Planar Links

Songs of the Sidhe by David Ross

Faerie is coterminous with the Sea of Thought and the Land of Dreams (also known as the Astral Plane and Ethereal Plane, respectively). Since Faerie does not border the Demiplane of Shadow, shadow spells cast here must draw from the Land of Dreams itself, and so they tend to take on a more whimsical quality than usual. Note that Faerie’s traits impede some conjurations, and even those that succeed are usually distorted by the temporal eddy around Faerie (see Faerie Planar Traits, previous page).

Time in Annwn passes at approximately one-third to one-eighth the rate of time in Terra, while time in Ladinion passes at approximately one-twentieth the speed of mundane time or slower. For example, if 1 day = 1 week in Annwn, then a traveler who spends 1 day in Annwn and scries upon his fellows in Terra could see that it has been an entire week from their perspective, although they may not seem to be moving faster while he watches.

When leaving the Otherworld, time can be twisted so that the trip takes longer or shorter outside than it did inside. So, the traveler who spent a day in Annwn may cease his spellcasting and step through a portal to Terra and find that his fellows there have seen merely an hour pass, a week, a whole month, or also a day. The rate of distortion varies from portal to portal. Distortion between Ladinion and Annwn usually matches the rate of time’s passage (so if 1 day = 1 week in Annwn and 1 hour = 2 weeks in Ladinion, a week passing in Ladinion equates to half a mortal hour passing or 3.5 Annwn hours passing).

Travel by means other than a portal produces a seemingly random time distortion depending on the layer the traveler departs from or enters (GM’s choice) unless the means are specifically designed to work in Faerie (such as a spirit shaman’s spirit journey or a phooka’s wild ride).

Entering the Otherworld via spell also produces a similar effect; see Spacetime Distortion, above, for details.

Minimum Time Distortion by Portal Strength
— Distortion —
Distortion Strength	Mortal Time	Faerie Time	Will DC to Resist Distortion
Major	1 second =	1 day 25	25
Strong	1 round =	1 day	20
Moderate	1 minute =	1 day 15	15
Mild	1 hour =	1 day	10
Faint	1 day =	1 day	5
Mild	1 week =	1 day	10
Moderate	1 month =	1 day	15
Strong	1 year =	1 day	20
Major	10 years =	1 day	25

If 1 day had passed for the aforementioned traveler when he entered his portal, a portal with a time distortion of 1 hour = 1 day would make it appear to him that a day had passed but to his mortal fellows only an hour had; the scene he saw when scrying would not have taken place yet, and since his return has altered the events that led up to that scene, the events he witnessed may never come to pass at all. A distortion of 1 week = 1 day would make a day for the traveler equal a week for his fellows; he could step through the portal and find himself among his fellows just a few rounds later than the scene he saw while scrying on them. Finally, a distortion of 1 month = 1 day would cause the traveller to arrive one month later than he left and three weeks later than the scene he witnessed while scrying.

Time lost or gained this way might or might not have its full effect on the traveller’s age, depending on the portal. For an example of time catching up with a traveler, if a human goes to Faerie for two weeks and then returns through a portal with a time distortion of 1 year=1 day, he finds that he is 14 years older and that it is 14 years later than he left. If a child goes to Faerie, spends twenty years there and grows up, then returns through a portal with a time dilation of 1 round=1 year, she finds herself a child again when she arrives home, where it is almost as if she had never left. Visitors to Faerie have been known to spend a few days there and then return home only to crumble to dust from the weight of years. Natives of Faerie may resist the time distortion with a Will save (DC depends on the strength of the time distortion, as shown on the table Minimum Time Distortion by Portal Strength, above).

Note that portals exist which do not cause time to catch up with the traveller, so that he or she may arrive in distant times without ageing a bit; these portals are often closely guarded secrets.

Any fey can determine the strength of a portal and whether it accelerates or decelerates time with a Knowledge (nature) check against DC 20. A portal’s strength is a measurement of how greatly it distorts time and space; see the table Minimum Time Distortion by Portal Strength for the minimum amount of distortion that can result from a portal of a given strength. A portal which falls between two entries uses the smaller of the two distortion strengths. A Faerie native might not know the nature or strength of a portal until it passes through unless it has the help of a guide.

Portals are typically the only way to get to or from Annwn and Ladinion. Plane shift is often difficult to use to reach these realms because the knowledge of making the necessary tuning fork is rare. (Note that most interplanar travel spells cannot reach layers of a plane beyond the first without a tuning fork matching the destination layer.) Annwn contains portals to Ladinion, Terra, the Land of Dreams, and the Sea of Thought. Ladinion has few portals other than those leading to Annwn.

Most of Faerie’s portals only function sometimes’ some only work during a certain phase of the moon, others during a certain season, others during a certain time of day, and a few during a certain cosmological alignment which may occur annually or millennia apart. The most common frequencies are: daily at twilight, every month during the three nights of the full moon, and every year on the night of one or the other solstice. Many a portal also requires that the traveler approach it in a special manner, such as circling it three times counterclockwise first. Portals between Annwn and Ladinion and Terra usually function much like soft planar boundaries rather than clear, instantaneous portals. For instance, a woman may wander into a fog bank in the Fleeting Realms and wander out to discover that she is in Annwn.