Fables

History
Fables are a race of beings of myth and legend who originally hailed from a realm known as the Homelands (Part of the 21st Subsidiary Reality, or "SR-U"). The Homelands is a duplicate of our own world, only on a larger, grander scale. Most of the many realms that make up the Homelands correlate to real-world locations of Earth that exist or did exist, but often carry different names.

Fables come in all shapes and sizes, though many are indistinguishable from humans in appearance. They are all beings composed of Vorpal energy, literally the substance of dreams and imagination. One gift that seems to unite all Fables is their ability to live indefinitely without suffering the rigors of age. Other Fables may demonstrate a wide variety of abilities depending upon their origin. Bigby Wolf, for example, has the ability to transform from a wolf into a human and back again. Pinocchio is made of wood, and many anthropomorphic beings, such as the Three Little Pigs, have acquired the power of speech.

While each Fable is immortal, it does not mean that they can't be killed. However not every Fable can be killed as easily as the other, and some are virtually unkillable. This all depends on one crucial factor: how popular that Fable is to the mundane humans. Fables who are more obscure are almost as easily killed as mundane normal beings. While others who are so popular that they are inherently part of pop culture, such as Goldilocks or Snow White can survive almost anything including multiple consecutive fatal wounds which they recover from through accelerated healing, or even total mutilation were they can appear whole again elsewhere.

As mentioned before, the Homelands is our world, only on a more fantastical scale. The Homelands is also adjacent to the Dreaming and this proximity to the Dreaming and its residents' vorpal resonance gives the Fables and their Homelands an intense psychic connection to Earth. This explains how the storytellers of Earth were able to relay the tales of the otherworldly Fables (though they did get some details wrong).

The Homelands' size, magical strength, and its psychic connection to Earth came at a cost. The Homelands were a tempting target to the Sheeda, the rogue faction of the Fae who had become corrupted by the Bleed. Burrowing through the Fourth Murum the Sheeda have invaded the Homelands' many realms countless times but have never seized control of the world entirely, often only wiping out vast portions of one or two realms' populations at a time or conquering a kingdom for a short time before withdrawing its ranks (as it did with Camelot). The Sheeda don't wish to rule, only abducting the vorpal-rich Fables to use as fuel and abandoning what they've conquered when they have found a more enticing target.

The Homelands had learned of Earth long ago and how their status as legends there would physiologically shape them into beings who had little fear of death. As more and more Fables grew tired of living under the threat of Sheeda invasion, many of them began to flee their Homelands, risking life in crossing over to the Dreaming and then finding a passage to the main reality.

Once arriving in reality, Fables often wander about, confused as to this world's strangeness. Some early immigrants to reality formed a community in New York protected by glamour charms meant to conceal their existence in the four city blocks they called home. However, the events of the Manhattaning destroyed their home and when the "survivors" reformed, they were without a home. They formed a new community but were soon driven out for fear of exposure without their magical protections. That is when Danny the Street found them.

The extra residual Vorpal energy given off by the Fables allowed Danny to grow larger and Danny's ability to relocate was a great protection for the surviving Fables. So most of Earth's Fables became Dannyzens. They have a small neighborhood on Danny the Street (known as "Fabletown") but are by no means fully contained to that area of Danny.

As can be seen, not all Fables live in Fabletown. Some Fables find ways to integrate into regular society, such as Frankenstein or most of the Camelot refugees. However, most Fables who sign the Fabletown Compact are not allowed to live among the "Mundies" of the Mundane World, at least by the strictest interpretation of the Compact. However as the current leadership of Fabletown has the common sense to realize that this tradition has become pointless in this fantastical world of aliens, metahumans, and human wizards, every year they become laxer with the enforcement of the Compact and allow more Fables to live in regular society with little restriction as long as they abide by Mundie laws and expectations.

Trivia and Notes
Missing Data

Links and References

 * Fable Characters