Specifically, the Wits Glamour of the Knights of Avalon, Summon Sidhe on page 216 of the second playtest.
I'm considering making a character with the glamour, but as written, it seems impossibly vague. Not only the core book fails to really describe Seelie or Unseelie in any way, but the glamour itself doesn't give the slightest clue about the strength and abilities of the Sidhe it can summon. What does it mean to have one rank in that glamour? What does it mean to have five ranks? What kinds of Sidhe can you call upon and what are they willing to do for you?
I seem to recall that 1e outright refused to give even any statblocks for them and went on its way to explain how incredibly powerful and difficult to kill they are, so having something like that as a minor glamour seems a bit nuts. Especially considering that most minor glamours are sort of pathetically useless and a waste of a hero point.
So... is there something I'm not getting, or is it really just supposed to be a potentially incredibly powerful glamour that 100% relies on GM interpretation (and knowledge that doesn't even exist in the 2e core?)
The fey are powerful, but dealing with the fey is almost like making a deal with the devil. The two worst things you can agree to are unspecified favors in the future and your first born child. The fey will collect on any deal made, and if you try to back out of it, they will undo the help they provided in the worst possible way.
If you need inspiration for how to run the Seelie and Unseelie, look into Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.
Yeah, Dresden Files is the first thing that came to my mind when I read the post as well. This is one of the thing where the fiction is the one to scale of the encounter/favor. Dresden contacts quite regularly a little faerie named Toot Toot, that usually is happy to help as long as there's a proper payment of pizza, but usually it's only for things like surveillance, or distraction. nothing much dangeorus or difficult. When dealing with more prominent sidhe, the stakes are highr, and the price is usually quite steep...
Yeah, I agree with the above interpretations. I'm reasonably familiar with fey folklore and such, so it's not too hard to imagine what kinds of Sidhe you might be able to summon and what they could do. And what they might ask in return, especially for the bigger services. I liked the examples put forth by Salamanca, those are all very much in-flavour.
...But yeah, the glamour description does state that the strength of the summoned Sidhe depends on your ranks in the glamour in question. But it doesn't really give even rough guidelines for their actual strength, so actually determining what the difference is between having 2 or 3 ranks in the glamour in question is a bit awkward.
Guess I'll have to hammer it out with the GM!