The Primordial Dream, the Fairy Lands, the Aurum Veil. Most commonly called the Faewyld, this plane is considered a 'mirror plane', and is both the most mysterious and yet most well known parallel plane in Rynn. Home to nymphs, satyrs and madcaps, the Fae serve as both an enticement to idyllic bliss, and a cautionary tale to the unfettered passions and cruelty. While a few civilizations have made the Faewyld their home, no one in Rynn has yet to make the mistake of thinking the Faewyld is territory easily grasped. In its primordial state the Faewyld remains an ever-present savage frontier - a cornucopia of delights for the courage and lucky, and a snare of misfortune and misery for everyone else.
The Faewyld bears untamed expanses of rugged forests full of towering trees lush with leaves. Perfect prairies carpeting the regions between pristine mountain peaks soaring into flawless clouds. Emerald, turquoise and jade green seas crash across never-ending beaches. The skies are lit by the twilight of a sun that neither rises nor sets allowing the stars to peek from far away. When storms roll through the lands coal-dark raging leviathans riling up the winds and torrential rains cover the lands. In this world, arcane power thrums through every tree and rock. All existence is magical.
According to myths, the Faewyld is a single, endless expanse, though discreet regions hold both name and shape throughout the ages. While there are more regions than could possibly be named, a few are more noteworthy than others.
Cities & Settlements
While the Faewyld has no true natural cities of its own, the Court of Stars has made some accommodations to settlers from Rynn over the millennia. In the case of the Gnau and the Eladrin, each maintain small pockets of relative stability and civic order in the Wyld. Each settlement is, in its own way, a unique gem that could likely not work in any other location within Terra Fae. While residents keep predominantly to themselves, they strive to maintain good relations between each other and the Court of Stars, and serve as a deterrent against the worst machinations of the Unseelie have to offer.
Regions of Terra Fae
Sunfield
Territories (Major Cities)
Senaliesse, the Silver Palace
Everwoad
Territories (Major Cities)
Isidrinaine, the Stronghold City
Dgaba Khyim, the Stone Heart
Gyurba Khyim, the Glitter Scar
Tshol Khyim, the Lost Memory
Moonlands
Territories (Major Cities)
Gloaming Courtlands
Mithrendain, the Autumn City
- Aralusi Canyon
- Llarma Forest
Darkmire
Territories (Major Cities)
Cendriane, the City of Specters
Shinaelestra, the Fading City
- Murkendraw
- Nactur
- Vor Thromill
The Great Wash
Territories (Major Cities)
Alysarius, the Port City
Frostwyld
Astrazalian, the City of Starlight
Territories (Major Cities)
Features
While the Faewyld may look and sound like most ancient forests or swamps of Rynn, there are important crucial differences that an unsuspecting visitor could miss - many of which can be fatal, if not misfortunate. Forests often regrow over any attempt to mark paths, and mischievous fae take great delight in moving or hiding landmarks or signposts. Furthermore, the wild storms and feral wildlife are keen to impede travelers not prepared to defend themselves against hostile fauna, as well as flora. Most importantly, though, the ambient splendor of the realm can distract the weak-willed, and lure them away from their ambitions and goals, and envelop them in pleasure or pain as they forget where or why they were here at all.
Fae Crossings
In Faerie, and in the many mortal world, there are places where the boundaries between worlds are thin, called Crossings. These Crossings are as varied as the individuals who use them, and those who guard them. You might fall asleep in a quiet glade in a deep forest, and the night of the new moon, having failed to see the ring of mushrooms marking the edges of the glade, or perhaps failing to note their significance. In the morning, you look to the sky, and it is an evening sky with a brilliant green and blue borealis dancing across the dome of the heavens like a procession, and you realize that you are not in the place wherein you fell asleep.
Another person might enter the Fey intentionally, having created a door in their garden from the fallen branches of Feywild trees, blessed with the waters of a specific river on a specific night, and with a little offering of milk and berries every morning, they can open the door at will to walk into a guarded room in a secret tower within the Faewyld.
And sometimes, through great majesty or great calamity, whole villages, whole cities may find themselves thrust across the dream, and a thousand or more souls now crashed at the end of a Worldfall, and now trapped in a land they do not know.
Temporal Flux
For most of the Faewyld, the weather and climate of an area remains static based on its location. To the extent that weather events ‘appear’, is not a result of a rotating of the world, but more a result of the aether fluctuations imparting strange effects on a local area. Furthermore, the celestial objects that can be observed in the sky appear not to move either, leaving many strangers to wonder how long one might be in the fae.
Ambient Splendor
The Faewyld is a place of unrestrained and awe-inspiring natural beauty. The plane is always bathed in twilight of the setting (or perhaps rising) sun, with lanterns and fireflies providing additional, haunting lights. Visitors to the plane often note that all sensations, both sensory and emotional, are heightened. Smells are stronger, colors are more vivid, and sounds are clearer, but at the same time shadows are darker and impulses are harder to control. Strong emotions may even alter the landscape of the land itself, wilting flowers trailing the despondent or furious and carefree animals travel alongside chipper and cheerful individuals.
Denizens & Factions
The Faewyld is home to countless creatures of various shapes, sizes, and sentience. Despite scholar's attempts to categorize the various flora and fauna from first and second hand accounts through generations, a faint outline of the shape of life across the Veil can sometimes be glimpsed. Below are just a cautious tally of the shape and scope of the inhabitants of the plane.
The First Kindred are the mythical progenitors and deities of all Fae. Somewhere between mortal and immortal, the Kindred are shrouded in deep mysteries, even to most Archfae. The Eladrin and Gnau make some attempts at reverence and worship, though whether that reverence is reciprocated is unclear at best.
Archfae
Archfae represent the primal apex as well as sovereign powers of Terra Fae. Possessed of immense magical power, Archfae are beings that posses expansive influence over their domains, as well as other creatures within them. Often, they can create their own dimensional pockets, or domains of splendor, within Fae, where their will and imaginations are absolute.
The Court of Stars
The most powerful and influential Archfae are often, (but not always) members of a loose affiliation known as the Court of the Stars. Insofar as the Fae have any sort of political organization or interests, the Court of Stars serves as the primary agent in their interests. Possessing a rough hierarchy of titles, the court of stars is split into five courts that claim territory, and authority over most Seelie fae within their realm
Underneath the thin protection of the Court of Stars, the disperate Eladrin domains manag their cities in the few pockets of territory permitted by the Archfae under a collective banner known as the Aurum Accordance. Bound to uphold the tangled traditions of the Court of Stars, the Aurum Accordance do their best to carve out a place of their own within Fae, and withstand the intrigues of the Court as they are often pitted against each other as pawns in their immortal contests.
Arbelders
Sacred trees whose age are impossible to imagine, the Arbelders serve as the roots of the Fae and are thought to be some of the first creations of the Kindred. More than revered flora, the Arbelders are unique trees that exhibit sentience (though communication is not always clear), and are revered for their affinity for divination. Often thought of as conduits for the spiritual and divine, the Arbelders exert a slow yet inexorable influence upon all of Fae, and perhaps beyond.
Seelie & Unseelie Fae
There are two types of Fae - Seelie and Unseelie Fae. The Seelie fae, in general, consider themselves beholden to the laws and norms of the Fae’n Courts. In contrast, The Unseelie Fae spurn the courts behaviors, and prefer to act upon their own passions and whims without concern for consequences.
Among the biggest differences between the two are their approach to Oaths & Bargains. While all fae strive to uphold a deal struck, Seelie seek to make a deal fair and equitable (though not always sensible). Unseelie take pleasure in tricking another party out of more than they expect, or gaining an upper hand through illusion. The Seelie/Unseelie trait is not inborn, and fae can switch between them at will, though rarely without consequence. Without knowing if any fae is Seelie or Unseelie, it is not always clear if one is getting a fair deal or a fine deal.
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