Make Fairies & the Feywild Formidable in Your D&D Campaign | DnD 5e | TTRPG | Ben Byrne
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
- From the Feywild, the courts of the fairy queens plot and play with the fates of mortals for their own amusement or spite. Learn to make these easily underestimated D&D monsters truly formidable in a dark fantasy campaign!
Topics:
00:00 - Intro
00:44 - Fairy mythology
03:30 - Themes that fairies represent
06:28 - Exploring the Feywild
10:20 - Fairies lairs
12:38 - Choosing fairy stat blocks
15:01 - Story hook ideas for Feywild campaigns
__________________________________________________
Edited by @ZsDante
Follow Ben: @TheBenByrne
Keep up with Ghostfire Gaming: @GhostfireG
Join our Discord community: / discord 
Развлечения
Don't forget the fae idea of taking intangible things. Sure The Wild Beyond the Witchlight has cute stuff like sense of style taken but it can be much more critical. Stealing the ability to rest puts players on a time crunch against death by exhaustion. Taking a Barbarian's rage or a Wizard's concentration severely hampers them. They could take your love for your own child and put it upon a monster instead. They could give a Druid intense hayfever or a Warrior an allergy to the metal of their weapons and armour. They can give gifts that aren't gifts like a hunger for poison or attention grabbing beauty for a Rogue.
Those are some really fantastic ideas! Thanks for sharing them, I hope folks read the comments. 😁
May I have your attention?
Yes?
Thank you.
Oh, look, a flower, goes the Wizard with their newly acquired ADHD.
Or they could take ones heart, both physically and metaphorically, so while still alive in every sense, they now lack a Heartbeat and all emotions. They can't feel love or hate, happiness or sorrow, nor can they enjoy a delicious meal or fine wine (maybe look at the Crew of the Black Pearl or Davy Jones from PotC).
If you want to be extra mean (or simply ask and plan with the relevant Player if that'd be okay with them), you can have the persons heart grow bitter and resentful towards the person, as all those emotions are bottled up inside it.
So when the party finally discover the Faes lair, they find, amongst other things, a marble pedestal with a bell jar on it, with the still beating heart suspended in the air beneath the glass. And upon closer inspection, they find it somewhat shriveled and blackened instead of the lively red it was when it was taken, or long, black hair sprouting from the organ, covering it completelly, or something else to indicate it's possible corruption.
So now they have to take it with them to confront the Fae or find another way to cleanse the corrupt organ. Or maybe, starved to feel something, anything, again, they immediatelly grab their heart... and now they must make a wisdom save to resist the urge to just cut open their own chest to put the heart back in. If they fail, they proceed, taking some cutting damage, but the heart is back in place without further complication. Now they feel again, and beyond anything else, they feel bitter, making them extremely irritable, flying into a violent rage at the slightest inconvenience, lashing out against all nearby.
Now the party has to find a way to cure their friend from this corruption, as taking out their heart again would kill them as normal.
This could be a whole adventure, or maybe even it's own campaign.
The most terrifying version of this is True Names, and Faeries trying to take them from mortals. It would be a real headache for a DM, but having Faeries steal an NPC or even PC's True Name (and thus their whole identity) because they broke some vague faewild law is an interesting story hook.
NPC Human Dave wanders off from the party and gets tricked into a game of riddles with a Fae creature. The party rescue "Dave" and carry him out of the faewild, being chased by a human-looking Faerie that keeps claiming to know them for years. But the party know Faeries are tricky and wisely leave, escorting their old friend "Dave" back to their wagon with his wings intact, as he's 'always' had wings.
@@Putrefax
Likewise, knowing the true name they might have total control over them magically with *no* defenses.
The fey in general are already formidable but they are formidable not for their strength and viciousness but the sheer terror of their craftiness And intelligence
I create my own Archfey and courts. Some are “helpful” and some are “not helpful”, that is the fun of using the Fey. The “helpful” ones are normally quite selfish, evil, and manipulative.
The “unhelpful” ones have been typically been the ones that in the end were the most beneficial to the party.
In my home brew there is a fine line between the Seely and Unseely courts….. each has their own Spring, summer, autumn, and winter courts and the fey intentionally are never clear as to which court they are a part of. Maesica is the queen of the Seely Autumn court and appears to be quite selfish, but in truth she is matronly.
I have hags that are good, neutral, and evil….. I have a PC who has one of the hags as a warlock patron. In time, during roll play, the PC went from being half elven to hex blood due to a deal that the party made to bring the PC back from the dead, which included another PC multi classing as a warlock as part of the deal😂😂😂😂. It went down hill from there😂😂😂
I really like the idea of the fae also being victims of their own dickishness and obsession with deals and exchange.
Imagine the party randomly meeting a fae who, while definitely naturally engaging in classic fae shenanigans, is also the best thing they have to a guide in the faewild bc secretly she previously made a deal and some sort of version of Law of Surprise was invoked and now her fate is bound to the fate of the mortal party members.
I’m actually working on a mini campaign for my grouo set in Ostoya, that is a Mystery focused around a Toymaker from the Monster Grimoire, who was hiding his fae nature to raise a half-human daughter. She passed recently, after yesrs of being tormented, and the children of her tormentors actually ransacked the store they ran together, destroying a precious memento the Toymaker had to remember his daughter. He now stalks the village after night comes, kidnapping a child every other night, and leaving a wooden doll in the bed of his last abduction. Only the children who destroyed his store are taken, and sinc etheir oarents were horrid tormentors to his daughter, he uses these dolls (which are Weschelkind, made with the souls of the stolen children) to murder those parents. It’s a pretty gristly story, yet a fun one too. The lengths to which a mourning father and a scorned fae will go to enact revenge.
Elves are terrific: they beget terror--Terry Pratchett
I'm currently playing the mirror of a changeling...the human child raised in the feywild by satyrs. He wanted to be a bard but was tricked into pledging himself to Hyrsam as his warlock. I actually got to do a scene where I spoke the truth to a villain... but not the truth they thought they heard. Lots of fun., :)
Great video. Fey are the hardest creature type for me to convey as a DM. I'm running a campaign that has several connections to the fey, and the party will probably head to the Feywild soon, so I'm always looking for advice on how to describe and roleplay the fey. I'd love to see a video that delves into the backgrounds of goblins and hobgoblins, since they have western roots as fey. In my current campaign, I'm describing goblinoids as having originated in the Feywild, so I'm looking for ways to make them feel more like fey. The goblinoids in my current campaign were literally born in the Feywild, while the traditionally understood goblinoids in other parts of the realm have been separated from the Feywild for so long that they don't even remember it or exhibit any fey-like traits.
Any character that thinks Fairies are cute, have never had to deal with a pack of Red Caps.
Making demons formidable
As for fey in the Monster Manual, there's satyrs, sea and green hags, blink dogs, and dryads. The big problem is there aren't many high CR options. The Eladrin are the highest CR stat block outside of adventures, MtG, and Critical Role content. There's a lot of opportunity to have high-level fey in future iterations. I worked on the Feywild Companion on DMs Guild, and that was a blast creating high-CR fey creatures. I definitely want to dig into the Monster Grimoire as well.
Yeah, I tend to use 3rd party supplements even for other Fey such as Dryads and Hags. The dryad in particular feels like a low level lacklustre stat block…
That said, I didn’t mention them because I think they deserve their own video entirely!
There are a lot of ideas on Pinterest of homebrewed Fey creatures including some I think were ported from Pathfinder.
oh man, the Healy-Raes strike again. While in positions within the government, no one here in Ireland takes them seriously. Love the video, and it is amusing that they got brought into this haha
This is a very important episode- fey should be unsettlingly alien!
As someone midplanning for a Fey villain campaign, this is gonna be so useful!
Can you make Mummies Formidable please?
I'm absolutely loving this series, finding it very helpful for inspiration.
I can totally see my bard character wandering into the fae realm and slowly going insane 😅
Disadvantage not on every roll but some other way is a genius way to represent a curse.
My 2 favorite fey creatures are the pixie dragon and the moonstone dragon:)
🤔the Baderhobb from Volo's Guide To monster is a superb monster that fit very well for a Grim Hollow campaign and gothic horror theme . An excellent candidate I.M.H.O .
I agree! I think they escaped the scope of this video being Monstrosities and not Fey themselves, but could easily be counted as Fey instead for a Studio Ghibli style amorphous Fey shadow spirit…
@@GhostfireGaming i was sure they were shadow fey like monster , guess its change sins 4e .
Celestials being formidable next?
Yes celestial next
Great suggestion!
I play, in one campaign, a hexblood. The entire party are actually fey or at least born and raised in the feywild. The concept has turned out that we are a group who accidentally dropped ourselves into the material plane and are having to make do. Originally our dm’s plan was to make this a horror themed campaign that we ended up being such good little Eldritch horrors ourselves that he is having more fun letting us be the terror. We aren’t really bad. Mischievous, sure. Secretive, absolutely. Absolutely sus? For all that I play the most normal seeming one, that is my character’s entire vibe in a weird way. It’s been a lot of fun though the character I play is the one most entwined with fey culture and genuinely enjoys being fey. Of all of them, they are the one who most remembers that fey are all about their deals and can be strict about them, even mischievous with them. However, I did give my character one quirk. They hate paperwork and try to find any excuse to not deal with it. The funny thing is they often are the one dealing with it because the rest are not as skilled at the art of making a deal. It’s quite hilarious and the table gets a kick out of it. No worries, the sorcerer gets polymorphed into frog for causing the trouble and my character kindly asks the plants to keep the artificer’s mouth shut for a sec so he doesn’t insult the person (why we keep letting him be the “face” of the party despite his negative charisma is a running joke). I like to think of my fey as a test of the alignment of lawful chaotic (chaotic lawful?). Anyway, I enjoyed the video because it’s helped give me ideas on how to keep playing this character. Honestly, my dear dream druid hexblood is hilariously sus and I get a kick out of playing them each week. Dm and I are working on my character crafting some very Eldritch horror plushies and probably I’m going to have an army of them. I’m waiting to see if the party notices. I’m not kidding when I say my character is sus as heck. I’ve already put a doll at the front door that telepathically tells me someone entered the shop. Oh right! So our fey party bought and runs a shop because we are pretty much all craftsmen of different things (though sorcerer is our sales person). Hunting things down? Sure, we do it occasionally, but mostly I run off to play cards with the lighthouse guards as a giant spider or turn into a giant badger and help the miners in the dwarf district of the city. We also have a drider friend that moved in and helps my character make spider silk fabric which is an exclusive commodity of our business.
I like to think we do very well at keeping the creepy nature of fey while having some chaotic fun and not veering into murder hobo or evil territory. Sus, yes. Evil? No. My character just has a night hag who tries to haunt them and that’s why the creepy doll army and security measures. Weirdly, I’m the party healer 🤣
So much useful inspiration here. Really appreciate it
I'm really glad you found it useful! 😊
"the party ranger has no hope" vs me, the party (gloomstalker) ranger, intentionally going into the feywild to become a twilight cleric lol
Thank you so much for this video! Fairies and the Feywild are something that has been peppered in my campaign (about a year and a half in, going for longterm slow leveling epic type thing), but only slightly while hinting that it will be prevalent later.
The love interest of one of the players is actually in a bad deal with an Archfey to be able to leave the Feywild after she got trapped there as a child. She is actually from like 800 years ago.
But yeah, this helps a lot with picturing everything in my head so that I can better just generate ideas and stuff.
How about either hags or mummies? I am using both of them soon in separate campaigns and could use some inspiration. Awesome series by the way!
I think mummies are more interesting
If you think about it, the Feywild is a higher energy state than the material plane, which in turn is a higher energy plane than the Shadowfell. If the undead are easy enough to conjure and animate because they are so far below "mortals," then the Fey should be able to control mortals to the same degree as a Wizard can cast Animate Dead.
This man who has been misinformed about the word “mischievous” has a lot of great ideas.
Gimmi Grim Hollow Feywild Campaign Expansion Book....
Cause I need it!!!
I can recommend watching Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell for inspiration on how to run a Fae.
Good stuff. I’ve just entered the FeyWilds in my solo D&D campaign. We’re in fun and frolics land right now, but it’s going to get darker a lot darker.
I haven't upgraded my brain's internet to Wi-Fi yet either
I unfortunately don't have a group to play with:(
However, I have created 6 different lvl 1 characters in case I found a group.
One of which is: A Female Drow Feylost background Death Domain Cleric sworn to the Raven Queen:)
Remember, there are more things in Heaven & Earth then in your philosophy.
I personally in real life am open to the existence of Fae/Fairies and Ghosts. So I would like meeting friendly varieties of them.
There is some giant stuff coming up, maybe we should make them formidable?
Laethlyn, or whatever the name, where is that statblock from?
The Laethlyn is in 'Grim Hollow: The Monster Grimoire', which you can purchase the PDF of here: ghostfiregaming.com/GGYT_GHMG_2022_7_521
Hey, where did you get all the pictures you used in the video? And the lore things you mention? I reeallllly would love to be able to get a hold of all of those resources.
Most of them had the names of where they are or what they are from in the bottom corner next to the seal.
I’d be interested in event that occurs in the feywild that changes it from a land of happiness and colors to a dark grim setting
I'm actually putting together a Savage Worlds setting that is VERY Fae-Heavy (They are a major antagonist faction that has been simmering in rage at the defeat/sealing of their king by the humans who have planted a great kingdom in their lands), where I'm treating them as basically weird and sometimes horrifying lesser gods that need to be maneuvered around VERY carefully.
Combat against one is impossible unless you know that Fae's very specific Bane, or unless you and the Fae agree to be bound in a Duel to the death. Otherwise, no true harm can come to them.
They will be encountered infrequently, but their touch on the land is one of the three great Creeping Threats that will loom over the setting.
I'm also not making them have the traditional shimmer and gloss aesthetic. One weak one in the starting area will be a metal beetle in the shape of a man. Perfectly armored, but unable to leave his woods, demanding tribute from any who dare step beneath the shade of his trees.
People who want terrifying--or just weird--encounters with fae should check out the channel Scary Fairy Godmother
Lots of user-submitted stories of fae, it's great inspiration
If your players would rather make a deal with the Fey, than consorting with Devils, you're not playing Fey correctly.
3:04 - Yeah, that's kind of how Christianity depicts every other mythological being. Waving them off as being 'fallen angels' rather than separate creatures or gods. It's honestly quite infuriating, the sheer level of arrogance they have about the subject.
To be fair their angels are diverse enough it can work. Not even getting into how many times angels change their appearances. It's been rather enjoyable to compare different types of mythical beings.
Yea. It's infuriating how they act like every other religion is fake and the worshipers are idiots. When they themselves are worshiping a figment of humanity's collective imagination.
@@Zeppathy Also, their religion isn't even original. It's a plagiarized version of a religion that was plagiarized from an older religion, that plagiarized an even older religion, which plagiarized yet an older one. But then again, we shouldn't be surprised at this point, seeing as Christianity absorbed and bastardized many pagan rituals and beliefs in order to make it easier to convert people.
@@Zeppathy Not really the point I was making. I actually consider it much more likely than many other belief systems.
@@jameskurth3560 Science is the only system of belief that consistently delivers results. If you disagree, put your phone down and pray your next response at me.
Why do we apply these characteristics to fey people's? Since this is all imagination can't they be anything we want them to be?
You could make a tiger with antlers and call it a unicorn, but you would be wrong. The fae are like this because that's what makes them properly fae. A being is true fae if they have that very specific vibe, the beautiful-terrible-charming-lethal aethereal wildness.