that say iron burns them to the touch, others that they cannot cross an iron barrier such as a fence or even a train track. There's theories regarding salt, leaving gifts for the fae in exchange for favors. Throughout history the fae have gone from deities to sprites to spirits to ghosts to mischief makers to demons to monsters and back again. My point is that with a nearly limitless supply of information all of which from one source or anything contradicts itself at least a hundred times how can Gideon be so certain about these specific points regarding fae culture and nature? My above point about this stands as the chances of him pulling the correct ritual out of what must be sixty five billion different recipes from various sources is very coincidental but my real question is this. Now [@LadyRunic] if you could weight in here cause I'm going into an area of lore that is a bit sketchy but I'll give it by best shot. If I am wrong about this let me know. I believe though that magic performed by mortals who haven't been gifted it by the fae is incredibly unlikely to the point of none existence. Most rituals of ancient times that the pagans used to open gates to the fae world more likely were simply messages to the other side altering a specific fae that they were asking for his or her help and if the fae was in a good mood he would open the portal himself. That or else they cracked open already existing tears between the two realms, just widening them to the point where anyone could walk through rather than one person simply falling through by accident and that particular tear never being found again. It would be the same reason fae gates were built where they were, Stone Henge, Avalon, etc, they simply stabilized and amplified a weakness in the veil between world already present. Otherwise as I have to assume Gideon is not the only fae fanatic in the world everyone would be trying to this and because in your version it seems to take no special skill, specific placement or consent from the other side thousands of humans would be pouring into faerie monthly. [/quote] I mean, of course its what he "thinks" is true, not precisely what he knows to be true, he's never actually encountered any Fae to be able to see what the actual facts are. He doesn't know for certain, nor does he think anyone really knows given how varied the interpretations he has found are. He's mostly looked for a few things he sees as being consistent across some accounts, since the reasoning would be that if he can trace something across multiple accounts, its more likely to be true. At the same time, this is all under the premise that Faeries of any kind are regarded as non-existent by most humans, many accounts and depictions are not of actual Fae, others are either highly degraded and bastardized or culturally morphed interpretations, and by the fact that his own research couldn't possibly encapsulate every last account across every last culture that has ever met a Fae. Plus the fact that search algorithms can fuck up what interpretations you see anyway. Although I probably could list a couple of what he thinks are major authorities on the subject. Doesn't mean they actually are, many of them may just appear convincing. But its the fact that he hasn't managed to see all of the various interpretations that he's actually able to try and build a few basic ideas. He's certainly got very large gaps in his knowledge, and his ideas are extremely basic, but he feels confident he has an grasp of them because he's happened to find a few things he sees as consistent. I'd most definitely call it youthful arrogance borne of partial ignorance. If he actually knew the full picture, he'd know damn well not try and pull a stunt like trying to enter into the Fae world to begin with. Its the same arrogance that characters like Faust have when they think they can cheat the Devil, or when Lovecraftian characters have no clue about the horrifying universe around them. If they knew the trouble they were getting into, they'd never have looked for it in the first place. As for the ritual, I'm open to changing it. I was working with the assumption that ritual magic doesn't necessarily require any great magical talent, merely very focused intent and some proper ceremony, symbolism, and actions. He's basing the idea off of the theory that Stonehenge was built as a gateway of sorts between the natural and supernatural (Stonehenge being one of the largest and most well-known ancient monuments in the Celtic world, assumed to have magical or ritual significance by some theorists, and Celtic cultures and their descendents being the more popularly associated cultures with Faeries, he's drawing upon those assumptions). I could change it so that instead of opening a portal as he had intended, he merely called up a Faerie of some sort, though what would happen after that IDK.