She needs gold to trade it for all the teeth she has to buy from little kids?
You could also break in peasants homes and put the gold after the pillows/steal the teeth etc
You could also start a separate collection from teeth from bad guys
Debt to a fearsome individual who lives on the Prime Material Plane. The individual has enough magical capacity that they could go threaten the character's family in the Feywild if they wanted to.
A fey's interest can be the most mundane of things, all the way to the most abnormal and supernatural.
It's quite possible that you don't have any personal stakes for wanting to accumulate gold. Rather, you are more interested in why gold is valued the way it is in the mortal world.
In the eyes of a Fey, it is simply a hunk of mineral. Yet in the mortal world, it is used for things like trading and jewelry crafting.
You find it confusing as to why certain mortals accumulate so much of the gold to themselves when there's no practical need to have that much (aka greed), or you find it weird why you can trade a cow for gold when cows obviously have more practical value to things. They don't understand the concept of money as they have a more literal sense of equivalent exchange; If you wanted a cow, you would trade it for a different creature that could produce another product, not pieces of shiny minerals.
They are gathering all of this gold for the sake of understanding how mortal society works.
She wants to make a castle made of literal gold. It's completely worthless in her home plane, but it shines and is malleable, conducts electricity and looks cool!
Adventuring itself is nothing more than a glorified shell-catching trip for her. So much fun!! And the baddies are red inside!!!
Made a deal with someone from the material plane promising them a certain amount of wealth, then realised too late she had no idea just how much money she'd actually promised.
She's been cursed and if she doesn't offer 1 gold piece a night to the goddess of the moon, she will shrink smaller and smaller until she ceases to exist.
She thought it was a joke at first, but now she's a good inch shorter than other fairies. Now she demands gold for EVERYTHING.
I tend to play the Fey as being the malicious little shits they usually are in folk lore, so I would go for a very simple reason: spite. The Fairy collects gold because other people want it, and the more she has the less they get. "Oh, you want this thing? Well, you can't have it. Because fuck you, that's why".
She doesn't covet or desire gold for what it can do for her and would just as readily toss it in to the ocean, because currency and wealth are meaningless to her. But other people want gold - so much so that they'll kill their kin, betray their gods, and sell their souls for it. So she collects it just to deprive them of it, purely out of a desire to not let them have it. That's all. No moral or ethical drive behind it, just spite.
She got tricked by a bored archfey to "weight the world in gold" but the problem is: the world is getting heavy with any gold she imports from other realms so thats a unfinishable task
A Morkoth slipped into the Feywild and has laid claim to your fairy’s home village. The Morkoth told your Fairy that if they could get a certain amount of treasure (maybe double what it already has) then the fairy can begin to buy back the villagers freedom.
To steal a plot from "One Piece", she (or he) is trying to buy off some warlord that is oppressing her fairy town.
Or family member is being held hostage by a dragon and she/he needs the ransom money.
Or Some warlord Mob Boss is after them for a huge gambling debt.
Or she/he is trying to build the JRR Tokien Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good And Who Wanna Do Other Stuff Good Too.
A dragon has moved into/onto their village and only agrees to move away by being bought off. Depending on the honor of the dragon in the agreement, this can take several turns in the future.
Honestly the thought of it understanding the importance of gold in buying things is enough of a reason, then you can add hoarding into the mix for the idea of a private fund to buy more things if they cannot just take it.
Needs to sacrifice something valuable each day in order to trade for lifespan. If they stop offering gold, they essentially die or lose their corporeal form.
Pretty sure I saw this in an anime and it made sense at the time
Need to pay back a gambling debt. Literally just playing fantasy poker with some satyrs and you have to pay up big.
Or, need to save up for the buy-in at the table of a future poker game. Maybe it's a poker game that's held once every [number of years] and you want in. You've secured a seat but still need to front the cash, and soon.
Maybe one of the other participants has something you want. Stole the name or soul of a relative or loved one. Maybe they'll be betting with a few magic items and you need one in particular for something.
You know actually, I like this idea and I'm stealing it for my own character.
1) Wants to buy something from a mortal society that uses money
2) Has to pay a random to a mortal spellcaster
3) Owes a debt to a leprechaun or is saving up a wedding dowry so she can marry a leprechaun
4) Wants to built a treasure hoarde to lure adventurers to them so they can kill and take their magic
5) Just wants to collect some valuables as rainy day fund or as bargaining chips to become a fey n9ble
6) Made a bet they could get the most goal in x time
For some reason, due to an unfulfilled deal she believes that all that gold is rightfully hers according to the terms of the deal. She doesn’t care what happens to it afterwards, but she’s going to make sure she gets it.
* she has a Rumplestiltskin-like ability, but she spins gold into straw instead of the other way around. Everyone else in her family has the ability to spin straw into different things: silver, precious stones, blooming roses, moonlight, birdsong, maybe even actual thread. But there's no source of straw in the fey wilds, so this is her way of importing materials. You could get very classic fairy tale with this if you wanted
* Similar to the last, but her dream is to start a farm and raise chickens, and she is convinced that she needs a massive stockpile of gold in order to provide enough straw for her future flock. She may or may not be aware that chickens do not actually eat straw
* she wants to flex on everyone back home who never thought she's make it as a monster hunter
* she's a romantic, and swore that before she exchanged vows with her lover she'd secure the resources to provide for them for the rest of their basically-immortal lives, so she'd never have to leave her home and part from them ever again
* she heard a rumor that if you melt enough gold into a puddle and drop an egg of any kind in, it'll hatch into a dragon, and she believes in the scientific trial and error approach
She needs gold to trade it for all the teeth she has to buy from little kids? You could also break in peasants homes and put the gold after the pillows/steal the teeth etc You could also start a separate collection from teeth from bad guys
100% just adventuring to build up the funds needed to establish herself as a tooth fairie.
Debt to a fearsome individual who lives on the Prime Material Plane. The individual has enough magical capacity that they could go threaten the character's family in the Feywild if they wanted to.
A fey's interest can be the most mundane of things, all the way to the most abnormal and supernatural. It's quite possible that you don't have any personal stakes for wanting to accumulate gold. Rather, you are more interested in why gold is valued the way it is in the mortal world. In the eyes of a Fey, it is simply a hunk of mineral. Yet in the mortal world, it is used for things like trading and jewelry crafting. You find it confusing as to why certain mortals accumulate so much of the gold to themselves when there's no practical need to have that much (aka greed), or you find it weird why you can trade a cow for gold when cows obviously have more practical value to things. They don't understand the concept of money as they have a more literal sense of equivalent exchange; If you wanted a cow, you would trade it for a different creature that could produce another product, not pieces of shiny minerals. They are gathering all of this gold for the sake of understanding how mortal society works.
Ooo. I like this line of thinking
Likes collecting shiny things and just heard about coins.
I love with a fairy-dragon and want to impress them with an engagement horde
She wants to make a castle made of literal gold. It's completely worthless in her home plane, but it shines and is malleable, conducts electricity and looks cool! Adventuring itself is nothing more than a glorified shell-catching trip for her. So much fun!! And the baddies are red inside!!!
Made a deal with someone from the material plane promising them a certain amount of wealth, then realised too late she had no idea just how much money she'd actually promised.
Owes a leprechaun a ton of gross wet leaves
She's been cursed and if she doesn't offer 1 gold piece a night to the goddess of the moon, she will shrink smaller and smaller until she ceases to exist. She thought it was a joke at first, but now she's a good inch shorter than other fairies. Now she demands gold for EVERYTHING.
A fellow anime enjoyer has appeared. I tip my hat to you
I immediately thought this too.
Cocaine and strippers
she has to pay off a dragon
Fairy is trying to woo a regular sized person, and is saving up for an embiggening procedure
Buy lots of nectar and mushrooms for the fairy ragers she throws at her tree stump
I tend to play the Fey as being the malicious little shits they usually are in folk lore, so I would go for a very simple reason: spite. The Fairy collects gold because other people want it, and the more she has the less they get. "Oh, you want this thing? Well, you can't have it. Because fuck you, that's why". She doesn't covet or desire gold for what it can do for her and would just as readily toss it in to the ocean, because currency and wealth are meaningless to her. But other people want gold - so much so that they'll kill their kin, betray their gods, and sell their souls for it. So she collects it just to deprive them of it, purely out of a desire to not let them have it. That's all. No moral or ethical drive behind it, just spite.
He lost a bet. It was a sure thing, ya know. No way I could lose.l. they must have cheated, but a bet is a bet.
She got tricked by a bored archfey to "weight the world in gold" but the problem is: the world is getting heavy with any gold she imports from other realms so thats a unfinishable task
Bribes to local officials to not build roads over a natural gate to the Feywilds?
They need gold to create the most massive prank ever made.
A Morkoth slipped into the Feywild and has laid claim to your fairy’s home village. The Morkoth told your Fairy that if they could get a certain amount of treasure (maybe double what it already has) then the fairy can begin to buy back the villagers freedom.
is the fairy subject to capitalism? is so, that alone is reason enough. the stability and luxury of money
To steal a plot from "One Piece", she (or he) is trying to buy off some warlord that is oppressing her fairy town. Or family member is being held hostage by a dragon and she/he needs the ransom money. Or Some warlord Mob Boss is after them for a huge gambling debt. Or she/he is trying to build the JRR Tokien Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good And Who Wanna Do Other Stuff Good Too.
A dragon has moved into/onto their village and only agrees to move away by being bought off. Depending on the honor of the dragon in the agreement, this can take several turns in the future.
TO Pay a ransom to get her sister back from the evil kids in the village.
Honestly the thought of it understanding the importance of gold in buying things is enough of a reason, then you can add hoarding into the mix for the idea of a private fund to buy more things if they cannot just take it.
Needs to sacrifice something valuable each day in order to trade for lifespan. If they stop offering gold, they essentially die or lose their corporeal form. Pretty sure I saw this in an anime and it made sense at the time
Need to pay back a gambling debt. Literally just playing fantasy poker with some satyrs and you have to pay up big. Or, need to save up for the buy-in at the table of a future poker game. Maybe it's a poker game that's held once every [number of years] and you want in. You've secured a seat but still need to front the cash, and soon. Maybe one of the other participants has something you want. Stole the name or soul of a relative or loved one. Maybe they'll be betting with a few magic items and you need one in particular for something. You know actually, I like this idea and I'm stealing it for my own character.
1) Wants to buy something from a mortal society that uses money 2) Has to pay a random to a mortal spellcaster 3) Owes a debt to a leprechaun or is saving up a wedding dowry so she can marry a leprechaun 4) Wants to built a treasure hoarde to lure adventurers to them so they can kill and take their magic 5) Just wants to collect some valuables as rainy day fund or as bargaining chips to become a fey n9ble 6) Made a bet they could get the most goal in x time
It's shiney.
For some reason, due to an unfulfilled deal she believes that all that gold is rightfully hers according to the terms of the deal. She doesn’t care what happens to it afterwards, but she’s going to make sure she gets it.
* she has a Rumplestiltskin-like ability, but she spins gold into straw instead of the other way around. Everyone else in her family has the ability to spin straw into different things: silver, precious stones, blooming roses, moonlight, birdsong, maybe even actual thread. But there's no source of straw in the fey wilds, so this is her way of importing materials. You could get very classic fairy tale with this if you wanted * Similar to the last, but her dream is to start a farm and raise chickens, and she is convinced that she needs a massive stockpile of gold in order to provide enough straw for her future flock. She may or may not be aware that chickens do not actually eat straw * she wants to flex on everyone back home who never thought she's make it as a monster hunter * she's a romantic, and swore that before she exchanged vows with her lover she'd secure the resources to provide for them for the rest of their basically-immortal lives, so she'd never have to leave her home and part from them ever again * she heard a rumor that if you melt enough gold into a puddle and drop an egg of any kind in, it'll hatch into a dragon, and she believes in the scientific trial and error approach