How to Run Travel in the Feywild | Worldbuilding the Feywild for D&D
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- I'm turning the Feywild into a playable realm for our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, focusing in this video on travel in the Feywild!
Thank you as always, and comment below any Feywild or D&D topics you want to see me cover!
Thanks also to 3D Printing Bard. His Etsy shop can be found at this link:
www.etsy.com/shop/3DPrintingB...
Links and Sources |
The Dungeon Master's Guide
Instagram |
@literaryminimalist
Music |
Chillpeach - Dreamy Mode : • [no copyright music] '...
Free Music for Videos 👉 Music by Gil Wanders - It's Midnight - thmatc.co/?l=190A2320
Free Music for Videos 👉 Music by Remil - Evening Tea - thmatc.co/?l=26514877
Chillpeach - In Dreamland : • [no copyright music] '... - เกม
![fellow fellow - Proud [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/9uZF7BlUQPE/mqdefault.jpg)
In my Midgard campaign (the one where all of the gods are syncretized), there are two sets of roads that bind the planes together. The first is ripped right from Norse myth: the rainbow roads. These are guarded by leprechauns who charge a steep toll and keep it in a large pot near the entrance. The leprecahuns are overseen by Hiemdall, who guards the rainbow road leading into Aesgard. The rainbow roads can get you from Midgard to Heaven, Aesgard, Olympus, the Feywild, and other places.
The second set of roads are the shadow roads. They are overseen by Loki, and they embody all of the tricks and misdirection that one might expect from Loki. They connect Midgard to the Plane of Shadows (see Book of Ebon Tides from Kobold Press) and to Hell, the Feywild, and other locations. You may not be aware that you've stumbled onto a shadow road until you're already lost on it.
One of my players has a master's degree in some kind of math. He really wanted his character to see the world in a different number of dimensions than the others do, and his backstory involves being kidnapped by Fey and replaced by a doppelganger. I had him raised in the care of Utgard Loki (in this world, a face and child of Loki, much like Cu Cullain to Lugh). Because this character sees the world the way he does, the shadow roads look just like any other inter-dimensional road to him, lol. This effectively just makes him good at conjuration magic.
But yeah, two sets of roads: Rainbow and Shadow, guarded by opposing fairies/gods, leading to certain planes but not to others.
What a good idea! I also appreciate the doppelganger/changeling idea for a feywild-themed backstory. Whether the party character knows when they start, what they want to do with that information, there are so many routes they could take with it!
I ran a Feywild one-shot for Halloween, and the needs of the story and the timing of the one-shot sort of forced my hand in describing travel. I made certain things too simple, to get them where they needed to be for the adventure. To rationalize/narrate why they had an easy time, I focused on the party's intentions: they're clear focus on finding a certain person meant the terrain shifted under their feet to carry them toward what their hearts wanted.
In terms of entering the Feywild intentionally (as opposed to getting lost), I showed them with the tracks of their quarry where the portal into the Feywild was, but I didn't explain the "puzzle" or "key" to getting through. Eventually, they figured out they had to be playful, like a child, in order to be allowed in. For a bunch of adults playing grim and determined heroes to think of their characters playfully felt very faerie to me.
I think those are great work-arounds when you don’t want the travel to be the main focus! In the swamp, magic was in place to actually prevent my party getting lost. And the child-like, playful idea is very fey! It would especially fit with the typical lore of children in particular getting lost.
My portal response requires a throwback to a previous post on one of your earlier videos. My party had become the target of the Wild Hunt after drawing the Rogue card from the Deck of Many Things and rolling to get Oberon as their opponent. They were transformed into a variety of rabbits and had to escape the blink dogs of the wild hunt, with only one of them being devoured and all waking in their beds with the shared memory. They managed to access a wish spell and called off Oberon's enmity, though they still have two more phases of the hunt. As recompense for unduly targeting them, he opened a portal to the Summer Court, where they all wanted to visit for various reasons, but cautioned them about going before accomplishing certain feats as Titania would have no respect for the mortals if they came without gifts and proof of valor. So, though they have the portal, they're afraid to use it until they've accomplished more story elements. Muah ha ha.
I love that they're having to use some self control with the portal! In our last campaign, our party had access to one use of Transport via Plants, and it was difficult to know when the right time to use it was. Decisions decisions!
@@feywildfiend We have one stubborn character that will almost certainly risk it, at which point I'll get to pounce with the Green Knight for daring to appear before the Queen of Fairies as a meer mortal with no standing and no gift. Stubbornness/pride remains the most likely reaction to being looked down on as pitiful mortals, they'll be jailed in a shifting shrub maze with a portal randomly assigned somewhere on the grid and a few surprises randomly placed throughout. Then a table for where in the fey that portal leads, most likely near one of the quests they could accomplish to gain favor, but a chance of appearing in the Unseelie Court to see how the easier greeting will go. Or, they surprise me and become gods, who knows?
I randomly chose the Feywild to draw in a bunch of new players and now I'm trying to figure out the details. Your channel is serendipitous.
Draw them in, my friend. Make them one of us.
Minis are pure fire!
I'm so stoked about them!
All these ideas about getting lost are so cool. I’m going to give a map to my players soon but I think it would be really cool if somehow being lost is a requirement to use the map like a secret message that changes how they use the map.
The map tie-in is really good! I like the idea of terrain or landmarks shifting ever so slightly depending on where they are or how they're looking at it.
Nice work on the video - also dope minis wowza!
The domains of delights supplement to Wild Beyond the Witchlight has a lot of feywild tables
Can't wait to see them all painted
Oh man, me too 😂
I'm reading something right now where intent plays heavily in getting you to your destination, hallways and forest paths shifting so you have a pretty straight shot/shortcut from A to B (albeit they're living and travelling with an archfey benevolent to them, so I like the idea that it's only so easy for those with great power, in their own domain, and everyone else has a more bumbling experience with travel).
I like the idea of intent playing a role in travel, with the world shifting and changing in response to you (which is very feywild in terms of at least weather etc. mirroring present people's emotions and stuff). So what about the feywild bringing things - like seeker and goal - closer together, particularly while either is in motion/travel? That might mean while you're travelling, you're brought to your destination, or that while travelling or stationary, a useful traveller is brought to you.
Which could be bad if you're the unfortunate traveller brought to a malicious person. It also might not be so direct. Maybe you're trying to get to a specific town, but there's a camp of centaurs with someone that could be helpful to you, so you end up there instead. Maybe your party isn't going to fare well in the feywild because they don't know the rules of hospitality, ownership, and reciprocity. They get directed to some random person's house, so they can learn - but it'll be a harsh lesson, through breaking the rules, with consequences, that may send them on a side quest for their host so they can make amends.
If the area they're trying to get to is too dangerous for them, maybe they're sent to a more skill-appropriate encounter so they can improve.
The places and situations you reach are benevolent in some way, but for whom, and in what way? If the party figures out this pattern, I like the idea of, say, sitting across from an unexpected host, wondering who's benefit has brought you together. Is this person beneficial or harmful to you (or both), and because it generally happens without either's intent - just by the world itself - it's possible neither of you has an idea, and you'll only find out by interacting with each other, and exploring their house to maybe find something relevant.
It would let the DM balance how things are going, to be more benevolent or malicious, create and direct to interesting and useful encounters, and creates a lot of grey in terms of good/evil, where something harmful is helpful. I personally like the aspect where feywild culture isn't divided into good/evil, but its own moral compass that's foreign to us, but while you seem to like the good/evil dichotomy, I think this could work for either of us. Retaining that foreign unfamiliarity for me, but just obscuring where someone falls in good/evil for you, adding some mystery to explore, question, be a bit paranoid about - but by necessity, open enough to find the answers.
Shouts out to the Feywild. Lots of rad ideas here!
Thank you!
Not really about the travel, but on the idea of foraging, I had a player find a bunch of different kinds of berries. One look a bit like goodberries, but slightly different "goo berries". and they are deadly slowly dissolving you if you eat them(many things there can be strangely similar and dangerously different). Other berries tasted like nuts, marshmallows, peppers... basically anything you would expect them to taste like. Not EVERYTHING is trying to kill them. One of the players saved some goo berries and used them to help kill some ooze creatures.
I've been thinking about feywild flora/fauna, and this is great! I like the idea of having similar foraging finds that are just a little to the left of what's expected.
I have it so that as your walk toward the destination in the feywild, it doesn't look or feel like any progress has been made; however looking behind you , travelers will see that they have traveled an amount away from their starting position.
I love how trippy that sounds!
A quest I’m planning on my players doing is locating a grove of carnivorous trees and harvesting their fruit, whilst being very specifically told not to eat it.
Basically, the fruit contains some potent chemicals that can be brewed into alcohol and potions, but eaten on its own puts you into a deep sleep, where the trees then absorb you into their roots.
Then, if the party did eat some of the fruit the others would have to try and carry them out as the trees start trying to eat them.
As always, this video was great and I’ll probably be stealing the ideas you had about getting lost to find something!
And you KNOW they'll want to eat that fruit. I love it, thanks!
First! love you vids :)
Thank you!
❤️❤️
I'm using Gardens of Ynn for some wacky terrains and flavor..
I just looked it up, it sounds beautiful!
17:41 Be nice? But it's so boooriiing! 😆
Seriously though, sometimes I think I'm just too nice of a GM tbh.
Being incredibly mean makes them creative, and then they get to be incredibly cool!