Wizards of the Coast recently announced Dungeons & Dragons‘ annual adventure module for 2021, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. In contrast to campaign setting books like Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft or anthology adventures like Candlekeep Mysteries, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight will be a full adventure Dungeon Masters can lead their players through, from beginning to end. Details on the book are currently sparse, but the book’s official announcement makes clear it will explore the Feywild, a chaotic dimension of whimsy and terror that the Fey of the Forgotten Realms call home.
Lore and information for the Feywild is scarce in Fifth Edition. It’s possible to look at previous editions of the game for inspiration, but those sources vary, as Wizards has borrowed and abandoned different pieces of older lore. Currently, the best reference for information on the Feywilds in 5e is in the Dungeon Master’s Guide under “Creating a Multiverse,” which mentions it as an option for a magical plane. It describes the Feywild as a plane of “everlasting twilight,” but this plane is still vastly under-detailed in terms of official material. Witchlight is Wizards’ chance to remedy that problem, and some areas are definitely in need of elaboration.
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More High-Level Fey
Fey have been mentioned in other sourcebooks. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes a Domain of Dread known as the Carnival, a magical carnival plagued and patronized by the sylvan folk. Despite this description, the book doesn’t provide any statblocks for those Fey travelers, and even the ringmaster of the carnival is an Eladrin. Eladrin are elves native to the Feywild, but not Fey themselves.
Currently, the highest Challenge Rating for a Fey non-player character in any 5e book is 12, which belongs to the Sea Fury from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount — and even then the Sea Fury itself isn’t what most players or DMs would consider Fey. This stands in stark contrast to other creature types. Aberrations, Celestials, Dragons, Fiends and Undead all have their own high-CR candidates, with only Beasts, Oozes and Plants as similarly underrepresented creatures.
Even if a DM wants to homebrew their own high-level Fey, they lack the templates other categories have to draw upon. The Feywild provides two excellent candidates to fill the role of high-CR Fey, with the realm’s two monarchs. The Feywild is ruled by two courts, Seelie and Unseelie. The Seelie Queen is Titania, who is also referred to as the Summer Queen. The Unseelie Queen is only referred to as The Queen of Air and Darkness, too terrible to even be named. Either (or both) of these would be great to see get stat blocks.
Updated Fey Lineages
Wizards hinted at its newfound interest in the Feywild earlier in the year with the release of Folk of the Feywild, an Unearthed Arcana supplement previewing four new racial lineages for players to experiment with. One was the illustrious Fey themselves (referred to here as Fairies), while other picks include two new beastfolk races (the Owlfolk and Rabbitfolk) and a sylvan form of the Hobgoblin. It’s likely these races will show up in Witchlight, but updated and with balance changes based on player feedback.
While some Dungeon Masters might be comfortable with allowing the use of Unearthed Arcana, others view the untested character options as out-of-the-box oddities liable to disrupt games due to their lack of balance. Publishing even a slightly tweaked version of those same options in an official book confirms to players and Dungeon Masters alike that these new lineages bear Wizards’ official seal of approval. It’s also essential for those players exploring Witchlight who want to play a character native to it, whether that be a Fairy or an awakened beast.
Mischief and Magic
As for the nature of the adventure itself, the most important things is that it reflects the essences of the Feywild itself. That sounds abstract and difficult to pin down, but is something Wizards has done successfully in the past. 2016’s Curse of Strahd captured the essential nature of a gothic horror story, the blood and bones of the Ravenloft setting. 2018’s Waterdeep: Dragon Heist instead focused on the flavor of an Ocean’s Eleven-style heist film, with multiple criminal players and a huge potential payoff.
To capture the spirit of the Feywild in the same way, Wizards should look to to the story they pulled Titania from: William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In the play, humans are the mere instruments of the Fey monarchs, who move amidst them with ease as they construct their own plots. Players should feel at the whims of chaotic entities like Titania and The Queen of Air and Darkness — at least at first. Dungeons & Dragons is a power fantasy, but a slow one.
As they grow in level and capability, players should be made more and more comfortable meddling in Fey plots, until they can finally confront the mischievous demigods. The Feywild is a place of mischief and magic, of subtlety and intrigue. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight should reflect that chaos while throwing players directly into the middle of it.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is set to release on Sep. 21. Players looking to get information can tune into D&D Live 2021, which runs from July 16-17.
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