How To: Stop a Fairy

Let's propose that you wish to capture and restrain a young fairy for some ulterior motive: you want to study how they work, or hold one hostage, or whatever reason you might have (you sad, sadistic bastard!)

You, on the other hand, have no magical ability at your disposal, leaving you quite vulnerable. You're also terribly unlikable (perhaps because you are a sad, sadistic bastard) and so hiring a mage of some sort is out of the question. What is at your fingertips, however, is technology and knowledge.

Using sufficiently advanced technology and a bit of know-how (as well as found-things in nature, for that matter. You're resourceful), how might one go about subduing a fairy? Again, we'll assume your at least smart enough to target one young enough that they might not be prepared to make you into snack food as quickly as an older, wiser fairy might.

Well, as advanced as you might be, fairies are very tough to catch. The main reason is a good portion of them are experienced hunters and know how to detect prey coming from a ways off.

Also, there's little doubt they stay in groups, so nothing short of a guild of mages would stand up to that.

Your best bet would be to utilize one of those magic plants that can catch fairies. Even then, if the other fairies find out you're doing that, you'll stir up alot of trouble with them.

Hit the wings for massive damage. Shotguns are your friends.

I'd think this would be pretty hard. It's easier to kill something like this than to restrain because you don't have to worry about it escaping.

Not having any magic at your disposal just makes it even more difficult.

I think your best bet would be to try to extract what it is from fey weed that causes fairies to become intoxicated and use that somehow.

Take the silk of the dreaded dridder and stew it in the stomach of an opal mingo. Pour in water to dilute the stomach acids, and then mash together a voidcap and grounded fairy blossoms. Mix the concoction into the stomach, and let it stew for a fortnight. When completed, seal it within a bottle and ye shall have a weapon that shall nullify a fairies magical abilities. When the jar is opened, it shall shoot forth the webbing, trapping whatever fairy it catches.

Sean Okotami wrote:

Hit the wings for massive damage. Shotguns are your friends.

Shotguns spread, if you aim for the wings, you'll still probably hit it in the neck or head and kill it.

Honestly, it comes down to luck. You need to catch one when its human-sized, maybe use some kind of trap to lure it and and persuade it to shrink down. Some kind of net-gun or blade-gun would probably be your best bet. You just need to break or tear the wings and you're good.

But yes, killing a fairy is much simpler than catching one.

What size are you going after it with? It makes a difference if the Fairy predominantly travels at man-size, Giantess, Navi-/Tinkerbell-like, or so on.

For man-sized, I'd imagine standard tranquilizers would work wonders (provided you had sufficient aiming to hit one). From there you'd have to act fast, but it shouldn't be impossible to nab one that way. Similarly, using some sort of chemical agent that induces sleeping or lethargy might work for man-sized and smaller (not so well for bigger ones as they have too much body mass to efficiently tranq). Needless to say, small ones don't require much in the way of complexity at all.

Now, larger Fairies, those are a bit trickier. These things don't even need to use magic to pulp you / dispose of you / escape in short amounts of time / eat you. They can, respectively, smash you, throw you, fly some tree with the lowest branches several hundred feet / meters above ground, grab and gulp (and if you're inside a Fairies' mouth, throat, or stomach, odds are the only ways to get out are not going to involve being non-lethal to the Fairy).

Overall, range and size are your advantages here: Now you're the one who's harder to notice (though you still have to beware the Predator-sense, so you might need some mean to cloak that or an ambush position wherein you're masked from their sense), and even with their large size you can probably access equipment that at least matches their response range. Problem now being that you aren't going to be able to simply "drug" a Fairy without excessive amounts of equipment. Instead, neutralizing the wings might work best. Some extremely durable material (perhaps you purchased Giant Spider / Giant Dridder webbing?) left in thin enough amounts strung properly might be able to mess with the wings in a pre-set area the Fairy flies through: People are fond of doing direct scalings, and if a Fairy is 60' tall and the material is about 1cm thick then to then the material will almost be half a millimeter thick (leaning closer to millimeter than half) to them. If flying at high speeds, or not paying attention, they could quickly fly into a few "isolated" strands meant to drift back into the wings and get stuck - either posing a distraction at worst or tearing tiny bits off the wing at best when removed.

Other means of damaging the wings are attempting to sneak up on a sleeping fairy (good luck with a Giant Fairy, odds are they aren't going to sleep at that size when it's much easier and safer to hide at Navi-size), conventional attack (Insect-like wings are notoriously brittle, standard firearms should be able to cause impressive degrees of damage in short order: Imagine setting off a frag grenade behind the wings and causing tons of tears over a 20m diameter), causing enough trauma to force the fairy asleep (very risky, as it always is when applying enough force to someone to cause unconsciousness), comically drugged-levels bait / food (not going to improve your public relations, at all), and so on. However, hunting Giantess Fairies in general is a foolish endeavor: Barring the most gung-ho and green Fairy Hunter, I'd imagine that the moment "Giant" enters the target description they give a "pass" and move on to another subject.

This is a surprsingly good idea. The question remains now if there are plants or fungi in Felarya capable of producing anesthesizing enzymes, or if human cities can brew it to begin with

Funny, I was just working on this very thing! After all, Faulkner needs peers.

Here's the means to deal with fairies that I've devised so far, and the related characters.

Faulkner- uses a custom device to track the flitting of a fairy's wings. If their voice isn't affected by scale, their humming isn't either. Then he follows up with either flashbangs or pepper sprays after catching it asleep. He keeps a bottle of rhum on his person, too- to do a spit take on them in case they try to shrink him, so as to better set them on fire even when shrunken.

Lenna- Lenna's style is to be a she-pimp, and hire a dozen noobs per week. Sooner or later, one gets lucky. That's where the rifle comes in.

Ichenso- he fills jars with bugs and wears a beekeeper's outfit. Even when HE is the one who made them angry, the fairies are all that's exposed; even shrunken, releasing the bugs, as they unshrink, the fairy's the one in trouble. Then his partner swoops in for the catch.

Marcel- Marcel periodically pulls faces in the jungle to check if anyone's looking. He uses dragonbreath shells to start a forest fire if he meets a fairy, or rocksalt shells in case he can get a clear shot (because they're excruciating), so as to make sure the other fairies leave to reassure their friends.

Misty- Misty's hunting method is to find faebanes through aerial recon (she's got a trained bird), and use a very long stick to pick at their pollen. It's distracting, and allows her partner Scylla to catch them.

Scylla- Being a cyborg with less than 5 pounds of flesh left, she's got a near-zero profile for the predator sense. And enough weapons to sink S.S. Anko.

personaly i would try to snipe the wings off or a ko dart to the body would work. if you cant shoot for crap, then try using a simple (large) sticky trap with a neko on it.

Don't you just venture out with a tiny net and cage or glass bottle?

That's what I see all the professionals use anyway......

See, Karbo's latest drawing proves that the professional way to catch a fairy is with a small net.

http://karbo.deviantart.com/art/Gonna-need-a-bigger-net-198734045

But seriously, who keeps sending these fools to their doom under some imaginary premise that they can actually be successful?
















Ok....it was me. I did it.

Okay, I've been pondering a method of fairy capture...

One must be able to farm a crop of Feyweed. Simply set it out, wait for a fairy, and when the plant eats it, just quickly take a cutting implement and snip out the segment of the stem where the fairy is trapped, preferably before they reach the pseudo-stomach.

Of course, I'm not sure if that means the fairy won't continue to digest, but I think Feyweed nectar should be a standard tool for fairy hunting. Even if it's just to lure them into the range of some sort of anti-magic zone for you to trap them and remove their wings, it would really work wonders and revolutionize the fairy-hunting industry.

Considering the magic sponge that is the gekkota's stomach is adapted to drain fairy magic, I'd try to bargain with one. I mean, sure, it wouldn't be very pleased with having to regurgitate it's prey, but I bet if you had a handsome(a.i. tasty) enough reward, it might be willing to help. Assuming it doesn't eat you or plan to eat you. Worth a try if you REALLY need one, I guess.
Or you could hunt and kill a gekkota, but you'd have to have that pretty well planned out, as in do it right after it snatches a fairy and all that jazz, and actually figure out HOW you're gonna kill it.

So yeah, I guess that's one way. Of course, you'd better hope that the fairy is knocked out or at least weakened when it's spat out, unless you have another plan of action...

Well unless the Fairy was in there for only a few seconds, it's most likely unconscious due to suffocation by the time it's spat out. Of course, this also means it's probably going to have suffered mental damage (especially if it was in there amongst the limits of time you can go without air).

I suggest using an ultra high frequency sound wave generator to temporarily disable the part of the fairy's brain that controls their size shifting magic, this would also effect all fairy's within the immediate vicinity. However finding the correct frequency to use would be an other matter entirely (you would need highly accurate brains scans of a fairy actively using her powers - good look with that one). However once you've found the frequency you would be unstoppable!

thejackle123 wrote:

I suggest using an ultra high frequency sound wave generator to temporarily disable the part of the fairy's brain that controls their size shifting magic, this would also effect all fairy's within the immediate vicinity. However finding the correct frequency to use would be an other matter entirely (you would need highly accurate brains scans of a fairy actively using her powers - good look with that one). However once you've found the frequency you would be unstoppable!

That's almost needlessly complex, when all you really need is a properly hooked sonic generator in general. Use the right frequencies, you can pretty much drop a person instantaneously and (non-permanently) cripplingly. Upgrade the oomph, theoretically possible with Giant Predators too.

Must of the counters to Giant Predators can't really be applied due to one of three things:
1) Technological limit. Simple really, Negav doesn't have access to mobile, Vivian-scaled Bean-Bag Rounds.
2) Mobility. Goes along with above, but such a thing needs to be mobile. Odds are, if you're trying to peacefully capture a Giant Predator in Negav or Nekomura or the like, it's on the move.
3) Uselessness against non-Giant Predators. Despite what some stories may say, Giant Predators are not something 90% of people will run into the first ten minutes they wander into the Jungle. A Vivian-scale Bean-Bag Slug would do great against Crisis, not so well against a good fifty Bloodclaw Apes.

Dude....recently I've found a non lethal weapon that would hit on the spot with this. And its hilariously fun to use. planning on using it with one of my fairies.

Honestly, stopping a fairy is not really as hard as people make it out to be. They really are only dangerous when they get the jump on someone (usually someone who doesn't know to look out for fairies and other dangers in Felarya).

I figure it would fall into three distinct phases:

1: Location and set-up: In other to capture/kill a fairy, you must first find them and get them into a proper ambush position. The ideal time to take down a fairy is when they are human-sized, so you would also need to chose a set-up that encourages them to shrink down. Bait of some kind could be useful for this. Have a member of your hunting party act as live bait, or even use a honeypot type strategy where you have someone pretend to be wounded/in pain to draw them in close.

2: Disabling: Once you have the fairy where you want it, and preferrably at human size, you have a lot of options. If you want to capture them, all you need is a tranquilizer rifle of some kind. They are light, portable, and nearly silent. The fairy would be darted and unconsious before she knew she was even hit.

If you want to kill the fairy, you have a lot of options there too. Crossbows would work well enough, and so would a standard bow and arrow for that matter in an ambush situation. Fairies may have heighted senses and reflexes, but they aren't super-human and won't be able to dodge objects moving as fast as crossbow bolts. Of course, firearms such as shotguns, rifles and the like would work fine too. In theory, you could shred a fairy's wings with a shotgun without necissarily killing the fairy. That is all dependant on the range, spread and so on though.

3: Clean-up: This is the point where the disabled or dead fairy can be carried off (Im assuming fairy hunters need to bring back proof, such as a body, or a body part in order to claim the bounty, or whatever compensation they are to recieve for killing the fairy).

Really the most difficult part is luring in a lone fairy to the ambush. Once you actually get them in the right position, a human-sized fairy is pretty simple to deal with. The real issue with fairies is that they tend to be part of a pack. You're going to need to do the deed and get out of sight quickly. Size-shifting is certainly a powerful asset as well, but it is very much a double-edged sword since fairies become their most vulnerable when they are human-sized or smaller.

rcs619 wrote:

2: Disabling: Once you have the fairy where you want it, and preferrably at human size, you have a lot of options. If you want to capture them, all you need is a tranquilizer rifle of some kind. They are light, portable, and nearly silent. The fairy would be darted and unconsious before she knew she was even hit.

The main reason this is risky for capturing live specimens, is apply too much and the Fairy's going to croak. Meanwhile, apply too little, and you're going to have to deal with an angry (if rapidly growing sluggish) fairy, who can most probably find some high ground to retreat to.

Why do I get the feeling that tingle would love this thread?

Anyway to capture a fairy you got te be pretty good prepared and incredibly smart.
I think that isn't worth it...

well several good idea's have already been mentioned, frankly I like the sonic weapons, but sadly you probably wont have them. The other option is explosives, but those have a good chance of killing the fairy, a risk one may just have to take. The problem with anesthetizing them is that they are rarely instant and the fairy would have time to grow before it takes effect.

asaenvolk wrote:

well several good idea's have already been mentioned, frankly I like the sonic weapons, but sadly you probably wont have them. The other option is explosives, but those have a good chance of killing the fairy, a risk one may just have to take. The problem with anesthetizing them is that they are rarely instant and the fairy would have time to grow before it takes effect.

"Ha I've... caught... a..." massive crashing sound "fairy. Now how the hell am I going to get this back?"

Even If it did manage to grow it would still be tranked so at the very least you could get away.

I'd take the wiki's advice: Try to make friends. Fairies aren't used to being propositioned for friendship, and they don't eat friends. They just don't get the whole people/food split among humans... it's not "sentient/nonsentient", its "friend/potential-meal". It's a higher chance than attempting to struggle, anyways...

FJ's right, really...probably the most successful. For whatever reason they're not used to being propositioned for friendship...but then again, typical adventurers are going to be like "run its a pred!" its only the REALLY experienced adventurers that keep their head in the forests upon seeing a pred, and their survival rate goes up just from that but still isn't even guaranteed.

Unfortunately since fairies are so versatile in just about everything they touch, there isn't one singular guaranteed strategy that will take them out beyond "go for the wings" but that still is heavily determined on many factors: experience, magic, other combat style, deceptions of various kinds. etc.