Feywilds / First-World, Introduction

The Feywilds

The Fey are thought to have come about at the very Creation of the material plane itself. Fey energy is intertwined with the material world, and the Feywilds are material, yet at a different level of expression, and of a different quality, overlying the material.
The Fey populate the landscape, but they are themselves the landscape. How one treats and respects, so one treats and respects the Fey--even those destructive and evil.
As with mundane material beings, the Fey are good, neutral, or evil, but they rarely ascribe to particular laws of any kind.
In this way again, they are like the world of nature. They enchant their natural surroundings with their magic, often simply by being there, and the natural world does the same for them in turn.
The land of Faerie is perpetually in twilight of various phases, hard to predict. It can be morning (relative) sunrise, or golden evening, or deep twilight, or sometimes brighter day or darker night (these two rare).
There are ever-present dancing lights, and clouds of pixie dust or little flies or fairies in the forests. Butterflies, junebugs, glowbugs, dragonflies. The Fey insects and small creatures are buzzing, creaking, croaking, calling in their places.

Mists are rising from the water or the woods, floating above and barely obscuring. Sometimes there are strange animal calls or signals passed from fairy to fairy, creature to creature.
The Feylands have different content than the material, but whatever is there often echoes that same location on the material. The echo is always there, usually fairly direct.
The Feywilds sometimes seem to sparkle ane twinkle, and the stars are bright enough to read by. The moon itself seems to be bigger, and it does not follow a regular cycle. (Thus it is often full…)
There are numerous flying and fluttering creatures, most of them small (like butterflies), and lots of tiny creatures, especially little mammalian creatures, that are curious about you yet shy.
Dawn or Dusk (in various stages) often lasts all day, or longer. In many places there are chirping, trilling, hooting, or creaking (etc.) creatures (insects?). Frogs croak; owls call… In some places this can be a fair din, night or day.
There are plenty of places where trees grow, without an echo on the material side. A village of humans might be (on the Fey side) a colony of Fey creatures, or a stronghold of Fey elves, or a village in the trees. A material castle might be a great pink castle of a fairie queen. It might be as simple as a material creature being a Fey creature on the other side.
An ocean is a sea of vivid purple-blue, sparkling like the night sky. In the Feywilds, visuals seem to be softer, colors are often intensified, or pasteled at times.
There are fireflies and vivid lilacs, little cottages with thatched roofs and herb gardens; wildlife with big eyes. There can be a feeling of mystery or uncertainty. There are forests and a big moon, rivers, streams (the latter two sometimes enchanted), night just cool enough, and gentle rainfalls.

{Portals to (and from!) the First World)

For the Fey at the time wished to be undisturbed. They kept the portals though, created them so they wouldn’t lose the material, should they want to return. There was, of course, something about the Proto-Elven-Humans that was intriguing…
After the Great Split (proto elves vs. proto humans) the Proto-Elves probably worked with the Fey to make sure the portals stayed open, a kind of safety valve. The Elves found that they generally enjoyed the company of the Fey, so the portals were built with anticipation of relationships (and adventure?) to come.
The concept of the portal came to be, and it stuck, and portals were created. “Just enough,” the Elves said. Many Elves are still full-time residents of the Feywilds–more than live in the material, they say.
Portals to the Feywilds generally center around the activity of Elves, or else it’s the other way around. Nevertheless, wherever there is potent natural energy of some kind, one might find a doorway, or archway, or passageway, etc. that leads to the land of Faerie.
The Portals (as much as possible) are guarded well by the Elves, when in Elven Lands (where they usually are). Especially to keep creatures from coming out. Most of their kin are granted access to the Wilds whenever they want, which angers some Fey no end.
Every Fey portal in the multiverse has its own schtik, and will admit whomever it is meant to admit, and behave perhaps in strange ways. Most do not interfere, but there are some that are strange and persnickety, granting access to some, being random, causing strange effects, etc.
You “walk through,” or “dive in,” or “jump off,” to get to where you already are, except in the Feywilds…
For their part, the Fey sometimes come through and settle in the material world, or wander it for some reason or another, good or evil, or neutral.. Celestial (or half-celestials) creatures of any kind might be found in the Feywilds, and Fiends (or half-fiends) might be as well. It can potentially offer a good home to a variety of inter-planar creatures.
First-World Portals are usually found in Elven areas, but creatures can “leak” out and roam a long way, in exploration or revenge or what-have-you.
The portals themselves seemed to have almost their own personality, and they are often out of control now, multiplying or disappearing, or showing up in odd places. There are a number of different “personalities,” including

• wandering portals,
• “unreliable” portals
• stable (or “direct”) portals
• one-way portals
• portals tied to items or rituals or other magic, or even living things in some way,
• “field portals” (like the Pink, but much smaller and localized).
• There are even portals through which, on the other side, one must be invited. (i.e. You must have permission.)]

Only a specific person or people or category of people may pass through
First-World Portals usually have some expression of “the Pink,” either more or less, but rarely not at all. The Pink is a mist or gas or haze of a various shade of pink, from hot pink to purple. The Pink is usually the first sign that a portal is near.
And there are times when the First World expands itself beyond any reasonable expectation or explanation. Then a massive pink descends upon the land (generally from the poles), to cover all areas in its path with fey overlap. This hasn’t happened for many years, and short-lived people have forgotten it.

The “Creation” of the First-World Fey
The Elves did not create them, but rather found them. They are, in spirit, as old as “the World” itself, very much tied to it, via the Feywilds. They came first, in the “First World,” but when the Proot-Elven-Humans encroached on their territory (especially the Magic Forests of the time), the Feywilds came to be: a home, a retreat, in a way, a place ot hide.

ELVES and the FIRST-WORLD
The Feywild elves are known as Wild Elves, although their level of civilization often surpasses that of the High Elves who have chosen the material as their home. Wild Elven cities exist as mirrors to the material Elven cities, and are said to be even more breathtaking.
Fey portals are found almost exclusively in Elven forests. The Elves are thought of as caretakers, and the arrangement suits both them and the Fey.
Knowing where it came from is to know the origin of Creation itself. The Elves are much more concerned with their own place among the Fey, and the history of their own (younger) race within and among the immortal Feywilds.
There are large populations of Elves in the Feywilds, much larger in fact than those of the Material Plane. Indeed, Fey forests in the material realm are a tip of an iceberg that goes very, very deep into the land of Fairie.
Among these Elves, there are botanists and zoologists and geologists and historians who dedicate their long lives to exploring the Feywilds, cataloging its creatures and their habits, and making all manner of field notes. Many have published books over the millenia. All Elves are expected to spend at least a century within the lands of Fairie as part of their up-bringing and education.
Although the Fey themselves are not concerned with extinction, they take personal offense to the destruction of their lands (on the material or Fey–both really), and they will give deserved retribution. The lands are them; they are the lands; and destruction of one is destruction of the other, with appropriate revenge.