Logically speaking (you know, insofar as logic applies in this case), being a race of tiny...

Logically speaking (you know, insofar as logic applies in this case), being a race of tiny, immortal beings who are presumably omnivorous and live in the woods fairies would engage in hunting. Being immortal they probably don't procreate much so there's no point in forming large communities, so agriculture isn't an option.

On the other hand, I have a hard time picturing fairies hunting, or even eating flesh. Their whole schtick is being youthful and innocent and childlike and all that and for once I'm NOT looking to show how clever and twisted and a Neil Gaiman fanboy I am by turning them into monsters. I want to play the Victorian image mostly straight. Or at least as straight as possible while making them fit into a fantasy setting, so I can't have them just have access to infinite amounts of conjured sweets and tea or however it was Victorian fairies probably got their nourishment (I doubt a lot of worldbuilding went into those drawings, honestly).

So how do fairies acquire whatever small amounts of meat they partake of?

Simple, they hunt bugs.

Bugs are sufficiently far from humans or cute animals that it doesn't feel upsetting to imagine a tiny lady pouncing on one and snacking down on it.

(Also where do you get this notion that fairies would be omnivorous if they aren't grimdark fairies? Why wouldn't they just be herbivores who live off of picked fruits?)

>Also where do you get this notion that fairies would be omnivorous
This. Why are you insisting that fairies MUST be omnivores, OP? Is it because it would otherwise be unrealistic for a race of immortal, magical beings that defy the square-cube law to get their required protein?

I don't like all herbivorous or all carnivorous races. Not entirely sure why, it repulses me on some basic level. Don't like Paolini elves, don't like Bosmer. Some sort of balance is needed.

I also think it's a neat image. Plus, it'd explain where they got good with bows and arrows from.

Depending on exactly how small you envision them, they could piscetarian. Fish aren't cute so nobody has sympathy for them, and there's something charmingly "fairylike" about one of these little flower buddies sitting serenely with a fishing hook by the riverside.

Doesn't make them particularly great archers, though.

Probably the best option here OP.

Fae are nature spirits

Why wouldn't they do what comes naturally?

Someone post that rpg where you play as a fairy hooked on fairy's meat.

That seems contrary to the whole "not grimdark" approach.

Wargame, actually. It's also, as far as I know, the only 1:1 scale wargame (the fairy models are the size the fairies are supposed be), so you can play it on your kitchen table without needing any specfic terrain pieces.

Just don't think about it. The meat on their dainty china plates doesn't look like the fuzzy bunny rabbit it was until recently.

Who said they did?

Weren't fairies originally monsters that stole children?

These made great miniatures for elves and other elfy characters. I used one of them as my PC. I'm pretty sure nobody around me actually bought the game, just the minis.

could they on wild fruits and be mostly vegetarians despite being omnivorous?

subsist

You know, I really like the idea of a 1:1 scale fairy wargame, but the grimdark thing ruins it for me.

>Being immortal they probably don't procreate much so there's no point in forming large communities, so agriculture isn't an option.

Even if Fairies reproduced a lot (which they probably would because it wouldn't matter if they were immortal, they'd get eaten by frogs) they still wouldn't need to farm or grow crops because they're small and everything else is large.

I'm just assuming the standard fairy size of maybe 3-5inches, but if you're that small the world is basically flush with giant easy sources of food: berries, nuts, mushrooms, fruit, and edible grasses/roots and all of them just absolutely massive.

>So how do fairies acquire whatever small amounts of meat they partake of?

Hunting bugs seems like an obvious choice: they're dumb, plentiful, nutritious, and if cooked properly can be delicious as well as keep for a long time. You can dry them, grind them into powder and even make soup stock or mash the cooked meat into patties or bannock.
Fishing for minnows would also be an easy and perhaps even more delicious alternative to bugs: lots of minnows stay small n' so forth, reproduce often, and can even live in waters that normally don't house larger fish.

The third option would be carrion, but that might be a little gruesome for your tastes though it's entirely feasible. Provided fairies could find a dead body before it rotted, they'd have more meat than they knew what to do with... Fairies could also theoretically snooker off little pieces of meat from the kills of other much LARGER creatures such as large cats, wolves, bears, etc, because despite what you've been told: huge predators wouldn't care at all about something finger-sized stealing bite-sized chunks of meat from a kill.

So, cannibalism?

Why does this girl have two giant boners?

BLUUUUUDDD

no, uh, i dunno.
They could domesticate capaberras. Nobody really cares when a hampster dies.

You know what?
You brought this on your self.
Nobody cared if faeries ate meat until you brought it up, now its all I can think about.

Fuck you, faeries eat candy and sustain themselves on the joy of children.

Dammit, now I'm wondering what a faeries farts smell like. WTF man?

Faeries feast on the flesh of their enemies: i.e. nasty cats and dogs. They hunt in packs and carry flashbangs.

I forget no mellenial has ever seen a dress train outside of weddings and ceremonies. Up with mini-skirts am i right fellas?

what if they feed on calcium? not flesh or veggies

Would you accept a fairy at your table?

Why not?