Feywild
The Feywild, also known as the Plane of the Faerie, was an 'echo' of the Prime Material Plane suffused with potent magic. It was a place from which the Fey originated, and from where the first elves escaped the cataclysm of the world during the Elven Diaspora. It was a place of invigorated life-essence and magic, where the faeries desired both weal and woe, connected closely to nature.
The Feywild was a place of unrestrained and awe-inspiring natural beauty. The plane is always bathed in the twilight of the setting (or perhaps rising) sun, with lanterns and fireflies providing additional, haunting lights. As an "echo" of the Prime Material plane, its geography was similar although not entirely identical to that of Aetheus, the natural landscape was markedly more dramatic and beautiful in the Feywild, with mountains standing straighter and sharper, rivers flowing clearer and faster, and flowers bloom brighter and more fragrantly. While most Prime locations and landmarks had analogues in the Feywild, sites of civilization in the Prime could be so unimportant in the Feywild as to be easily missed, while natural landmarks might be significantly more majestic or extreme. Navigating the Feywild was further complicated by the fact that distances did not always make sense. While two landmarks might be the same distance apart as in the Prime when travelling in one direction, they might be inexplicably further or closer on the return trip. Further complicating any visit to the plane was that time did not flow the same in the Feywild as on the Prime. While any visitor would experience time flowing as normal, it was often the case that more time was passing in the Prime, sometimes on the order of weeks, months, or years longer than expected, although it was also possible for little or no time to have passed instead. More concerning, leaving the Feywild could have dire consequences. Lost time could suddenly "catch up" to a mortal, sending them into fits of exhaustion or hunger, or even killing them instantly if many years had passed. At the same time, those with no fey ancestry might find their memories of time spent in the Feywild going hazy, if not vanishing altogether. Arcane magic ran more freely and powerfully in the Feywild than it did in the Prime, and it was for this reason that so many of its inhabitants and landmarks were suffused with magic. Visitors to the plane found that all sensations, both sensory and emotional, were heightened. Smells were stronger, colours were more vivid, and sounds were clearer, but at the same time shadows were darker and impulses were harder to control. As an additional consequence of this all-encompassing magic, arcane spells tended to be amplified in power or duration when cast in the Feywild.
The inhabitants of the Feywild varied in temperament from kind to malicious, but almost all had a mischievous side to them and few stopped to consider the needs or worries of visitors to their home. While many of those living in Faerie was untamed, large numbers also congregated according to race or by political allegiance. Just as the geography was reminiscent of Aetheus, some of its inhabitants existed as Fey 'echoes' of Prime creatures. Some Fey were strongly bound or associated with specific locations such as water bodies, landmarks and other geographical features.
DESCRIPTION
The Feywild was a place of unrestrained and awe-inspiring natural beauty. The plane is always bathed in the twilight of the setting (or perhaps rising) sun, with lanterns and fireflies providing additional, haunting lights. As an "echo" of the Prime Material plane, its geography was similar although not entirely identical to that of Aetheus, the natural landscape was markedly more dramatic and beautiful in the Feywild, with mountains standing straighter and sharper, rivers flowing clearer and faster, and flowers bloom brighter and more fragrantly. While most Prime locations and landmarks had analogues in the Feywild, sites of civilization in the Prime could be so unimportant in the Feywild as to be easily missed, while natural landmarks might be significantly more majestic or extreme. Navigating the Feywild was further complicated by the fact that distances did not always make sense. While two landmarks might be the same distance apart as in the Prime when travelling in one direction, they might be inexplicably further or closer on the return trip. Further complicating any visit to the plane was that time did not flow the same in the Feywild as on the Prime. While any visitor would experience time flowing as normal, it was often the case that more time was passing in the Prime, sometimes on the order of weeks, months, or years longer than expected, although it was also possible for little or no time to have passed instead. More concerning, leaving the Feywild could have dire consequences. Lost time could suddenly "catch up" to a mortal, sending them into fits of exhaustion or hunger, or even killing them instantly if many years had passed. At the same time, those with no fey ancestry might find their memories of time spent in the Feywild going hazy, if not vanishing altogether. Arcane magic ran more freely and powerfully in the Feywild than it did in the Prime, and it was for this reason that so many of its inhabitants and landmarks were suffused with magic. Visitors to the plane found that all sensations, both sensory and emotional, were heightened. Smells were stronger, colours were more vivid, and sounds were clearer, but at the same time shadows were darker and impulses were harder to control. As an additional consequence of this all-encompassing magic, arcane spells tended to be amplified in power or duration when cast in the Feywild.
COSMOGRAPHY
The Feywild has had a unique relationship with the Prime Material Plane and consequently was in an unusual cosmological position. When it was created as an 'echo' of the Prime by the Titans, it was relatively easy to travel between them. However, its proximity to the Prime would ebb and flow, and it became an outer plane. Despite this, it retained the unique quality of being closely connected to the Prime. Creatures and fey could sometimes pass back and forth between the two planes at matching geographical locations without needing to traverse the Astral Plane. The Feywild also had crossings that connected directly to Arvandor, the Deep Wilds, and the Gates of the Moon, although these were often dangerous or well-guarded. However, there were no connections to most transitive planes, including the Astral Plane, Ethereal Plane or the Plane of Shadow. Travel between the two planes continued to be fairly easy as the boundary between them was quite thin, and in some cases, there were regions that existed in an overlapping space between the two, a phenomenon sometimes called Worldfall. The most common means of traversing in or out of the Feywild was through a Fey Crossroad, which often required special knowledge of how to pass between the planes. Other locations could be almost completely closed off from the Feywild. FEY DEMESNES Some regions in the Feywild were known to attune to the most powerful creature nearby, fey or otherwise. These regions would warp to reflect the emotion of attitude of the creature to which they were attuned, with everything from the weather to the landscape changing to be more dismal, peaceful, or dangerous as best befitted the creature's mood. However, a creature could not exert direct or conscious control over their demense. FEYDARK The Feydark was the echo of the Underdark in the Feywild. Like most parts of the Feywild, it was more majestic and fantastic than its natural counterpart, with cavernous maze-like tunnels filled with exotic fungi. It was predominantly inhabited by the Fomorians, and the most powerful of the Fomorian Realms was Mag Tureah, which stood within a country-sized cavern lit by precious gems and stones.HISTORY
The Feywild was created by the Primordial Titans, beings of power compared with the Gods. Finding thing's of the Prime too "bright" or too "dark", the Primordials tore these parts from the Prime, creating the Feywild and the Plane of Shadow (later the Shadowfell), respectively. It was believed that the original deities worshipped by the Elves, the Faerie Gods of the Seelie Court, originated in the Feywild. The first creatures to join them in this world were the Fey, and came in many forms. From here, the plane came to be ruled by a mysterious and elaborate fey creator race, who gave rise to the first Korreds, Sprites, Pixies, Centaurs, etc. Over the millennia, the Feywild slipped further and further away from the Prime, although it still remained inextricably linked. Since the barrier between these two worlds became much thinner, the Eladrin discovered that they could slip easily between the Feywild and the Prime at sites of great elven magic and importance.INHABITANTS
The inhabitants of the Feywild varied in temperament from kind to malicious, but almost all had a mischievous side to them and few stopped to consider the needs or worries of visitors to their home. While many of those living in Faerie was untamed, large numbers also congregated according to race or by political allegiance. Just as the geography was reminiscent of Aetheus, some of its inhabitants existed as Fey 'echoes' of Prime creatures. Some Fey were strongly bound or associated with specific locations such as water bodies, landmarks and other geographical features.
- Dryads were female Fey tied to the trees of the wood, protecting forests and trees.
- Hamadryads were female Fey tied to oak trees but able to leave their trees.
- Nymphs were Fey representing beauty. The guardians and protectors of portals to the Faerie realm. Despising anything ugly or evil.
- Naiads were Fey water spirits tied to coves, rivers, lakes, ponds and springs.
- Nereids were aquatic fey tied to seas and oceans. Their bodies displaced light, making them nearly transparent and hard to see, especially when they were in the water.
- Oreads were Fey tied to mountains, lithe strong and stern women, their skin reflected the rocks upon whichever mountain they protected. Unashamed, blunt and brash. Usually solitary, having little company other than the pets they kept.
- Fossergrim were solitary Fey mystically bound to waterfalls.
- Rusalka were female Fey water spirits living in cold lakes, streams and rivers. Notorious for their songs, leading those mortals into their arms or into watery graves.
- Viragos were rare Fey who embodied the unforgiving cold of blizzards and the heart of winter. Cruel and cunning, incapable of feeling love.
- When a person was injured in the Feywild, their blood could spawn Redcaps, a type of bloodthirsty creature that ceased to be if it did not have fresh blood on its cap every three days.
- Boggles were a type of mischievous creature that was spawned when a person was overcome by loneliness or abandonment.
- Meenlocks were a deformed fey spawned when someone was overwhelmed by fear in a place touched by or in the Feywild.
- Sprites: Fierce defenders of good wherever they dwelt, firm judges of other creatures hearts and intentions. Tiny elven-featured fey with insect-like wings.
- Pixies: Resembling tiny humanoids with silvery moth-like wings wearing bright clothing - enjoying playing pranks, leading others astray and tricking misers to part with their wealth.
- Nixies: Aquatic faeries, with slim wingless bodies, webbed fingers and toes, often with water-coloured hair.
- Grigs: Small sprites with the upper body of a fairy and cricket-like lower bodies, including gossamer wings. Intelligent, shy and overall good-natured and friendly.
- Gloura: Rare faeries of the Feydark, delicate and smart with shimmering butterfly wings, insectoid antennae usually dressed in chitinous armour.
- Gorse: Small Faeries that lived within flowers and gardens, with pointed ears and butterfly-like wings.
- Blink Dog: Mysterious, intelligent canine creatures mostly known for their ability to teleport, or 'blink'.
- Boggart: Mischeivous shapechangers that inhabit marshes and wet-places, taking forms of other peoples fears.
- Bramble: Tiny Fey beings tied to grasslands, looking like spiny leafs - spines stuck out from their backs, like humanoid hedgehogs.
- Brownie: Small Fey most notably known for their ingenuity for fixing things. Peaceful, friendly and almost never greedy. Believed to be distant relatives of the Halfling.
- Centaur: Fey creatures that had a humanoid upper body and the lower half of a horse.
- Darkling: Dark cursed Fey doomed to absorb light and suffer rapid aging, all of which is released at the time of its death.
- Feystag: Also known as Calygraunt, were Fey creatures resembling antlered cats known to be able to naturally detect magical items.
- Hybsil: Small Fey native to numerous forests, a cross between a small antelope and pixie, with forking or spiralled antlers.
- Kelpie: Fey that can alter their form into either a woman, hippocampus or a green horse, filled with green seaweed that tended to charm and punish men into drowning in their waters.
- Killmoulis: Tiny large-nosed Fey, with extra-large heads, no mouths or chins. Tending to crowd around industrious areas, foodstuffs and closed spaces.
- Korred: Also known as the Dancing Folk,a small Fey race tied to the earth. Grey-skinned with short hairy bodies and lower-goat body, dense beards and long hair, magical and animated.
- Leprechaun: Tiny mischievous fey who loved treasure.
- Quickling: Small Fey of slender build, with sharp feral features, blindingly fast and were quite hyperactive. Some of the most hated Fey.
- Satyr: Otherwise known as Fauns, were Fey creatures with the lower half of a goat and upper half of stout men - they delighted in singing, dancing, feasting and debauchery.
- Ruinchaid: Solitary gaunt melancholic Fey that were the personifications of worldly decay - living in ancient ruins and sang songs of past glories, or dirges of what was lost. Easting ash and dust.
- Sirine: Playful fun-loving aquatic fey that loved to sing and dance.
- Spriggan
- Sylph: Small Fey appearing as petite beautiful women with transluscent, brightly coloured wings that resembled those of a dragonfly. Known to also inhabit the Elemental Plane of Air.
- Thorn: Small Fey warriors acting as guardians of other Fey creatures. Taken from the names of the longsword they carried, made from thorny plants. Plant-like humanoids with green skin and spiked sharp features.
- Winterling: Small malicious Fey with white skin, light-blue or violet eyes, butterfly wings that appeared frozen and broken into gagged points. Known to be residing in cold mountains or hills.
- Yeth Hound: Fearsome outsiders that hunted under the cover of night. Hideous large wailing greyhounds, wicked but fundamentally obedient creatures. They sought the terrified screams of their prey.
- The Fey Eladrin had the closest thing to civilisation in the Feywild. They were the descendants of the elves that never left the Feywild, and over the millennia had become suffused with the plane's primal magic.
- Fomorians ruled much of the Feydark, and commanded many servitor species, the most useful of which were the Cyclops. They were a twisted parody of a beautiful giant race cursed for their hubris.
- Hags were a malicious and varied race of Fey that delight in tormenting mortals.
- Goblinoids, Ogres, Giants, and Blights could be found in the more sinister regions of the plane.
SEELIE AN UNSEELIE FEY
Most but not all Fey served one of two godlike Archfey Queens - Titania the Summer Queen, or the Queen of Air and Darkness, who shared an ancient and bitter rivalry. Those who belonged to the Seelie Court were known as the "Seelie Fey", and were generally good-aligned and represented or celebrated the beauty of nature. They were known to be honourable toward visitors to the Feywild, if a bit mischievous, but they did not welcome non-Fey to join their Court. Those who belonged to the Queen of Air and Darkness' Unseelie Court were known as 'Unseelie Fey', and were generally evil-aligned and represented or celebrated the darker and more macabre aspects of the natural world. They were generally more dangerous and untrustworthy in their dealings with visitors, however, they were known to be more welcoming of non-Fey into their Court. The Unseelie Court worked tirelessly to undermine the Seelie Court, sometimes violently but more often through games and cruel mischief. The remaining inhabitants of the Feywild either held no allegiances except at their own whims or served another of the Archfey. Uglier inhabitants of the Feywild, such as Fomorians and Hags, were generally not welcome among either the Seelie or Unseelie Courts.
Type
Dimensional plane
