The Feywild

The Plane of Faerie

The Feywild was 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 found that all sensations, both sensory and emotional, were heightened. Smells were stronger, colors were more vivid, and sounds were clearer, but at the same time shadows were darker and impulses were harder to control. Strong emotions even altered the landscape of the Feywild itself, wilting flowers trailed the despondent or furious and carefree animals traveled alongside chipper and cheerful individuals.

As an "echo" of the Prime Material plane, its geography was similar although not entirely identical to that of Aurora, but the natural landscape was markedly more dramatic and beautiful in the Feywild, with mountains standing straighter and sharper, rivers flowing clearer and faster, flowers bloom brighter and more fragrantly, and weather manifesting in supernatural ways. 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. As an additional consequence of this all-encompassing magic, arcane spells tended to be amplified in power or duration when cast in the Feywild, and other times would manifest in entirely unexpected ways.

Phenomena

Motes of energy that originated in the Feywild manifested as feywild sparks, each spark was the physical manifestation of pure feywild energy. These were highly sought after by adventurers that dared to brave the plane's perilous wilderness.

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.

Flora & Fauna

The Feywild was home to unique varieties of plant life, including various fungi that held supernatural properties. Notable among these were eldercaps, Executioner's Hoods, and hummingbrellas.

Cosmography

The Feywild has had a unique relationship with the Prime Material plane, and consequently was in an unusual cosmological position.

The Faerie existed as one of the Outer Planes, one that was coexistent with that of the Prime and was born of unconsious emotions. This unique quality allowed creatures and fey beings to sometimes pass back-and-forth between the two planes at matching geographical locations without needing to traverse the Astral Plane. Indeed the Plane of Faerie held no connections to most transitive planes, including the Astral Plane, Ethereal Plane, or the Plane of Shadow.

Each location on the Prime held a duplicate in Faerie, albeit one altered in form and appearance by the plane's unique traits. Additionally, Faerie maintained some traits that were not observable during other times of history, such as lighter force of gravity than that felt on the Prime.

Notable Locations

Though much of the Feywild was the same as the Prime geographically, there were differences, and more importantly, the lands answered to different powers than those on Aurora. Much of the elven or eladrin civilizations had their earliest roots here and abandoned remnants of their culture littered the landscape. Unlike the elves, however, who had all but abandoned the Feywild, some eladrin remained behind in the Feywild, most notably the "noble" eladrin, who maintained strong kingdoms and citadels. Some notable elven cities and settlements were located at points where the barrier between the planes was extremely thin, and as a result they existed in both the Prime and the Feywild simultaneously.

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 or 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 demesne.

Domains of Delight

Within the Feywild were numerous demiplanes created by the Archfey, independent realms that were each formed to reflect the whims and and emotions of its creator. They grew or shrunk in size depending on the power of their Archfey, occasionally leading to discontent among their leaders when borders of neighboring domains overlapped with one another.

One of the more prominent domains of delight was Prismeer, the realm of Zybilna. The domain was shattered by the Hourglass Coven of hags and reformed as three splinter-realms of Hither, Thither, and Yon. Also found within Prismeer was the lesser domain of Fablerise. This gloomy forest was created by Yarnspinner, an enormous fey spider that attracted myriad awakened animals with his near endless supplies of stories and tales.

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 were untamed, large numbers also congregated according to race or by political allegiance. Just as the geography was reminiscent of Aurora's, some of its inhabitants existed as fey "echoes" of Prime creatures.

All manner of fey species were found within the Feywild.

The leShay were an enigmatic species that were among the Feywild's most powerful inhabitants; though the various archfey were undoubtedly even more powerful.

Fey eladrin were the beings that had the closest thing to a civilization 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.

Other creatures that dwelled within the Feywild included moonstone, mirage, and faerie dragons; fomorians and their servitor cyclopes ruled much of the Feydark; and harengon, who were blessed with good fortune. Goblinoids, ogres, giants, and blights could all be found in the more sinister regions of the plane.