Feywild/Shadowfell Archives - Tribality

Unearthed Arcana 2021: Folk of the Feywild Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 18:06:04 +0000

There’s a new collection of Feywild (not all of them fey) races in the new Unearthed Arcana document, continuing the vein of new player races we last saw in Gothic Lineages. There are four new player races here, and every one of them came as a surprise to me in one way or other. I want to establish up front, though, that me making jokes about the fourth of those races won’t be a rare bit. The byline for this […]

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Four New Fey NPCs

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 08 May 2020 13:41:35 +0000

I haven’t done a lot of writing about fey in quite some time, at least not here on Tribality. We’re working on a DM’s Guild release of fey content, so this article is all material that will go to my editor and, if it survives that stage, into the product. I’ve written a lot of content and quest hooks so far around the Archfey, so this time I’m looking at lower-ranked fey. Also, check out the rules for fey bargains […]

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UA 2020: Subclasses, Part Three Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 18:48:38 +0000

It’s been a couple of weeks since the chaos of Subclasses, Part Two: Revenge of the Bride of the Electric Boogaloo, so yesterday WotC dropped three more playtest subclasses. We have the Armorer artificer, the Circle of Stars druid, and the Fey Wanderer ranger conclave. (Yes, I know it’s still technically “archetype,” because “conclave” got buried beside the UA Revised Ranger, but – and I cannot stress this strongly enough – you can have it when you pry it from […]

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Fey Story Seeds

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 31 May 2018 12:00:39 +0000

If a strange and mystic being, with or without extraneous antlers, offers you “story seeds” while you stand in a crossroads, a forked tree trunk, a ring of mushrooms, or any sort of bower or grotto, choose your next words carefully. But since it is only me, a very normal human who does very normal human things, it is fine. Do you, by chance, have any dreams of your first love that you’re not using? No reason. Fey Chivalry | Fey Huntsmen […]

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Fey-Touched Backgrounds, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 29 Mar 2018 12:00:33 +0000

It’s been a little while now since I’ve done anything with my series on the fey, so today I’m returning for the fifth and sixth fey background: the Inspired and the Oathsworn. The Inspired are those who receive – or believe they will receive – creative inspiration from a fey patron, friend, or lover. The Oathbreaker is on the outs with a fey, some fey, or the fey, as a result of breaking an oath. Fey Chivalry | Fey Huntsmen and Leashed […]

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Unearthed Arcana: Elf Subraces Breakdown

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 05:46:18 +0000

In keeping with the time-honored traditions of D&D, this week’s Unearthed Arcana brings us four more of the Baskin Robbins Thirty-One Flavors of Elf. Yes, I know that we have the good Professor to thank for elves coming in a ton of varieties, I too have read The Silmarillion and all the abstruse charts contained therein. Anyway, what we have here are the avariel, the grugach, the aquatic or sea elves, and the shadar-kai. (For another take on the shadar-kai, […]

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Fey-Touched Backgrounds, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 12:00:41 +0000

In the last article, I created Backgrounds for those who had been Captives of the fey, and Changelings who had been left behind by the fey. (Not to be confused with Eberron’s doppelganger-like race.) Today I’m continuing with the Courtly Ward and the Forlorn. The Courtly Ward is the inverse of the Captive – still unable to leave, but showered with riches and privilege in the court of the Highlords rather than toiling away. The Forlorn has experienced the wonders […]

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Fey-Touched Backgrounds, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 28 Sep 2017 12:00:55 +0000

A few readers asked for fey-touched Backgrounds as part of my series on the fey (which will eventually be stitched together into a PDF that you can buy with real money, no fools’-gold need apply). I’ll be presenting six new Backgrounds. As they’re explicitly tied to fey magic, I’m looking for new and different things to do with each Background’s Feature, which may rankle the sensibilities of some. Fey Chivalry | Fey Huntsmen and Leashed Terrors | Faerie Tales: Naiads, Pixies, and Sprites for […]

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The Fey Highlord Patron

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 12:00:14 +0000

I've written a whole lot about the fey and Archfey here in Tribality, and I'd like to package it all into a PDF for your delectation. There's just a few little problems. First off, the Archfey Patron is not in the OGL, and I don't really want to deal with the DM's Guild for this (for a whole set of reasons that I'm not going into here). Secondly, I don't actually like several features of the Archfey Patron, as I have discussed at length in the past. My solution is to create a new warlock patron called the Fey Highlord, serving the same story role but with a different set of mythic themes.

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Alternate Fey Courts

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 12:00:06 +0000

A few conversations about my series on the fey reminded me that there were more articles I wanted to write, so this week I’m taking a break from talking about the monk. D&D divides the fey into Summer and Winter Courts, which it may or may not call the Seelie and Unseelie. As a general rule of designing conflict in games, though, never go for two-faction conflict when you can instead have three. There are also great examples in other fey-related games - more than I can cover here, but at least I can make a start of it.

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