The Fey are creatures unable to feel compassion. Love, sympathy, kindness, and mercy are all foreign emotions to them. Due to this, all Fey are aromantic, meaning that while they can feel sexual desire, they do not feel romantic attraction. The Fey often lack empathy, although they can often relate to others who feel emotions they are familiar with, such as desire, anger, betrayal, confusion, curiosity, and joy. Rarely, they can even feel pity, although this emotion is triggered by something too pathetic for them to be disgusted or angered by.
Much akin to civilized and mundane creatures, the Fey have one key motivation: to survive and thrive. The Fey are naturally selfish creatures that will do whatever they feel necessary to continue bringing themselves joy and contentment. For some, especially lesser Fey, this might be something simple and fairly easy to obtain, like eating their favorite berry. Others may have more complex desires. This often leads to Fey, especially Greater Fey, conquering large portions of land for their resources.
Although Fey lack the ability to feel compassion, they are able to fake it. Fey and especially Greater Fey are often great manipulators. Through studying the behavior of civilized creatures, they can learn to replicate the physical movements and mannerisms they observe, even if they do not understand the emotion themselves. They typically display these false behaviors to convince Fey and civilized creatures to give them what they want, be it a physical object, a contract or agreement, or sex. They also have no qualms about cheating, manipulating, lying, or betraying either other Fey or civilized creatures, if it means they get what they desire.
Lesser Fey are terrible liars, often so amused or pleased with their lying or perceived success that they give themselves away. Fey can be good liars, but they often lack the patience to wait for long-time goals, and therefore their betrayal is predictable. Greater Fey have lifespans that can reach up to a few thousand years, so they are often very sensitive of their reputation, as it can make it easier or much more difficult to gain what they desire. Due to this, they are less likely to lie or betray, depending on the type of reputation they want to keep. They are notably excellent manipulators, though. Greater Fey often maintain long-term goals (such as to keep their territory, or gain enough power to take over the neighbor’s), and this leads them to making alliances and contracts. By the time where it is advantageous for them to stop honoring a contract or betray an alliance, the creatures who originally agreed to it may be long dead, and the next generation(s) have to suffer instead. However, all Fey have long memories, and one’s interactions can have several hundred years of consequences.
To ensure that a Fey won’t break a promise, alliance, or contract, binding them through magic is recommended, but very difficult to do. The most successful way is binding them through their true name, which is saved only for the absolutely most serious of contacts.