Fey World, Faerie, Fey Wild, Otherworld (Inner Plane)

Working through powerful proxies known as the elohim, the gods and goddesses populated this infinitely mutable landscape with countless forms of life. Every creature that could come to be was shaped and refined, every natural process examined. In the end, the goddesses and gods hit upon a configuration they enjoyed—yet they didn’t simply declare their rough draft finished. Instead, they started over from scratch, abandoning their old ideas and painting the final version of the Material Plane over the top of their rough sketches. Thus, the Fey World was abandoned by its makers and the elohim proxies were freed to continue their own designs in the Astral Plane.

Today, the Fey World occupies a unique position in the Great Beyond. Set somewhat aside from deific interests and the Cycle of Souls in what residents dub the “Great Abandonment,” the Fey World is a closed system, its soul energy constantly recycling. Bolstered by its proximity to the Positive Energy Plane and the souls of the few mortal worshipers of the Fey World’s demigods, the Eldest, the realm has become unnaturally verdant, bursting with growth.

However, the Fey World is not simply a pastoral wonderland.

It is a realm of infinite possibility and unbridled evolution, with natural laws changing from place to place to reflect the variety of half-finished versions tested out by their makers— the landscape constantly reinventing itself to suit the whims of powerful individuals or its own inscrutable desires. Its residents are equally mysterious, at once familiar and alien, with most living in harmony with a landscape of savage, primeval beauty. Thus, the Fey World is the realm of fairy tales, where anything is possible—if you can pay the price.

TRAITS

The Fey World has the following planar traits.

• Gravity normal
• Erratic Time: Time progresses faster in some areas and slower in others, often according to the whim of the Eldest or other powerful individuals. For most visitors from other planes, their own timestream clings to them like a protective shell, but it’s not uncommon for a creature who spends a day in the Fey World to find upon their return home that a year or more has passed.
• Realm immeasurable
• Highly Morphic: The Fey World can be altered by strong-willed individuals, such as the Eldest.
• Minor Positive Dominant: The Fey World grants fast healing to creatures only in certain areas where life is particularly potent and concentrated.
• Mildly Neutral-Aligned: The Fey World does not impart alignment-based Charisma check penalties to anyone.
• Magic enhanced and impeded magic or wild magic (see Magic in the Fey World)

DIVINITIES

Fey World residents have a unique relationship with deities due to their ancient abandonment by the gods who created them. Some resent those deities, others ignore them entirely, a few still pine for their love, and most have no opinion one way or the other, having lived so long in a world where the deities themselves have moved on. The end result is the same: none of the core deities make a home on the Fey World. Instead, Fey Worlders who seek spiritual guidance turn their veneration to a pantheon of demigods known as the Eldest.

When the gods and goddesses abandoned the Fey World, a collection of the strongest fey individuals—seeing both a need and an opportunity—stepped into their place, using their vast powers to grant spells and becoming the defacto pantheon of the Fey World. As with everything on the plane, the faces and portfolios of this pantheon have changed drastically over the untold millennia. Culturally, the Eldest differ from most deities in their general disregard for worship or organized religion, acting more like ordinary rulers than true demigods and maintaining more direct and personal relationships with their followers. Even so, no one can question their vast power, and the fabric of the Fey World itself bends to their every whim.

Outsiders none

Petitioners special (see Fey Incarnation)

INFUSIONS

Basic Traveling in the constantly changing Fey World has taught you to be ever ready for situations to shift in unpredictable ways. You gain a +2 bonus on Perception checks, initiative checks, and Charisma checks to shape the Fey World.

Improved Once per day, you can summon a fey creature from the Fey World to serve you, as if using summon nature’s ally IV as a spell-like ability. When you use this ability, you can choose to summon 1 boggart, 1 calpina, 1 huldra (a summoned huldra’s manipulate luck ability’s duration lasts only as long as the summoned huldra persists), 1 satyr, 1d3 liminal sprites, 1d3 pookas, 1d4+1 atomies, 1d4+1 brownies, 1d4+1 fauns, 1d4+1 grigs, or 1d4+1 mockingfeys.

Greater You can use fey form III as a spell-like ability once per day.

DENIZENS

The Fey World is the ancestral home of all fey, as well as gnomes. Members of these races native to the Fey World, however, are often quite different than those found on the Material Plane. Most significantly, its native residents do not die in the conventional sense—native Fey World creatures slain on that plane do not find their souls bound for judgment. Instead, such creatures are reformed from the planar fabric after a variable amount of time, often with their memories and personalities intact. While true destruction is possible, if an enemy is powerful and dedicated enough, death is more of an inconvenience than an ending for Fey Worlders.

In addition to fey such as satyrs, nymphs, and dryads, the Fey World is also home to lesser-known species like the dreaded lurkers in light, the piscine grodairs that carry their own streams with them, the shadowy ankous, and innumerable animals with the fey creature template. The Fey World is also home to the Tane, creatures created by the Eldest as weapons and grown so powerful that not even their inventors can control them. of these, the dreaded jabberwock is most famous, but others like the jubjub bird, bandersnatch, and sard are still more than capable of laying waste to nations.

Of the Tane, the most powerful is the legendary Leviathan, an entity even the Eldest are said to fear.

Features and Inhabitants

While the majority of the Material Plane’s universe is empty space populated by a diverse and seemingly endless number of different star systems and worlds, the Fey World is simply that: a single world that seems to stretch forever in every direction. Everything in the Material Plane has analogues in the Fey World, but the Fey World versions are often exaggerated in some way. Mountains are taller, oceans are deeper, and forests grow at unusual angles. Colors are more vibrant, flavors more potent; everything is amplified to oversaturated extremes, the cause of which is the Fey World’s proximity to the Positive Energy Plane. Much as the Shadow Plane is a realm of muted colors and near darkness due to its proximity to the Negative Energy Plane, so too is the Fey World skewed in the opposite direction.

The flora and fauna of the Fey World both resembles that of the Material Plane and exceeds it. What entities resided on the Fey World in its fledgling moments remains unknown, but ancient dragons and other primal forces of nature are likely candidates. Since then, all manner of wildly alien and unimaginable creatures have come to call the Fey World home, themselves exaggerated in much the same way as the plane’s geography. Creatures are more vivacious, more energetic, and more fecund. The most widespread of the Fey World’s denizens are creatures of the fey type, making up more than half of the Fey World’s populace, but they are neither the first denizens of the plane nor the most powerful. Any creature found on the Material Plane could conceivably be found in the Fey World, different from their mortal cousins in subtle or dramatic ways. The easiest way to represent the differences between a Material Plane creature and its Fey World counterpart is to apply the fey creature template. But even something as simple as changing a creature’s appearance or abilities can transform a mundane specimen into a denizen of the Fey World.

Between the suffusion of positive energy throughout the Fey World and the unique qualities drafted into its planar tapestry, the cycle of life and death is not linear as it is on the Material Plane. Creatures native to the Fey World that die either are outright reborn anywhere from a day to a year after their death or are otherwise recycled into the plane and reconstituted as another member of their kind. Some creatures even lead asynchronous lives, having memories of versions of themselves that have not come to pass (or may never) rather than just memories of their pasts. As such, natives of the Fey World do not always understand the concept of death; this can lead to deadly misunderstandings with travelers from the Material Plane or natives of the Fey World stranded on the Material Plane. In the latter case, the death of a Fey World native on the Material Plane is the absolute end of its life, and the soul is instead subject to the rules of the Material Plane—often without realizing it until it is too late.

Notable inhabitants of the Fey World include creatures of the animal, fey, plant, and vermin types. of the fey, the most legendary of the Fey World denizens are the members of the wild hunt, but all fey have ties back to this realm. Beyond animals, fey, and plants, the following creatures are among those most often encountered in this dimension: almirajes, animal lords, bandersnatches, blink dogs, catoblepases, cerynitis, delgeths, drakainias, drakes (all), elementals (all), elohims, ettercaps, fachens, faerie dragons, fey creatures, giant eagles, grodairs, grootslangs, jabberwocks, jubjub birds, leucrottas, linnorms, manitous, pegasi, sards, shining children, thrasfyrs, thunderbirds, unicorns, vishaps, wendigos, will-o’-wisps, worgs, winter wolves, and yeth hounds. Undead are incredibly rare in the Fey World, but those that do exist there tend to be powerful and unique.

The Eldest

Large swaths of the Fey World are carved up into fiefdoms and other such dominions by native inhabitants of great power. The demigods who call the Fey World home are some of the oldest beings in creation, and many have resided on this plane since before the Material Plane was woven into existence. Known collectively as the Eldest, they are as reclusive and secretive as they are ancient. The Eldest have relatively little interaction with the gods who dwell elsewhere in the Great Beyond, but like those divinities, they maintain cults and sects on countless Material Plane worlds. The religions of the Eldest are most commonly found in regions where the boundaries between the Material Plane and the Fey World grow thin. Fey often worship members of the Eldest, and many gnomes look back to their ancient roots in the Fey World and venerate the Eldest as well. Though the Eldest have nothing against cities or civilization, their worship tends to be less popular in heavily populated areas. Barbarians, druids, hunters, and others who live in the wild often venerate a member of the Eldest or the pantheon as a whole.

The Celtic Pantheon lists the most widely worshiped members of the Eldest, along with their areas of concern, domains, subdomains, and favored weapon for cleric and warpriest followers.

Getting to the Fey World

The Fey World is a coterminous plane and therefore overlaps the Material Plane, but unlike the Shadow Plane, the Fey World does not mimic the Material Plane’s geography. Ley lines, supernatural conduits that connect the planes and channel experiences, magic, memories, and the souls of the dead and the unborn through them, crisscross the Fey World just as they do the Material Plane. Unlike those on the Material Plane, ley lines found in the Fey World do not stay in one place for long and typically wander vast distances, writhing through the world like disquieted snakes. Where these ley lines penetrate the barrier between the Fey World and the Material Plane, thin spots known as breaches form, allowing passage between the Fey World and the Material Plane without the aid of magic. These breaches typically manifest as circles of mushrooms, puddles of water with a rainbow-hued surface, trees in a peculiar arch, or other seemingly innocuous patterns. Simply stepping through one of these portals is often enough to travel from one plane to the other, but breaches are not always two-sided. Some doorways to the Material Plane are one-way, stranding extraplanar travelers in a seemingly dull and lifeless world, while Material visitors to the Fey World could be stranded for decades or more as they try to find a way back home. Other means of traveling to and from the Fey World include powerful spells such as fey gate, gate, and plane shift.

Echoes of the Fey World

The Fey World shares its place in existence with the Material Plane, and in some places, the boundary between the planes wears thin. The Material Plane’s influence on the Fey World manifests as regions of stubborn stability called “breach scars,” which the Fey World’s denizens regard with disgust. On the Material Plane, the fey realm’s influence erodes the laws of time and space and transforms reality in its wake. Sometimes, this influence manifests as an echo of the Fey World.

An echo of the Fey World functions (and is designed) as a haunt, but unlike haunts, they are damaged by negative energy and healed by positive energy. These echoes can be any alignment, but they are almost always chaotic neutral. Three sample echoes are detailed, but countless others certainly exist.

Overcharge: Positive energy and healing effects heal echoes of the Fey World. If such healing would cause an echo of the Fey World to exceed its normal maximum hit points, it gains half the excess as temporary hit points until those hit points are spent or 1 minute has passed since it last gained temporary hit points in this manner. As long as an echo of the Fey World has at least 1 temporary hit point gained in this way, it also gains its overcharge ability, which is listed in each of the following stat blocks.

Magic in the Fey World

Magic on the Fey World is mutable, confusing, and selfcontradictory. Throughout most of the plane, the effects of spellcasting are unstable and can result in unexpectedly powerful or weak effects, but in certain regions of the realm wild magic holds sway—treat these regions as if the plane had the wild magic trait.

For the rest of the Fey World, when a non-native spellcaster casts a spell, she must succeed at a caster level check (DC = 20 + the spell’s level; druids, hunters, rangers, and worshipers of the Eldest gain a +5 bonus on this check) for her spell to function normally. Failure means that the spellcaster rolls on Table 3–3: Fey World Magic to determine how the Fey World’s energies enhance or decrease the effects of the spell as it is cast. Any spellcaster can voluntarily fail this caster level check to automatically roll on the table to determine the spell’s effect. If the randomly generated enhancement or impediment cannot be applied to the spell being cast (for example, a result of increased damage when casting haste, or a result of an adjusted duration for an instantaneous or permanent spell), then the spell is cast normally.

d%	Effect
1–7	Damage increases by 50%
8–14	Damage decreases by 50%
15–21	Area of effect increases by 50%
22–28	Area of effect decreases by 50%
29–35	Duration increases by 50%
36–42	Duration decreases by 50%
43–49	Spell affects caster instead of target
50–56	Spell affects caster and target
57–63	Spell affects one additional eligible target (chosen randomly)
64–70	Spell is affected by all of the following metamagic feats that could apply, with no increase to the spell’s effective level: Enlarge Spell, Extend Spell, Maximize Spell, Widen Spell
71–77	Summon an uncontrolled creature as per a summon nature’s ally of same spell level
78–100	Spell effect resolves normally

Shaping

The ability to bend the fabric of the Fey World to one’s whim is an outgrowth of the plane’s fundamental mutability and inconsistency, and thus the practice is difficult to codify into a single system of rules. Even on the Fey World, shaping is an ability learned through trial and error rather than taught—an expression of personality and sheer will— and no two entities go about the process in exactly the same way. The following notes give some general guidelines on how to incorporate shaping into your game.

Shaping is not a simple matter, and an attempt to alter the morphic nature of the Fey World requires 1 minute of concentration by a character who is not fatigued or exhausted. This action provokes attacks of opportunity.

At the end of this minute, the character must succeed at a Charisma check (DC = 20 + 4 per previous shaping attempt made in the last 24 hours). On a failed check, the character’s ability to shape the Fey World is exhausted for 24 hours. If the character fails the check by 10 or more, she also becomes fatigued. Druids, hunters, rangers, fey, worshipers of one of the Eldest, and natives of the Fey World all gain a +4 bonus on Charisma checks to shape.

On a successful Charisma check, the character can alter the Fey World by using a spell-like ability determined by the shaper’s Hit Dice, as shown on Table 3–4. The shaper must begin using the spell-like ability on the round immediately after spending the minute of concentration required to shape in the first place, or the opportunity to shape is wasted. The spell-like ability resolves at a caster level equal to the character’s Hit Dice or character level, whichever is higher. At the GM’s option, similar spells of equal spell level can be allowed.

Shaper’s HD	Spell-Like Effect Generated
1–2	Prestidigitation
3–4	Soften earth and stone or wood shape
5–6	Spike growth or wind wall
7–8	Spike stones, wall of fire, or wall of ice
9–10	Fabricate, wall of stone, or wall of thorns
11–12	Control water, move earth, or wall of iron
13–14	Lesser create demiplane, † or reverse gravity
15–16	Create demiplane†, or polymorph any object
17–18	Greater create demiplane†
19 or more	Wish

† Demiplanes created via shaping are treated as extradimensional spaces contained wholly within the Fey World.

d%	Encounter	Avg. CR
1–5	1 fey creature	3
6–8	1 dryad	3
9–11	2d6 tooth fairies	3
12–14	1 grodair	5
15–17	1d6 liminal sprites	5
18–20	1d6 quicklings	6
21–25	2d6 brownies	6
26–28	2d6 grigs	6
29–31	1d8 leprechauns	6
32–34	2d6 atomies	6
35–39	2d6 fauns	6
40	1d8 pookas	6
41–45	1d6 satyrs	7
46–48	1 nymph	7
49–51	1d6 huldras	7
52–54	1d6 korreds	7
55–57	1d8 twigjacks	7
58	1d8 lurkers in light	9
59–60	2d4 pixies	9
61–62	1 leanan sidhe	9
63–64	1d10 redcaps	11
65–66	1d6 boggles	11
67–69	1 ankou	14
70–71	1 crag linnorm	14
72	1 jubjub bird	15
73–77	1 hamadryad	15
78–80	1d6 banelights	15
81	1 zomok	16
82	1 bandersnatch	17
83	1 thrasfyr	17
84–86	1 tunche	17
87	1 erlking	18
88–89	1d4 vilderavns	18
90	1 sard	19
91	1 seilenos	19
92	1 vishap	19
93	1 tarn linnorm	20
94	1d3 norns	20
95	1 whisperer	20
96	1 julunggali	21
97	1 glaistig	21
98	Wild hunt	21
99	1 elohim	23
100	1 jabberwock	23

Inhabitants of the Otherworld

The otherworld’s inhabitants are varied and colourful. In the otherworld, the living energies from all living planes, all material, celestial and hellish dimensions mingle and are reborn. This is the original home of the fey, a place where elemental and living energies give birth to the brilliance of nature that seeps back into the normal world to power the forces of living creation. giants, elementals, outsiders and fey can all be found in this world. The otherworld is to druids what the outer planes are to clerics. In this realm, the druid can find the source of all his power but he must be wary of the face this power might wear.

Encounters in the otherworld could include creatures from any other plane. The only creatures never (or very rarely) found in the otherworld are undead and those creatures native to the plane of shadow, astral or ethereal planes.

The Otherworld and Reverie

If you own and use Fey Magic: Dreaming the Reverie, the otherworld and its relationship with the plane of faerie needs some clarification. The plane of faerie as described in Fey Magic is simply the home of the faerie races but the otherworld is much more. Everything said about the plane of Faerie can be applied to the otherworld. The otherworld is inspired by old Celtic and Norse mythology and is home to fairies, giants, unicorns and other magical manifestations of nature.

The faerie homelands are realms deep in the otherworld. These mysterious forests and glens are adrift in the deep otherworld. These realms drift close to the material plane from time to time, often at the time of the full moon, or at samhain, creating doorways straight from the real world into these faerie infested realms. In these realms, time is as fickle as the fey spirit. For every day spent in one of the realms of the faerie, a week passes on the material plane and in the rest of the otherworld. Unfortunately for the visitors to these planes, this magic has a tendency to catch up with them. A character returning from a fey realm must make a Will saving throw (DC 25) or immediately catch up, experience in an instant all the time they missed while they were in the realm. Only fey and druids are completely immune to this effect.

Time and Travel in the Otherworld

Touched Template

Death and the Otherworld

The Realm of Faerie

Factions of Faerie

Otherworldly Geography

The Tree of Life (Yggdrasill)

The Rhyming Song

Spacetime Distortion

Planar Links

Locations

Annwn

In the Otherworld, geography mirrors the coexistent mundane world. To many mortals, Near Faerie is a strange, magical, and exaggerated reflection of Terra’ to many fey, on the other hand, the Fleeting Realms are benighted, desolate, and muted aspects of Annwn. A portal from Terra to Annwn generally goes to the same place, and distance is more or less constant between the two layers. However, certain sites shift into Ladinion, and some paths are quite variable in distance much like that deeper layer; travelers can use a series of such backroads to make a trek in Annwn seem much shorter than a parallel trip in Terra.

The Badlands: Expanses of empty space in the Fleeting Realms are regions called the Badlands in Annwn. Instead of true vacuum, the Badlands are extreme environments of a more worldly sort. Some parts are tundras of unearthly cold; some are deserts of impossible heat; still others are unbelievably stormy oceans (often also lethally cold or hot) concealing depths of destroying pressure. One can reach the Badlands from the planetary regions of Annwn by choosing a random direction and walking that way for a time’ in a short while, one is at the edge of the Badlands and can possibly traverse them to regions of the Otherworld coexistent with different worlds.

The Court of the Undying Season

The Harbingers of the Undying Season have their stronghold in a freezing tundra region of the Badlands. Here, secret redoubts hold chilling gardens of exquisite and lifeless beauty. Alluring fey vampires rest here between trips to tempt or devour haplessmortals or foolish fey. This is the only part of Faerie which contains a significant population of undead.

Affwys, 

Alfheim, 

Amberabad,

Andomhain, 

Anghar,

Annwn, 

Avalon, 

Breton,

Camelot,

Chicomoztoc,

Cucaña, 

The Cities of Danu, 

Elphame,

Gauherabad,

The Garden of the Hesperides,

Hyperborea, 

Jotunheim, 

Lemuria, 

Muspellheim,  

Paradwys,

Peristan, 

Siar,

Shadukam,  

Svartalfaheim, 

Thule, 

The Tower of Bab-il, 

The Thousand flame Coalition

Ladinion

Ladinion is the layer of Faerie further removed from the Fleeting Realms. Nature here is more primal, powerful, and pure. It is more malleable than Annwn, and shifts around relative to the other layers of the Mortal Coil at varying paces in different areas (at the whims of powerful fey, as well as on its own). Some parts of its geography are relatively stable, however. The Planar Cartographic Society has assigned an arbitrary ‘north’ toward a massive frostfell region for the simple purpose of having a reference point.

Ecology of Faerie

Faerie’s ecology is in most ways a more magical, extreme version of mortal nature. The difference is greatest in Ladinion, where primal magic is at its strongest; Annwn, on the other hand, is bound closely to Terra’s bounties and dangers.

From the outside looking in, Faerie’s time usually moves slower, but the turns it takes are more extreme. From within, this means it can seem faster and certainly more dangerous than mortal lands. The weather is more glorious when calm and more violent when not. Colors are brighter, pleasure is sweeter, pain is sharper, and emotions are stronger. The wild beasts are more fearsome, as are some of the plants. Many of the most powerful magical beasts, such as brachyuruses and phoenixes, are found almost exclusively here.

A subtle but unbreakable link joins Faerie to Terra. Any change in one brings forth an echo in the other, as a thrown rock makes ripples in water. Especially insightful Otherworld figures may use this link by growing their power base in Terra or destroying their foes’ mortal counterparts in order to indirectly improve their position in Faerie. Yet, this tactic is risky. Ripples may unexpectedly warp or grow or shrink when crossing the Rivers of Time.

• FEY
• FLORA AND FAUNA
• OTHER CREATURES
• THE CYCLE OF SOULS
• FAERIE AS STABILIZING FORCE
• NATURAL HAZARDS
• CULTURE OF FAERIE

Dragons in Faerie

HUMANOIDS IN FAERIE

Faerie Friends

Sometimes, a Faerie native will vouche on an interloper’s behalf, blessing them with the status of faerie friend. The benefits thereof are largely intangible, such as fey showing somewhat less aloofness and condescension toward such a person. The faint supernatural air about a faerie friend alerts fey to his initiation into fey matters, and means they consider him a more potentially valuable ally as well as a more potentially dangerous threat, depending on how they view the group of fey he has earned friendship with, making them more friendly or more hostile as appropriate. This status depends simply on the wish of at least one Faerie native. Most fey will bestow this boon only after one has performed a notable service for them or else dwelt in Faerie for an extended period of time (traditionally a year and a day, three years, or seven years).

Firbolgs in Faerie

Fomorians

• MAGICAL BEASTS IN FAERIE
• PLANTS
• REGIONAL VARIATION
• EPISODIC ENCOUNTERS
• A FAERIE CAMPAIGN