The LeShay | Worldbuilding the Feywild for D&D Part 6
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ต.ค. 2024
- I'm turning the Feywild into a playable realm for our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, focusing in this video on the LeShay.
Thank you as always, and comment below any Feywild or D&D topics you want to see me cover!
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Leshay are one of my favoite 'monsters' from D&D.I've had one in every single campaign I've run, and none of my players has ever figured it out. Pretty awesome as one was as much a lore hound as I am. A year late, but, a couple interesting things to consider about them (caveat: your game, your rules, your lore, DM fiat for their world is final)...
1. Leshay predate the current multiverse, by... a lot. Like Illithid and Aboleth, their reality disappeared due to shenanigans with time.
2. The very same Leshay in it's maybe 100,000+ years of life (or more, so much more) may have been the most vile dark necromancer and also the most pious oathbound Paladin. Each was a phase to stave off ennui. They have mastered, quite possibly, every profession that has ever existed.
3. No Leshay has ever given birth since the fall of their reality. That isn't to say there aren't Leshay children, They can cast 'Alter Self' at will. The lore says nothing about children of the races though, to my knowledge.
4. They look at most of the intelligent races as little more than infants, with a few notable exceptions. Gnomes are some of the few that will make a Leshay smile (perhaps, dare I say, even smirk). Orc tenacity in the face of Orc existence is somewhat insperational to them. They are fascinated by the Warforged (as nothing quite like them has ever existed... a buffet of delight for an immortal). They have actual pity for Changlings, knowing their plight, if on a solar scale of more complexity.
5. Even a Leshay exploring it's most depraved existence doesn't seek to bring back, or recreate it's home timeline. They are wise to a diatific level. They know that to do so would literally erase all current reality. Even Overbeings like Lord Ao and The Lady of Pain, would be wiped from existence like wisps of smoke before a hurricane.
Interesting side note for the Forgotten Realms setting... The Moonshea Ilses, off the Sword Coast has been ruled by a single Leshay for the last 11,000 years. During the SpellPlague, she transported the entire nation to the Faewilds. Even the various powers of those lands declined to intrude on her domain, regardless of the power so ripe for the chaotic plundering.
Leshay can be in any setting. FR, Ebberon, Dark Sun, Greyhawk and even Mystara. They can planar travel as they chose (once a day for free if I recall).
In any case, I hope the Campaign went awesomely!
Sorry I'm late to this party, but I just discovered your channel while doing worldbuilding prep for the upcoming rules revision.
I've always loved the LeShay, and can think of 2 great uses for them:
1) As a trickster god figure like Q in Star Trek: The Next Generation - the LeShay is a renegade among their kind who toys with lesser beings for amusement, but slowly develops into a helper or teacher of them as the campaign progresses... just like Q did across the span of Trek series where he appeared (TNG & Voyager, +1 DS9). He/she appears as a quest-giver across the party's careers, perhaps developing an affinity or liking for one party member in particular. It torments and confounds them, but in the end, never lets them come to any real harm because of its games. They are its pets, after all, and it loves its pets.
2) As a "First Ones" race playing The Great Game against others of it kind, like the Illithids or the dragons. My template here is the Vorlons from Babylon 5: an inscrutable elder race seen as basically benevolent by newer civilizations, until their collective wrath is roused by the return of their equally-ancient enemy, and then The Great Game becomes a hot war where both elder races burn entire worlds without a thought to settle their old score. In D&D, the LeShay might be the counter to the Great Old Ones who predate the gods. They stay their hands from direct involvement in mortal affairs, but pull multiple strings from behind the scenes, and carry out plans that take millennia to come to fruition.
Leshay Anifer Unglum, Anifer is the head mistress of the "Garrote", the most sicret and deadly guild of assassins in the multiverse. She has a cloak whose interior opens to a void dimension. When the remains of a victim are sent to her for utter removal, she allows her cloak to fall over the body and speaks a command word. When the cloak is pulled free, the body is gone forever, beyond even the recall of greater gods.
I guess they are older than the gods, they know everything, they are just biding their time or enjoying a reclusive life. I can assume that there are 3-4 Leshay in Fearun.Some of them could be teachers or advisors to the Archfey, or they could be the deep state of the Feywild. Very mysterious beings.
Here one off the top of my head. They’re/were the answer to the illithid problem.
I like the idea of the feywild being scary because of the amount of high level powerful beings that are just kinda...... lurking lol. like they are just aware of so much and have such power that you can really create terror with just one figure (and there are so many to choose from!)
Exactly! The problem is choosing one that isn’t necessarily out for blood, at least not without provocation.
My wife is playing as a changeling. She's navigating the new loss of identity, attempting to track down her two siblings and her father to better understand who she is. I plan on introducing her father as a leshay. They have a tendency to try to live normal lives out of boredom to the point where they almost forget what they are and lose themselves in the role, until realization hits one day and they walk away. We don't really play with alignment she's just figuring it out along the way.
The two siblings are perfectly normal, but as the role of wood elf husband started to falter the last child sired was born as a changeling maturing around puberty.
The other two siblings are also hunting for the father but under the assumption that whatever he is killed their father. Parsley rejecting the little sister that they grew up with in fear of what she actually is.
My idea for the origin of the changeling.
Ahem. What about making them the Mystics to the Skeksis- the bound opposite to the Nagpa? Inscrutable Planar Outsiders that came with unique abilities and maybe…just maybe tie it into the whole Queen of Air and Darkness storyline with the Dark Crystal haha
A Leshay that was bound to a Domain of Dread through some of his actions, but mainly through deeds of his close protégé, is a warlock Patron of one of my players in campaign. A completely unknown (to the general lore) being who really doesn't like when its name is being shared, who has a rather bad history with Raven Queen. The Domain of Dread is also taking a toll on his behaviour. He used to be a caretaker, a teacher and a mentor to many Eladrin - and he was NOT too happy when he learned that some of his - well, he calls them his children - were taken in such manner and bound to Shadowfell for one sorceress to get all this divine power.
However dark and twisted he may seem, he still has a weak spot for the youth, especially children. And even though he IS quite creepy now - it's a weak spot not in a creepy way. He actually cares for them.
Do you know how fae are often spoken of as creatures who kidnap children?
He (and his beloved servant that initiated the act of Dark Powers to be interested in bounding him to a Dread Domain) is that to the Shadar Kai now...
Who do you need to be for the Shadar Kai to tremble like little children when you mention name "Nou'sh Nuht'aar" (typos in name intended because my players are pesky googlers, also it's not wise to speak his real name :P)
But he is "saving" them of course ;)
He will teach them again... Take care of them. And he will have his revenge on Duskmaven.
I would like to hear how you envision what a Feywild Necropolis would look/be/play like?
I'm going to go with a planeswalking Leshay that has found the infinite stair and spent countless lifetimes traveling to different places and times, entirely recreating itself and wiping it's memory while shape changing to experience the multiverse from a different perspective before remembering it's entire existence after it hears or says a certain phrase. It can be both the BBEG and the patron while also being the cabbage vendor.
I bet I could guess how they became the BBEG 😉
You get extra extra points for actually pronouncing my last name right and since Fey often were gods of nature the Lashay make a lot of sense but inherently made me think of the Leshy from the Witcher series because the words play tricks in my head but considering fairies get called things like The Gentry or Lords and Ladies and you have gods like Frey a Vanir God whose name name means Lord and in Norse myth he was given custody of the elf home it's an easy leap for Fairies to be godlike or certain gods get taken in an adopted by the Fey
It’s an ex-teacher skill. And I hadn’t made that connection! I’ve gotten a few comments lately mentioning Norse folklore and mythology, I get the feeling I should look into it!
@@feywildfiend I'd say it's very worth your time in this case because Norse Mythology is where you get Elves and Dwarves and the Vanir Gods were very Fey like where the Aesir like Odin and Thor are Giants
I wouldn't want to use such a powerful creature in combat, but it might be good to have a Leshay just calmly walking through an intense combat encounter that the party has with other creatures. Just taking note, shrugging off damage, interacting with the party (positively, negatively, or neutrally depending on what you needed). And as you suggested, it seems like a Leshay NPC is super effective if they're seeded early on and then revisited here and there.
That would be a super cool introduction, too! Especially if they created some sort of weapon to hand off, as long as it didn't upset the balance of the encounter. It would definitely create intrigue.
A thought: maybe they don't perminitely keep the skills they get by interacting with others! It might be an interesting angle to their culture and their thoughts about what they can do, if once they stop interacting with a person that speaks a different language to them, they lose that ability to speak it again. One may think they have little need for it after that interaction, but the emotions they could have about the futility of their own skills and the way they only mirror others until they are gone would be an interesting play on them.
Also, genuinely not to be nitpicky but I think this is the correct usage of the term, people usually say people with albinism, rather than albinos or albino people! Semantic, sure, but I think I read somewhere about the preference to the phrasing.
What I also like about that idea is the way it adds character to their race as a whole, rather than them being what is basically a group of small gods. And you're not nitpicking! I try to be conscious of my language, so I appreciate the note!
The elves from Hellboy 2 remind me of young leshay as the bbeg.
I had to look them up and oh my word yes!!
my major character fighting in the world's largest dungeon which for us is out of time and normal space, during a time of great corruption of gods wanting to replace other gods, etc, needed the help of a le shay to fight a uvuudaum, yes the influence of the far realm and abolths running wild, both entities are beyond my party, general ability and even with my best characters we would never survive, so try and try as i might to gain trust. even with the help of a solar the le shay would not do anything sometime not listen , hours of roll playing passed i got nowhere, it came to a point where i just would kill all my characters in the name of good, which the le shay did not care he/she has seen this all before, but as my characters were dyeing we spoke of a new type of doppelganger one which has not been seen or heard of by the le shay, now he /she was interested. since the dungeon portals are never the same when i passed the portal to engage the Uvuudaum and doppeganger force, they were gone or we did not enter the right time and space again as when we left, thank you DM ,,, as i am in a campaign that has been going on for over 20 years call the portal wars ,,,,,, my god,,,, lost in time and space is my mind,
a young rebellious LeShay who is tired of the same old dreary "hands off" policy decides to go out into the world and do just the opposite..he will tweak, and nudge, and meddle to his heart's content! Either way he will vanish afterward tracing a subtle path across the multiverse with footprints in history's most pivotal moments. Until one day quite by accident he meets another of his kind and everything changed forever...sounds familiar...🤔
The origin of leshay-th-cam.com/video/8aW52rsz5qA/w-d-xo.htmlsi=gCDJAxj9bB3IiSIc
Gods? No they're not divine. Immortal? Definitely. Are they on the level of an avatar of a deity? Yes, certainly. They are also incomprehensively old. Think 10,000 plus years. The CR of 28 in 3.5 is just the Baseline.
Never heard about LeShay until now. As I have read the name of the video, I thought of 'Leshy' but it turns out to be something else entirely. Wierd folk fo sure
They’re definitely a conundrum! I only learned about them through researching other parts of the feywild.