Plane of Faerie

Contents

World of Faerie

The world of FaerieLand is an infinitely large place governed by bizarre physical magics that can help or hinder you in your travels. Before embarking, it is important to understand the terminology surrounding this magnificent place.

Here, There, and Parts Between

Here and There are terms used not to merely tell where one is, but also to differentiate FaerieLand from the mortal world. Typically for fey, FaerieLand is ‘Here’ and the mortal world is ‘There’. While in the lands of mortals, however, they often refer to their homelands as There, with a hint of hushed reverence in their voices. Mortals not at ease with this concept simply refer to their homes and FaerieLand by name.

Mortal Worlds

A term used more often by the fey than others, mortal worlds distinguishes the worlds of the Material Planes from FaerieLand.

FaerieLand

FaerieLand is the land from which all faeries come, where the source of their power lies, and to where their hearts are drawn when in mortal worlds. The lands themselves encompass two distinct areas: The Twilight Lands, most commonly referred to as FaerieLand; and Between, often sweepingly called Shadows. While it is not utterly wrong to use both terms interchangeably, the fey frown upon this. To them, the Twilight Lands are a portion of FaerieLand and Between contains a city by the name of Shadow.

Twilight Lands

Typically thought of when mortals hear of FaerieLand is this land of perpetually blazing sunsets, long shadows, and joyous fire-lit fey celebrations. A fluctuating belt of land known as Between separates the Twilight Lands from the mortal world and numerous roads knit them all together. While the lands Between define the borders, the geography itself defies customary expectations of distance and space. Where a journey from one particular destination to another might take a week or more, that same journey could take but a day’s travel by someone versed in the ways of the fey (and possessing the Crossing Over feat).

Between

This nebulous and shifting space separates Here and There. Like many things fey, this fantastic physical space reflects the will of those in or adjacent to it. It is thickest where those who want to stay hidden reside. Though some dispute the direct tie of the Twilight Lands to Between (namely the inhabitants of both lands), this region indeed falls within the borders of FaerieLand.

Some faeries have chosen to reside Between because it is neither here nor there. Mortals wishing to lose themselves in this land do so at their own peril. The lands Between remain in constant motion, and those within sometimes never find their way out again.

FaerieLand’s Planar Characteristics

FaerieLand, like the Astral Plane, is a plane sitting beside our own material plane and connecting to it via countless distinct points. This relationship between FaerieLand and the Material Plane is coterminous, meaning the two planes share connections at their edges or termination points. Travel is possible via these connections if one knows the locations of the termination points.

  • Normal Gravity: The physical nature of FaerieLand concurs with that of the mortal worlds. Gravity works similarly most often, though some areas, by their magical natures, may have altered gravity (to allow snow to softly drift more slowly, etc.)
  • Normal Time: Creatures in FaerieLand do not age, although they do experience other effects due to the passage of time, such as hunger, thirst, natural healing, and the effects of poison. Travel to the mortal worlds from FaerieLand, however, can incur a time shift on the beings that have made the journey. See The Flow of Time below.
  • Infinite Size: Though manifested as a seeming finite physical space, the realm can stretch to infinite size due to the inherent magic of FaerieLand combined with the magical abilities and skills of the resident creatures.
  • Alterable Morphic Trait: Travel times change if one knows how to alter the physical dimensions of FaerieLand through the use of the Crossing Over feat and some magics.
  • Mildly Good Aligned: The primarily good Twilight Lands and mildly evil Between have resulted in a mildly good-aligned plane overall.
  • Enhanced Magic: Healing spells work very well in FaerieLand- all 1s, 2s, and 3s rolled are considered 4s. Enchantment and illusion spells function in FaerieLand as if cast by someone of one caster level higher, as do Chaos and Trickery spells cast in Between.
  • Elemental and Energy Traits: Air, earth, water, and fire all play a major role in the weather of each season in FaerieLand and the adjacent lands. The Positive Energy plane looms close to FaerieLand, as manifested in healing magics, however rumors suggest the Negative skulks similarly close in Between.

Time in FaerieLand

Time within the realms of FaerieLand moves differently than it does in mortal lands. To the fey, marking the passage of years is insignificant when compared to enjoying the present and knowing when the annual celebrations are nearing. As such, they do not number their years using traditional means. Each region numbers the passing years from events that are relevant to them. For example, the Stone Ring region currently marks the 7386th year since the River Sarsen stones were set. At the same time, it also is the 149th Year of the reign of King Finvarra to the people of Land of Eternal Autumn.

Days

Appropriately named, FaerieLand is a world a perpetual twilight, and travelers to the fey homeland have come back with fantastic stories regarding the land. Some tell tales of an enormous chariot carrying the sun and eternally racing around the perimeter of FaerieLand. Others say the sun of the Twilight Lands is the eye of an elemental of unfathomable size, circling around FaerieLand searching for a way through its magical borders to destroy their world. There are countless other fantastic tales, but whatever the truth, the sun can always be seen low in the sky of FaerieLand, moving around the horizon in a clockwise fashion.

The time of day in the Twilight Lands is governed by the position of the sun as measured on the Great Stone Ring at the center of the Twilight Lands. When the sun rests between the two River Sarsen stones, it is the beginning of a new day. Other regions around the Twilight Lands have either erected smaller stone rings of their own, or selected a prominent geographical feature against which they mark the movement of the sun.

In Shadows, the sun is not seen, but the moon’s movement similarly measures the passage of days. The position of the moon remains directly opposite that of the sun at all times; thus, when the winter sun is at its lowest point, the moon is at its highest. Huge monolithic stones rest atop several flat-topped hills in Between. These sight-stones have holes bored through them in several different directions pointing to the position of the moon on particular holy days.

Some of the things that most fascinate faeries about mortal lands are the noonday sun (since their sun never rises so high or shines so harshly down on them) and the shifts from day to night. Conversely, mortals have a hard time adjusting to FaerieLand’s ever-present ‘dawn/dusk’ and the lack of the expected shift to nighttime or the eternal night that is Between.

Game Effects: Creatures not native to FaerieLand suffer disadvantage to Wisdom (Survival) checks for their first 1d4 days until they become accustomed to the movement of celestial bodies in these lands and have found other ways to resolve their relative position.

Seasons

As the weeks and months of the year pass, the daily circuits of the sun across the sky drop lower in the Twilight Lands, until it reaches its lowest point nearly beneath the horizon during the Winter Solstice. After that point, it again starts its upward spiral through the remaining weeks of winter, through all of spring, until it reaches its highest point in the sky on the morning of the Summer Solstice. Conversely, as time flows forward in the Land of Shadows, the moon climbs to its highest point in the sky on the Winter Solstice. Once there, the moon starts it slow circular descent toward its lowest point just barely above the horizon on the Summer Solstice, only to begin climbing anew the next day.

Seasons, like nearly everything in FaerieLand, manifest differently depending on your location within the lands. For the most part, the seasons are experienced across all of FaerieLand. As the year begins in autumn and the last harvests come in, the leaves begin falling across the lands. This signals the beginning of the annual renewal of Nature. In the Land of Eternal Autumn, leaves simply fall in such enormous quantities as to coat all that land with a multicolored blanket of fallen leaves throughout true autumn. As the season wanes and winter arrives, snow falls across much of the fey regions, with temperatures dropping to their coldest in the Land of Eternal Winter, felt in the Land of Eternal Summer. At the first sign of spring snow-melt in the rest of the fey lands, the Land of Eternal Spring bursts forth with an explosion of color and animal births unrivaled across the rest of the Twilight Lands. As the summer heat climbs, it reaches extreme temperatures in the Land of Eternal Summer, where some of the more delicate foliage found in FaerieLand find it difficult to flourish. In the lands of Between, the seasons manifest according to the border region in the adjacent Twilight Lands.

FaerieLand as a Replacement for the Astral Plane

As an option to the usual campaign where the Astral Plane is the most visited and magically important plane, GMs can replace the Astral with FaerieLand. Applying this option to your campaign will have the following effects:

  • Any spell descriptions with the words .Astral Plane. have the word .FaerieLand. substituted in their place for all descriptions and effects.
  • Astral projection for all terms and purposes becomes .FaerieLand projection. and the travelers must obey the physical and magical rules of FaerieLand.
  • Dimension door, teleport, teleportation circle, teleport without error, and vanish now instead tap into FaerieLand.
  • Passage between non-Transitive Planes now go through FaerieLand instead of the Astral Plane.
  • Astral color pools are now doorways to the planes, and can be identified by the colored glow they emit when viewed using the detect doorways spell. Doorway guardians watch over these inter-planar links, and reappear an hour later if killed or otherwise removed from their post.

The Flow of Time (Optional Rule)

Creatures traveling from FaerieLand to the mortal world can suffer what is known as erratic time. Time passes differently between Here and There, so sometimes it seems as if time in FaerieLand passes faster than in a mortal realm, though usually it is the other way around. Since fey are immortal, this effect is easily shrugged off. Mortals, however, have comparably shorter lives and they are constantly worried about the flow of the sands of time upon returning home.

The passage of time within FaerieLand does not age mortals. Therefore, while in FaerieLand a mortal ceases to age, although once back .There. he continues aging where he left off. For example, a 22 year old human enters FaerieLand and spends 7 years Here. When he returns to There, he begins aging again at 22 years old, regardless of how much time passed in the world while he was away.

The fey have the ability to essentially stop the flow of time with respect to some mortal worlds in a magical ritual known as Zurlein’s Boon. Currently, the only time anyone invokes Zurlein’s Boon is during The Yule Gifting, where some fey distribute gifts to all across a mortal world in a single night.

FaerieLand Erratic Time Differential
d% Time on Material Plane Time on FaerieLand
1 Second Century
02-03 Round 50 years
04-06 Minute 25 years
07-10 Hour Decade
11-15 3 hours Year
16-25 6 hours Month
26-40 12 hours Week
41-60 Day Day
61-75 Week 12 hours
76-85 Month 6 hours
86-90 Year 3 hours
91-94 Decade Hour
95-97 25 years Minute
98-99 50 years Round
100 Century Second


When rolling to determine the effects of Erratic Time, it is easiest to read the chart as a relationship. For example, Crogan brings a mortal woman to celebrate the day long Beltane Festival in FaerieLand. The GM rolls a 63 and determines that one week passes for every twelve hours spent in FaerieLand. Therefore, when Crogan returns the mortal to her home, she has been missing for two weeks of mortal time. If the time elapsed is too extreme for your campaign, either reroll, or retain the roll for .Time on Material Plane. and use a second roll to determine the .Time in FaerieLand.. The use of this chart is at the GM’s discretion, and it is encouraged to reroll or choose a particular result when others would be damaging to campaign play.

Calendar

The calendar of the Twilight Lands is governed by the movement of the sun (as measured by the Great Stone Ring at the center of the Twilight Lands) and marked by festivals celebrating the beginning of seasons and ancient traditions, the sources of which are long forgotten. On the first day of the New Year, the sun drops between the two River Sarsen stones with the bottom of the opposite capstone illuminated by the sun’s reflection off the water. The remaining Sarsen stones of the inner and outer rings help determine other particular calendar days. Those stones are notched in such a manner as to enable fey scholars to trace the spiral of the sun upward or downward around the ring, and this allows them to pinpoint festival days.

In the lands of Between, especially Shadows, the scholars track the date and the year by the movement of the moon through long and narrow holes drilled through monolithic ‘sight-stones’. These holes point in several different directions oriented to the position of the moon on particular holy days. The ever-present moon casts a faint shadow of the sight stone upon the cleared ground around the stone. When the moon is in the right position and full, the shadow will have within it a well-defined spot of moonlight illuminating the ground on the beginning of the festival.

Samhain/New Year’s Day: This day-long festival marks the end of the annual harvest and the beginning of a new year. This is the best night to cast restorative magics when the veils among the afterlife, mortal lands, and FaerieLand are thinnest.

Yule/Winter Solstice: With the year growing old and the sun dropping lower in the sky with each passing day, this festival celebrates the renewal of the solar year, and the birth of a new sun starting its upward spiral.

Imbolc/The Birthing: This event celebrates land’s release from the icy grip of winter. It also represents the annual ‘coming of age’ celebration, where young fey and mortals alike step forward or are presented among the community as eligible mates.

Ostara/Spring Equinox: Everyone celebrates the day of growth across FaerieLand, and activities focus on newborn animals and sprouting plants. In Between, the lunar festivals honor the moon as the egg-like symbol of fertility that sits ever-present in the night skies above that land.

Beltane/May Day: Running in the meadows is the tamest of the fertility celebrations on this day. This day celebrates life, fertility, and procreation in all its forms, and it is the most common day that fey bring mortals into FaerieLand for short dalliances.

Litha/Midsummer/Summer Solstice: This day celebrates light and life and the richness of life and summer. Many rituals surround the manifestations or the Jack in the Green or the Green Man, honoring health and life in all forms of life (but especially the forests).

Lammas/Harvest: The first harvest of the season marks the great festivals honoring the abundance and bounty of the fields and forests, lakes and all. The fey hills are revealed and open to all who seek them, so Lammas in mortal lands marks a time when the questing or the inadvertent might walk through the veils themselves from There to Here.

Mabon/Autumnal Equinox: The revels on this holiday mark the sacrifices made in life and the coming sacrifices of autumn. Burning wagon wheels are sent careening down mountainsides on this night to symbolize the waning daylight and the growing darkness. Mabon also marks the Festival of the Oak King as a symbol of strength and promise to both keep you warm in winter with its wood and to show that the coming winter is nothing to the oak.

Other regional celebrations are scattered throughout the calendar, with events such as the Festival of the River Nymphs being celebrated less widely than those mentioned above.

Distances
Distance Travel Time DC (Wis) Modifiers*
Nearby 1d4+1 days 15 -4 hours for each number beyond DC
Distant 1d4 weeks 20-25 -1 day for each number beyond DC
Remote 1d4+1 months 30 and up -4 days for each number beyond DC

* Each number over DC on a successful travel attempt shortens the travel time as noted above. Conversely, a failure adds the same amount to the time in transit.

Celestial Bodies

The celestial bodies of FaerieLand also pulse with the same intense magics that permeate the land. Their movement and origins are unexplained, and are best left to myth.

Sun: The sun of the Twilight Lands is a brilliant orange-red orb that circles the skies of the Twilight Lands daily. As one would expect, the sun of the Twilight Lands lies low in the sky, giving the land its name, and radiates light like that of a rising or setting sun in a mortal world. In the autumn and spring months, the sun skirts the horizon like some great ball of fire rolling around the periphery of the land. During the summer, the sun rises to its highest point, with half its diameter separating it from the horizon. In the winter season, the sun drops to its lowest point with much of its mass hidden beneath the horizon.

Moon: The moon moves in a similar but exactly opposite orbit from the sun, equally defying conventional explanations of movement and illumination. The autumn and spring moon circles the lands of Between around thirty degrees above the horizon. The winter finds the moon arcing to its highest at around forty-five degrees above the horizon, while the summer moon falls to its lowest at about fifteen degrees below it. The moon inexplicably shifts through the phases to which most mortals are accustomed, transitioning from new moon to full moon back to new in a thirty-day cycle.

Constellations: Throughout the eternal night skies of Between, and dimly seen in the skies of the Twilight Lands opposite the sun, countless stars make up numerous constellations. The arrangement of the stars seems to shift annually, though whether it is the stars themselves drifting about or FaerieLand itself moving across the great black canvas that is the night sky is an eternal mystery. On extremely rare occasions, patches of darkness cover some visible constellations in the Twilight Lands. Remaining prominent for a month or so, these events sow fears among the more superstitious fey who see them as harbingers of rising evil powers in Between. (Whether these veils of shadow foretell bad events or not is up to the whim of the GM.)

Aurora Borealis: Often called the ‘northern lights’ in mortal worlds, these splendid displays of lights can only be seen in the darkest night skies of Between on or around a new moon.

Other Manifestations: Shooting stars, comets, and stars are commonplace in Between’s night skies. Such things visible in the skies near the Twilight sun are not unheard of, and are typically seen as an omen or sign from Mother Nature. (As with other means of prognostication, the GM is encouraged to manipulate these events to add further intrigue in game-play.)

Distances

FaerieLand measures space and distance in a far more subjective manner than mortal lands. A fey once remarked .Why tell people how many steps or gallops it takes to get from there to here? It doesn’t help you get there any faster.. To fey, things are either close by or not. Below are the closest ways to gauge distances among the various locations in FaerieLand. All the .Places of Faerie. noted later use these methods for assessing travel times.

Distant: If a land is not Nearby or Remote, it is Distant. Distant locales in FaerieLand require some effort to reach. Locales that are not under the sway of an intervening entity, or those indifferent about visitors, usually are classified as Distant. Like Nearby, Distant is a measurement of an abstract distance imposed by FaerieLand and its residents. (Use an Int check to remember a particular location much like that of the checks for a teleport spell.) Typically, the travel time to something nearby is one to four weeks (1d4 weeks). This can-and should-be adjusted to suit the whim of the GM and the moment.

Nearby: As with many other things Faerie, this is an abstract definition of a location. Nearby refers to not only the physical distance of a place but also the general perception of that place. This perception is influenced by the will of powerful faeries and other beings. Market (see below) is, by definition, always Nearby. A locale once Nearby.The oftimes forgotten Shadow is a nice example. can become Remote due to the will of those who do not wish to be found. Typically, the travel time to something Nearby is two to five days (1d4+1 days), though influential beings of FaerieLand can reach them in mere moments when they so choose. This time may be adjusted to suit the situation or the storyline.

Remote: Juxtaposed against Nearby is Remote. Remote locales in FaerieLand are not easily reached, whether due to the length of travel, the harshness of the terrain between traveler and destination, or the will of an intervening entity. Like Nearby, Remote measures an abstract distance imposed by and upon FaerieLand and its residents. [Use an Int check to remember a particular location much like that of the checks for a teleport spell]. Typically, the travel time to something nearby is two to five months (1d4+1 months). This can-and should-be adjusted to suit the whim of the GM and the moment.

There and Back Again

Travel between the mortal worlds and FaerieLand happens, like that of any planar travel, thanks to some form of a gate or portal. The borders between the mortal worlds and FaerieLand do not exist in the traditional sense, so therefore cannot be easily found or traveled save by esoteric methods. Whether this meas to find the ways are temporary or permanent (derived from spells, magic, or supernatural abilities), the travel remains essentially the same.

When traveling from the mortal worlds to FaerieLand. either Between or the Twilight Lands it is important to understand the difference modes of fey travel available to the adventurer. Fey roads begin or end with doorways in FaerieLand. Doorways also open to sideroads that pierce the boundary between the fey world and that of the mortals and terminate in a similar doorway on the opposite side. Doorways also open to roads that only span a distance within a mortal world.

Fey Doorways
Doorway Shape Color Endpoints
Arched Blue Both in FaerieLand
Rectangular Greenish-blue One in FaerieLand, one in mortal world
Skewed rectangle Purplish-blue One in Between, one in mortal world
X-shaped Blue Both in mortal world

Doorways

Like gates and portals, doorways are magical openings in the fabric of space that allow instant passage between two or more locations. Doorways are not always obviously marked, yet they can be easily discovered through a number of magical and mundane means. Doorways to sideroads from the mortal world are seen as greenish-blue outlined rectangular doorways normally positioned within some sort of vertical boundaries. Those doorways without a physical boundary are often of immense size. Doorways to fey roads within FaerieLand appear (when visible) as bluish outlined archways, whereas those leading to Between seem slightly distorted and out of square, their bluish outline tinged with a hint of purple.

When creating doorways, fey prefer locations that already have some sort of physical opening so that they are not easily detected. A flowered arbor, a gate in farmer’s fence, a stone arch, and even certain steppingstones across a stream have all been used in create doorway spells. Characters succeeding an Intelligence (Arcana) skill check of DC 12 can discern if a particular location is apt to be used as a doorway.

Even though doorways cannot normally be constructed separate from a fey road, detached doorways can result from interrupted or improper spellcasting; these must either be dispelled or attached to a fey road through the second casting of the appropriate creation spell. If the doorway is not attached to a fey road, there is a 5% chance that it will be noticed by an outsider and used for other more sinister purposes of invading either FaerieLand or a mortal world.

When fey creatures create doorways, they often charge fey guardians (and sometimes other fey creatures) with keeping people away from them. Whether it is through magical manipulation or some form of haunting or persuasion, mortals are sent away from fey doorways by these charges. Over time, this activity influences where dwellings and structures are built, and eventually where towns and cities grow. Thus, it is exceedingly rare that a doorway exists within any settlement larger than the tiniest of hamlets.

The process of creating a fey road with adjoining doorways also enlists the service of a doorway guardian to protect the route from accidental, unwanted, or unauthorized travelers. As a secondary layer of protection, many creators also add a method of activation. (See Methods of Opening Doorways below.)

Crossroads: “Crossroads” is a misnomer applied to doorways that open onto roads with both endpoints on the same mortal world. These doorways get their name from the x-shaped bluish-glowing shadows seen on the ground by eyes gifted with the Eldritch Sight invocation or those casting the 0-level spell detect magic.

Locations for Fey Doorways

Before a fey road is created, the spellcaster must first find a location to place the doorways that open onto it. Doorways should never be seen or located easily, so normally the spellcaster chooses a location for the doorway that already has some kind of physical opening so the occasional passage of people and creatures does not arouse suspicion. Some innocuous fey doorway locations include:

  • Stone rings, whether naturally or artificially arranged
  • Trees with intertwining and overarching branches
  • Gates in abandoned fences
  • Cave openings
  • Ponds and lakes, with the surface serving as the doorway For just as many reasons as there are doorways, sometimes the opening selected is even more subtle or fantastic such as:
    • A ring of mushrooms
    • An ivy ring growing in a tree
    • An outline of a door carved or drawn on a stone, tree, wall, or some other surface
    • The woven interior branches of a hedge or bush

Methods of Opening Doorways

Once the locations of the doorways are established, the means of activation must be determined. Numerous conditions and procedures have been used over the eons to supplement the protection of doorway guardians, and are only limited by the caster’s skill and imagination. What follows is a list of sample methods for opening fey doorways.

  • Circling around the doorway several times
  • Turning around three times in place
  • Lighting and dancing around a bonfire
  • Stepping backwards through the doorway
  • Certain stepping stones in a garden or stream
  • Playing a particular tune or singing a certain song
  • Saying a password or pass-phrase
  • Allowing the door to open only on certain days or at certain times (like only for the hour when the morning dawn fills the area of the doorway)
  • Carrying a key (mundane or magical)
  • Sleeping in or near the doorway
  • Solve the puzzle, riddle, or situation
  • Cast a spell Another way to get through a fey doorway is to be taken through by someone who knows the secret to activating it. Fey frequently bring mortals through invitation or abduction into FaerieLand for celebrations and companionship (however fleeting). Events known to have attracted fey include:
    • Drunken revels
    • Fertility rites such as running naked in a meadow on Midsummer’s Night
    • Performing outstanding music
    • Consuming faerie food, or drink Once a door is activated and opened, it remains open for the duration set by the creator. This time is usually one or two rounds after a person has stepped through, though reports of doorways staying open all night have been reported. Ingenious mortals discovered that cold iron laid across the open doorway will delay its closing by five rounds for each inch of the object’s thickness (though the magic of the doorway eventually cuts the object in two when it closes). Fires set upon the threshold of a doorway will hold it open for as long as the fire burns. Once the fire that has burned for an extended period goes out, there is often so much damage done to the doorway (or at least the physical objects to which it was set) that it is rendered useless.

Fey roads

Doorways connect to fey roads, the permanent magical thoroughfares built by the fey and their allies to enable easy travel between frequently visited destinations. There are a few kinds of fey roads: Fey Roads, Sideroads, and Backroads.

Backroads: Backroads are fey roads that connect two points within a mortal world. They end in doorways that are often called crossroads for their ‘x’ shape.

Fey Roads: Fey roads, by definition are the roads that connect points within FaerieLand. Normally, this also means that fey roads only connect points within Between or the Twilight Land, but not from one to the other. Fey roads are entered through doorways that resemble blue-glowing archways. The inhabitants of Between do not want to be easily found by the rest of the fey, so fey roads built by them do not always connect with the rest of the roads in FaerieLand. (Since I have not traveled Between except to spirit through on my way Here or There, I have no notes on the destinations these roads do connect, nor have I confirmed this information. .Merle)

Ley Lines: Since the dawn of time, the fey have traveled across the surface of mortal worlds and to FaerieLand via fey roads. In mortal lands, the use of these roads by all creatures has created a residual magical effect some mortals have researched and tried to use. Some fey-aware mortals suggest ley lines could be deteriorated backroads or even destroyed remnants of fey roads. The most anyone has been able to do is trace the routes of these lines to locate their endpoints at fey doorways. This is best achieved by casting detect magic and searching for a dim aura (as per the spell in the PHB).

Sideroads: Fey use the term sideroads to refer to the roads that link FaerieLand and a mortal world. Greenish-blue glowing rectangular doorways mark the entrance to these roads to the Twilight Lands, while those to Between are Purplish-blue glowing distorted rectangles.

Paths

When a creature enters FaerieLand, the inherent magic of the land interprets their desires and lays before them a path to follow. This interpretation, just like everything else in FaerieLand, is subjective and may not be readily obvious to the visitor. If more than one creature visits, the path is a consensus derived from their most common desires.

It is expected, that if a person follows their path, he will be granted his desire. The form and shape of that desire, as expected, comes in a manner that often requires further interpretation on the visitor’s part. If a person craves knowledge of trade, their path may lead to Market. If they yearn for adventure, their path may be never ending, leading them forever onward to experience the greatest adventure of their life.

The options are too numerous to explore here, but some paths lead directly to the fey courts, where their desires will be granted in exchange for a boon the visitor might give to or do for FaerieLand. This result is exhilarating for native fey, who are excluded from the fey path magical effect. When a mortal arrives at court, this opens an opportunity for the fey to experience the granting of another’s desire. At times, the fey even request something else of the visitor, but typically, these are merely impulsive yearnings rather than true desires.

FaerieLand is endlessly fascinating to mortal visitors, and it all seems wonderful, but enough learn the true dangers of distraction by the fey. If a visitor strays from the path for any reason, FaerieLand’s magic interprets this as the person abandoning what they most need or desire. Whether in spite or whimsy, FaerieLand reflexively gives them what they think they want or what they immediately seek for a time (usually by illusions or by moving someone toward them), and then obliterates the path behind them. Once a person is off her path, only the intervention of powerful mortals or fey can guide them back to their true destination. Most often, folk become lost in major ways and physically separated from any fellow travelers by moving them to another Distant physical location.

Game effect: A fey path is laid before the visitor in such a way as to coax that visitor to follow it. Sometimes the path will manifest as a well-worn trail through the wilderness, or a path paved with gold bricks. Other times, it may be a faint trace of someone’s passing requiring tracking skills to decipher the broken twigs and disturbed plant growth before revealing the destination. The form of the path is up to the GM, but it should never be so subtle as to interfere with game-play when the player characters can’t find their path or paths.

If characters stray from the path, make a Will save versus the DC of the region (in the case of sites, use the second DC) for each person. If their saving throws fail, their path disappears and they forcibly moved across FaerieLand to a Distant location in a randomly determined direction (using the d12 deviation diagram on page 68 of the GMG). If their saving throw succeeds, they remain in the region unmoved, but their path still disappears.

Travel Within FaerieLand

Moving from one point to another within FaerieLand can be done magically on the fey roads that spread across the land or physically by means such as horseback, wagon, or foot. While many choose the latter, emissaries of the fey courts and feeorin and anyone in a hurry prefers the fey roads when they can.

Travel between locales by land is not entirely controlled by the traveler, as they may find themselves consistently no closer than a few miles away from the forest, or a bend or two of the stream away from the lake. This distortion of the land exhibits the inherent magic of FaerieLand then further augmented by the whim of the region’s inhabitants through the use of the Crossing Over feat.

Crossing over a boundary separating one region from the next is done by using the Crossing Over feat in conjunction with a successful opposed Wisdom check versus the DC of the region being entered. If the check fails, the person attempting the check cannot try to cross over that boundary until the next day. A person can guide up to 1d8 people per level across a boundary at any given time.

If a person does not have the Crossing Over feat, they are allowed to attempt an opposed Wisdom test versus the destination DC + 12 due to their lack of ability.

Escaping FaerieLand

Contrary to popular belief (and what you may derive from information previously given.Merle) FaerieLand never tries to trap people in its boundaries. The land responds to the desires of its inhabitants and manipulates travel to achieve its ‘masters’ wishes.

Stories of people being forever trapped in FaerieLand are more warnings than truths. The message is simple. learn the ways of FaerieLand or forever be a slave to it and its inhabitants. When people step off of their paths, they take their fate into their own hands and risk greater perils than those they would normally have faced. Upon a visitor’s arrival, the land itself builds and opens a path appropriate for the visitor be it filled with flowers for a group of children or wrought with magic and monsters for a group of adventurers. FaerieLand itself does not desire to capture anyone it merely manifests the desires brought to it.

Escaping a region whose boundaries are too strong for you overcome can be dealt with in a couple of ways. First, you can become more skilled or gain some magical advantage (temporary or otherwise) that allows you to overcome the boundary. Second, you can seek out the person who controls the region and request that they let you leave their borders.

There are records of people being chastised by the fey so that once they leave FaerieLand, they suffer one or more different curses. One careless soul spent many days in the court of King Finvarra drinking, eating, and abusing his welcome. Rather than merely exercising his right to demand equal payment from the man, he choose to inflict on him what is now known as the Curse of the Hourglass. When the man returned to his home world, the erratic time of FaerieLand caught up with him in an instant, aging him for the entire time he was away. The man hardly saw the sky of his home before he rapidly aged, died, and crumbled to dust.

Thus, it is vastly important that one learns and lives by the laws of FaerieLand. If you do not, there is a good chance you will find yourself as an indentured servant working off the value of some gift or another.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

Classic Play – The Book of the Planes, copyright 2004 Mongoose Publishing Ltd.

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