Fey Time Lapse

There is a condition very few have experienced. It is known as the Fey Time Lapse, and involves being trapped in a region under Fey control. The region is affected by Fey magic and causes time to flow differently. Usually this causes time to move slowly compared to the Material Plane, and years might pass. If someone spends too long in places like the Feywild, the person leaving it might have missed decades, even centuries in the Material Plane.

Transmission & Vectors

This only occurs if a being from the Material Plane spends a lengthy stay in one of the realms of the Fey.

Causes

Fey realms are saturated with their magical essence that causes time to work differently compared to the Material Plane. It causes the ageing process to slow down for many creatures of the Material Plane, and when they leave, the time does not catch up.

Symptoms

There is little symptoms to describe except the culture shock when the creature returns and time has moved on substantially in the world they left. This can lead to many problems, such as not having any place to go afterwards, people close to the creature turned elderly or dead, places changing (sometimes disappearing with age, or new places appearing), and the creature being considered dead to those that knew them.

Affected Groups

Five groups are generally affected more than others, and are: Celtic & Germanic ?Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, & Halflings. It is unknown if any others are affected but none want to find out.

Prevention

The only way to prevent this happening is to avoid entering the Fey Realms in the first place.

History

Stories abound, especially in Europe (and in both regions where the Celts & Germanic peoples exist for a long period of time), where someone disappears at some stage or swapped with changelings shortly after birth. The mortal returns after a length of time, measures usually in decades or centuries, and finding everything different or they are mistaken as being dead.
This happens extremely rarely, and is taken as fact by many of these societies and certain places, like fairy rings or certain geographical features, being avoided or undisturbed. No-one near these places, or other places where the fey may live or frequent, will disturb such places in the off-chance the fairies take them away, never to be seen again.

Cultural Reception

This cause abject fear in many Celtic or Germanic regions, and are whispered about to avoid attracting the gaze of the Fey. A few places are talked about, such as gateways, forests, hills, or mountains that contain ways to venture into the Fey Realms, and actively avoided. Many fear the wicked Dark Fey as they sometimes swap babies with Changelings, and the baby is caught in the Fey Realms, and not seen again in lengthy periods of time for them to appear as young adults while their parents are elderly or long dead.

"I've been there, to the Fey Realms. There's more than just the Feywild, and the Shadowfell. Though saying that, the Shadowfell has others, controlled by others of unseen nature. So different in every way, all the Realms, people forget that. Either blooming with plant life, animals of all types, and the Fairy Folk, all gaudy in their grandeur in some. Others, dark reflections, hidden in shadows, under pale moons or dark violent oceans, with pale skin & mutant limb.
Only one thing about all these Realms.... time. Time works so differently to our world. I had been taken as a young child, wandering in to that hill covered in brambles & blackthorn bushes. I shouldn't have after the warnings by my parents. They would recount the tales of the Tuatha De Danann and their portal there, on that hill hidden by the blackthorn... That's all it took, childish curiosity. Now look at me, 27 years old, and my parents passed with old age 3 years ago believing I was dead. Some didn't believe me, others chased me out saying I was Fey-touched, and the indirect killer of my family.
Never again, I will never enter those places. You end up loosing more than time, and now... now I'm an outcast here too. Driven to the lands of Munster, when I used to play hope to the rest of the Ulaid as a warrior."
Aonghusa Uí hAidith, Human fighter mercenary, in the service of the Taoiseach of Munster.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare