Faeriespace

Notable Locations: Armon

Notable Figures: Aelivere the One-King

Crystal Sphere: Yes

Astral Haze: No

Read Up: SJA3 – The Crystal Spheres

Eons ago, when the Astral Sea still simmered with the fresh heat of the Dawn War, a lone Archfey Lord committed a crime against the decency and dignity of the Fey—something that caused such an affront to the lights, lords and ladies of the Feywild that it demanded an answer. All across the numerous kingdoms and duchies, the Domains of Delight, the hag dens and the goblin fanes, the Archfey all gathered together in one place for the first time.

It was at this meeting that Lady Morwel first took up leadership of the Court of Stars, at this meeting that Lady Titania first laid eyes on Lord Oberon. It was at this meeting that the fate of an entire demesne within the Fey Realm was decided for all of perpetuity.

Nobody knows what this Fey king did, but so great and heinous was the crime that he and his entire dominion were forcibly ejected from the Feywild, forced from the memories of those who knew them, and hurled into the Material Plane in the most violent worldfall in history.

Where that domain landed is now called Faeriespace

System Overview

When you first pass through the Crystal Sphere into Faeriespace, it immediately becomes evident that this is no normal Wildspace system. Instead of central sun around which planets orbit, Faeriespace is dominated by an incomprehensibly large tree that seems to coalesce from mist that gathers at the base of the shell and shoot up across hundreds of millions of miles. Its boughs and branches spread across the ‘top’ half of the Crystal Sphere, some of them scraping the stars themselves. The limbs of this tree are laden with suns, which in turn light and warm planets where many fey creatures and other woodland beings live.

While these worlds are the primary inhabited portion of Faeriespace the tree itself has its own gravity and a breathable atmosphere, and some creatures use it to migrate from world to world, walking along the branches and leaves.

The same effect that distorts travel time and memory in the Feywild seems to apply to those who walk along this tree. A journey that may seem like a thousand days to you went by in a thousand years to the universe at large—or conversely, a journey that you spent a month taking may transpire in the blink of Large Luigi’s central eye back on the Rock of Bral.

The Suns

Sixteen great fire bodies grow from the highest bows of the great tree, providing heat and light to the worlds of Faeriespace. Leaves rustle gently in the solar breezes, and their motion blocks the light of the suns at different times, giving the planets below them periods of day and night.

Upgood

Below the sixteen suns are the four planets of Upgood, the straightforwardly named region of planets on which more benevolently aligned fey creatures live. Those denizens of the summer and spring courts that were caught in the summary judgement of the ancient Archfey, or their descendants. Though they are not permitted to return to the Feywild, most have no memory of the place, so far back it was, and they generally do not lament the ancient sentence of their forebears, unjust though it may have been.

The four planets are moderate earth bodies called Genia, Freemor, Agron, and Tiqua.

Vastdarken

Below the planets of Upgood resides the lower four planets, a great region called Vastdarken. Here is where dwell the winter aligned fey and those called unseelie—members of faithless courts. Though not a place with an evil alignment, the darker and more frightening aspects of the Fey are in full force here, and in the shadows lurk corruptors such as enchantresses and hags, as well as spiteful things like redcaps. The four planets here, Morath, Krag, Baestra, and Mish, are similar in makeup and biomes to the planets of Upgood, but reflect the more morbid, bleak side of Fey beauty. The wetlands full of colorful dragonflies on Agron, for example, may have a counterpart on Baestra that are teeming with alien slugs and winged leeches.

Aelivere

An Archfey by the name of Aelivere the One-King is the absolute ruler of Faeriespace and the most powerful being that inhabits the realm. Even avatars of Corellon and Sehanine give him deference while visiting his palace or one of the Eight Worlds. Aelivere lives not on any of the planets, but on the tree itself. Where the tree splits into its three greatest branches, the Fey metropolis of Armon stands and where thousands of Fey creatures of all kinds reside.

Aelivere lives there in a palace carved from great mushrooms that grow on the tree, called Armonhold. The One-King rules by a single guiding principle—balance in all things. Great good and wicked evil are extremes to be avoided, as are excess and squalor, debauchery and stoicism.

Many suspect that Aelivere is in fact the selfsame as the ancient Archfey that got the realm banished from the Feywild to begin with, but no living fey not involved in the judgement can remember back that far, and those that know the truth, including the One-King himself, are mum on the issue.