Editing The Dresden Files RPG (section)

=====The Unseelie Court/The Winter Court=====
The wicked court embodying the season of winter, cold logic, ruthlessness,  and predatory instincts(but also self-sacrifice and learning through experience). Not necessarily "evil" but almost universally predatory and dangerous. Even if you're "allied" with winter, they're just as likely to "help you" by throwing obstacles in your path to help you grow and learn (or die horribly) as they are to directly aid you. They're still good for their word, just make sure that their word is EXACTLY what you want it to be. Winter Itself is also a force/element/mantle/power ''thing'' that the Queens and Knight seem to be able to tap into that takes different forms depending on its user, but generally manifests as an almost limitless supply of cold, ice, and blackness. The capital of Winter is Arctis Tor, a massive fortress made of ice and the bones of Mab's enemies situated at the top of a mountain in the Land of Faerie. 

[[Image:QueenMab.jpg|thumb|right|Queen Mab]]

[[Image:LloydSlate.jpg|thumb|right|The fate of someone who pisses off Queen Mab]]

*'''Queen Mab''': Mab, ''Queen of Air and Darkness'', is the leader of the Winter Court and a ruthless, hyperlogical ice queen. Her likes include machiavellian schemes, amassing power for her court, torture, and metaphorically emasculating Harry Dresden. Do not piss her off, EVER, she'll either destroy everything you hold dear or torture you to the point of insanity, and if she really (dis)likes you, she might just heal you so she can start all over again. Not necessarily evil, but cold, businesslike, and utterly without pity or mercy. When she's in the mood, her voice will give you involuntary wood, when she's angry, her voice causes those who hear it intense physical pain.

*'''Lady Maeve''': Mab's sadistic, irresponsible, nympho-maniacal bitch of daughter. Crazy beautiful, crazy dangerous, and crazy insane. Can't have sex due to to her status as a Lady while being horny as fuck 24/7 - the other name for the Lady is "The Maiden" (Maiden, Mother, Crone) and anything that would threaten her "maidenhood" drives her crazy(er) and makes her attempt to murder everyone in sight if she tries, which she already does for shits and giggles. Think Dark Eldar jailbait and you get the right idea. Since she regularly shirks her duties, she's partly responsible for Winter's reputation of senseless cruelty. Don't get me wrong, winterfae are naturally ultraviolent and predatory, but under Queen Mab those traits are controlled and channeled towards productive and ultimately positive endeavors, under Maeve, the winterfae just run wild and skullfuck people. WoJ is that she was the product of a union between Mab and an unnamed Austrian composer who died young.

*'''Mother Winter''': Possibly the scariest character in the Dresden Files, and one '''heavily''' implied to literally be Death, which means Mother Summer is Taxes. Imagine every wicked witch story ever, distilled into a being of godlike power with the disposition of of a cranky grandmother from the old country. She's almost evil to cartoon-villain levels, to the point where she thinks the apocalypse would be a great time, and the mass murder of infants just means its lunch time. She manages to avoid being truly ridiculous by being... I think ''pure'' would be the best way to put it; she's got that cynical, jaded point of view that old people sometimes get as a result of living too long or seeing too much. She's every wicked, sadistic, cruel impulse you've ever had, but with none of the passion or drive that gave you that, all wrapped up with a delightfully blunt apathy. She's a mean old iron toothed she-bear who would rip you the fuck up if she ever cared enough to leave her cave. She's terrifying, but you also feel sorry for her because she spends almost all her time wallowing in misery, even though you know that her idea of fun usually involves genocide. She doesn't leave her cottage often on account of losing her walking stick, and here "walking stick" means artifact of immense power that mortal minds interpret as a walking stick. The good news is that she's sort of helpful in a survival of the fittest kind of way. Kind of. Also worthy of note is that she's the only fae who can touch iron, having iron cutting utensils and iron ''teeth'', something that Harry has zero explanation for. She lives in a small cottage with Mother Summer, with whom she gets along with surprisingly well. WoJ is that she's also Baba  Yaga, and presumably every other old witch throughout legend. She is also the biological mother of Mab and Titania.
*'''The Winter Knight''': the faerie queens cannot kill any mortal not directly linked to the fae courts, so the Winter Knight was developed as a workaround, essentially being the Queens' mortal champion. The mantle can heal great injuries, enhance your strength and speed to olympic+ levels, and grants even non-wizard knights a degree of control over ice and snow. Such power is not without it's downsides though. Winter Knights become increasingly territorial and violent over time, often becoming prone to violence, addiction, and rape.  So Winter Knights can start out all normal (though your average candidate is chosen by the queens for being a badass and/or a stone cold killer), but they eventually turn into disturbed Vaas Montenegro motherfuckers. When they are killed or eventually burn out, the queen removes the Mantle of the Winter Knight from the corpse and holds it until a suitable replacement is found. While in theory the mantle is some kind of supernatural steroid given to you by the queens, it's theorized by some characters as the series goes on that what it actually does is increase testosterone and adrenaline production, disable the body's inhibitors, and create a conduit to Winter within the Knight. This is supported by the fact that the Knights only rarely demonstrate physical power beyond that which is possible by people in absolute peak condition, and the increase in testosterone would explain their increasingly dickish attitudes(although there is evidence that it does actually increase strength in addition to the removing inhibitors) . As of the book ''Summer Knight'', the Winter Knight is '''Lloyd Slate''', a heroin addict, rapist, and murderer.
**'''(In)Famous Winter Knights''': Gilles de Rais, Fritz Haarman, John Haigh, and Andrei Chikatilo, all of whom were serial killers and rapists. The '''only''' past Winter Knight we hear about who wasn't an absolute scumbag was Tam Lin, a character in Scottish mythology.

*'''The Leanansidhe / Lea''': Mab's handmaiden/henchmaiden, and implied to be the third most powerful creature in the Unseelie Court after only Mab and Mother Winter. Also Harry's godmother. Comes from Celtic mythology where the Leanan Sidhe was a beautiful muse who would offer inspiration at the cost of driving the artist insane and putting them in a premature grave. She commands a pack of hunting hounds which may be '''Cu-Sith''', or Black Hounds. Genuinely loves her godson, but because she's winterfae, that love takes odd forms, such as trying to turn him into a hunting hound (believing he'd be happier and safer that way, she might have a point), and torturing him (believing strength comes from pain). Contrary to what you might expect, she's actually quite civil and pleasant on the rare occasion she gets the chance to have a peaceful chat with her Godson. 

*'''The Redcap''': A truly sadistic fuckwad who pretends to helps travelers on the road before killing them while they are asleep and using their fresh blood to dye his hat. Has a serious hate-boner for Harry. Insists on being called '''THE''' Redcap, so there may be more of him, just lesser.

*'''Jenny Greenteeth''': Matriarch of the swamp hags and shellycobbs, she looks like an attractive twenty something (she's much older) but with green teeth, and gets wet at the thought of drowning somebody, even in something as shallow as a bowl of punch, which is coincidentally about as deep as her aspirations in life. Maeve's henchwoman.

*'''Malks''': Psychotic cheshire cats that travel in packs, known to have weird voices. They have a vicious but cowardly mentality, a single one might attack you, but only if your back is turned or its superiors gave it a direct order to. They'll only willingly engage in head on assaults if they're accompanied by other Malks
** '''Cat Sidhe/Cat Sith/Eldest Malk''': Is said to be the progenitor of all Malks. Thus being the boss, he's slightly bigger than other malks and considerably more dangerous. Unlike the rest of his kind, he is more than willing to face his prey head on and is notably defiant where a regular Malk would be cowed.  He serves as Mab's henchman, and can serve as a snarky, passive agressive butler in a pinch. Known to be a cold motherfucker, but also gives good advice. Seriously badass; he's quiet and deadly enough that he can pull a supernaturally fast sidhe out of a group of equally fast sidhe who don't notice that anything happened until he ''tears out the sidhe's spinal column and throws it at them''. Seriously, the rest of Winter is terrified of him.
**'''Grimalkin''': A larger than average malk who seems to be a personal aide and pet to the Queens. Could also be spelled as Greymalkin as his name comes from an archaic term for a cat or a spiteful old woman. 

*'''Fetches''': Shapeshifters who feed on fear, they serve as Mab's elite spies and assassins. Notable for making a White Court Vampire who literally ate fear nearly shit himself in terror. In an ironic turn that particular vamp was a total pussy.
** '''Eldest Fetch''': The biggest and scariest Fetch. Masqueraded as a movie monster called "Scarecrow", which was essentially the Great Pumpkin on crack, and probably the lawyer friendly version of the monster from the Pumpkinhead movies. VERY magic resistant and strong. 

*'''Trolls''': green haired, man-eating brutes who are afraid of sunlight, serve the Queen as bodyguards and blacksmiths. (In)Famous for making Thorn Manacles which make it almost completely impossible for any mortal practitioner to cast magic while wearing them (You just need a very, very, very high pain threshold, and a shit-tonne of power).

*'''Hobs''': Hairless, eyeless, baboon-like monsters who resemble nightmarish hybrids between apes and dogs, also afraid of sunlight. They compensate by conjuring supernatural mist called "myrk" that covers their surroundings in darkness and extinguishes all light sources. Known to wield crude stone and bronze weapons. They have a reputation for dragging their prey with them to Faerie, screaming and alive into lightless burrows.

*'''Shellycobbs''': Giant crustaceans who like to drown people.

*'''Rawheads''': ("Rawhead and Bloody Bones" in full) Monsters made out of the meat and bones from corpses that they've eaten, starting out small they are usually born from piles of discarded waste at slaughterhouses or abattoirs, feasting on rats and other small creatures, before they work their way up the food-chain. They look like skinless flesh golems cobbled together from a butcher shop's dumpster with Minotaur horns. Have a neverending supply of blood to creepily drip down their body. Somehow. The threat these things pose is seemingly inconsistent as Harry is able to take one out in "Welcome to the Jungle" (where it was also walking on train tracks which are iron WTH?), but one in Cold Days remains a perpetual menace from beginning to end.

*'''Snow/Winter Ogre''': presumably what happens when an ogre permanently swears allegiance to Winter. Eight foot tall brutes covered in yellow-white fur

*'''Giant bats''': Bats that are giant. Apparently intelligent enough to speak, as they can sing "Happy Birthday" somewhat intelligibly. Serve as a sort of airforce for winter.

*'''Giant Spiders''': gigantic orb weaver spiders who are known to haunt the paths through Winter's territory. They're known to appear in cooperative groups but they'll feed on one of their own fallen without remorse.

*'''Manticores''': one appeared at Arctis Tor in ''Cold Days''

*'''Swamp Hags''':  one appeared at Arctis Tor in ''Cold Days''

*'''Miksani''': fae who live in the Aleutian isles, a simple, dignified folk, can change between human and cormorant forms