Ballads

[Willshaper]

So I’m starting the ballads faction quests and I’m so confused. What is a ballad exactly? Why do the tree elves talk as though it’s already happened/know exactly whats “supposed” to happen?

[alexshiro]

A ballad is a kind of song. The tree elves have their songs that are like their destiny/script that they repeat every so often so they know what's supposed to happen.

[Valden21]

Originally posted by alexshiro:

A ballad is a kind of song. The tree elves have their songs that are like their destiny/script that they repeat every so often so they know what's supposed to happen.

Pretty much, yeah. The House of Ballads is a group of Summer Fae (the tree elves) responsible for keeping all the old stories and legends of the Summer Fae, and they do this by constantly acting them out. In a lot of ways, they take the idea of method acting to its most extreme conclusion, as any member of the House who gets picked for a certain role casts out everything connected to their old life and takes on that new idenity. For example, take their king, Wencen. That's not his original name, nor was he originally royalty, but because the Summer Fae stories require that the King of the House of Ballads have the name of Wencen, everybody who becomes the king automatically gets that new identity, and the Wencen we see is the guy who got picked for the role.

The downside of this is that acting out the stories is pretty much the only reason they exist, and if someone or something starts changing the ballads, the Fae involved are left without a purpose and no idea what do to next.