The Feywild
The Feywild (sometimes known as the Plane of Faerie) is a verdant, wild twin of the mortal realm. Towering forests sprawl for a thousand leagues. Perfect amber prairies roll between pristine mountain peaks soaring into the flawless clouds. Emerald, turquoise, and jade green seas crash along endless beaches. The skies are a perfect blue not seen in the mortal world—until storms come, coaldark thunderheads boiling with fierce winds and torrential rains. In this world, arcane power thrums through every tree and rock. All existence is magical.
The creatures native to the Feywild—the enigmatic eladrin, the vicious hags, the wild dryads, and the tyrannical fomorians—are all charged with the mystic energy of this plane. Some are blessed by it, and some are warped. Like the land around them, the fey who inhabit this plane run to extremes. Good fey are noble and just, protectors of the natural world and those mortals they choose to show favor to. Evil fey are dark instinct unleashed, all blood and claw and rage. The creatures of the Feywild can be kind, cruel, noble, monstrous, and savage—often all at the same time.
Visiting the Feywild
Some eladrin sages claim that the Feywild is the dream of the natural world itself. The Feywild is in many ways indistinguishable from the natural world. However, like a dream, the Feywild is a dangerous, vibrant reflection of the familiar. The geography of the Feywild parallels that of the mortal realm, if loosely. Various mountains, rivers, and seas on the natural world are found on the Feywild. However, the distances between landmarks in the Feywild—and the landmarks themselves—are often distorted.
Mortals come to this perilous realm to tap into the arcane powers that course like unseen rivers of magic through the wild landscape. Some wish to negotiate secret knowledge from the eladrin; some battle fey who inflict their capricious cruelties on innocents in the mortal world. Others seek to plunder magic artifacts still buried in the wreckage of crystal cities abandoned by the eladrin during the war with the Drow. The dizzying forests, storm-kissed seas, and cloud-sheathed granite peaks of the Feywild hold countless mysteries for those with both the courage and cunning to survive.
Reaching the Feywild
The Feywild is unique in that it is the only plane commonly reached by accident. In the wild places of the world fey crossings—points where the barrier between the Feywild and the mortal world is thin—lie sleeping in hidden glades or brood under mistwreathed hills. More than a few mortals have strayed into fey crossings on the wrong day of the year or at the wrong moment of the day only to find themselves stranded in the world of the fey.
Over the centuries, the eladrin (and others) improved many naturally occurring fey crossings to create a number of reliable portals between the Feywild and the world. Such portals are marked by ancient standing stones, knee-high obelisks covered in ancient runes, groves of trees planted in a deliberate arrangement, or even circles of toadstools. Some fey crossings are as small as a single narrow archway between two menhirs, and others are sylvan glades the size of cities. Many of these sites have been abandoned. Their magic only slumbers deeply, waking when conditions are right or when ancient elven words of passage coax them to life.
Fey crossings can normally be activated one of two ways: a key phrase coded to that particular crossing point or the use of the Fey Passage ritual. As befits their connection to such a wild plane, some portals activate randomly or when certain specific conditions are met, such as when the right lunar phase occurs or the sun hits a certain angle through just the right trees. When a fey crossing activates through random or through rare but normal occurrences, creatures often pass through these open portals without even noticing the transition to the Feywild. A few fey crossings remain permanently open. These occur in the deepest forests of the world, places where the mortal world and the Feywild achieve the greatest harmonic convergence.
And they were never heard from again…
Fey crossings in the mortal world are surrounded in local legends. Old stories warn that encounters with fey are fraught with peril. People who wander into the Feywild return changed, and some never return at all. For alert adventurers, such tales are clues to a long-lost passage to the wondrous, savage world of the fey. A forest with a reputation for locals disappearing in it may indeed be home to savage beasts—or perhaps folks who walk between two twin trees atop a hill deep in the woods at moonrise leave one world for the next.
The second method of travel across to the Feywild is through a worldfall. Worldfall occurs when the ebb and flow of planar energy allows a huge tract of land from one plane to shift to the other. Eladrin cities often “ride” worldfalls, suddenly appearing in the mortal world in a flash of sunlight and scattered flowers. To travel to the Feywild, all a traveler need do is enter the gates of such an eladrin city while it rests in the mortal plane and then wait within until the city returns to the Feywild.
Travelers in the Feywild must first pit themselves against the riotous wild growth and rugged terrain in the plane. The plane has few marked paths, and no more than a handful of roads.
If lucky adventurers discover a river to guide their travels, they may soon find themselves at the top of a mile-high waterfall. As they pick their way down the slick stone cliffs, the spray from the falls soaks them as thoroughly as a summer shower. By the time choking sulfurous fog rolls in off the hag bogs, any illusions the visitors might have that they’ve stumbled into an idyllic natural paradise are long, long gone.
The unreliable geography of the Feywild only adds to travelers’ woes. As noted, landmarks in the mortal world have echoes in the Feywild. The natural landmarks are often exaggerated versions of their material world counterparts. Mountain peaks are higher, sharper, more treacherous. Rivers that meander through the human world roar through the Feywild. Seas crash with waves driven by eldritch storms far offshore.
Built landmarks in the mortal world, such as cities, are nothing more than a hunting camp or even a small clearing in the Feywild forests. Even more maddening, distances between Feywild locales can even vary depending on which direction one is traveling. The trip from the eladrin outpost of Aedonni to the Council Warren takes three days less than the trip from the Council Warren to Aedonni. Absolutely no one who makes the trip can explain why.
Powerful forces are at work here, struggling for mastery of the Feywild. Eladrin archfey are not above using hapless interlopers as pawns in their convoluted court intrigues. The eladrin nobles themselves are caught up in an endless feud against the lords of the Feydark (the fey Underdark), the evil-eyed giant fomorians. As these races battle across the Feywild, beings from more exotic planes execute complex plans to usurp control of this plane’s limitless font of magical energy.
The Bright Beauty
Tall, viridian trees gently bustled from the refreshing autumn breeze, the sky was draped in gradients of reddish-orange to soft indigo. Perpetual twilight hung over the sheltered woodlands, the distant sounds of small birds and rodents frolicking before adjourning to their burrows. As the leaves swayed, they shifted in hue and became rusted in color. Mesmerized by the tranquility, a sudden chill refreshes you to the lurking shadows encroaching.
Setting aside the dangers posed by the creatures of the Feywild, new arrivals must also cope with stunning new sensory experiences. The tangible presence of magic in the Feywild is like nothing ever experienced on the mortal world. The flowers of the Feywild give off perfumes that entrance unwary humans, and the stench of the Murk Sea can overwhelm the hardiest warrior. The powerful magic suffusing the entire plane makes everything, for lack of a better word, intensely real. Natives call this effect the Bright Beauty. Colors are more vivid, smells more pungent. Light doesn’t scatter as it should. Every sight, sound, smell, and taste has a sharper edge. As with most things in the Feywild, this effect can be a blessing and a curse. A simple shaft of sunlight in the Feywild can appear to be a divine sculpture of glimmering light, filling the viewer with inspiration. But the depthless shadows of the fomorian dungeons are equally vivid, and so drive a lost adventurer into mind-shattering panic.
The Bright Beauty has a further effect on sentient creatures. Blood responds to the enchantment of the Feywild. Just as the native creatures of the Fey embody extremes of passion and power, visitors begin to behave as pure, truer versions of themselves. Bold heroes become reckless, friends become lovers, and rivalries devolve into knife fights. Although adventurers never lose control, they must constantly fight the Feywild’s call to the wild, the free, and unrestrained within.
Fey Demesnes
Within the Feywild are places referred to as fey demesnes, which typically manifest in locations where two or more ley lines meet (see the “Ley Lines” sidebar). A fey demesne attunes itself to the most powerful denizen that dwells within its boundaries (usually but not necessarily a fey creature), altering its environs to reflect the mood or disposition of that creature. For example, a demesne inhabited by a heartless death hag might be rimed with perpetual frost, while a tower inhabited by a mad goblin mage might be overgrown with twitching, grasping vines of some unnatural hue.
Demesnes do not form empathic links with the creatures to which they attune themselves, and such creatures exhibit no direct control over their environs. For example, storm clouds might gather above the palace of an eladrin king whenever he’s moved to anger, and only when his spirits are lifted do the clouds disperse.
In the early days of the Feywild, wild magic swirled through the primal forest, giving birth to countless beasts that were more an extension of nature than inhabitants of it. Some deities found the bright splendor of the place more fitting for their creations, and so fantastic variants of mortal creatures were turned loose under the eternal green shade. Few truly dumb beasts reside in the Plane of Faerie. Most creatures are gifted with some sliver of intelligence, even if nothing more than a malign cunning.
The intelligent races do their best to bend the Feywild to their will. The main rivals attempting to rule the Feywild are the eladrin in their shining cities and the fomorians in their subterranean fortresses. Other races lurk at the edges of the conflict, and the unpredictable character of the fey keeps the balance of power fluid. When dealing with politics in the Plane of Faerie, only one thing is certain: Half of what seems to be true isn’t.
Archfey
The most powerful of fey spirits are godlike avatars of their chosen aspect of nature. Some are noble eladrin so old and powerful that they have transcended the bounds of mortality, such as Tiandra, the Summer Queen, Prince of Frost, or the Queen of Air and Darkness. Some are the awakened spirits of mighty forests, mountains, or rivers, such as the Green Lord Oran or Scamander, the guardian spirit of the river of the same name. Others are the sentient incarnations of different types of animals, such as the Cat Lord or the Monkey King. A few archfey are fey of other races who have achieved great age and power—for example, the hag Baba Yaga or the satyr prince Hyrsam. Few of these beings are as strong as a deity or even a demon lord, but within their own demesnes, few other entities could hope to best them.
Archfey range from kindly to malicious and from compassionate to uncaring. Most are perilous for mortals to deal with, but others find mortal heroes fascinating and sometimes favor them with gifts of power or knowledge. In general, the archfey are absorbed in their own rivalries, intrigues, and old enmities. They work at cross-purposes with each other, although the most powerful archfey govern factions of like-minded fey.
The Court of Stars
Several times a year, at no set schedule, the archfey and their allies gather for a parliament and bacchanalia, merging their royal courts into one great congress. They spend the time negotiating, feasting, scheming, marrying, and betraying each other. The collected court has no true leader, but it is hosted by the archfey known as the Summer Queen. The eladrin call this assembly the Court of Stars.
Over the centuries the signatories to the Court of Stars have aligned themselves into factions. These vie for influence in the Court, which translates into arcane power and territory out in the Feywild. Most archfey and their followers count themselves as members of more than one faction, often supporting rival forces when it suits their purposes. Despite this chaotic mix of power, allegiances, ambition, and treachery, open conflict is rare in the Court of Stars. Favor is won through clever wordplay, duels using proxies, and ever-shifting schemes. Adventurers make useful cat’s-paws for eladrin nobles.
Separate from the eladrin archfey factions, the remainder of the Court of Stars is composed of attendant faeries, ambassadors from other fey races, centaur chieftains, and various interplanar hangers-on. Many creatures attending the Court have worked for decades to gain enough influence to seek an audience with the Summer Queen. Some of these attendants from other lands have gone native. They have forgotten their original missions, and they now live out their days in the wondrous, intoxicating beauty of the Feywild.
"They are two sides of the same coin, or let us say . . . the same side of two coins."
The Summer Fey
Tiandra, the Summer Queen, is one of the mightiest of the archfey. With a smile, she can ripen a crop, and with a frown, summon wildfires. Noble eladrin infused with the spirit of summer, count themselves as her barons. Other spirits of growth and good favor follow her banner. Her court and its followers are known as the Summer Fey, or The Seelie Court.
Tiandra appears as an eladrin of great beauty, with honey-colored skin and hair that shimmers through all the colors of autumn leaves. Her eyes shine golden, like the sun. Her gaze alone can drive people mad. The Summer Queen’s Court, in the palace of Senaliesse, is a reflection of her unearthly beauty, and the court can appear frivolous. Fairies flit at her side. Every inch of her throne room is decorated with flowers, fountains, and fine silks. This vivid and rich sensual imagery is all merely a distraction from her fierce intelligence. Tiandra is a master strategist, both in Court intrigues and on the battlefield. She also possesses an odd, dry sense of humor and a surprising streak of pragmatism.
Tiandra has an amused fondness for mortals. She craves the unpredictability and urgency instilled by their brief life span. She commands performances by mortal playwrights and commissions poems from poets who strike her fancy. She even goes so far as to take the occasional mortal lover. These relationships have tempered in her the disdain most archfey carry for mortals. She is nominally less fickle in her dealings with mortals than most other powerful fey. The Summer Queen has granted favors to those who serve her well.
The Green Fey
Oran, the Green Lord, is the greatest of the archfey of nature. He could be mistaken for an Elf, albeit one a head taller and far more muscular than any other elf in existence. Oran’s wild eyes are jet black and set in a rugged face the color of oak. His thatched hair is a mess of brambles and long braids. As a hunter and woodland warrior he is unrivaled. It is said even the god Corellon Larethian regards him with a cautious respect. Oran is attuned to every branch and bough, every stream in every forest of the Feywild. In addition to elves who dwell in the Feywild, he has the loyalty of many treants, dryads, and satyrs. Those fey who pledge fealty to Lord Oran are known as the Green Fey.
If Oran has one weakness, it is the wild nature of his heart. He can fall sway to mood swings as violent as thunderstorms. His relationship with Tiandra, for example, is legendary. It was Oran who sculpted Tiandra’s palace of Senaliesse. Over the centuries, they have been lovers, they have been deadly rivals—and once, for two hundred years or so, they managed to be both at the same time. The fey of the Court often try to win favor by supporting one regent or the other in these times of romantic turbulence. At the present, the relationship of Oran and Tiandra is that of passionate friendship. Lord Oran is aware of his impetuous nature, and he values Tiandra’s cool intellect to temper his decisions. They often act in tandem when the Court of Stars is in session, particularly on matters of security and warfare.
Although Lord Oran is the most powerful of the Green Fey, many other perilous archfey also belong to this faction.
The Winter Fey
The fey lords who choose the path of winter—of deadly cold, biting ice, and blinding snow—are known as the Winter Fey. Their leader, the Queen of Air and Darkness is the most powerful and ruthless of the lot. Her consort is the Prince of Frost and together they rule over their faction known as the Winter Court, or The Unseelie Court.
The Queen of Air and Darkness is the fey deity of magic (especially illusions), darkness, and murder. Her long-lost true name is never spoken among the fey. Her unholy symbol is a black diamond. The Queen of Air and Darkness is a bodiless, invisible being, but she can be perceived magically as a faerie with pale, angular features, blood-black eyes, and a mane of black hair. She is beautiful, but hers is a terrible, eldritch beauty that chills the bone. The Queen is cold and utterly emotionless.
The Queen of Air and Darkness is the sister of Tiandra, once a princess and heir to the Seelie Court. The evil Queen, her once bright spirit corrupted and dead, now hates and opposes Tiandra's Seelie Court and everything they stand for. Because she embodies the corruption that can take root in the heart of the elvish race, Corellon Larethian, Sehanine Moonbow, and Solonor Thelandira also consider her an enemy. Her court is filled with evil, twisted fey, elves, and undead. Hell hounds and yeth hounds slaver at her insubstantial feet. The Queen of Air and Darkness is served by unseelie sprites, quicklings, evil elves, and bramble faeries, among others. The Queen of Air and Darkness is blamed with the creation of all evil fey races, including quicklings, fomorians and spriggans.
Narrow of build, pale, and light-haired, the Prince of Frost has a smile that does not warm. He is not unnecessarily cruel, but he has not an ounce of mercy in his heart. He allies with other archfey only when facing the direst of threats. The Prince of Frost prefers to deal with his enemies quickly and viciously, with little regard for collateral damage. For some inscrutable reason, the Prince of Frost holds mortals in utter contempt. Although he appears content for now to rule his lands in the Feywild, rumors constantly circulate that he plots to freeze the entire mortal world into one long, eternal glacial age.
The Sea Lords
Merfolk and other aquatic fey collectively assemble in the Court of Coral. The fey of the rivers and oceans bow to the will of the eladrin archfey known as the Sea Lords. Elias and Siobhan Alastai are brother and sister, eladrin who only a few centuries ago achieved a level of power elevating them to the archfey. Because of their recent elevation, they are less emotionally detached than many of the archfey. They are, if not approachable, at least not as terrifying as many of the other great nobles of the Court of Stars. Strangely, few eladrin manifest the aspect of nature related to the waters of the world, and the Sea Lords rule a council made up primarily of powerful noneladrin races native to the deep lakes and oceans.
Elias claims as his domain the shallows—the rivers, the lakes, even the shoreline reefs of the Feywild. His rulership of this domain brings him in constant contact with races who live along the strands. He considers their welfare a testimony to his mastery of the sea elements, and he is quick to aid his subjects if he senses unnatural dangers approaching. Elias is quick to laugh and loves music.
Siobhan is the more melancholy of the two. She rules the deep oceans and rarely leaves her underwater city, preferring to let Elias act as their ambassador to the Court of Stars when necessary. She considers herself the guardian of the ocean and all the deep places beneath it. Like the ocean waters she roams, Siobhan is slow to anger, but when she does, her wrath drowns entire lands. She can summon hurricanes, waterspouts, and tidal waves when her interests are threatened. Although Tiandra, Oran, and the Prince of Frost are considered the most powerful of the archfey, none of them has yet tested Siobhan at her full strength.
The Gloaming Fey
Sparked by the arcane influence within the Feywild, some archfey manifest more abstract qualities than seasons or living nature. Many are associated with dreams, darkness, stars, twilight, dusk, and other such nocturnal phenomena, and so they are collectively known as the Gloaming Fey. Although equal in power to the other courts, these archfey keep their own counsel. They are composed of a loose league, rather than a proper faction, but when the Court of Stars is in session, they band together during court intrigues.
The most well known of the Gloaming Fey is the Maiden of the Moon. She is a formidable hunter who carries a silver sword said to be able to cut through nightmares. The Maiden of the Moon wages a private war against lycanthropes (drawing the ire of Selûne) and other savage killers, and she is considered benevolent toward mortals. Although she has many hunting camps in the Feywild, one in particular is a portal to her own private sanctuary on the shining moon above.
The Prince of Hearts is an eladrin archfey dedicated to the principles of beauty, gallantry, and love. One cannot be too careful around the Prince of Hearts. He has been known to grant boons to any who aid him in uniting true lovers separated by circumstance. At other times, the fire of unrequited love best suits his aspect. The Prince of Hearts sometimes meddles in the lives of mortals he believes should be in love, attempting to drive them together. If the unlucky pair dislike each other to begin with, he finds the attempt even more delightful.
A darker archfey affiliated with this faction is the Witch of Fates, a powerful oracle whose pronouncements spell doom. At the height of Cendriane’s might and glory, the Witch of Fates appeared clad in the black of mourning to speak a dreadful prophecy against the city. She seems moved to lay low the proud and powerful, but sometimes elevates virtuous people in wretched circumstances. Any folk who toil for a lost if noble cause may find in her a terrifying patron.
Eladrin
Eladrin are the “people” of the Feywild. Their cities are collections of sweeping, graceful crystal towers married effortlessly to the local landscape. These cities all predate the war with the drow, and many were ravaged during that conflict. Eladrin walk among ancient corridors and avenues layered with millennia of silent history. They are, to a great degree, haunting their own cities. Only now are the eladrin truly attempting to reclaim some of these shattered metropolises. Repair and resettlement is uneven. The spires of Astrazalian soar higher than ever, but Cendriane remains a melancholy ruin.
Each settlement is a city-state unto itself because the settlements are scattered at great distances across the Feywild. The cities sporadically attempt to create formal alliances, but none of the alliances are strong or of a long-lasting nature. Both the distances involved and the eladrin character run counter to such efforts.
As is commonly known, the foundation of eladrin society is the extended family, or House. Although most eladrin spend decades of their youth in one of the isolated stone and crystal cities dotting the endless shadow of the Feywild forest, an eladrin’s true allegiance is to his or her House and its nobles. Those nobles in turn often swear allegiance to one of the eladrin archfey. The eladrin archfey are titular monarchs only. Although Tiandra is regarded as queen by many eladrin, she only rules in Senaliesse, and even then she governs only when she has to.
Fomorians
Beneath the lush green hills of the Feywild sprawls the fey echo of the mortal world’s Underdark—the Feydark. In this terrifying maze of black tunnels and mystic caverns, the malformed giants known as the fomorians rule with absolute tyranny over their vast underground kingdoms. Fomorians wield monstrous magical power. Few in either the Feywild or the mortal realm are their match. If the fomorians could set aside their quarrels, they would be a mighty force for conquest. Fortunately, this dreadful prospect is unlikely, since most fomorians loathe others of their kind along with most beings who are not fomorians. Ironically, this flaw is a direct side effect of the fomorians’ powerful arcane abilities. The fell energy these monsters command inflicts endless pain on them and slowly drives them mad.
Every fomorian ruler tolerates his or her own immediate clan as members in his or her court—but barely that. Mates and offspring are even seen as nothing more than necessary rivals. It is often just a matter of time before a fomorian drives off or murders his or her family. Fomorian clans employ large spy networks against both neighboring powers and their own subjects. The only creatures fomorians trust are the cyclopses. Cyclopses serve the fomorians as advisors, master artisans, and spymasters.
As damaging as this madness and hatred are to any chance of a united fomorian kingdom, they serve each individual king or queen well. The suspicion of the fomorian ruler suffuses his or her entire kingdom. Insurrection is quashed in infancy, as subjects desperate to curry favor with their monarch—or at the least, to escape the next inevitable purge—inform against each other at the slightest provocation. Outsiders rarely find allies among the cowed and treacherous subjects of a fomorian ruler.
The monarchs of the fomorians rule from massive underground strongholds maintained by their cunning cyclops servants. Most of these fortresses lie in huge underground caverns in the Feydark. Rough iron walls rise from floor to ceiling, and slit windows peer out from squat turrets. Guards patrol both the approaching tunnels and ramparts along these walls. Peat farms and mushroom forests, tended by serfs bound to the fomorian lord, surround the fortress. This dismal mockery of pastoral lands can extend far away from the stronghold. Fomorians regularly claim dominion over tracts of land a hundred leagues in diameter, but for all practical purposes, they rule only the area within a few hours’ march of their strongholds.
Within the iron ramparts of the typical fomorian fortress lies a filthy, warrenlike town of servants and slaves. Feydark monsters thrive in these cities, consuming the offal of the urban filth. Brisk trade in provisions and slaves fills the stalagmite-rimmed marketplaces. Most fomorian strongholds feature an inner keep or sanctum guarded by many thick iron doors. The fomorian ruler of the kingdom can be found within ruling over a perverse court of cruelty and guarded by fanatically devoted cyclopses and quickling assassins. Although many fomorians have been destroyed while assaulting eladrin cities or traveling the tunnels of the Feydark, few have ever been defeated within the walls of one of their sanctuaries.
Fomorians without a kingdom scheme to usurp some fellow giant’s throne. In this unceasing struggle, fomorian rulers seek any advantage they can find, especially magical power. They often raid eladrin cities to plunder the eladrin vaults of magic items. A fomorian monarch even occasionally grants safe passage to adventurers who have arcane artifacts with which to bargain.
Because of their rivalries, fomorians have no central court organizing or ruling over all their kingdoms. The madness afflicting the evil giants means that even the individual kingdoms do not share a common character or temperament. Each fomorian family rules its Feydark fortress with jealous isolation and wildly varying temperament.
Credits
- Information taken from Dungeons & Dragons Manual of the Planes - Roleplaying Game Supplement by Richard Baker, John Rogers, Robert J. Schwalb, and James Wyatt - ISBN 978-0-7869-5002-7 - Available on Amazon by clicking here.
Type
Dimensional plane
Included Organizations
Ley Lines
Arcane power churns through the Feywild along ancient, hidden paths known as ley lines. Some believe ley lines are the threads holding the fabric of the world intact, stitching one plane to the next. Ley lines in the Feywild have counterparts in the mortal realm, places of power that are often the sites of fey crossings. Indeed, following a ley line on either plane is often an excellent way to discover a lost fey crossing.
Places where ley lines intersect or terminate are highly magical. A character performing a ritual with the key skill of Arcana or Nature in such a place gains a +2 bonus to any skill check called for in the ritual. The ritual’s component cost is also reduced to 75% of the normal cost. (Magic permeating the area improves the efficacy of the ritual components.)
Warlock Fey Pacts
Fey pacts are a common source of power for warlocks. Each pact is a relationship, a bargain with a specific archfey. How a pact is made differs. Some warlocks are mentored by older warlocks, and then pledge to the mentor’s patron. Mortals who wander into the Feywild and survive its trials are sometimes rewarded with a bargain for the amusement they’ve brought one of the archfey. Still others are approached on the mortal world by archfey or their representatives to strike the bargain. The archfey have their own mysterious agendas in the world of humans, and warlocks so empowered often prove themselves useful to their fey patrons.
The personal nature of this relationship adds flavor to a warlock’s powers. If a warlock gains his or her magic through a pact with the Summer Queen, his spells look and sound different from boons granted by the Maiden of the Moon. At the DM’s discretion, a warlock who sees another warlock use his or her powers may attempt a DC 25 Arcana check to guess the identity of the other warlock’s archfey patron.
Honor Among Fey
All fey can be capricious at times and dangerous when provoked. Most fey societies, however, have elaborate social codes and forms of etiquette, rules that govern every aspect of behavior. One significant ethical distinction among the largely unaligned fey is how they apply their rules to mortals and other nonfey. Many among the eladrin and their fey allies respect mortals who can navigate their rules, treating them with honor as they would other fey. By carefully negotiating the complex politics of these fey, mortals can find a welcome reception and (sometimes) safe passage back to the world. These fey make and keep bargains with mortals who show proper deference and respect, use correct titles and forms of address, and play by the same rules the fey do.
Other fey, however, don’t apply their rules to outsiders. As far as these fey are concerned, nonfey are vulgar dupes or trifling amusements to be toyed with and disposed of. Fomorians respect only their own kind, showing no honor even to other fey. If these fey make bargains with mortals, it is only to trap the mortals in bets they can’t win or promises they can’t fulfill. These fey show no hesitation in breaking their bargains if the mortals find unexpected loopholes.
Some mortals use the term “seelie fey” to mean those fey who respect their bargains with mortals, and “unseelie fey” to refer to fomorians and other fey that are hostile to mortals, but those terms are meaningless to the residents of the Feywild themselves. Worse, it’s dangerous to make any assumptions about a particular fey’s disposition toward mortals based on an association with one of the archfey courts or any other generalization. Every archfey court consists of fey that might be considered both seelie and unseelie, though the Summer Fey and the Sea Lords are generally friendlier to mortals than the Winter Fey are. Even among the fomorians, a few do show honor and respect to mortals—particularly to evil mortals who make clear demonstrations of power.
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