Dungeonpedia
Join Llewyn, Taylor, and Travis, a trio of nerdy adults, as they spend way too much time and energy on exploring the lore of Dungeons and Dragons. Listen and laugh with them as they are way too excited about DnD for adults and that's okay!
Dungeonpedia
102: Six Pixies In A Trench Coat
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On this week's very special episode of Dungeonpedia, SideshowAshley joins us to talk Dungeons, Dragons, the Feywilds, and the odd Warforged that just can't seem to make up it's mind.
You the adventurer? Yes, you. Do you desire knowledge of immense worlds and arcane power? A codex of untold stories and law? Or perhaps simply easy listening for your daily commute? And feast your eyes, or more accurately, yes, upon Dungeon Pedia. It's about to get nerdy in here.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Travis Peasley, and with us today, we have a very, very special guest with us, uh Sideshow Ashley.
SPEAKER_08Sideshow Ashley. You can just call me Ashley, please, though. Make your life easier. Yes. Ashley.
SPEAKER_06Ashley for short.
SPEAKER_01Ashley for short. Um, but yeah, she has so gracefully decided to join us today.
SPEAKER_06Gracefully is the word that you were looking for.
SPEAKER_01I mean gracefully too.
SPEAKER_06Also gracefully.
SPEAKER_03Gracefully enough, right?
SPEAKER_04They they can't they can't see our they can't see our webcams, so we'll say yes. Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_08It's more like I tripped and fell into this, and I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're happy to have you. You are our first official guest on the show, so oh god, that's a lot to live up to.
SPEAKER_08Why would you do that to me?
SPEAKER_04I mean, we can just say like we can just say that like Jacoby was our first official guest, even though he was just a fill in. Even though he was just yeah, he was just filling in for me because I was I was very ill that one time. Right. But what you that takes the pressure off. We can just say that it was Jacoby. Takes the pressure off.
SPEAKER_06Thanks. Um, Ashley has um a wonderful uh Twitch. Uh you're primarily on Twitch now, right? You're not so much on YouTube.
SPEAKER_08I've man, oh man, this is gonna sound terrible. Man, I'm so sick of YouTube. This is horrible. Oh, that's totally fine.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, fair.
SPEAKER_03We've seen a lot of it.
SPEAKER_04I can understand that. We're just gonna take this. This is actually this is a this is a commentary video about YouTube, actually. Perfect.
SPEAKER_08I mean, we can deep dive into the algorithm if you want, it's fine, it'll be an adventure.
SPEAKER_06The stress and pain it puts on com uh content creators, but you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_04Apocalypse.
SPEAKER_06Oh stop it! Stop it. Um one of the things that um Ashley, well, first of all, Ashley's channel is very nerdy and wonderful, and um I don't know what else to say other than full of nerdum, which is why we reached out to her.
SPEAKER_04Um I I feel like our like our audiences, like if you like this podcast, you'll probably like her content too. Like it's like a it's a Venn diagram, but it's basically a circle.
SPEAKER_06And um, she can speak for herself on her um history with Dungeons and Dragons.
SPEAKER_08Oh no, you don't want me to speak about my history in Dungeons and Dragons. I I am the Forever DM who was finally able to start playing. So when you guys like were talking about some of the characters that I have played, you know what happens to Forever DMs? We start losing our minds and we start coming up with just the worst off-the-wall characters. And then Travis is also a forever DM. Okay, then you understand. You're like, I got this character idea that I'm just gonna run with. Oh, I found a new DM who let me do it. Wait! Sorry for your loss.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it it it's it's pretty great.
SPEAKER_04Uh I mean, someone someone's gotta do it, and it's certainly not gonna be me.
SPEAKER_08But it should be. Everybody should have that one character that you just kind of think is probably wouldn't fit into something, but you can shoehorn it in, yeah, and it works perfectly, and you don't know why, but it works, and that's the beauty of it.
SPEAKER_01That is always the best thing. If it works, then yes.
SPEAKER_08It just works, it just works. So I don't recommend running one character that has to use five different character sheets, just gonna put that out there now.
SPEAKER_03So uh I'm speaking from experience here.
SPEAKER_01Five different character sheets. Uh, what character was this?
SPEAKER_08Uh so I played uh uh pixie piloting armor. Oh set of pixies piloting armor. Um technically they there was Faye. Um so it at first, as the introduction of the character, they thought the character was insane. Straight up. Because I was working off of every time someone would speak to me, I'd have to roll to see who was speaking as the front. Oh because the whole idea was that every other pixie was battling to be the voice and the captain of the ship, essentially. Oh someone else would speak, you'd have to roll. Uh, I was rolling a uh D6 actually to figure out who was in charge of this armor, and every single character had a different voice and a different personality and a different character sheet. So whoever spoke to it last, if they went into any sort of uh battle, that was who was fighting. And there were two non-combatants.
SPEAKER_04So okay, that sounds like that sounds like such a pain in the ass. But that's that's also like such a such a genius concept. And like the idea of like I'm imagining like a like an Alphonse Elric, like yes, yes, like hollow on the inside with just these little pixies like pulling each other's hair.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that is like exactly what it is. That's amazing. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_08That's such a like it was just one after another, and it was really bad at one point because they didn't get it right off the bat. So someone would speak, and I had to count how many times that the party was addressing me and roll dice accordingly to see who responded. And only the DM understood this and didn't say anything. They're just like, why does she keep rolling these dice?
SPEAKER_03Why does her personality change every two seconds? What's going on?
SPEAKER_01The height of like multiple personality disorder right there. Right. Except not actually, I guess.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, just uh that that would be the interpretation. But can I just say perfectly encapsulating the chaos of the Fae?
SPEAKER_08Oh yeah, and that was part of it for me because I wanted to, like, oh yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, it's perfectly encapsulated. Right.
SPEAKER_04And it's like you're you're sowing chaos, not only in the context of like the fictional world, but also like the real world, because all of your friends, Sans the DM, are just like, what the fuck is going on?
SPEAKER_08Exactly. Um the really interesting part was I did play a warlock at one point. Well, kind of a warlock, but also I played as a paladin in the same character. So think about that for a second. That that is the straight up dichotomy between all of the different characters. That's how many character sheets I had to roll.
SPEAKER_01Oh that is so much to like roll to level up to keep up with.
SPEAKER_08Oh yeah, no, it was horrible, but I loved it.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah, no, that I mean, I I mean shit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I played this similarly. I give you props for being able to do it. I don't think I could keep up with that many uh sheets.
SPEAKER_08So at one point, I think I had like 10 tabs up on my computer at one point, just just on each character sheet and like doing the math and like oh keeping track of which of your characters feel about certain other characters, and oh yeah, no, and they straight up had backstories, and some of them didn't want to interact with other ones. There was one that was terrified of the warlock type character, there was one that only wanted to talk. The one of the non-combatants was basically a child. So yeah, oh my god. It was just pure freaking chaos. It was great. I had so much fun with that.
SPEAKER_01It sounds like it. That's that's amazing. Uh fantastic.
SPEAKER_08The joke name was uh catastrophe, just but each one had a different syllable name. So you had uh ta stro fee and oh my god, and none of them got it. That's amazing. Each one would introduce themselves with their respective, you know, name and it took them like 10 minutes to put it together.
SPEAKER_01They were too confused by everything.
SPEAKER_04It's like it's like segmented fridge fridge magnets, and they're like Yeah.
SPEAKER_05What does it mean?
SPEAKER_04What does it mean? The fucking full-on, like the the like um bulletin board, or yeah, with like the pins in it and like the red string, and it's like six pixies in a trench coat.
SPEAKER_08I actually still think I have all the character sheets. So um let's take a look while you guys do your thing. I'm gonna shove my face in Google Drive real quick.
SPEAKER_01That actually being the case, because I talked to you prior to this and everything, uh, I decided that what better thing to go with, other than actually trying to cover the history of the Feywild.
SPEAKER_06In part also because there was a newly released supplement for the Feywild.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it all just kind of worked out perfectly. It's all connected. Into the Feywild, the Wild Beyond the Light. Or I'm sorry, the Wild Beyond the Witch Light was just released on like September 26th or something.
SPEAKER_06Very recently.
SPEAKER_01It's actually an adventure uh module. It has some interesting uh little uh tidbits in there that we'll have to get to, but we'll have to get to that after we discuss the history.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We're not we're not gonna start with the with the juicy stuff. Of course not. I mean it's all it's all juicy, but you know, we've gotta we gotta give you something to get you through the through all of it.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean I'm trying to start with uh the juicy bits, and while I failed to uh actually put all this in the beginning of the notes, I do have some of the actual like real like world history of what I think might actually be the inspiration to the Fey Wild. Oh there was uh nothing that was like specifically said by Gary Gygax or anyone that this was uh the inspiration, but it kinda seems like it. Uh there is something called the Ishii, if I pronounce this correctly. Uh it's a very old Irish word.
SPEAKER_04So you probably pronounced it.
SPEAKER_01You probably pronounced it wrong. Probably. I I tried.
SPEAKER_06My people were not known for making their words easily pronounceable uh but by English tongues.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh the Ishii are basically like supernatural race from Celtic mythology. Uh they're kind of comparable to like fairies and elves. They're said to descend from fallen angels.
SPEAKER_08That's actually a fairly common trope, uh, not just in like Gaelic for folklore, but you have it in the Germanic histories, Russia, it appears in China, it appears in Africa, it appears in South America. So that kind of concept that you have where you have either normal-sized folk, oversized folk, or little folk who are on a different plane of existence, is very common across the entirety of the world. So keep that in mind as you go through this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That is uh good to know. Yeah. So the Ishii Ishi everyone uh are said to live either underground in fairy forts or in an invisible world that coexists with the world of humans. And that part right there is what I think might have been the one of many inspirations behind the Feywild itself, because the Feywild is pretty much exactly that in the DD world. The Feywild exists as a coexistent but totally separate plane to the prime material plane.
SPEAKER_04Or as I think we've described it before, it's like the it's like the neon edit of the prime material plane. Yes. And then you have some things like the Shadowfell that are like the goth edit. The goth edit of the prime.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Fey Wild is the neon edit. It's not the pastel edit. People think it's the pastel edit, but it's the neon edit.
SPEAKER_08And if they're gonna keep any sort of like historical accuracies loosely fitting here when it comes to Fey in general, they probably need to stick to that because the Fey were not nice people traditionally. Not nice smoke at all. They had a tendency to be quite nasty.
SPEAKER_04Uh mischievous to the point of cruelty. Capricious and yeah.
SPEAKER_08Don't make deals with the Fey. That that's what we gotta say. Don't eat their food. Well, the the whole actually, the eating their food trope uh goes back towards when children would disappear. Because the idea was that if a child got lost in the forest, they had to fend for themselves, as one does if you get lost, right? Right, yeah. Right. So, what happens if you eat something you're unfamiliar with? What is the potential that can happen there? It can kill you, right?
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_08That's where that comes from. That's where that truth comes from.
SPEAKER_06Oh, okay. Yeah, that's yeah. I that makes a lot of sense. I had never actually thought like in depth. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It was so it's always just been like an ingrained truth in my mind that it's like don't eat don't don't eat don't eat food that's offered to you by fairies. Because that's information that you need to keep in mind for your life.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean, you know, your daily life when you come across fairy food.
SPEAKER_08Well, the the also the idea behind it is that the fairies and the fae folk have such a rigorous social structure that manners become huge. So eating their food and not giving something in return explicitly is part of the problem.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah. Um, I uh I played a um an Elodrin um who was very like basically she was the party's like introduction into uh the um the culture of the Fey and it was very much like um she would like warn them all the time don't accept any gifts because they are implicit like they're not gifts, they're they're transactions, contracts almost.
SPEAKER_08It's it's a contractual thing. It makes sense though, that is so like on brand for the Faye. I love it. Alright, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Tell me more as far as the uh Fae Wild itself, that doesn't actually appear under that name until fourth edition. Uh but in the uh third edition you had what's pretty much the same thing. It was known as the Plane of Fairy. Okay. And this came about in the Manual of the Planes that was released in 2001. And it pretty much describes exactly what the Fey Wild is in general. Uh it's a land of soft lights, and it also mentions cruel desires, because they can be relatively cruel. Uh it is the home of powerful elf-like beings that care very little for mortals other than as little playthings or prey.
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, if you live forever, you gotta find some way to keep yourself entertained, right? Might as well uh use the mortals for that one.
SPEAKER_04How dare you have a life. Imagine dying.
unknownOh my god.
SPEAKER_08Jesus Damn peasants died already. Oh god, that would be horrible. Imagine. Uh it's not hard to imagine, actually, terms of that, but all right. But still, we're good.
SPEAKER_01Uh so like I said, it is like a coexistent plane, and it actually says that in this case it is an oddity in the cosmologies of like DD because it acts like an outer plane, but it's not an outer plane. It's just coexisted and connected to the material plane.
SPEAKER_04So it all just kind of like acts like an outer plane, but it's not yeah, it's um I mean when you think about it, it it really is in in like an in oddity as far as then did have a hard time just um uh like setting it apart, I guess, in the right words.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Well kind of the way I'm looking at it uh along with the Gaelic folklore again, um towards the end, and I'm I'm not even gonna bother pronouncing half of this because did know. Yeah, that's that's one of those. Yeah, sorry, sorry. Um Gaelic words are hard. They really are. Oh my god. Uh but in Gaelic folklore, what happens is that the the plane that you're referencing in the historical text and pass down lore, uh the reason it's a part is because the the fairy creatures and the Sidnor, I think is how it's pronounced, uh departed from the the mortal realm because they could not coexist with humans. So in order to let humans kind of do their own thing and not interfere constantly with their lives, they created their own plane of existence. So yeah. So I don't know if that that kind of works, but that's what I thought when you brought that up, where it's it's the same, but it's different.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and I it pretty much what that's pretty much what it is is D has a rapidly evolving um history and creation of the different realms and planes and stuff, so it will it varies from incredibly from edition to edition, though I'm pretty sure at least one edition does have an origin story similar to the actual the Gaelic folklore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Probably.
SPEAKER_04And then sometimes the origins are just shrouded in mystery. There's a couple of them where you look at it and you're like, what?
SPEAKER_03Excuse me. Slim copies? Excuse me? Did you think it's true?
SPEAKER_04No, they didn't. The answer to that question is no. Usually. Or they thought it through too hard.
SPEAKER_01There's also that possibility, yeah. Um, so because it is like coexisting, there is like pretty much any location on the Matero Plane matches with a duplicate on the plane of fairy. So if you like go through a portal on the material plane that is in like an old, ancient like ruins, you're likely to come into the plane of fairy uh in the middle of a thriving like elf town or something similar.
SPEAKER_08And that makes complete sense to me at least.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08So I mean the the veil is thinning. What are you gonna do? Well, walked into a fairy bar. Oops.
SPEAKER_06Oh no, I guess I have to have fairy alcohol. Oh no. That's like a double bad.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01One. Because of the fact that it is actually just connected with the material plane, traveling between the two doesn't require using the astral plane like any other. uh outer plane planer travel. Which really just kind of gives you the advantage of you don't have the possibility of dying while you're trying to go from one plane to the other. Right. Because if I recall correctly, in the astral plane if you end up getting the like cord that attaches you to the material plane severed, you're just dead. You're just yes stuck out.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. There's a that's all there's no going back to the mortal realm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. That that's only if you're like traveling separate from your body.
SPEAKER_08If your body is with you then you you're you still have your bot like your bodily advantages but I mean you're but then you're loading stuck being uh a pixie piloting a meat suit then. Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. It's a realm of eternal twilight and that's like in the literal sense because the sun in the Plana Fairy neither sets nor rises. It's constantly like stationary low in the sky.
SPEAKER_08Forever forever that's actually straight out of uh Arthurian legend.
SPEAKER_01Uh so when they talk about the lady of the lake and everything that is where that first comes into realization um that it sun neither sets nor rises it's always just a world of mist basically huh well that's very interesting I did not know that I did not know that either so hey you can uh it's the only useful thing I got I mean you also have six fairies piloting suit of armor so that's pretty useful to me I'm saying I mean useful yeah that's how I would put it in quotation marks useful enough so there are two like very distinct areas of the Planet Fairy you have the very like settled and relatively calm area that is the home of the Seely Court and then there's the land that is basically just like tangled sharp toothed brambles and syrupy fields that is home to the unsealy court. Yeah um some of the uh statistics to the planet affair itself is the gravity is not normal the gravity is light oh moon jumping so moon jumping uh it is infinite size or at the very least it's the size of the immaterial plane but uh more than likely it could just be infinite hypothetically yeah I think under the circumstances it probably would be infinite because a lot of the stuff in fairy folklore even here is just a matter of being able to think it into existence. Right. Yeah so it's almost definitely infinite sized it has the um feature that is alterable morphic. Uh yep I think it into existence I had never actually seen that term before until now but uh in D it basically means that an object can remain wherever it is and whatever it is unless it's affected by a physical force or magic. So yeah pretty much that would be fun it's like you have a rock and suddenly you want it to be an arrow and you can turn it into an arrow with magic.
SPEAKER_08But I'm also thinking like on a bigger scale because like you get your big evil bad guy who just completely and utterly fucks up the ground around you right so now you have all these floating rocks. You basically have a floating arena and so every rock every plant everything within the Fey wild can be a possible weapon or advantage for both sides.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yes imagine that as like your last battle that would just be chaos oh that'd be epic though well I wish I had my uh DM notebook next to me because that would definitely go down as a sorry not sorry to get the little file somehow for the BPEG sorry not sorry but I'm just saying like imagine like you could literally use everything to your advantage and so could the big bad guy you could it's so good though and then like it'd be a battle of willpower who who can imagine the best things exactly it is literally a battle of wits at that point it does not matter what your stats are this rock is now this rock is now a folding chair yeah yeah I will save you my horrible rendition of the music yeah we don't we don't want to yeah we don't want to get I'm not doing it I'm not doing it okay yeah that's it that's all we that's all we can do or else uh legally legally legally right so the plane of fairy is I guess as a whole just classified as mildly neutral so it's just mildly neutral aligned I don't know why that's so funny to me it's pretty hilarious though because I I feel like you like you could say like mildly lawful and you would be like yeah okay that sounds like a a real way to describe something but like mildly neutral is like but it kind of makes sense that's just but like that's suspicious.
SPEAKER_06Yeah no I I'm with you because like the it's I feel like you have axes that swing so violently in different directions that it ends up being like neutralizing itself but still like is it really neutral but it's mildly neutral.
SPEAKER_08As long as you don't get hit by anything it's neutral.
SPEAKER_01Exactly one of the other traits is enhanced magic. So naturally a place that is as magical as the Feywild the magic within it is going to end up being enhanced oh god uh all arcane spells that are cast are cast at their maximized empowered and extended like oh shit ranges I'm just imagining the barbarian who took like you know a single bit of bard magic and is just like power inside power kill oops power kill oh I know good old cross eyed barbarian accidentally like good old bardbarians bardbarians hey someone got it thank you I love Bardbarian you're kind of in trouble if you're a cleric though because divine magic is unaffected I say in trouble as far as like it's not empowered your divine magic is going to be the same level if you're going against something that's casting arcane spells while there's going to be like super maximized.
SPEAKER_06But the the on the flip side uh that like arcane spells being uh enhanced in those ways can also um lead to potentially uh unforeseen consequences oh well yeah I mean it's straight up in the name think wild magic exactly it's like you know wild magic so much like right like raising your entire party with a fireball because you forgot it was gonna be big you know for the time I almost killed the entire party with a necrotic attack that was not meant to be a necrotic attack or that um wait hold on story time um we were in the middle of a battle and I used um my um meta magic as a sorcerer to twin the spell um and I got double natural ones and um oh god okay my DM decided that um I should be punished for that uh with a wild magic surge and the wild magic surge was that everyone around me which was mostly my party because they were all going to defend me because I was at like one hit point. And you're squishy. And I'm squishy. Oh god basically uh because of what I rolled on my wild magic surge I did a ranged um necrotic attack centered on myself that took like five to ten hit points from everyone around me so I was completely full on health then but you were like everyone else is almost dying you were like no one don't don't worry guys I'm good and all of us are fucking unconscious oh it hurts so good I feel like this is a good time to also mention that there's nothing in the rule book that says you can't cast fireball in someone's mouth oh god that information do with that information what you will exactly now I did I did troll the rule book to try to figure this out you can't cast it in their stomach and you can't cast it in their lungs but you can cast it in their mouth as long as you can see it yes which is battle people people are yelling but can't like I just broke everything it's okay Travis is in our DM right now so we're not gonna torture him with it oh that's good but I feel like you need to stalk that away both of you need all of you need to stalk that away for like a rainy day for that DM that you just love I'm gonna like I'm gonna open like a like a like a date with that like hey did you know that in the game Dungeons and Dragons you can cast fireball in someone's mouth and then they leave oh god no but I mean it's along the same same lines because like you get you're in the Fey wild right wild magic that's what you were talking about Miss Necrotic Oopsies over here um you could do similarly the same thing in the Fey Wild right yeah yeah arcane kick it up to 11 oh yeah we would have all been dead oh yeah yeah yeah yeah very dead oh no yep uh and of course we have everyone's favorite trait of the Feywild or the plane of fairy which is flowing time we for every day spent on the plane of fairy a week passes on the material plane yeah that sounds about right yeah and unlike other planes with this trait uh time lost while on the plane of fairy always catches up to you once you leave oh oh that's kind of like um uh the astro plane with the uh with the Gith the Githianky yes that's horrifying yep any non-native who spends time on the plane of fairy and then like returns to whatever plane that they're on with like normal time will instantly catch up.
SPEAKER_01I don't like that. Obviously this could have some pretty bad consequences in the sense that if you're not careful you could just immediately age to the point of dying if you spent too long on the plane of fairy. Yeah you just come back and you just fucking explode into a pile of dust subsequently you could come back and immediately be starving because you haven't eaten in like three days Miss I won't eat anything for the fairies hey I mean listen I mean look it's smart but I'm just saying you could starve to death that way if you don't if you don't pack enough rations.
SPEAKER_08See now I'm I'm over here going hmm how could you use this to your advantage though? Because if you've got someone that you're trying to you know unalive here and they're also in the Fey wilds wouldn't it if you have the rations and they don't and you guys are going on in full battle for a while you're fighting in the Fey wilds you come back out you're fine because you're fed you've got water you're good to go right as long as you are thinking about these things as you're working with it and you're smart about it you could KO someone pretty quickly yeah um two days no water um well may have your enemy go two days no water and then drag him back out to the uh prime material plane and he'll die of thirst you know if if people didn't believe that you were a forever DM before I think they do make sense.
SPEAKER_01This is why I am the forever dm though because this is where I'm at when it comes to this sort of information like I hear something like that and I'm like how can I make this fucking horrible for my players uh so traveling to and from the plane of fairy is relatively easy basically there are just portals that exist throughout that you can uh use but the portals usually only appear at like certain times which this could be either like during a new moon uh during equinoxes once every 90 days it pretty much you can do it however you want as the DM second Tuesday of each week yeah just follow the will of the year but I mean that also kind of follows through with with the human power of fairy so it works. Yeah the plane of fairy also does not connect to the astral ethereal or the plane of shadow so if you have any spells that use those planes they just simply won't work at all. Oh interesting like the spell just won't work a grin on my face I'm sorry no you yeah I uh I recognize that I've I've I've seen it aimed at me before yeah uh so you know apart from the like typical races that live in the plane of fairy like the satyrs sprites Grigs fairies hags all that lovely fun fay like stuff there are the creatures that also come from uh more of the real world lore here called the she like selkies are considered she did you know that I did not I'm surprised that you didn't know that Lewin um you know honestly me too Lewin loves selkies I'm just full of random ass information I'm sorry no that's don't don't apologize now that's literally perfect so uh the she also come from like the same folklore except from what I read it kind of got a little mixed up uh as it does yeah in the older Irish texts uh she were meant to be like the hills and the uh tumuli that dot the Irish landscape where uh the like other fake creatures would actually kind of like live but in the English language texts uh the word she is used for both the mounds and the people of the mounds okay it's like uh it exists or it not exists it means uh two different things in the English text when it's really only supposed to mean like the one thing meaning that it's just supposed to be like the mounds and everything where they live or where they were buried.
SPEAKER_04Yeah it's like the locale as opposed to the people but it's also it kind of I think the that that historical aspect to it sometimes it kind of gets to a point where it's it's like it almost doesn't matter what the original use case was supposed to be because it's like over time it's come to it's come to mean this yeah like how there's all that debate from like Babylonian scholars about whether or not Tiamat is actually meant to be associated with anything draconian because it's like at this point she has been so it's like it doesn't really like it matters but it also kind of humans are fluid and we evolve and the meanings of things evolve with us. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah precisely who thought in the case of D D it was taken and used for a particular creature that occupies the Fey Wild. And they're basically a mix of like half elf and can either be half celestial which these would be the Seely or half fiend which would be the unsealy blue and has entered the chat Taylor feels some anger I don't love because the association between the Sealy and and good and the unsealy and evil not even in quotation marks like literally that's what it is.
SPEAKER_06Also I'm sorry I cut you off but I already knew where you were going thank you that that exactly phrased exactly what I wanted to say so thank you. Um I I've gone on numerous rants before about the fact that you you can't subscribe traditional good and evil values to the sealing and the unsealing and the unsealing they do actually touch on that in a later edition so well that's good because I mean all things considered the only thing you could probably subscribe to them would be lawful and that's it.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm Yeah except in this case uh for the third edition it mentions that members of the Seely court are often not always but often chaotic good where on the opposite end the unsealy are often chaotic evil yeah I mean at the very least like it does have that that very traditional because third edition was where they really started going hard with the the usually's and the oftons in front of of alignments where I think that a lot more flexibility started being offered for potential alignments. Right so you know there's there's that at least like it's not the un the sealy you're good and the unseal you are evil. You know there's at least a little wiggle room.
SPEAKER_01Right. So we are going to jump to our next uh source book here and this is coming from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for third edition uh there isn't a lot of detail on the Feywild and it's actually hardly any in this particular book um there was some text kind of floating around there that basically just says that the Fey Wild is a part of the outer plains in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.
SPEAKER_08So it sounds like that's when they started experimenting with the idea.
SPEAKER_06Yeah so they just kind of added it to the outer plains while it should be mentioned that the 3.5 is when Wizards of the Coast uh gained uh ownership of Dungeons and Dragons from TSR I think 3.5 is when I really started getting like super into D D as well. So that was the first edition that I ever played so I think that's a lot of introductions for people it was 3.5 but it was not my not my favorite believe it or not at the time when it came out it was pretty much the most accessible accessible one.
SPEAKER_08Yes I will agree with that.
SPEAKER_04Sorry now you're good um or I guess I should actually mention that it was a part of the outer planes prior to the spell plague but it exists out of the world tree like cosmology as a whole the spell plague yeah but even with its weird detachment yet not detachment it is still closely connected to the Primaterial plane yeah honestly it sounds like as far as the cosmology goes the Feywild is like a platypus like they just don't know what to do with it because it's like it has hair does it glow in black lights too but it also lays eggs it's a coconut yeah yeah exactly it's a coconut it has hair and it produces milk exactly the Feywild is a coconut so weird so happy you got that reference listen okay it's it's that when he's enjoying himself don't it highlights a very important issue with morphology based uh taxonomy so which we should of course you know extend to the planes and the theory of exactly yes um you guys are getting a little little too smart for me sorry yeah they they get too smart for me like 80% of the time so it's it's totally fine.
SPEAKER_01Does it hurt when the thinking happens? Yes it hurts so bad brain starts to shut down it hurts so bad uh uh so from the uh epic level handbook which I hadn't actually heard of this before either uh it was released in 2002 it had some information on another creature that lives in the Fey wild called the Lachey Gobon uh and of course I would love to talk about like all of the creatures at length but we just don't have time for that. I mean I mean you know and again pretty
SPEAKER_04Pretty much probably all of them individually could be their own episodes. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh might have to look into that later. But the Lache are a more like rare race that resemble elves. They are enigmatic, exceptionally powerful, and immortal.
SPEAKER_06Let me guess. Exceedingly gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01Oh, of course. Oh yeah. Um I I should hope so. They look like tall, thin albino elves, except for their ears are not like the standard oversized true elf ears. They are instead the ears that are more like half elves, so they're a bit shorter. Oh no.
SPEAKER_06I was picturing like the um World of Warcraft ears, I'm not gonna lie. Like a super elf. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Super exaggerated.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Not not quite. Uh they have glossy dead white hair, and their eyes are just pits of darkness.
SPEAKER_10Ooh.
SPEAKER_08And uh I decided to be a cool kid and pull up the information too because I wanted to follow along. I'm sorry. Oh, you're fine. Yeah. One of the things that I I don't know if you're getting to this or not, but I thought was very interesting. Some scholars believe that the Lache were one of the creator races. Ooh. Yes. Uh like big bold letters. I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. They they were believed to be one of the creator races, which fucking no wonder why they're immortal or mostly immortal. Uh so this actually goes back to what Ashley said earlier, where they are deeply concerned with etiquette. Uh yes. Uh decorum and receiving respect that they feel is due.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Or else. I feel like there's an or else in there. Uh yes.
SPEAKER_01It notes that failure to meet their standards of politeness or simply crossing one of their whims can often be fatal.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Yeah, there's the or else. Okay, got it.
SPEAKER_01There's your or else.
SPEAKER_04That feels like the perfect intersection of like the Fay um like capriciousness and also like the elfish like uppetiness. Terrifying though.
SPEAKER_08Just imagine having to deal with that. I'd rather not.
SPEAKER_04Humans are bad enough.
SPEAKER_08I mean, in real life or in Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Turns out humans are just as bad in Dungeons and Dragons.
SPEAKER_08Perfect!
SPEAKER_09Had it no other way.
SPEAKER_01Yay. Uh now, like I said, by immortal, it's pretty much like they're all but immortal. They can't die from aging or disease. They can only die if they are killed. Which, given that they're like exceptionally powerful, I'm going to assume is very difficult to do.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, but possible.
SPEAKER_08Possible. So I wonder if the uh time dilation applies to them as well. And that's part of the reason why they stay in the Fei Wilds.
SPEAKER_01Because uh it does not, actually. Ah uh the uh time dilation actually does not affect any creature that is from the Fei Wild or has Fei ancestry, they just get immunity to it. Sorry, you just made my DM brain go pa.
SPEAKER_06Would that mean then the elves and gnomes are immune?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh at least in like uh this edition for sure. I don't know about like these early editions because I didn't see anything that's specifically mentioned.
SPEAKER_06I'm pretty sure they're still there they still have fate ancestry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm pretty sure they do. So yeah, they would be more or less immune to it. So the Lache claim to predate the current multiverse, and when asked, they refer darkly to some catastrophe that not only wiped out most of their people, but changed time so that their era never actually existed.
SPEAKER_04I don't like that. I don't like the implications of that.
SPEAKER_08It alludes to a greater story that could they're probably going to like dip into later on. Because if you think about it, like massive destruction is kind of kind of on brand for Dungeons and Dragons.
SPEAKER_04Either that or like they're just completely taking the piss. Like they're just they're just really old, and time has been flowing in a linear fashion this entire time, and they're just like, hey, how funny would it be if we made all of these people think that this terrible thing happened?
SPEAKER_08Well, then they'd have the opportunity to basically like rewrite history themselves. Exactly. Because I mean, the dawn of humankind, they witnessed it happen, so why not why not just tell them something else happened? Or even like maybe a little more nefarious in in essence, is they probably had a hand in the way that humankind has come up or progress certain past certain points or anything like that. There you have this idea that's kind of floating around the background where maybe these are the things that are pulling the strings, or and I hate to bring another franchise into this. Are any of you familiar with Mass Effect? Okay, so you know, in three, when you go off planet and then you find Travis, take on your headphones. Oh, never mind. Okay, but you know what I'm talking about. Yes, yes, we never mind.
SPEAKER_04We're gonna have to tag this episode with Mass Effect 3 spoilers for all the people out there that are like Travis. Travis, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Hey Travis, here's a spoiler for Mass Effect 3 for nearly four years, and I have just barely gotten him through half of Mass Effect 2.
SPEAKER_04Hey Travis, here's the Mass Fact. Sorry for the Mass Effect 3 spoiler where you go into space. You go spoil it, you go into space.
SPEAKER_08I do too.
SPEAKER_04Although, yeah, I was gonna say all of our Mass Fight listeners, like y'all know what we're talking about. You know, it's getting that is the implication that I'll feel all of my all my Final Fantasy XIV people out there, like the Asians, you know, like yeah. Now I'm out of my depth, so I'm gonna I am too.
SPEAKER_09So I'll just be over here by myself.
SPEAKER_01Uh so with the Lache, this is actually one of the things that it mentions that their origins are lost to history, so they never actually expand at all of their actual origins. So I guess that's just uh DM can make it up if you're gonna do it. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_04Like that to me, it would be like DM, like it's free real estate. Uh-huh.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08And then we're very excited, DMs. I I think what's more interesting, and I I don't know if you plan on getting to this, is that uh their ability to basically charm anything by looking at it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I actually did not uh include that in the notes just because I was trying to uh just save a bit of time, but yes, they they can literally just charm things by looking at them like uh like a vampire glamour? Yeah. Yeah, basically. It's just like you can they can just look at you and you can just become charmed and ta-da. That's that's it.
SPEAKER_08So from like a DM's perspective, they're looking at your party as if you are just babies, right? So you're not really worth their time. So being on your best behavior and super like polite is gonna help your case if you ever encounter one of these. Yeah. Yeah. That's you're only saving grace. There's nothing you can literally do against these things.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and hoping that they find you entertaining or uh uh charming enough to keep your keep you alive, basically.
SPEAKER_01Basically, uh and also one of the other fantastical, interesting things is their weapons. So they don't carry weapons on them that you can see or anything, because they can just fucking materialize weapons out of nowhere that is like from their own essence.
SPEAKER_04Ooh, that's cool. Kind of like um like bound weapons and the Elder Scrolls.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It's just like if they get in a fight, they will suddenly just make this weapon out of nowhere, and that's it. That's just their weapon.
SPEAKER_04That's that's so dope.
SPEAKER_08Imagine what you'd have to do for them to actually make a weapon.
SPEAKER_06You you would have to be a pretty big threat, otherwise they would just laugh at you and flick you to death. Exactly.
SPEAKER_08Just a wave of the hand, you know. So it's seeing a weapon from one of these suckers is like, well, I fucked up. I did dumb record scratch freeze frame.
SPEAKER_04I bet you're wondering how you ended up in this situation.
SPEAKER_01Uh the Lache also have the ability to speak any language within seconds of hearing it spoken for the first time. Right down to like the most courtly or impressive accent.
SPEAKER_04God, I wish that were me. Like of of all of their like random, uh like of probably all of these things, like the immortal or the um being able to summon weapon like bound weapons, but like, god, I wish that were me. Just that would be so dope.
SPEAKER_01Ugh. Uh, so there was an online article that I found from 2002 that is just called Sealy and Unsealy Courts. So it had information more on the Sealy and Unsealy Courts, obviously. Right. Uh so for the Sealy Court, uh, members of the Seely Court view themselves as the pinnacle of perfection, still following that lovely same trend. Yeah. Uh status in the court is restricted to only pureblood Fey.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_08That's so on brand.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, that that totally makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I I believe it. Um, admittance to the Sealy court for outsiders is extremely rare. And if on the odd chance an outsider does gain admittance, they must be prepared with valuable and unusual gifts for the Queen of Light. Yep. Sounds about right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09I mean, sounds about white.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful.
SPEAKER_09Sorry. No, that was perfect.
SPEAKER_01If they don't provide suitable gifts, they could uh find themselves lost in an endless hedge maze.
SPEAKER_06Right, because your death can't just be, you know, done in a normal and have to be amusing for the royals royals.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so they're gonna put you in an endless hedge mage and just watch you run around like a chicken with its head cut off.
SPEAKER_04They can't just snap their fingers and you just go up in flames or they powerward kill you or whatever. It's like ugly also. I am specifically for whatever reason imagining the head maze hedge maze scene from The Shining.
SPEAKER_08Oh I don't know why you'd be that that dark, but uh what I've kind of you know yeah, and I also hedge court-esque Baroque, yeah.
SPEAKER_04I also doubt it would be a winter scene because the Seely is more like summer spring and summer kind of. So uh it is specifically the summer court, right?
SPEAKER_01It is the summer court, but let me shatter that just a little bit. Oh, lovely. This uh apparently the throne of the Sealy court is shaped like a large ice dragon.
SPEAKER_04Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_01Like it is the summer court, but their throne is uh large.
SPEAKER_06They do what they want.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_08That's more like a power move though. Yeah, like it's that's that's a fuck you to the dragons, that's all that is.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and maybe a little bit to the queen of errand darkness as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Oh, don't worry, she has her own special eyes. She has her own special fuck you.
SPEAKER_01She has her own special uh fuck you, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Nice.
SPEAKER_01Of course.
SPEAKER_04Why wouldn't they?
SPEAKER_01So the Queen of Light is currently Queen Tatiana, and then she has her king who is King Oberon.
SPEAKER_06Hey, so bit of a weird auditory hiccup here. Um basically what was trying to be said is that King Oberon is Tatiana's king, and he has a bit of a wandering eye. I'm not quite sure where this bit of the audio went, but that's all that was said.
SPEAKER_01Due to the occasional wanderings of King Oberon's.
SPEAKER_04I like how you say that. Sorry. Occasional. Occasional. So she's a little she's a little jealous, shall we say? Yeah. She's Hera. Yes. Yeah, that yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yes, she is Hera.
SPEAKER_08So does this mean uh Oberon has a thing for swans?
SPEAKER_01No, it doesn't mention that, but probably. Why not?
SPEAKER_04I he strikes me as more of a swan guy than um a cow. Yeah. Oh well, I guess no, I guess in that one with he was the cow with Europa. So whatever. But he turned her into a cow. There's just the there's there's he's not into the cow that is his wife, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_08There's so much wrong with Greek mythology, and none of us have the time or the spoons to get into why. Yes. Yeah. Precisely.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So instead, let's jump to the opposite end where we have the unsealy court. The unsealy court welcomes anyone and everything with even just the tiniest drop of ancestral fey blood.
SPEAKER_06I immediately like the unsealy court more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Uh 32nd Faye. I can say that.
SPEAKER_01God, yes. That is like the worst part, is like no, like okay.
SPEAKER_06We we we live in Oklahoma. Almost everyone here has some sort of oh, I'm like 182nd Native American. Like God. If you don't belong to a tribe, shut up. Right. So that that yours your joke just spoke to me. That was beautiful.
SPEAKER_08Sorry. No, yeah, I no, you're right. I I've I've lived on a reservation, so I I've heard it all. Like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_06No, that's all I'm missing, though. Thank you.
unknownIt's perfect.
SPEAKER_01And uh this is where the unsealy get a little kind of off. Uh the Fey of the Unsealy Court can and do often breed with anything. Uh creating odd mixed creatures that most species consider as grotesque monsters.
SPEAKER_04So you mean you mean getting off in a different way than I uh thought you would. Yes. Yes. Exactly. But Okay, wait, and this is a bad thing?
SPEAKER_01I mean I guess that's okay. It's up to you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. But the greatest thing is is the unsuited court welcomes these creatures regardless.
SPEAKER_04I mean, yeah, I'm good for them. At least they're not at least they're not hypocritical about it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_09This is my son Todric. This is my son Rose. Why is the Rose named Rose? Well, I found a plant that speaks. Excuse me?
SPEAKER_01I experimented. Um, the Unsealy Court is also more hospitable for non-fey. Uh court nobles can often provide patronage for creatures who are extremely strong, dexterous, clever, beautiful, or talented. And like Taylor mentioned earlier, you have the Queen of Air and Darkness, who is the ruler over the Unsealy Court. Uh, she is a Fey of unsurpassed beauty and grace, though I'm sure Tatiana would tell you otherwise.
SPEAKER_08It sounds like uh they might actually be sisters. And that's why they're rivals. And that's where I'm going with that in my head, Canon.
SPEAKER_06So uh, do you do you have more on that?
SPEAKER_01Or uh there was something mentioned a little bit later, but I honestly can't remember if I wrote that part down or not, and I don't remember what source it came from.
SPEAKER_06When I did a lot of research for my fairy character, she was a member of the her family was part of the court. So um she um basically there are several interpretations in which they're sisters. There are interpretations where they are um like two sides of the same coin, basically, whether or not they came from the same like personality or whatever, um, and it just got twisted. There are a lot of theories, and it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's just so much information for the Faye Wild that I had to just try to cut as much out and try to get some of the more like interesting bits as I could, but obviously I had to cut out interesting bits too, so it's all very sad.
SPEAKER_08You have to pick and choose your battles, it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Pretty much from what I can recall of that story though, basically was there were two sisters and a brother. Uh the younger sister wound up finding all of the creatures that had been like forsaken and cast out and became friends with them. Basically creating the unsealy side. And then her brother and sister went to try to like bring her back, and she lashed out and attacked them, and then that caused a permanent separation between their families. So she became basically the unsealy queen, and then the other daughter pretty much became the Sealy Queen. That's the bit that I can recall.
SPEAKER_09Are you saying that Tatiana and Oberin are brother and sister?
SPEAKER_01Uh so it didn't mention uh the brother's name, so I I'm not a hundred percent sure, but god, I hope not.
SPEAKER_09JJR Martin stuff is this.
SPEAKER_06Oh, I'm gonna interpret it as no. I that and that is my decision, and um I'm going with you on that one. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Same.
SPEAKER_06Um, I don't know what happened to their brother, but it's not over and rip.
SPEAKER_01Definitely not him. So the Queen of Air and Darkness actually has no current like consort and no surviving children.
SPEAKER_06That's so uh surviving was an interesting word word choice. It's yeah.
SPEAKER_01It said surviving children, so I don't know if she had children and they no longer live, or if they just worded that weirdly.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna I'm gonna say that the wording was intentional. Open to DM interpretation.
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, considering that uh the Unsealy courts uh are more favorable towards interbreeding with everything, it would seem that the children perhaps lived mortal lives. That would make sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that that would make sense. So, I mean, naturally, because she doesn't have an heir, all the nobles are trying to like win her favor so they can be named the royal heir.
SPEAKER_04Oh. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh outsiders not of Faye Blood are still like rarely admitted to the unsealy court. They're not like against having them as like visitors are like helping them, but they won't make them a part of the actual like court.
SPEAKER_08I mean that makes sense still.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Because no matter how welcoming you are, there is still that that differentiation needs to be had. Like, we are still better than you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Only by like 185th. Exactly. Uh, but they do still hold the same thing that the ceiling cord does, whereas visitors need to be prepared with uh some unusual and powerful gifts for the queen, and if not, instead of finding themselves in a hedge mage, they will instead find themselves as the quarry of a nightmarish hunt. The wild hunt. That's what that is.
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08Like you you have witcher reference to the wild hunt, but it's actually a legitimate thing. So the wild hunt is part of folklore where the fairy courts would go on this rampage through the countryside. Looking for prey, which was the usually mortal prey.
SPEAKER_01So and uh that's what they do. So if you uh happen to go there, I mean take or pick, do you want to risk hedge mage or just being hunted? Yeah, I'll take my chances with the hunt. It seems at least you have room to like run. I'm just gonna stay home, I think. And uh the throne of the Unsealy Court is shaped like a great shadow dragon. Nice. They both have a kind of like fuck you to the to the dragons for some reason or another.
SPEAKER_08Well, hearing that it sounds more or less that I don't think it's so much as a fuck you at this point as it is a reflection of the matriarchy's uh personality. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually that also.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, actually. That tracks. So that that's my two cents. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Uh so both of the thrones are commonly thought to be magical, but only the queens know of like their true nature. And as far as what their magical stuff can be, apparently the reason why you have two queens is because there have been a few males that have tried to take the throne, but none of them have been able to survive the rites of secession.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_01Which is just uh it's this whole like treacherous thing that you have to go through to become the queen or king if you can survive it. It's a lengthy rite of passage that not anyone hardly ever survives.
SPEAKER_06Because I imagine if they did, then they would be named the heir and there is none.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. Also, like what if the thrones are just like hybridating dragons? Like, they're just like, Yeah, I'll just chill here, whatever. That's what I was thinking though. Yeah, and then like I don't know, maybe like one day they like some some shit's going down and they like wake up and like the fairy queen's just like flying in on a dragon.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, I like that.
SPEAKER_04Image that's what the inside of my brain looks like.
SPEAKER_09I like the inside of your brain. Thank you. It's good.
SPEAKER_01So here's the thing though, is it never actually says like specifically what kind of magic the thrones have, except for this little bit about the final rite of secession has the aspiring queen, or in some instances I guess king, ascend upon the throne. And it is here that sometimes the uh candidates can just die, being rejected in some fashion by the throne. It doesn't specify any specific reasons or why, but the throne will reject them and they will die.
SPEAKER_08But that tracks with what your original idea was that they were legit dragons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So maybe they just get eaten.
SPEAKER_08Uh.
SPEAKER_01They just get swallowed up, so no one really knows why. So uh we have a little bit more about the Lachey from the Grand History of the Realms, the Moonshays. This was an article from Dragon Magazine 362 that was from 2007. At one point in negative 11,000 DR, Faye took a greater interest in the archipelago that was known as the Moonshe Isles. The Munshe Isles was created from the sundering. Uh basically, the sundering caused the seas to like violently churn and grow, massive earthquakes pushed a continental plate westward, and that plate wound up like rising up and forming the isle. And then over the next like several centuries, the seas would like kind of calm, the earthquake subsided, volcanoes became dormant again. And for whatever reason, all of this was thought to be the work of the Lachey or their gods. They're not sure, so we're kind of back to looking at the Lache as basically godlike beings.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_01If they were the ones to actually stop it.
SPEAKER_08Just the more we learn about the Lachey, the more terrifying they are. I'm just putting that out there.
SPEAKER_01Oh for sure. So uh then you have negative 10,500 DR, the Lache established the Kingdom of Seraphal and its capital Charador. And this part I just found it funny and figured everyone would enjoy. Negative 10,000 DR, the elder unicorn Cameron arrives on the moonshaise to defend the fields and the glens.
SPEAKER_08So I'm just gonna stop you right there. Unicorns have always been my favorite thing, ever. Nice, right? Like, but I'm talking DD, folklore, books, you name it. Unicorns are just they're badass. And everybody always thinks there's these cute soft things, but they're not.
SPEAKER_05I love them. No, they have giant horns on their heads, and then you're watching you think that they're just like, oh, they're just like chill, and they just want to be friends.
SPEAKER_04No, and then you watch, and then you watch Cabin in the Woods, where like the unicorn stabs that one tech that like works there, and it's like, fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_08I've always had this like headcanon that like unicorns are are matriarchal society, almost like how the Faye have been described, except they are a warring creature and they actively seek out to kill things, not because they they want to murder, like they're not I'm alien and versus predator sort of thing, uh, but because they have to prove themselves constantly.
SPEAKER_06Like it kind of like an Amazonian of creatures.
SPEAKER_08Uh yeah, basically. And they see them as being like, yes, they're these great defenders, but they're not actually defending anything. The only reason they've gotten this this title of being a defender and healer and everything along those lines is because they just right place at the right time, consistently.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Like, so anyway, I like it. I love it about unicorns, like, may or may not be working on a playable race, but that's that's besides.
SPEAKER_01Please look forward to it. That could be that could be fun. That's all you need to know. Anyway, carry on. Um starting in negative 2000 DR, a war between what was called the beast. Excuse me. It it's I mean, I guess that's his name. Its name is just the beast or beast.
SPEAKER_04With with set with seven heads and ten horns? Or you know what?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Let's go with that one. Okay. Satan's here now. Yes. Uh or between the beast and the lure. I'm probably pronouncing that probably wrong.
SPEAKER_04Okay, no, no, no, no, no. You just you just cover up the little uh bit on the second R, and they are at war with the Luin. They are at war with me.
SPEAKER_06Yes, Lewin.
SPEAKER_01Uh the Luin is to say race of elves. Yeah, you're right, though. Uh they were aligned with the Doors and the Children of the Earth Mother.
SPEAKER_04Huh. Okay. Yeah. So this is what happened when um Legolus and Gimli got together, and oh no.
SPEAKER_01So these are all of their people. Beast ends up summoning Fremorians, which are basically just an evil race of giant-sized Fey out of the Fey Wild to like fight for him. But eventually they end up getting like cornered into like this tiniest little bit of the moonshays, and then they just kind of end up being defeated.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I feel like we've we might have meant, I think we've mentioned the Femorians before. I'm really not sure. I feel like we have, yeah. Yeah, probably. We've done we've done so many episodes.
SPEAKER_06Not in the giant episode. Oh yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01The giant episode. Oh yeah. Well, yeah, because they're fucking giant.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're like the they're the um, they're the I don't know. They're the giant right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh for whatever reason in negative 500 dr, most of the fee, the Shea, and the Fremorians just kind of like inexplicably retreated back to the Fey Wild, completely abandoning the kingdom of Seraphol and their claim to the Moonshe Isles. Never explained why, they just inexplicably decided that it was time to go.
SPEAKER_04I mean, given that it's the Fey, it could be anything from like an action something actually happening or like an ever meet type thing, or they just just because of their their nature, they're just like, eh, let's go back to the Feywild. Why did we relieve the Fee Wild? Let's go back, you know?
SPEAKER_01They do not have to convert it in the kingdom. Yeah, I tire of this. That's all their reason has to be, and like who's gonna question them, really?
SPEAKER_04Nobody who who values their safety.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. We are going to move into fourth edition.
SPEAKER_06Uh um, we have a thing on this podcast where we um don't like fourth edition. Oh, good.
SPEAKER_01Fourth edition of so many things. However, in this they didn't really fuck anything up.
SPEAKER_04Oh, interesting.
SPEAKER_01That's new and different. Yeah, it's surprising. Uh, they did have a little bit of like a difference in how the Fey Wild was actually created, um, which is compared to the black yeah.
SPEAKER_06Sorry.
SPEAKER_01No, you're totally right. It's fourth edition, so I mean, whoever changes everything. Yeah. And then you changed it back. First of all, it is now officially known as the Fae Wild rather than the Plana Fairy. But it is still mentioned in Olden in Olden. Uh in Olden. Yeah Olden. In older Elven texts, that it is still called like Fairy sometimes. So the name still exists, it's just commonly called Fey Wild. The uh primordials formed the world from like the raw material of the elemental chaos. Right. As they were forming it, they found bits of it to be, quote, too vivid and bright, and like pulled them out and threw them away.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I I'm kind of with it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So all of these uh bits and pieces of the vivid and bright world that they threw away started to form and eventually form together to create the Feewild.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I'm kind of I'm kind of with it, actually. It's it's also like the phrasing is very um, it's very beautiful in its simplicity in a in a way. It is very simple.
SPEAKER_06Which also supports my uh thing about uh the Feywild being the neon edit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, as opposed to the pastel edit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And usually fourth edition's um simplification of things is a problem, but I think for this origin it works.
SPEAKER_01It works. And then uh they also found bits that were too dark and murky and threw those away, and that resulted in the creation of the Shadowfell.
SPEAKER_04Shadowfell, yep.
SPEAKER_01Nice Shadowfell. Yay. Um in fourth edition from the Forgotten Realms campaign guide, it mentions that the Shadowfell is what used to be known as the Plane of Shadow in previous editions. They just kind of took it and of course, like we do with everything, folded it up, tore it apart, and changed it.
SPEAKER_08Yep. Out of it, out of everything. The names that they kind of picked in fourth edition, I think, worked the best.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, I would I would agree.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the names are really good. Uh the dark goddess Shar apparently reshaped the scad into the Shadowfell.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Shar. So, like nice, okay.
SPEAKER_01So I guess technically the plane of shadow did exist in fourth edition, briefly enough for them to be like, yeah, uh, this goddess took it and then changed it. Yeah, ah, Shar. And then the Shadowfell reflects the prime material plane like the Feywild does, except instead of refract reflecting it in like the bright vivid light, it reflects the landscape in a decaying nightmare landscape of just like dull grey, black, and white colors.
SPEAKER_07And other F-words.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It's like um, you know, actually, specifically um with that description, I'm imagining it kind of looking like um like film noir.
SPEAKER_01Oh that would be super cool. Which is which is Yeah, that's actually the imagery I had in my head whenever I was like reading about it. It was just like this film noir style Feywild, basically.
SPEAKER_10I like it.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Oof. Uh so then we jump to Manual of the Planes, because as most fourth edition things, the information is very gattered about in different source books, instead of it all like being retained in one place. Right. Uh, we learn uh places that are apparently called worldfalls. Okay, worldfall occurs when the ebb and flow of planar energy allows like a huge uh tract of land from like one plane to just shift to the other.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_08So what I kind of understand, I've used a worldfall. That's something I've actually adopted. Think that the way we kind of described it was like had a strophic shifting though, so like almost like two plates colliding together. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's up to DM, I think, but yeah, uh basically it just says that these worldfalls are basically certain places in the Fey Wild will occasionally like overlap with the prime material plane and kind of like merge into one briefly enough and then it'll like shift back.
SPEAKER_08Things get taken, things get dropped off. It's supposed to be super chaotic, is the idea behind it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's also a easy way to get to the Fee Wild. Uh easy in the sense of you don't have to like open up a portal because there is a city of Shinelestra. Yes. Uh apparently it shifts into the prime every midnight and then shifts back to the Feywild before dawn. So you could go to where it shifts in and out, and when it shifts at midnight, go into the city, wait for it to shift back to the Fee Wild, and you can leave the city and be in the Feywild.
SPEAKER_08Could you imagine that city? Like, let's party because that's that's what that city was designed for. Yeah, that that's that's a party town. That is straight up that straight up is a party town, but also imagine being the people who had to construct that city.
unknownOh god.
SPEAKER_01No, bad.
SPEAKER_08Just have an entire campaign based around the people who had to build that city. Like just how fucking that experience is. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04That's like a constantly shifting, just like city building simulation on like the most like master level difficulty. Like this is like SimCity Savage.
SPEAKER_01Um, and of course, there are um like the lovely hags that exist in the Fey Wild. And in this, it specifically notes that in the bogs that hags like to hang around in, apparently have a sulfurous fog that can like choke you and cause you to suffocate. Oh, awesome. Yeah, it's great. So natural landmarks such as like rivers and mountains are mirrored in the Feewild, but if there's any like built landmarks like cities or monuments and something that's just completely not natural, there is no mirrored object in the Fee Wild to that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01It ends up being like nothing more than like a small clearing in the Feywild.
SPEAKER_06It's a departure from previous.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it I I I can I can kind of jive with it, the the notion that it's only natural things that are reflected in the Fee Wild as opposed to um like man-made things.
SPEAKER_08I can jive with that, but then you can kick it up a notch because anything that is man-made and man-changed on the mortal plane is not going to be changed in the Fee Wild.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, so there's you can theoretically put somebody in a giant rock if you wanted to. If you knew what you were doing.
SPEAKER_04You like get teleported to the Fee Wild and you just spawn inside of a rock and just no Oh my god, I I have heard a story similar to that.
SPEAKER_08Oh no. I want to know, but I I know we're we're moving through things, but yeah, love cut the arm off.
SPEAKER_04Oh no. I mean, at least it was the arm and not the head, for example.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fair. So this is actually kind of one of my favorite things that they added in fourth edition that I didn't see anywhere else. That is that apparently, depending on what direction you're traveling, the travel time could vary.
SPEAKER_08But that makes more sense to me in terms of the Faye Wild. That I think is one of those things that most people should keep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I actually like love that idea because it gave the example that traveling from the city of Adoni to the Council Warns takes three days less than the trip from the Council Warns to the Adoni. Okay. So you can go one way and it'll take like six days, and you go the other way and it takes nine days.
SPEAKER_06I love that because it literally just feels like the f the the the wilds are fucking with you.
SPEAKER_01Straight up just fucking with you completely. Uh they also introduce the Fey Demesnus, uh if I pronounce that correctly. Pronunciations are hard. Yeah. And uh these are typically in a location where there are two or more ley lines that meet together. Uh and a fee denesbus or d uh Yes, that word. Uh attunes itself to the most powerful denizen that dwells within its boundaries.
unknownUh-huh.
SPEAKER_01And this will like alter its environment to reflect the mood or disposition of that creature.
SPEAKER_08Terrifying.
SPEAKER_04Fucking ley lines.
SPEAKER_01Fucking ley lines. So if it's attuned to someone and they get really pissed off, the whole environment is going to like shift and be like more hostile and angry and murdery.
SPEAKER_08The trope in your your games where you adopt an NPC, but it actually turns out to be the BBEG. Have you have you done that before? Oh I have not even not on that scale, but yeah. Okay, that that's kind of where I went with that brain place. Like, imagine.
SPEAKER_04Okay, now now I have now I have to be suspicious of anything adoptable, whether it be like an animal or like a person or something that's going to come in contact with our party.
SPEAKER_08So have you like, is that not a thing you've experienced? You've never had a DM do that to you before?
SPEAKER_06Um, no, the worst he's done to me so far was a um abandoned little orphan child in the middle of the woods that I was going to help find uh her parents ended up being a zombie child that bit me. Good.
SPEAKER_04Well, but and the the thing about that was that it was like TLDR, it was like a super cursed, like spoopy um forest. And so everyone else, and including Taylor herself, not her character. My brain, but not my character, knew what was going to happen. But Taylor's character being the way she was and motivated by the thing she was motivated by, was like, I'm I'm going to help this child. But everyone else, including Taylor, was like, Oh, don't do it. So beautiful.
SPEAKER_06I hate how how I hate when I say I hate, I really mean I love, but I hate when DMs are so good, they're like, I'm going to put you in a position that I know that you know that you shouldn't be doing it, but your character won't know, and your character's gonna make you do it. Yep.
SPEAKER_03It's great. Oh boo to miss.
SPEAKER_08I'm just saying, be careful what you adopt. Especially if you're gonna go for adventures out in the fee wild. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Or uh adventures in the Fey Dark.
SPEAKER_09There you go.
SPEAKER_01Which uh this was the first time I saw the Fey Dark mentioned as well. And I mean it's basically just the Fey parallel to the Prime Materials Underdark.
SPEAKER_04Oh right. I think the I think uh the Femorians uh in fourth edition hang out in the Fey Dark. Yes.
SPEAKER_01That is where they live.
SPEAKER_04Right. I think that's that's the context that I remember them in.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Uh unlike the Underdark, however, the uh magical, like wild nature of the Fey Wild still exists in the Feydark. So instead of it being just like pitch black all the time, there are translucent glowing purple crystals that will light the Feydark. What is Aesthetic? And like the Underdark, you know, is usually just like bare stone, but the Fey Dark is lined with these bizarre fungi everywhere. Aesthetic. Aesthetic. And one more great aesthetic for you. There are forests of mushrooms as tall as humans that grow on the sides of cliffs in the Fae Dark.
SPEAKER_04Okay, it's literally like black reach, but purple instead of like blue.
SPEAKER_08See, I just went to Dark Souls where you just get brushed by angry mushrooms when you go up to the bottom. Oh god.
SPEAKER_04Okay, like that gif of the fucking mushroom guy just like walking up and stalking the player. Oh, yeah, it's true. And then like you died. Walk up whack. That except it's the Fey Dark. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean industrious humans could do that, but dang, it's good.
unknownIt's good. Carry on.
SPEAKER_01So there is a supplement called Players Options Heroes of the Fey Wild. Oh yes. Yes. An entire supplement about the Feywild. And while I wish I could just absolutely go over everything there, we just can't. There's just not enough time. So I had to pick just a few things that I found kind of interesting through it. But I will encourage anyone if you get the chance to check it out because it's just all Feywild stuff. That's all it is. Nice and all the time.
SPEAKER_08And I've I've never even heard of it. So this is new to me.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and the I I we've talked about a couple of the players option um things before. And I feel like they usually like on the whole have like pretty cool shit in them. Um, but that might also be by virtue of them actually expanding on something in fourth edition, which is novel. So but I feel like I I have enjoyed the players' option things like on a whole.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So this gives mention to uh apparently enchanted forests that wander across the landscape in the Fey Wild. So cool! Sorry. No, it is just roving herds of fucking trees that just roam across every once in a while, planting themselves and then getting up and moving later.
SPEAKER_04Nice. Whatever makes them happy, you go trees. I mean, fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, it mentions that those who travel to the Fey Wild and then return to the Prime rarely, if ever, readjust to their normal lives because of all of the like splendor and vivid colors and magic and everything of the Fey Wild, it just It it doesn't compare when you go back to the Prime, so some people just never readjust to it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean I like it's like when you're when you're G-posing and you turn on G shade and you turn on like chroma key and you're like wow, and then you like close G-shade and just have the regular game colors back on, and it's like oh oh it's so boring, right? Like who turned the contrast down?
SPEAKER_06You're dead.
SPEAKER_04Oh put it back.
SPEAKER_01Uh it mentioned that in some areas time virtually stands still, which I only mentioned because that part doesn't make sense to me considering that the Feywild already is kind of virtually like timeless. It's not fully timeless, just it's virtually timeless. So I figured that was just kind of like a redundancy.
SPEAKER_06In my head, just adds to the whole like it it's all chaotic and just varies wildly from like spot to spot.
SPEAKER_08That's exactly where I would have gone with that too. So I agree.
SPEAKER_01And you know, of course, like we've mentioned before, it is not all like happy and magical. Because you do still have like the hags, trolls, the Fremorian kings, ogres, uh all the things that just want to eat you uh live there too.
SPEAKER_08Delicious, delicious murder hobos, got it. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01Um it so this part it mentioned that there were like certain ways that Archfey could be killed. Like some of them can't be killed just by normal weapons and magic. Uh that there are like special ways they have to be killed. Um apparently this one is known as the Prince of Frost, and his heart is literally frozen because his true love betrayed him. So like the best way to kill him is to like thaw his heart back out, but the only way to do that is to reunite him with his true love that betrayed him.
SPEAKER_08Like the easy way to get around that would be like, well, if she was your true love, do you think she would have betrayed you? Right?
SPEAKER_01You would no, but no, this guy uh he just doesn't get it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you uh you just you uh you give him you give him an aneurysm from like trying to process nuance. That's how you kill him.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh. Um it mentions uh fey packs in this, and it says that fee that make packs and bargains become magically bound to their promises. So breaking an oath or granting a favor places the fey under the power of another creature, which a Fay does not want to be under the power of another creature.
SPEAKER_08Rumpel Stiltskin.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, he is the first person I thought of whenever I heard that. Oh just fucking Rumpel Stiltskin. He is a Faye creature. Yes. So now we shift into the fifth edition.
SPEAKER_06Yay! Yay!
SPEAKER_01Love fifth edition.
SPEAKER_06Fifth edition is my favorite, I will admit to that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, same. Uh so from the Dungeon Master's guide, uh, it this is where it finally mentions that the Sealy and Unsealy do not directly correlate with good and evil. Yeah, they finally made that distinction.
SPEAKER_04Yes, morality is gray for them.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_04Honestly, morality is rainbow for them, I think.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Does it have a hole? Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yep. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Fairies 101. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Uh, because it mentions that, you know, while the two courts have warred with each other at times, they also compete in what it says more or less friendly contests, and have even allied with one another in like small and secret ways before. A little bit of murder.
SPEAKER_08Well, a little bit of murder, but it really does sound like the Baroque French court. Yeah. A little bit incredibly French. No, no, no, that was the extent of my brain. It it fizzled and went out just now. You're good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Some sometimes it'd be that way. But like, I'm imagining that kind of like a lot of like that really, like you said, like catty, like court drama and you know, um, like gossiping and backbiting, and you can't necessarily prove that this person poisoned this other person, but like you're pretty sure and then so and so specifically got this one piece of jewelry because I just got a new piece of jewelry.
SPEAKER_08How dare them? I'm gonna pay this guy off to break something, etc. It really is just what it is. You insult someone specifically by not saying hello to them, etc. etc. Yep.
SPEAKER_06Then as far as the distinctions between Uncely and Seely, I feel like they're better described as like unsealy are like the otherworldly, um, kind of unnerving type of beauty, and then the Sealy are like the ethereal type of beauty. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I like that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good, actually. Thank you. Good job. So they changed the time warp effect uh little bit in fifth edition to where it's not just like one option anymore. There's a table that you can roll from or just choose if you want, when players spend more than one day in the Fey Wild, and your options basically become days become minutes, hours, or there's no change, or they can become weeks, months, or years, depending on what you choose or what you roll.
SPEAKER_04I I like that, yeah. Adds to the randomness.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it adds to the randomness, the ca the chaoticness of the Fey Wild and its weird, loopy time things.
SPEAKER_04Don't make a Doctor Who joke, don't make a Doctor Who joke. Don't do it, timey wimmy!
SPEAKER_07Sorry.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Good. If if somebody didn't do it, I was gonna do it. Blee wobbly. Yeah, it's good. Don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01I knew someone was going to.
SPEAKER_04It like it was it was like required. Yes, it was gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01And of course, they added the memory loss to the Fey Wild. Oh. And this is that upon leaving the Fey Wild, a creature must make a wisdom saving throw. The DC is just 10. Uh any Fey creature automatically succeeds on the saving throw, as well as any creature that has the Fey ancestry trait. And failing the save causes a creature to remember absolutely nothing from the time they spent in the Fey Wild. And it even says that like succeeding on it, you remember, but it's very fuzzy.
SPEAKER_06Imagine like you go to the Fey Wild and you like fall in love with someone and get married and like have like a baby or something. That's a common trope in fairy tales. Like, yeah, oh you come back and you have no memory of this life, and like what if your like family tr your fee family tries to find you and you don't remember them?
SPEAKER_01Um, it does, however, give uh the specification that any spell that can end a curse can restore lost memories from the Fey Wild.
SPEAKER_08Hmm. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01So if that did happen to be the case and someone like basically just used something to remove a curse, you would remember. Well, I mean you knew that that's what was going on.
SPEAKER_04Right. Hmm. That the because that would that would imply that the the Fay Wilds are cursing you. Well, yeah, and that the specifically the the memory loss itself was somehow a curse or akin to a curse in some way, which is interesting. Yeah. Implications.
SPEAKER_01So uh something that was kind of interesting from the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide is that a warlock can make a pact with an Archfey as their patron. Uh this includes um Tatiana, the summer queen, um Oberon, the Green Lord. And I love in this, it specifies that it is um Tatiana's lover and quote, frequently her foe.
SPEAKER_06Incredibly fairy, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Also, um do you mean uh Tatanya? Tatanya, yeah. That's what I mean. Okay, because you would you would words are hard, okay.
SPEAKER_06I didn't I it auto-correct it auto-corrected at the beginning to say Tatiana.
SPEAKER_04Okay, because I was like earlier, I was thinking like I I don't I don't want to tell you your business, Travis, but I was like No, that's autocorrect being dumb. Oh no. The term is don't tell me what I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like um looks at smudge striding on hand. Yeah, I I love the uh the fairy monarchs, um Tatiana and uh Ober and Martel. This says Titiana on it.
SPEAKER_10Tihana Tidiana Tidiana.
unknownI like it.
SPEAKER_01So uh from Volo's Guide to Monsters, there are three very interesting creatures that can exist in the Fee Wild that are created in very different ways. Okay so the first one we have uh the red caps, which are you know just the little mushroom creatures.
SPEAKER_04Oh, those guys.
SPEAKER_01Yep. So in the Feewild, or where the plane touches the world like at a Fey Crossing, if a sentient creature acts on an intense desire for bloodshed, one or more red caps might appear where the blood of a slain person soaks the ground.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, you know what's really interesting is that there is a uh folklore down in deep South Texas that has to do with a similar idea, but with cactus. Yeah. So cactus only grow where blood has been shed.
SPEAKER_10Wow. That's so cool. So I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01No, thank you. Uh then you have Boggles, which is just a great name. It is a fantastic name. Uh, these are creatures that are born out of feelings of loneliness. They materialize in a place where the uh Fairy Wild touches the world in proximity to an intelligent being that feels isolated or abandoned.
SPEAKER_09Me, you're telling me that they literally blink a friend into existence.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it actually mentioned that as an example, a child that got lost in the woods could spawn a boggle and think that it's just an imaginary friend, but it's actually an actual creature that will live in the failure. Yep.
SPEAKER_09It's a shame they're ugly as hell.
SPEAKER_01They are so adorable. You know, with the name boggle though.
SPEAKER_09Even ugly people need friends, okay? This is like above and beyond.
SPEAKER_08Like it's it's edging into so ugly, it's adorable.
SPEAKER_01I was just like they're yeah, they're so ugly, but they're kind of cute. They have like those huge, like fat heads. They just look kind of derpy.
SPEAKER_04I mean, like they can hang.
SPEAKER_06I love them.
SPEAKER_04Oh god, you know what they you know what the they um remind me of? They look kind of like um precious. Okay, no, for whatever reason, my brain is giving me a cross between an ogre and a zoombini. Oh no. You guys remember the zoominis?
SPEAKER_08Yes, oh god, yeah. Oh, the boggles just get worse. They eat on organic waste, insects, plants, lichens, and the carcasses of animals that others have killed.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I I feel like what buddy, buddy.
SPEAKER_09Oh no, they push it. Oh no. I saw that real time.
SPEAKER_04Sorry. Grey Stone is like, hey, I'm gonna drop some I'm gonna drop some cool Fee Wild lore on you guys.
SPEAKER_01It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_04And it's just the the the number three over and over again.
SPEAKER_01Just constantly. So uh we have the meanlock, which uh spawn whenever fear overwhelms a creature in the Feywild, or in really any other location where the Feeywild's influence is like that strong.
SPEAKER_06So Fey Crossing, etc.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. Uh that's pretty much it for the Meanlock. Like, they just spawn out of fear. What about a Nuzlocke?
SPEAKER_04We don't talk about that. Those also spawn out of fear. Those are spawn out of fear.
SPEAKER_06They spell spawn out of self-hatred. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, right. So in Mordon Kindness Tom of Foes, we finally get to the Elodron. And it says that these are the closest in form and ability to the first generation of elves. They're very slender with hair and skin colored being determined by the season that they feel like the closest affinity to, or also their mood.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I don't know if I keep gating out, I'm sorry. No, you're fine. It gates out every so often. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06But really high pitched.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it happens.
SPEAKER_08It's excitement.
SPEAKER_06I understand. Yeah, I have yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08It's it's screaming a lot, you know. Oh, you need a microphone that doesn't make everyone go deaf. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I I love the eldrin.
SPEAKER_01The eldrin are pretty great. Their system of justice uh differs drum like can differ drastically. It can be like capriciously harsh or whimsically mild, and is all straight up depending on the mood of the eldrin that's passing the judgment. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Like there's no something, something US justice system.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Damn, this tea is scalding.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01So uh the magic that flows through an elegant responds to their emotional state, and this is what causes them to like transform into different seasonal aspects. Uh like you have autumn, which is uh when they become uh overcome by feelings of like goodwill. Spring, it's feelings of joy. Summer is anger, and winter is sorrow. And the best thing I love about the winter part is in mentions that their sadness emanates from them as bitter cold. Oh, that's fun. So like they're so sad that they're just emanating cold.
SPEAKER_08Okay, as somebody who deeply feels any kind of shift in the weather, I would be so screwed. Yeah. Like I need a heating rock to live. You don't understand.
SPEAKER_04Confirm, Slash is a lizard.
SPEAKER_08It's true, snake, but it's fine. Okay. There you go. Reptile some sort.
SPEAKER_06Uh I understand because I am a lizard person.
SPEAKER_08But like, imagine having to hang out with someone who's so sad that you're just sitting there like in your your mittens and your puffy jacket going.
SPEAKER_10I will help you feel better. Have you tried have you tried yoga? Yoga fixes everything. Or like meditation.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god.
SPEAKER_08It's just an entire campaign trying to cheer up one really, really sad Eldrin.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It's just like a road trip to try to find to just try to find something that gives them some dopamine.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_09Eldrin Millennials 2021.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. So um the we're gonna jump to the last little bit here from the uh Into the Fey Wild adventure that got released. Uh, it's an adventure, so obviously I'm not gonna like spoil anything as far as the storyline, but I did want to point out uh one of the backgrounds that they released with it, which is called Fey Lost, which is basically you can choose this background, and you grew up in the Fey Wild after disappearing from your home plane as a child.
SPEAKER_08Oh, like a oh oh so that implies that there's a changeling version of you. Oh, that's so cool. Holy shit. So that implies that you could literally have to fight yourself at some point. Oh my god. Sorry, hate to ruin that for you. Good luck. I know, I love it. Good luck.
SPEAKER_01And then uh they added two uh races that you can play because this whole Adventure takes place in the Fey Wild. So they finally added a character class of a fairy.
SPEAKER_08Nice.
SPEAKER_01You can just straight up play a fairy.
SPEAKER_08I no longer have to be homebrew. This is amazing. Yes, you can just have the fairy.
SPEAKER_01And it gives you a lovely list of uh characteristics you can get. Uh like your wings are like those of a bird, you have shimmering multicolored skin. Your legs are insectile, you smell like fresh brownies.
SPEAKER_07Oh hell yeah!
SPEAKER_01Nice I love it. Oh my and then you have the uh Heron Gon, which is a race of fucking rabbits.
SPEAKER_08So are you saying that we could like have a reenactment of Dungeons and Dragons, but with watership down?
SPEAKER_10Yes, yes. Oh no!
SPEAKER_08Oh yes. Let the fields commence.
SPEAKER_01Male Vera confirmed. The Herengon are literally rabbit hulk.
SPEAKER_07Like I like rabbits.
SPEAKER_04The ultimate bunny girls into we okay, I need to I need to I need to go and the pictures are pretty good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm already looking at it. The pictures are pretty good.
SPEAKER_04Um holy shit. They look oh my god, that's so cute. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_01It's great.
SPEAKER_04I love that they added it, like I don't even know why I I didn't know I wanted it, but right, like I didn't know that I needed this, but like give it to me.
SPEAKER_06But no, I mean the fact that they did not lean out of like making their faces so an animal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like they just stuck with rabbits, except they're standing on two feet basically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Nice.
SPEAKER_01So then they're so cute.
SPEAKER_08So realistically, you could have like the rabbit, but you could have a hair version of it as well. Yeah, so you could really like lean into it and have an entire like basis of like you got rabbits and hairs, and this one's got spotty dotties, this one likes to run. That's super cool. Sorry.
SPEAKER_06Like this one has total uh this one has flop ears. I I love every time they introduce new races into D D.
SPEAKER_09Yeah, about it.
SPEAKER_06You can just do whatever you feel like.
SPEAKER_09You can be you can be bonui. I'm just imagining like floppy-eared clerics.
SPEAKER_10Yes, right.
SPEAKER_01Uh and one of the cool things about the um Serengon is their head their hair trigger um ability, which allows you to add your proficiency bonus to your initiative roles. Oh so okay. It basically acts on the fact that rabbits' instincts are much faster, so you have a higher initiative role.
SPEAKER_08I would love to know kind of like their entire background because you know, there's actually a big difference between hares and rabbits. Yeah, here's my redneck coming out, don't mind me. Rabbits being like terrified of everything, but hares will fight a bitch. Yeah. So I would love to see how that would play into it, like just from a character creation aspect, like if you're going to lean into it, because I mean, for God's sakes, you are a walking rabbit at this point.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. I I feel like that could lead to a lot of really fun um like variations for characters, like how you kind of have like you have sun elves, you have moon elves, um, uh you have drow and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_08So you could have like the rabbit kind of um herringons, subtype, and then you could have like the hair herringons for lack of a better one leans more towards actual physical confrontation confrontation, the other is probably say more book smart. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, the more diplomatic of the two.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, also okay.
SPEAKER_04Stay with me here. A herring gone, uh, a herringon paladin that's just Judy Hops.
SPEAKER_10No!
SPEAKER_04I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04That you know, I should have I should have waited and made that my joke paladin character.
SPEAKER_08No, no, no, no, no. That's all I have to say about that.
SPEAKER_03But okay, wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_08So do you guys the Judy Hops on an owl beast, riding an owl beast into battle? Yes, yes, now now make it terrifying. You're gonna you're gonna do this, you're gonna lean straight into the Disney thing. Yeah, you bring that owl beast into battle with you. So it'd have to be like a paladin with animal familiar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, nice. It it works.
SPEAKER_06I'm down the and then if you're going to make uh Nick, it it has to be a Kitsune that is not afraid of murder if we're gonna lean into it.
SPEAKER_09There you go. Yeah, or you could just straight up get yourself a cat folk, call it good, and run with it.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be a fox.
SPEAKER_06We could we know like bring back because they're not used that often.
SPEAKER_04No, or bring back the fucking henge, come on.
SPEAKER_08Hmm. Bring them. What if you just make an entire cast of characters based off of the Disney thing?
SPEAKER_04Don't tell anybody what you're doing, and then they realize part way through they're like, wait a minute, this is the plot of the Disney Pixar film Zootopia. Exactly.
SPEAKER_06That seems like exactly the kind of thing that Lou and would do.
SPEAKER_04And then all of your friends stop being friends with you.
SPEAKER_01Why did you have them in the first place? I couldn't do that because I haven't seen Zootopia.
SPEAKER_06He he's honestly he is so far behind on media. I just got him to watch Lilo and Stitch.
SPEAKER_08Okay, under a rock. And I've seen Zootopia. Oh my god. So he has no excuse.
SPEAKER_06I don't, I don't have any excuse.
SPEAKER_04I think we on Prime.
SPEAKER_06Okay, and we have Disney Plus, so okay.
SPEAKER_04So after this, we're all gonna watch Zootopia together. Jesus. This is our this is our thing, right? This is our thing that we have to make Travis watch this episode because I feel like we have at least one.
SPEAKER_06And then we're like, okay, well, we have to go watch that now.
SPEAKER_08You've seen like Alien versus Predator. Yes. Okay, you've seen the Alien movies, you've seen the Predator movies. Did you get the Water Chip Down reference? I did get the Watership Down. Okay, just how to make sure.
SPEAKER_01Like I just uh recently watched Lelo and Stitch for the first time.
SPEAKER_08This is your badness level.
SPEAKER_01Yep, this is my badness level. It's bad.
SPEAKER_04It's up there, it's not usually high for someone your size. Yes. My god.
SPEAKER_08So we got pixies and bunnies, we got fairies, and I have to say, out of all of the things that we've discussed today, uh, the fact that Taylor's obsession with the Unseally Court is just probably my new favorite thing.
SPEAKER_06I love them so much, and I can't even explain why.
SPEAKER_04I've never even played a member of the Unseally Court. Well, I mean, I can explain why, and that's because they have um a little bit more of a nerving, darker aesthetic, and they're also like criminally misunderstood by most people. That's why you like them so much.
SPEAKER_06I didn't mean need to be called out like that, but yeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, got called out anyway.
SPEAKER_08It's gonna happen, just lean into it at this point, right?
SPEAKER_06Like um, my new favorite thing is that you can uh make that character with like actual like DD statistics like and stuff now, and you don't have to homebrew it all yourself.
SPEAKER_08So I actually did pull it up. Uh good. So it's it's cat, uh tro and fee was the combat combatants that I had. And so I actually had a couple of um pictures pulled up, so I had to change things. Let me see if I can pull this up for you and like I'll I'll pull different um share.
SPEAKER_07Come on, Ashley, use your brain, please. Thank you. Uh where can I post this so you can see it?
SPEAKER_08Here, I'm gonna you're now the sharer of things. Yeah, congratulations.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I like being the sharer of things.
SPEAKER_06So maybe there.
SPEAKER_08So the kind of the idea behind it was I took these three pictures to kind of combine them together. Not that I don't have the ability to like uh draw it or whatever, right? That's not a problem. But I took this idea where it just kind of took these three armor types and just shoved them together in my own brain. And that was the idea of behind it. Originally it was supposed to be an artificer, and then I was like, wait, no, that sounds like that that could be boring. What about a warforged? Now, wait, warforged that's pretending to be a warlock. This was the process that I went through to get this character, by the way. So it was kind of a jump from these different ideas that I went, well, I want to do a warforged character that's insane to wait a second, what if it was warforged, but not, because pixies traditionally can't get out of uh iron. So why don't we put it inside of a suit of armor? So these pixies got trapped in the suit of armor, but pixies are hive mind, so that's the reason they're constantly f battling it out because one of them wants to be in charge. So that's amazing.
SPEAKER_04So this is that's so that is so genius.
SPEAKER_08So that's where all of this came from. So it was this kind of conglomerate. So it was whoever was in charge has their own character sheet, so it's a constant fight over who is in charge because again, they are hive mind, and then you have to work into that. So I'd like to try to play off those tropes, and thus the armor became a thing because they can't get out of the armor, so they have to pilot it to get what they want. And what they eventually want is freedom, obviously, but it's magical armor, and the only way to get that to work is if they are freed. And no one's gonna do that in their right mind because you free a pixie, what happens? They go fucking ballistic and they eat and kill whatever's in front of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they they just go rampage. Exactly. That's a rapage mode.
SPEAKER_08You perpetually have this set of pixies stuck in this armor that are never going to escape, so they are stuck in whatever adventure that they are being pulled along with.
SPEAKER_06So that's just really beautiful, and you pull together so many like tropes and like um folklore um tidbits, it's just really it was such really beautiful.
SPEAKER_08But I would never not do it again.
SPEAKER_04Well, your your your pain and suffering is all of our collective gain because that's just such a fucking genius idea for a character.
SPEAKER_08Like, I will say that if you guys ever try to pull something similar off, uh you can, but make it so that your personality changes are done daily instead of by every single interaction.
SPEAKER_01God, yeah. Note it. Yeah, that would be a lot easier.
SPEAKER_06Roll roll for who's in charge that day.
SPEAKER_08Oh, yes, exactly. And then you have less to be concerned about, especially if someone talks to you mid-combat. Because if you are in combat and someone talks to you as a character, there's a like a chance that you're gonna end up with a non-combatant. Yeah, and what happens then? What do you do then?
SPEAKER_06You're fucked. You're you hope that your non-combatant knows how to flee.
SPEAKER_08Exactly. So that was a big ol' pain in the ass. And I hope that with this kind of like opening up to having all the fairies and stuff, that people can take a lot of their homebrew ideas and put it into like more legit campaigns. Not that homebrew is not legit, but you know, yeah, right, yeah. Yeah, canon, thank you.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. And maybe the people who have been afraid of homebrew are more likely to find new and exciting ways to throw the canon. Use use what's canon.
SPEAKER_08Why would people be afraid of homebrew? That actually is scary.
SPEAKER_06What's scary?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I cannot I don't know.
SPEAKER_06I've run into it a few times where people tell me that they're afraid of it, and they I've never really gotten a good reason because like almost every like I've never done a campaign that was 100% like from the book. I've always had at least.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I thought I was thinking of it more um from the perspective of like uh like people are afraid to um try to homebrew things themselves as opposed to like interacting with the content itself. Because um I can I can definitely see like some people like particularly if they're trying to uh particularly if they're trying to DM, but even if they're just trying to like um maybe homebrew some aspects of like um their backstory or whatever. Like I can I I feel like D D in and of itself is so like big and there's so there's like so many rules and uh different source books and things that it's intimidating enough by itself. And then it's like okay, but then some people also take that and change some things about it and do things differently, and it's just like so. I mean, I interpreted that more as people being like afraid or yeah, afraid of like having to make decisions and also homebrew their own content, or those people are just like rigid, boring rules lawyers who hate fun. That could also be it.
SPEAKER_08Both of those things, because I've always interpreted homebrew as being considerably easier for a new player to jump into, and that's always how I have kind of done things. Like I'm not gonna throw you into a hardcore campaign right off the bat, we're gonna do some homebrew content first so you get used to this idea of acting as your character, making decisions separate from yourself and figuring out what to do, the math behind it, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes, we're taking the rule set from Dungeons and Dragons, but we're we're going to condense it into a way that is not terrifying. So I hope people start taking their ideas because it the more Dungeons and Dragons expands this way, the more we can take that homebrew content and put it into canon. And that's what I want to see because there's so many ideas. So many. Yeah, yes, same.
SPEAKER_06That's a beautiful statement that I agree with 100%.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Thank you for coming. Imagine.
SPEAKER_04Imagination. Thank you for coming to Ashley's TED Talk.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Yeah, sorry. I got my soapbox.
SPEAKER_06No, it's honestly probably a perfect way to end up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually, I was gonna say with that, I actually feel like that is the perfect way to end the episode. So we can go through our little uh spiel for the ending, which isn't gonna be the normal thing, actually.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and uh you can um plug your uh your stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. Uh we definitely want you to plug your stuff.
SPEAKER_06Why? If you want Pete to, I mean, you don't you don't have to. I'm a shitty streamer. I mean I don't I don't think that you are a shitty streamer. I I I enjoy your stream content.
SPEAKER_08It's it's kind of the thing that I play into. Like, I'm the world's worst streamer. Like that's that's my joke for me. Oh, gotcha. Okay. You know, a lot of people they they tend to be super critical of themselves in one way or another, which actually goes back to the homebrew content where you're making mistakes, right? I don't know anything about that. No, not at all. My mistakes are on the air for everyone to see all the time. So I have to be ready to make a fool of myself at all times. That's fair enough.
SPEAKER_01That's fair. But yes, if you want to, you can pull your stuff. If not, you don't have to, but I'm not worried about it.
SPEAKER_08I mean, hi, I'm Sideshow Ashley. That's that's the name I go with everywhere. If you want to watch me make a fool of myself, please be my guest. Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, watch me do stupid stuff at light speed.
SPEAKER_06Your TikToks are.
SPEAKER_01And that is the perfect plug, honestly. Couldn't go any better than that.
SPEAKER_06Oh, thank you all so much for listening. Um we are on Instagram, twit Twitter, uh, Discord, all at Dungeonpedia. Continue to spread the word to your friends and uh just help us reach more members of the DD community that are into lore or just want to hear potential homebrew ideas. Yeah, your friends who like fairies. Your friends who like uh the Feywild or unicorns, your friends who are six pixies in a suit of armor.
SPEAKER_08If you have homebrew ideas or have drawn your Dungeons and Dragons character, I want you guys to actually tag me on Instagram and tag Dungeonpedia because I want to see this. And I'm sure they do too.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, absolutely. Tag us, show us. Also, uh, if you have anything that you would like to suggest as a topic for us to cover, you can always email us at dungeonpedia.podcast at gmail.com. Uh, I mean, you can send the pictures there as well, but we prefer you tag us so we can all see them at the same time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And you can also um I mean you can also suggest things on any of our social media, Twitter, Instagram, or on the episode suggestions uh channel in our Discord. But we do have an email address.
SPEAKER_01And uh because we are real professionals.
SPEAKER_08Professional streamers, that's my tagline. Professional podcasters.
SPEAKER_01Not not quite.
SPEAKER_06Absolutely it doesn't sound as nice, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's also so not true. But it is alliterative, so that's cool.
SPEAKER_01Ashley, thank you so much for agreeing to come on and listen to our random ramblings and join in on the chaotic nonsense of our podcast. It has been fantastic having you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Me, this is fun. I gotta talk to adults and do nerdy things.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you ever want to be a part of the show again, just let us know. We have zero issues with having you back on.
SPEAKER_08Just yell at me. Absolutely. You're gonna have to do it much the same way you did the first time. Like, hey, excuse me. Hey, we would like to begin. Can I have your attention?
SPEAKER_01I will keep that in mind. So now I can just send you a message on Discord as well, so I can spam you on two different platforms now.
SPEAKER_09Yay!
SPEAKER_01But uh, thank you everyone once again for listening, and we will catch you here next week on Dungeon Pedia.