Shadowfell
Shadow is everything and nothing. It is gloom and delight. If you try to seize it, it ripples away, laughing.
So yes, the Plane of Shadows is an uncertain place—which makes it a very difficult place to define and capture in maps and descriptions, in known quantities or certainties. Everyone knows that the demonic creatures of the hells are vile and secure in their malice. Likewise, the shining angels of the celestial halls are unyielding in their eternal pilgrimage for righteousness and law. These realms are well known and understood, though one is bright and the other stygian.
The creatures of shadow are far less defined and far more flexible—and no less dangerous for all that. Even their language, Umbral, is a fluid thing, full of double meanings and wordplay. They resist definitions, but their malleable, quicksilver nature defines them. You should always trust the word of an angel, rarely given but given with certainty. The word of a shadow creature, however, is given quickly and easily but broken just as readily.
Creatures of the Shadow Realm are like unto shadows themselves, flickering and shifting with the moon, changing and moving. And their realm is also a place of frequent change.
Type
Plane of Existence
Geography
As an echo of the Material Plane, the Plane of Shadow holds many of the same basic geographic features of its mirror. However, they are distorted, often more brooding and sinister in appearance. The sky is always dark, cloaked often in thick gray clouds, but even when they pass there is no moon, sun, or stars that shine overhead. Most major natural features in the Material Plane have a “shadowanalogue” in the Shadowfell, such as mountains and forests, and even cities have a dark mirror. Few of them are inhabited in the Plane of Shadow, however. Just as in many Material Planes, twisting below the ground of the Plane of Shadow is a labyrinthine maze of tunnels and caves. Known as the Shadowdark, in the Plane of Shadow this region is unnaturally cold and only gets colder the further into the ground one explores. There are some strange exceptions to these general guidelines. The most prominent of which are the Domains of Dread, each an isolated realm surrounded by obscuring fog that reaches beyond the planar border. These pockets of the Shadowfell are held together by powerful entities known as the Dark Powers, though their exact makeup and nature are a mystery, and each domain serves as a prison for those trapped inside. The center of each domain is a darklord – a creature, usually sentient but not always, that has gained the favor of the Dark Powers and exercises some control over the mists that bind the domain and even some denizens within it. Each darklord is as much a prisoner as other inhabitants, however, but through the influence of the Dark Powers they have extended or even immortal lifespans. Finding one of these Domains of Dread is rarely a chance encounter, and the mists the surround and bind each one seems to be a direct extension of the Dark Powers themselves.A land of ebon tides
In the Plane of Shadow, shadows are eternal while land and rivers are—if not entirely transitory— notably less certain than they are in the mortal lands. In the shadowfell the forests walk, and the mountains wander from time to time. It happens slowly enough that few notice it before their eyes, but over days and weeks, when the tides shift, the land itself shoves rivers and even cities some distance from their usual and well-accustomed sites. These ripples in the land itself are called the ebon tides, the stretches and compressions in reality that shadow folk know and plan for. Any survey map is useful for a season or sometimes for a lifetime—at least if that lifetime is not overlong. Hills can crumble quickly, exposed to eroding moonlight and washed out to sea. Harbors silt up, and forests quiver and rearrange themselves around riverbeds that dance slowly, ever so slowly, like liquid clocks shifting first one way and then another.Drifting towers and cities
While some things are clearly anchored, other cities and domains of dread are unmoored by roads or forests. The most famous of these unmoored locales is Shadaesmyr, as the city inhabitants were killed in an attempt to create a philosopher's stone, the rare survivors lack the strength and ressources to maintain the foundation stones binding the city which started to drift through the plane.Drifting domains
Other famous drifting locales include Vecna's domain of dread. The city of Thar Amphala who held the foundation stones binding the domain to the earth vanished during an attempt to bring Vecna into the material plane.Driftwood villages
Sometimes a single black oak tree or a cherry orchard or a stand of birches drifts away from the rest of the realm, taking nearby homes with it and becoming a sort of wandering village. When this happens to famous cities like Shadaesmyr, everyone notices, but smaller settlements sometimes fade into the plains or even part from the seashore and are not seen again for many years. For most of them, the village needs a new road to bind them to neighbors and re-establish trade. Several of these freeholds are well-known and seen every few years in the plains, as a river island, or elsewhere. The most famous include the fishing village of Willow Song, the woodworkers’ hamlet of Rowan’s Heart, the cheesemakers’ hilltop of Perreville, the druids’ retreat of Owlbridge, and the shepherds’ village of Cloverfield. They are never marked on maps, for they never connect to a road.Oak, Road, and Stone
The peoples of the realm have harnessed three enchanted tools to keep lands stable and to build their realms to withstand shifts in the ebon tides. These are the trinity of oak, road, and stone—the three elements that can bind shadow landscapes into a fixed form. The rich forests first raised by the gods hold land together, allowing for farming, building, and hunting in regions that surround the forested lands. Their roots and branches seem to always steady the land around them. The roads are used to bind places to one another so that they do not drift apart and become separated lands with a sea between them. Building new roads of fine flagstone or marking roads with milestones and guideposts or simply cutting through the deep brush of a white birch forest all bind together the communities and peoples of the land. Road building and road warding are both quite honorable professions. Further, glyph-marked foundation stones are also carved and enchanted with a particular radiance to take the basis of any permanent structure. These bind a structure, such as a wall, tower, or bridge, to a place, keeping huts, castles, and palaces from moving if the shadow landscape should be drawn in one direction or another. Natives of the Plane of Shadow use this as an invocation and exclamation—“By oak, road, and stone!”—because they know the importance of maintaining them to keep their realm whole. Destroying any of them is considered an act of chaos at the very least as it unravels the habitable regions and makes navigation even more difficult than normal. Cutting roads, chopping down more timber than the druids permit, or defacing foundation stones are crimes among all the civilized races. Though they are also considered a form of sport or entertainment by the more chaotic and feral creatures of the realm.Shadow roads
The shadow roads were the first tool used by natives of the Plane of Shadow to keep settlements from drifting apart. One might say that their creation made the settlement of the plane possible, for without them, the cities and realms could never find one another easily or consistently. The denizens of the shadowfell expend considerable effort to patrol and maintain the shadow roads. They also go out yearly to “walk the roads,” repairing any fallen milestones, checking on bridges, restoring weak enchantments, and so forth. However, tricksters and evildoers often work against the roads, hoping to either carve a road of their own or to deny an enemy the use of one. If a shadow road is cut by terrain-shifting magic or by the simple, muscle-powered expedient of digging a ditch or tearing up stones, the two locations that road connects on the plane become unmoored. While the ends of the cut road may bend and curl and reconnect by happenstance (or with arcane help), if the cut road is not addressed, it fades back into the mire and muck of unformed shadow or sinks into the earth, leaving no sign of its presence. And this means the places it once connected drift apart.Creating a new road
To pave a new shadow road or even to mark it out with milestones and crossroads is a work of many hands. The roles are generally divided into three parts: the survey, the laying of stones, and the binding of points. The Survey. To begin the work, a surveyor (often a wizard or cleric) takes silver chains, a theodolite, and a notebook to the foundation stone where the road is meant to begin. This is often a crossroads to a new path or an informal forest path, a trail in the tall grass, or a muddy stretch of river or hills that has been useful for a long enough period that the inhabitants will pay for a more permanent stretch of road to be mapped out. The survey involves putting down silver markers, measuring the current position of all curves, turns, and crossroads, and often leaving a long thread or, in the case of more ambitious roads, a bit of thin silver chain to mark the path the road is meant to take. Laying of Stones. Once the course is plotted, time becomes critical. The road’s grasses, trees, and swampy patches must be addressed with traditional gravel fill, full flagstones over a roadbed, a rumbling way of wooden slats, making for a jarring route for wagons and carts, or simply the clearing of brush and the erection of markers, waypoint stones, and guide poles to show the way. Binding of Points. The last step is the arcane one that binds the foundation stones, the silver filings, and a crumble of prayers and chunks of opal or moonstone into the road, making it impervious to destruction by the slow warping of the ebon tides. The shadow road can still stretch, bend, warp, and turn to accommodate the drift of the two or more points that its binding ritual mentions. The ritual is most often performed by clerics of Selune and moon priests of various kinds. Life of a Shadow Road. Once the binding is complete, the road remains until destroyed or unbound. In some cases, these shadow roads are little more than forest trails, connecting a village or standing stones to a larger settlement. At other times, the road is entirely paved and remains so even when the relative positions of various settlements changes or when new hills, forests, or rivers cut through the land. The road itself is a living thing, and it can (and does) stretch to accommodate changes in the shadow terrain.Like all those who seek to build a new road, I know that the construction of the first shadow roads is attributed to Hargen the Builder, a gnomish engineer and surveyor. This bearded arcanist learned to fix shadow matter with rune-marked milestones, carefully enchanted paving stones, and celestially inspired geometry. The task has since become rote: utilizing theodolite, lead weights, and measuring chains, I send a road builder to mark out a course, place milestones at key points (such as curves, hills, and bridges), and seed the whole with a well-seasoned course of moonstones and silver filings. To bind it, I command a priest to invoke the blessing of Selune, calling down the deep roots of the moon.
In terms of the cost to the lords and ladies, each mile in simple terrain requires at least 100 gp and as much as a month’s work to build and almost as much to maintain—and five or even ten times that in marsh, hills, or deep forest. The expense eats at our treasury
Road Worship
Some shadow roads are sites of worship, associated with ancient gods that predate the arrival of the fey. These roads are called “pilgrim roads” or “old paths,” and they include some of the oldest, best warded, and most revered roads of the realm. They may be little more than a small stone- or tileroofed cabinet at the side of the road or a small cave that provides shelter. Some resemble a shepherd’s hut or an especially convenient boulder or cliffside. Offerings include worn-out boots and sandals, candles, and similar objects.Forest anchors
Forest anchors are a way to secure a region filled with streams, villages, and other scattered landmarks from going drift. Most trees able to grow in the Plane of Shadow also hold the land together, though not in the same way that roads do. Forests are less like a cord binding two places that float on the ebon tides and more like a matt of reeds or kelp, keeping a larger area calmer, disturbed only by great storms, and moving as a single unit. A great forest might be said to float on the ebon tides, but it drifts with all its trees, courts, castles, villages, streams, and everything else with them—an island. Spells such hallucinatory terrain and mirage arcane can be used to generate forest lands that will hold for longer than usual in the Plane of Shadow (3 days rather than 24 hours for hallucinatory terrain and a month rather than 10 days for mirage arcane). Bearfolk druids and priests of Selune can “lock in” the results of such spells to create new shadow lands with the deep roots of the moon spell.Foundation stones
Fortunately, courts, castles, and villages can be built to withstand the ebon tides rather than being shifted or cracked by the earth’s slow movement. This requires the use of radiant foundation stones—enchanted stone pilings marked with the elements of a daylight or a darkness spell and used either as single stones under the floor (for a hut, tavern, or small barn, for instance) or in sets of two or four stones at the corners (for a large inn, manor house, or a great chapterhouse or keep) or even more (for many-towered castles, large monasteries, great courtyard homes or cloisters, and arcane colleges). Breaking a small foundation stone requires a shatter spell or 20 points of bludgeoning damage. Breaking a medium-size foundation stones requires a dimension door spell or 50 points of bludgeoning damage. Breaking a large one requires a disintegrate spell or 150 points of bludgeoning damage. In all cases, when a foundation stone crumbles, creatures within the structure feel a quivering, shaking motion for a moment, like a small earthquake.Getting There
Spontaneous portals to the Plane of Shadow from the Material Plane are common, and they only appear at night. Few permanent portals are known to exist, and the ones that are known exist below ground where the sun never shines and darkness prevails. The appearance of a spontaneous portal to the Shadowfell is difficult to predict. A spontaneous portal appears in a place of darkness and shadow and usually only when certain conditions are met. Some of those conditions are known. For example, nights where the moons are obscured in the sky on the Material Plane are prime triggers for spontaneous portals. Cemeteries, graveyards, and crypts can all hold portals to the Plane of Shadow, often in new construction over old ground. Certain spells in older tomes and spellbooks are known to pierce the veil between the Material Plane and Shadowfell as well.Traveling Around
Movement is no more hindered or helped in the Plane of Shadow than the Material Plane, but distance becomes a somewhat elastic concept over time. When learning about the Plane of Shadow, the first element that must be addressed is not the people of the realm but the mutable land itself. Most people of the mortal world think of the ground, the forests, and the mountains as permanent, and we think of shadows and light as transitory. And they are, usually, except when some bright eternal fire wells up from the deep earth or some cavern remains shrouded in darkness for aeons. In the Plane of Shadow though, shadows are eternal while land and rivers are—if not entirely transitory— notably less certain than they are in the mortal lands. In the shadowfell the forests walk, and the mountains wander from time to time. It happens slowly enough that few notice it before their eyes, but over days and weeks, when the tides shift, the land itself shoves rivers and even cities some distance from their usual and well-accustomed sites. These ripples in the land itself are called the ebon tides, the stretches and compressions in reality that shadow folk know and plan for. Any survey map is useful for a season or sometimes for a lifetime—at least if that lifetime is not overlong. Hills can crumble quickly, exposed to eroding moonlight and washed out to sea. Harbors silt up, and forests quiver and rearrange themselves around riverbeds that dance slowly, ever so slowly, like liquid clocks shifting first one way and then another. The Plane of Shadow drives cartographers a bit mad, and it guarantees their work is constant. The road wardens work hard to ensure that the shadow roads stay open, connecting the castles, towns, and settlements in a familiar way, even as details change year after year. Change is relentless among the shadows, but certain elements of this plane remain fixed, true, and certain. These fixed elements, the landmarks, major cities, headlands, and elder rivers, hold true to one another, bound together first by the shadow roads and later by all three tools of oak, road, and stone. Some ancient roads shift just one grain of sand in a century, for the roads themselves have binding properties. Some towers keep a forest in their orbit. Some windswept plains retain their slow rise and chosen, distant hills. The inhabitants of the plane know their way from place to place. For others, for visitors, the plane and its movements are a constant struggle. However, this landscape distortion can be a boon when utilized properly. Great distances can be traveled over much shorter timespans if an entrance to the Material Plane can be found in the right region. While on the Plane of Shadow, light sources are greatly diminished. Every light source provides radiance in half of the normal area while in the Shadowfell, and spells and effects that provide illumination have their durations reduced by half. The ever-present darkness of the plane seeks to snuff out all light that enters. Characters that take a short rest in the Plane of Shadow risk suffering from fell despair; see the Hazards section for details on this effect.Plane of Shadow in Motion
How does a group of travelers know when the black tides are running and when the forces of shadow are warping the mountains, rivers, and roads? There are many common signs, all well known to natives of the Plane of Shadow. They may indicate a small re-alignment of a nearby creek or the vast shift of an entire set of grasslands or the motion of a village or city that has come unmoored from road or forest. The following list is useful for identifying an ebon tide. Reading the Shift. A successful DC 14 Wisdom (Survival) check by a member of the party or their guide will confirm how far and in what direction the ground of the Plane of Shadow is shifting. On a failure, the party becomes lost for at least a full day of travel. A new check may be made the following day as new landmarks come into view. This ability check is made with advantage if the party is traveling on a shadow road.Tides and Travel
If you learn how to walk the shadow roads, the Plane of Shadow can be your playground. Anger the roads, and the wind will always be at your face, the forest always dark, the path always sorrowful. Dark magic infuses the realm, and that means that temptations corrupt the mortals who visit here. In the Plane of Shadow, you must listen, listen hard, to hear the tides coming. When the ebon tides run, distances change, just as shadows bend and stretch as sources of light move. So travel from one point to another can be quite predictable for weeks, months, or even years and then change suddenly during a time of strong tides. In other cases, the ebb and flow of the shifting land is much less obvious. Travel times between familiar places might change by a few minutes or even an hour but not enough to change patterns of trade or familiar routes for road wardens or pilgrims. Natives refer to “high tide” travel when conditions stretch the roads, and the distances are longer than usual. They refer to “low tide” travel when conditions make distances collapse and visitors arrive faster than expected. Neither is considered especially unusual. When traveling along shadow roads, these effects are much less notable than when traveling overland. For wilderness travel in either mode, make a Wisdom (Survival) check on the Drift and Tides Travel table when the ebon tides are strong. (This table can and should be ignored for travel during times when the plane is quiet and shifts are minimal.)| d20 | Shadow Road Variation | Overland Variation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Travel time increased by 100% | Travel time increased by 200% |
| 2-5 | Travel time increased by 50% | Travel time increased by 100% |
| 6-9 | Travel time increased by 20% | Travel time increased by 50% |
| 10-14 | Travel time as usual | Travel time increased by 10% |
| 15-18 | Travel time reduced by 10% | Travel time as usual |
| 19 | Travel time reduced by 20% | Travel time reduced by 10% |
| 20 | Travel time reduced by 30% | Travel time reduced by 20% |
| 21+ | Travel time reduced by 50% | Travel time reduced by 30% |
| Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | You have disadvantage on Wisdom and Charisma checks made against non-shadow creatures. |
| 2 | You gain darkvision out to 30 feet or increases existing darkvision by 30 feet. |
| 3 | You have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and attack rolls made while in bright light. |
| 4 | You have disadvantage on saving throws made while in bright light. |
| 5 | You take 2d6 radiant damage when starting your turn in sunlight. |
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