The Realm of Faerie

The Faerie Realm is a magical echo of the material plane that Nythrian scholars posited came into being as a by product of the creation of the material plane by the gods themselves. A land of extremes, the Faerie Realm is divided into the light, verdant realm of the Fey and the dark, haunted realm of the Fell. Straddling these two realms is the Gloaming, a region of twilight where mortal dreams are manifested.
The ancestors of the Elves, the Eladrin, originate from the Fey realm, and the elves believe that Ciarellon brought them to the world of Dyrn by bringing Eladrin souls into the elven bodies they had created on Dyrn. The Elves revere the Fey realm, calling it the Feywild; most orthodox elves believe the Feywild to be a form of afterlife, as after their eventual death they are reborn as Eladrin within the plane. The Fey realm exists as a mirror of the natural world, and in traversing it, geographical landmarks from the material plane are evident, but their nature is often altered. Forests and jungles are deeper and greener, and mountains are taller. Seas are more blue and teem with aquatic life; swamps bloom with dark flowers and the mud seethes with worms and grubs. The very nature of the Fey world is vulnerable to powerful emotion; someone experiencing great joy may cause flowers to bloom and birds to sing; someone wrapped up in rage will see wolves gather to follow them, and rivers run with blood. Powerful enough individuals within the Fey realm will reshape the lands around them into regions of unique expression known as Demenses.
The essence of the Faerie Realm is altered with the passage of the Gloaming, however. As the Gloaming passes the Fey realm is transformed into the Fell. Where in the Fey realm mountains thrust into the clouds, in the Fell they lay shattered, ground down by the inexorable passage of time. Forests are mist-wracked groves of leafless trees; swamps are haunted by the spirits of the dead and visitors may disappear into the gloom, never to be seen again.
Passion rules the Fell as much as it rules the Fey. Within the Fell its manifestations are different, however. Rage will reshape the Fell, presenting to you the object of your disdain and allowing you to kill it's spectral form in a dozen different ways. Many of the denizens of the Fell feed on such passions. In time, though, strong emotions are exhausted and long term visitors to the Fell find themselves on the edge of the Flats of Ennui, to the far east, drained of all emotion. Such mindless thralls might find themselves lost in the mists to emerge bereft of memories in one of the demiplanes of dread which intermingle with the Fell, or they may find themselves slowly trudging towards the endless stair that winds upwards at the end of the Flats.
The Gloaming itself is a transitive band of twilight which shifts and moves through the Faerie realms. Within this realm of twilight the nature of Faerie reality becomes malleable. It is here that mortal minds travel when they dream, and in deep dells and misty vales those minds reach out and alter the Gloaming to match their dreamscapes. Those who find their dreaming glens closer to the Fey side of the Gloaming may find their dreams pleasant; those whose dreams draw them closer to the Fell will experience nightmares. Within the Gloaming drift spirits known as Quori who take sustenance from the psychic emanations of these dreams, and within the dreamscapes can take physical form.
When the Gloaming passes over the Faerie Realm it shifts day to night, and Fey to Fell. Fairies become bitter and twisted, and some creatures might even change forms completely, pixies and sprites becoming boggarts or redcaps. The movement of the Gloaming is seemingly random, and while some fairies are indifferent to it's passage, happy to exist equally within the Fey or the Fell, others will flee from it, hoping to retain their Fey or Fell forms.
Within the Faerie Realm there are two major factions. The Seelie Court, led by Queen Titania, and the Unseelie Court, led by the Queen of Air and Darkness. The Seelie Court bases itself within the Fey, while the Unseelie rules the Fell. While the majority of minor fairies are not strongly aligned to either court most will pay lip service to one or the other, lest they risk angering a capricious or malicious archfey inadvertently. The Archfey themselves are much more likely to be aligned to one court or the other, and will generally go to great lengths to avoid the Gloaming and retain either their Fey or Fell forms. The Seelie and Unseelie courts are in constant opposition across the realms of Faerie, with some evidence suggesting that the amount of Faerie that is either Fey or Fell is proportional to the amount of influence the Seelie and Unseelie Courts hold. A third faction, sometimes called the Gloaming Court, consist of a loosely aligned group of Archfey who exist within the Gloaming itself, following it on its fractious course across the Realm of Faerie.
Time within the realm of Faerie is likewise unpredictable in its procession. Within the Gloaming a mortal mind might experience an entire lifetime in a single night. Within the Fey a mortal visitor might find themselves besotted by a satyr and pursue a romance of a hundred years that lasts for but a moment within the mortal realm. In comparison, a mortal visitor to the Fell might trudge lost for a decade through the Flats of Ennui only to be dragged back to the mortal realm to discover a few hours have passed. Some of the most powerful of Archfey have some limited influence over this phenomenon. The non-linear nature of time within Faerie also plays havoc with mortal memories, and many mortal visitors to the realm of Faerie find their memories of the experience vague or unreliable.
The Faerie Realm exists inside the Celestial Scale, overlapping the material plane. As such passage between the Faerie and Mortal realms remains possible following the formation of the scale, although more difficult than during the Age of Divinity. Additionally, many of the old ways were closed by the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand at the close of the Dusk War. However the power of belief still holds sway over the Realm of Faerie and transitive places on the mortal realm, such as crossroads or ancient archways, can sometimes be used as passages to Faerie by those who know the secret ways. It is rare for faeries to pass into the material plane, for to do so is to lose much of their power to reshape the world around them to their whims. It is not unheard of for a faerie fleeing the gloaming to make the journey, however, and mortals seeking faerie favours have been known to brave the capricious byways that lead to the Realm of Faerie.

Type

Plane of Existence