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Today we talk about flavouring your Greyhawk based games with the Feywild, aka the Faerie realm.

The Feywild is that wondrous place that tickles and terrifies the mortal realm with its delights and strange visitors. Part Alice in Wonderland, Part Brothers Grimm, Part Willow (movie), the Feywild is the home of many capricious and fickle creatures.

In many ways the Feywild resembles the prime material (regular world) but things weather can change more rapidly, magic can twisted or just have side effects at the local rulers whim, dreams and nightmares can become reality-even if only for awhile.

Ways to make an area be more like the Feywild :

  • Plants open or close in response to positive or negative emotions.
  • Divine magic causes variation in temperature.
  • Creatures use persuasion, illusions and cooperation like currency.
  • Scents are visible for everyone.
  • Arcane magic has echoing or distorting sounds.

The Feywild is best used in doses, so you go there for a side quest, or trips there for quest 3 and 6, with other quests in regular Greyhawk. This will enable variety in your games, and the weirdness of the Feywild will not become mundane.

Typically travelling to and from the Feywild is not via spell or scroll, but by a condition, such as entering a still pond lit by moonlight while holding a jasmine blossom, or a drop of your blood on three different pieces of fruit-consumed will take you there for 1 day.

Faerie realm is rooted in nature however, there is little mention of constructs or machinery of any kind in Feywild stories.

Areas of Greyhawk that can easily be linked to the Feywild :

The Pinnacles of Azor’alq – off Exbir/Zeif coast (more in Greyhawk Adventures). Rock islands just off the coast, home to Phoenix and other beasts. Sylph and Hippogrif rest and play here. When the moon Celene is full a host of other creatures visit.

Singing Stones – Vesve Forest. (more in From The Ashes) Discordant sounds echo off the monoliths within, but if you can match the sounds with instrument or spell, you may  speak with Fey creatures in or near the Feywild.

Timberway Wood – North East, Winter Court. Deep within these woods are some very cold caves, and several portals to the Winter Court of the Feywild. Cold mist surrounds the area.

Turucambi – Olijatt Sea, far south east. (more in Greyhawk Adventures) Limestone reefs and caverns are home to Nymph, Hags, Selkie and Zaratan. Many portals link the seas of Feywilds to this area.

Welkwood – east of Celene. Long have people known of Faerie creatures within this area, but certain reagents can let you travel to and from the Feywild at dawn or dusk. A kind word goes a long way when meeting strangers here.

Eladrin

If you use Eladrin in your games, or just want your Elves to be more mystical, then linking them to the Feywild is a great option.

  • Maybe they need to undertake a task as part of a coming of age rite in Greyhawk before returning?
  • Perhaps they know of several portals and travel there and back often.
  • Eladrin are seeking reagents to perform rituals to restore the many natural areas that were devastated during recent wars.
  • Maybe Eldarin see an ancient enemy returning (like Vecna or Tharizdun) and start getting groups ready to fight.
  • Vesve Forest in the west and Gamboge Forest in the east are great places to have Eladrin/Fey Elves start their Greyhawk journeys.

What were Eladrin doing during the Greyhawk Wars?

  • Raiding Iuz fiends to keep them away from Eladrin homes.
  • Making contact with isolated Elven villages, reconnecting them with portals and information.
  • Entertaining people with tales, dance and song to lighten their spirits in these dark times.

For more on Eladrin you can seek out the Mordekainen’s Tome of Foes.

Creatures to include in Feywild-Greyhawk games

  1. Blights 5e /PF Basidirond
  2. Bullywug 5e / PF Grippli
  3. Centaur
  4. Cyclopse
  5. Dopplegangers
  6. Dryad
  7. Ettercaps
  8. Faerie Dragon 5e / PF Strix
  9. Fomorian DnD / PF Redcap
  10. Galeb Duhr
  11. Hag
  12. Hippogrif
  13. Owlbear
  14. Peguses
  15. Pixie
  16. Satyr
  17. Treant
  18. Troll
  19. Umberhulk 5e/PF Froghemoth
  20. Unicorn
  21. Water Weird

Mordekainen’s Tome of Foes : Use these creatures… Berbalang, Elemental Myrmidons, Gray Render, Nagpa, Star Spawn, Tortles.

Pathfinder Class options : Daredevil-Bard, Eldritch Scoundrel-Rogue, Feyspeaker-Druid, Fey Bloodline-Sorcerer, Fey Caller-Wizard.

Feywild Items : Bag of Tricks, Broom of Flying, Cloak of Manta Ray, Potion of Diminuation, Ring of Jumping, Rope of Entanglement, Sword of Dancing, Wand of Polymorphing.

Want to read some classic Brothers Grimm tales? – https://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimmtales.html