Dungeons and Dragons
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
This magical adventure takes us through the Fearsome and Fantastical Feywilds to a place called Prismeer through the Witchlight carnival.
It is a wacky Narnia-esque place filled with everything weird and wonderful.
Hither, Thither, and Yon are the three parts of Prismeer which is ruled by a coven of hags known as the Hourglass Coven who usurped the archfey Zybilna. The hags consist of the eldest sister Granny Nightshade who lives in the past, the middle sister, Bavlorna Blightstraw who embodies the present and finally the youngest, the future seer Endelyn Moongrave. Together they have been slowly infecting the otherwise beautiful Feywilds.
Our intrepid Adventurers step through the looking glass, first looking to find things stolen from them when they were young, then to save this wickedly whimsical land and it’s strange inhabitants. They’ll have to play the game, barter and trick the coven of hags to restore the fey queen to her throne.
Hold on to your hat as we go through everything you need to know to run this adventure.
Contents of the Adventure Module:
Coming in at a whopping 256 pages, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is designed to take player characters from level 1 to level 8 in 5th Edition’s very first adventure set in the Feywilds. It is setting neutral, which makes it very easy for the Dungeon Master to transition the players from any starting location (be it a campaign that just ended and is moving to the next, a one shot you got a little attached to, or even if you’d like to start afresh) to Prismeer, a Feywild domain of delight, through the Witchlight Carnival with two plot hook options.
Plothook 1: Lost Things
This adventure hook seems like the intended path. As the book advises using this adventure hook if you want the characters to have a strong personal investment in the story and it’s progression. Each character, having lost something precious to them as a child (8 years prior), is unable to gain inspiration until they get back what was taken from them. Personally, I feel that Inspiration is a criminally underused mechanic and now eliminating this altogether is quite sad, though, I’m hoping this opens Dungeon Masters up to using this more often in their own campaigns.
Plothook 2: Warlock’s Quest
Again, the book advises you to use this hook if you or your players don’t like the idea of the characters having to find things that they lost as children and would prefer a more traditional adventure setup. An old warlock of Queen Zybilna has lost his connection to his patron and promises the party great rewards to discover what happened to her in the Feywilds.
Related content: The Wild Beyond The Witchlight | Everything You Need To Know
What’s New?
Two brand new player races have hopped and fluttered their way into D&D; the first being the Harengon, a fey rabbit folk, and the second being the Fairy, both of which are incredibly exciting additions to player races.
We also get two new character backgrounds!
- The feylost, a player character disappeared from their home plane as a child. They might have been kidnapped by Baba Yaga or by one of the Eladrin, or simply wandered into the forest one night never to be seen again. After growing up, alone or otherwise, in the Feywild, the feylost returns to their home plane. Perhaps they’re haunted by their memories, which seem to lay thicker than mist with each passing day. Think Antman when he went into the Quantum Realm — the feylost have gotten a glimpse of what lies beyond but can’t figure out how to return!
- The Witchlight Hand is a carnival worker, perhaps a ticket vendor, a sword swallower or a magician. Maybe you joined the carnival to escape the hard life of a farmer or a woodworker. Maybe you were enticed by the idea of travelling the realms and visiting new and exciting places, perhaps you dreamt of becoming a star. But now carnival life has grown tedious, and a group of adventurers have promised you new wonders in that which lies beyond the carnival’s gates.
Trinkets are normally ignored or added into a backstory that no one reads, but in a Feywild campaign the items chosen by the characters carry an immense weight and the attention to detail on the two-page list of items in itself is magical.
10 new magical items one being the scissors of shadow snipping that lets you untether your shadow and control it. Speaking of Peter Pan, there’s even Pixie dust!
31 new Monster and NPC stat blocks, though the campaign itself is not centred around combat we have a pumpkin carriage full of beasts and returning heroes to play with.
TLDR
This is an insanely cool adventure module that takes you on a fairy tale CS Lewis meets Lewis Carroll adventure that is perfect for new and, dare I say it, younger players.
DM’s Rating: 8/10
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