Chandling

The faerie-adjacent creatures who work for others without payment, in exchange for their labor they accrue a karmic debt, their service comes with strict rules. If these rules are broken they use the aforementioned debt to exact severe retribution.<ref>She couldn’t express gratitude, or the brownies would turn on her.  With the one-sided arrangement, a karmic debt was accrued, but there were always rules.  The faerie-adjacent brownies might strike a deal, like never ever watching them work.  When a hapless, curious individual finally did, they would be blinded.  The more the debt, the worse the fate.

The last incident with the kitchen brownies had been six years ago.  Just over two thousand days and nights of breakfasts and dinners provided without a disruption of the arrangement.  At this point, the person who crossed the brownies would probably not be allowed to die, as the karmic debt came to roost.  Nicolette was careful to keep her expression neutral, taking it all in stride as she picked up the tray. - Excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref>

Nature

They do all kinds of work for all kinds of people waiting for the chance they can repay it ten times over when their rules get broken.

Their varieties are found worldwide and some can firmly sit in the liminal space between the Goblins and fae, summer and fall, thus they are a combination of the strengths and weaknesses of both which can mean they overstretch.<ref>Brownies come from the crossroad Goblin and Fae, Summer and Fall.  That’s the reason for their cross-eyes, you see.
[...]
They don’t have a language for downsizing.”

“You can send your extras off to die in a pointless war,” Liberty said.  She was still acting like the teacher’s pet, young and eager, and it was dawning on Avery that it wasn’t a joke.

“You can, Liberty sweet.  But they can’t, not easily, as Brownies are not the strongest fighters.  It’s why they worked with goblinkind. [...] And in fact, the ability and even the very propensity for goblins to cull our own numbers with outside violence is why we can grow in number without too much risk.  Faerie courts can’t and I’ve heard suggestions that more Faerie Courts have crumbled over their own hubris and scale than over specific plots and designs and I believe it.  And the brownie guilds and clans?  Closer to the Faerie in that.  Many crumbled when travel became easier and the allure of travel to another place faded, and when the lowliest schlub had more time or stood closer to the lords they were once so tempted by. “ - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.7</ref>

Brownies

Brownies are a subset of the larger Chandling variety.<ref>[Snowdrop] caught it by the wrist.  It was smaller than her, but only barely, with wiry hair that looked like copper wire, eyes that were more like knife slashes that made ‘x’s than regular eyes, ragged in their edges, with ‘lashes’ like frayed flesh, lined with red.  The orbs on the other side were liquid-y metal, like copper mixed with gold.  It had skin that was like thick leather that had been bleached white.  It was knobby, spindly, and beautiful, with what looked like fancy lacy stockings or fishnets trapping hair close to its arms and legs, and more layers of the same around its body and legs.  She wondered if it was halfway between goblin and Faerie, from how it was misshapen but a beautiful misshapen.

It fought like its life was on the line.  Long fingernails raked her arms. - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.x</ref> They have hair that resembles copper wire and x marks for eye slits, the eyes themselves are a metallic liquid color between gold and copper. Their skin is a thick white leather.

They can be bound by fresh green wood, eggs, milk or wheat, they are also weak to the Ruins.<ref>“I know.  I’m just working out possible plans and options.  I can stall, maybe?”

“You can.  Fresh green wood, egg, milk, and wheat will serve if you need a circle.”

“Or the Ruins-gate,” Verona said. - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.7</ref>

They have the ability to use hidden trapdoors to suddenly appear, disappear and to get to and from the Kitchens<ref>One lurked in a half-open trapdoor wall, and the space behind the wall wasn’t a dorm room.  It was a kitchen, lit solely by dark red fires, filled with steam.- Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.x</ref>. The Kitchens themselves are a massive installation where time is altered so they can serve any meal almost instantaneously.<ref>They keep countless dishes going in kitchens bigger than this institute, where time flows differently, to supply what people need in minutes.- Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.x</ref>

Chronology

The rise of the middle class and improved living conditions hurt them badly.<ref>They were a common fairy who found a good trick. Do a task, help with a quest, or grant a wish, but tie it to a restriction.  The markets boomed all of a sudden.  It seemed as if every other boy who was tired of sweeping the barn was getting an offer; his chores would be done for him every day, but if he ever lifted a hand to do a chore in the future, the help would stop and he would feel the task twice as bad.”

“How big of an idiot do you have to be to mess that one up?” Verona asked.

Toadswallow waved her off.  “A girl who thought if she met the local lord’s son, she could win him over, was told the meeting could be arranged, but she would have to choose a curse to wear: her nose would become that of a pig, she wouldn’t be able to speak, or her clothes would secretly be as fish-hooks digging into the skin for as long as she wore them.  If she could win him over, the curse would be lifted.  In some versions of that tale, three sisters each choose one curse.  We don’t hear much of the failed experiments, but some stories persist.  The Broomfield Wager.  The full tale of the Wee, Wee man.  Black Crack Anne’s Barrow.  Efforts by powerful Fae and a few rare goblins to make a great play for land, power, or lives.  But the small efforts aimed at small, lower-class dopes prevailed.”

Toadswallow rubbed his hands, smiling.  It looked like the students were listening well enough.

“They worked out a system and then they locked it in enough they became locked in as a group.  Chandlings, in some tongues, of which Brownies were a large subset.  Guilds of brownies with fences and sellers for the lives, happiness, and other qualities taken as part of the bargain.  Families of the little blighters would compel the their lot to work family service into the deal.  ‘I’ll milk the goats,’ one will say, ‘and if you wish it I’ll have my brother tend to the kitchen.’  Done enough and the numbers stop adding up, and the family grows.  That’s one part of how the little peckers got organized, see?  But the other?  The best deals they could offer were ones tying to high society.  Lord’s sons, ladies, the chance to be noble.  To taste wealth, to get an education or to see the world beyond the hamlet the peasant schlub was born in.  The better the offers and arrangements they could make, the better they could do.  But all good things come to an end.”

“Was it really a good thing?” Lucy asked.

“For them it was.  I’d even say it’s a good thing for mankind.  Even if the deals are unfair, it’s a chance for those who had none.  None at all.  For most, the station of life was a crushing, unavoidable pressure.  Born a peasant schlub, die a peasant schlub.  No time or chance to do anything else.  The deals gave a way.  Or they did.  See, to start with, your practice and most things Other like to build things or destroy things, but it doesn’t like to downsize.  The forces we operate by?  They like a good pitch, a good show, a rising star, and a dramatic fall.  But if we say our family of brownies is too large for the amount of work there is?  They don’t have a language for downsizing.”
[...]
Brownies and Chandlings benefit if the uninitiated can get a feel for what they are in their hearts, and are then open for the discussion and deal, but they’re also tied down.  When the rubes stop lining up, they lose their raison d’etre.  The poop for their scoop. - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.7</ref>

Trivia

• As is the case with much of the Otherverse, Chandlings have a basis in folklore.<ref>Brownies are fantastical household helpers, generally included in the same general subgroup as faerie/fairies, stuff in that vein. Old wives tales and myths suggested brownies would help you with your housework, do chores for you, or otherwise protect your household if you left milk/cream/honey on windowsills, or made other token offerings.
  Some darker variants on the brownie myth involve bargains where, for example, a lazy stablehand received an offer from brownies to do all his chores for him, but with a stern warning never to ever do a chore again, or a housewife had her chores done for her, but could never peek to see who was doing the chores. Invariably in these stories, they break the rule: the stablehand gets bored out of his mind and starts sweeping or the housewife gets curious and peeks, and they get ruined: the stablehand never receives help (or just the opposite: they sabotage his every effort from there on out) the housewife gets her eyes taken out with needles. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref>

References

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