> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Faewild > [![[Faewild_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Faewild.webp) > ###### Location Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Plane | > Defining Feature | An ancient plane of living fae magic, impossible geography, and courts whose bargains carry the weight of law | > Connections | [[Elandis\|Material World]] (adjacent plane) | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Faewild** is a vast and ancient plane of existence that runs parallel to the material world — a realm of living magic, impossible geography, and courts of fae power whose roots go deeper than recorded history. It is not a reflection or echo of [[Elandis]]: its skies do not follow the material sun, its distances resist measurement, and every bargain struck within its borders carries a weight that no spell can simply dissolve. To a first-time traveller, arriving in the Faewild is less like stepping into another world and more like stepping into one that is dreaming. ## Nature of the Plane The Faewild operates by rules that are consistent within themselves but alien to any traveller from the material world. **Light and sky.** The Faewild has no single sky. Each region maintains its own — a perpetual golden hour in the [[Gossamer Woods]], deep indigo and slow-drifting auroras above the [[Shimmering Peaks]], absolute darkness over the [[Vale of Eternal Night]]. The sun and moon of the material world have no authority here. Within a given court's territory, the light is not entirely fixed: the mood of the ruling archfae can shade it — a court in grief darkening the sky, a court in celebration brightening it — though such shifts are subtle against the region's dominant character rather than the wholesale change of night to day. **Time.** The Faewild does not distort time. A week spent within it is a week elapsed in [[Elandis]]; travellers who return do not find years have passed. This contradicts older legend, but it is the consistent experience of those who have crossed and come back. **Distance.** What the Faewild does distort is distance. Its geography resists mortal measurement. A path that took an hour in one direction may take a day in reverse; regions that should be adjacent may require traversal through an entirely different tract of the plane to reach. A traveller lost in the Faewild is not merely turned around — the forest itself may not have the same shape it did before. **Fae bargains.** A deal struck with a fae in the Faewild binds both parties through the plane's own magic. It is not a spell and cannot be dispelled. The precise consequences of breaking such a bargain vary by court and by the power of the fae involved, but the binding itself is real, and every court on the plane treats it as such. **True names.** Every fae being has a true name, and knowing it carries power — the ability to compel a response, demand an answer, or in extremis bind the named. Archfae guard their true names with their lives; lesser fae are sometimes careless with them. **Iron.** Cold iron — unworked ore, or iron worked without flame — is inimical to fae nature. It disrupts fae magic and causes physical harm to many fae, ranging from discomfort in lesser beings to genuine wound in more powerful ones. The sensitivity varies widely across courts and individuals. **Regional laws.** Beyond these plane-wide properties, each court's territory imposes its own physical rules: the [[Briarshade]]'s total colourlessness, the [[Gossamer Woods]]' chaotic pollen, the [[Reveller's Glade]]'s emotional amplification, the [[Shimmering Peaks]]' spatial wards. These are not curses or enchantments but natural expressions of each court's domain, and they cannot be dispelled by any mortal working. ## Geography & Landscape The Faewild has no fixed cartography. Its regions are real and stable within themselves, but their arrangement resists the kind of mapping that would satisfy a Valtorran surveyor — distances shift, borders bleed, and the terrain between two known places may differ from one crossing to the next. The known corridor of the plane runs roughly north-to-south, organized around the great circle of the [[Shimmering Peaks]] as its hub. Southward from the peaks lie the [[Gossamer Woods]] — the plane's most common arrival point from the material world — and the Sundered Plateau, the vast chasm that forces travellers to choose between the [[Briarshade]] to the west or the [[Reveller's Glade]] to the east. Northward from the peaks, beyond the [[Liar's River]], stretches the [[Vale of Eternal Night]] and the seat of the Unseelie Court at [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]]. Beyond this corridor, the Faewild extends in every direction into territories that are largely uncharted. What is documented here is a road through a world far larger than the road. ## History ### The Sundering *(primordial)* The deepest mark on the Faewild was left by an event that predates all recorded history. When [[Ryordan Silmara]], First of His Name, severed one of the great roots of the [[World Tree]] to save it from a corruption that would have unmade existence, the tree withdrew from physical reality — and as it retracted, the world above the [[Shimmering Peaks]] could not hold. A piece of the sky fell upon the northern Vale, gouging a vast crater and sealing it beneath a dome of endless night. That crater became the [[Vale of Eternal Night]], and the city raised within it, [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]], was built by its wronged inhabitants as a deliberate mirror of the Shining City they blamed for their darkness. The petrified remnant of the severed root lies buried still beneath the [[Shimmering Peaks]], where it is known as the [[Heartstone]]. ### The Shattering *(~2,500 years ago)* Far more recently — and entirely separate — the Dragon Queen tore open the planar boundary between her realm and the material world. Five centuries of the [[Chaos Wars]] followed before seven great champions sacrificed themselves to seal the breach. The sealing held, but not cleanly. The planar membrane separating the Faewild from [[Elandis]] was left weakened, and that fragility has never recovered. Wild crossings that once required rare alignments now occur naturally; the boundary frays a little further with every careless Plane Shift. It is partly this damage that makes the [[World Gates]] — which traverse the [[World Tree]]'s roots between realms rather than forcing a passage through the membrane — so irreplaceable: they are the one method of crossing that does not cost the boundary anything at all. ### The Long Hunt *(~2,000 years ago)* Two thousand years ago, a faction within the Unseelie Court launched a sustained campaign against the elves of the [[Shimmering Peaks]], burning settlements at the base of the mountains and crossing the [[Liar's River]] in force. The fighting lasted years and was devastating to both sides. It ended when [[Ellesandra Silmara]] went alone into the [[Vale of Eternal Night]] and returned carrying the head of the leader of the Hunt. Around the same time, the archfae [[Mirileth]] rose to rule the Unseelie Court — and an uneasy peace has held, fraying at its edges, for the two thousand years since. ## Peoples & Powers **The fae courts.** The Faewild is governed by courts — political and magical bodies of fae, each controlling a territory and enforcing its own laws. Courts align broadly as Seelie or Unseelie, but there is no grand high court ruling above all others. Each court is independent. What force, alliance, or balance holds the wider plane together beyond the known corridor is largely undocumented. **Archfae.** At the apex of each court's hierarchy sits one or more archfae — beings of immense power who have become so thoroughly bound to the plane's magic that they are, in some meaningful sense, of a piece with their territory. An archfae is not merely powerful; they are their court, distilled. Below them are the court's named fae of various kinds, and below those the vast population of lesser fae whose relationship to any court ranges from loyal to indifferent to openly hostile. **The elves of Sumara.** [[Sumara, The Shining City]] is a settlement of material-world people — the Sumaran elves — who established themselves within the Faewild rather than upon it. They are not fae, and they do not govern fae; they occupy the neutral, warded interior of the [[Shimmering Peaks]] by virtue of ancient pact, spatial wards, and the accumulated weight of two thousand years of presence. Their relationship to the Faewild's courts is complicated: Seelie courts treat them with cautious respect; the Unseelie Court regards them as occupiers on stolen ground. **Wild fae.** Not all fae belong to any court. In the wilder, less-trafficked regions of the plane, lesser fae — sprites, pixies, boggarts, and stranger things — live without court allegiance, governed by nothing but their own natures and whatever ambient magic the territory around them carries. ## Entry & Egress **[[World Gates]].** The most reliable method of planar crossing. Opened only by those of the [[Silmara Family|Silmara bloodline]] using the Silmara signet ring, World Gates traverse the roots of the [[World Tree]] between realms and do not damage the planar boundary. They are among the most jealously guarded capabilities of the Silmara line, and the elves of Sumara regard unsanctioned planar crossing with suspicion that borders on hostility. **Wild crossings and fey rings.** Natural thin spots in the planar membrane where the Faewild bleeds through to the material world. They have always occurred; the Shattering's weakening of the boundary made them more common. They cannot be reliably directed — a traveller who stumbles through a wild crossing may arrive anywhere in the Faewild, with no guarantee of returning to the point they left. **Plane Shift.** Magically forcing a passage works, but it tears rather than opens the boundary. Each such tearing does incremental damage to the already-weakened membrane, and archfae and Sumaran mages alike regard it as reckless at best and hostile at worst — a slow erosion of the planar stability both sides have reason to preserve. ## Regions & Territories *The regions below represent the Faewild as documented to date. The plane extends far beyond this corridor; its wider geography is deliberately left open.* - **[[Gossamer Woods]]** — a Seelie region of perpetual golden-hour light, oversized candy-floss flora, and playful fae with no understanding of mortal limits. The most common arrival point for crossings from the material world. Ruled by the **Court of Morning Dew**. - **The Sundered Plateau** — a colossal chasm impassable by mundane or simple magical means, bisecting the landscape south of the [[Shimmering Peaks]] and forcing all travellers to choose a crossing route. - **[[Briarshade]]** — an Unseelie region of total colourlessness and predatory shadow, where colour is currency and mortal light creates living enemies. Governed by the **Court of Fallen Leaves**. - **[[Reveller's Glade]]** — a Seelie region of sweltering heat, bioluminescent jungle, and emotionally amplified air, where the denizens are aggressively hospitable and refusal of hospitality is a grave insult. Governed by the **Court of the High Sun**. - **[[Shimmering Peaks]]** — a politically neutral hub: a vast circular mountain range of luminous white stone enclosing [[Sumara, The Shining City]] within its caldera, bounded by the [[Liar's River]] and governed by ancient elven spatial wards rather than any fae court. - **[[Vale of Eternal Night]]** — the sunless Unseelie heartland north of the [[Shimmering Peaks]], sealed beneath a dome of eternal darkness since the Sundering. Ruled from [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]] by the archfae [[Mirileth|Mirileth, the Star-Veiled Queen]]. ## Dangers **Distance and disorientation.** The Faewild's resistance to measurement makes it uniquely dangerous to the lost. Being turned around in a Faewild forest is not a problem of navigation — the forest may simply not have the same shape when retraced. Recovery requires local knowledge, a fae guide, or the favour of a court. **Inadvertent bargains.** Fae are constitutionally drawn to deals, and the plane enforces them regardless of whether the mortal party understood what they were agreeing to. A promise made carelessly, a gift accepted without clarifying its terms, a name spoken at the wrong moment — all carry binding weight. The surest protection is never to promise, never to accept without clarifying terms, and never to say thank you. **Court politics.** The Faewild's courts carry grievances that span millennia, and a traveller who enters the wrong court's territory without understanding where they stand is navigating a political landscape as dangerous as any physical one. The Unseelie courts, in particular, treat uninvited visitors as objects of suspicion first and curiosity second. **Regional hazards.** Each court's domain carries its own specific dangers — documented in the individual region entries. The [[Briarshade]]'s living shadows, the [[Gossamer Woods]]' chaotic pollen, the [[Reveller's Glade]]'s euphoria and emotional amplification, and the [[Shimmering Peaks]]' spatial wards are the most extensively encountered. **The Hunt.** The Unseelie Court of the [[Vale of Eternal Night]] maintains mounted riding-bands — the Hunt — that patrol the Vale's borders and beyond. They are the most organized military force in the known Faewild, and they treat the territory between the Vale and the [[Shimmering Peaks]] as contested ground. ## [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 45 - Pieces on a Board]] The party entered the Faewild for the first time, crossing via World Gate from the material world and arriving in the [[Gossamer Woods]]. After navigating the Möbius Thicket and choosing the [[Briarshade]] over the [[Reveller's Glade]] at the Sundered Plateau, they crossed through the colourless wood, paid a Toll of Colour to [[Grinn, The Pale]], and passed the warden's game at the bridge into the [[Shimmering Peaks]] — arriving at last at [[Sumara, The Shining City]]. #### [[Session 51 - The Last Light]] After several weeks in [[Sumara, The Shining City|Sumara]], the party traveled north to the threshold of the [[Vale of Eternal Night]], crossing the [[Liar's River]] by air on borrowed Zephyr Cuffs and fighting off a hunting Roc before reaching the Vale's boundary. [[Kai]] sent his bat familiar through the black shroud and saw the far side for the first time — silver needle-trees, glowing mushrooms, a river of pure black water, and the dark moon burning above [[Caer Nystral, The Dawnless City]] in the distance. The party made camp at the threshold, resolving to walk in openly as envoys the following morning. ## Trivia - Flora and fauna native to the Faewild follow their own rules: fae eggs have purple whites and green yolks, and fae joffee is genuinely caffeinated — unlike its Material Plane counterpart, which is not. - The regional laws of each court — the [[Briarshade]]'s colourlessness, the [[Gossamer Woods]]' pollen, the [[Shimmering Peaks]]' spatial wards — are natural expressions of their courts' natures, not imposed enchantments. They cannot be dispelled, only navigated. - The Faewild's lack of time distortion runs against older tales of travellers who entered and returned to find decades had passed. Those accounts predate reliable crossings and are generally attributed to confusion, deception by fae, or wild crossings that deposited the traveller somewhere other than where they thought they had been.