D&D 5E Need Help Figuring Out Problems With Feywild's Time Warp For Homebrew...

[Malken]

I'm currently working on my first homebrew setting using 5E rules, and I've come upon a logistic issue regarding the Feywild's time warp feature, which I'm having some serious trouble figuring a solution for.

In my setting, I've established that in the distant past, the elvish race used to frequently come and go between the Material Plane and the Feywild, but eventually they splintered off into the typical elvish subtypes, with the wood elves deciding to establish themselves permanently on the Material Plane while the high elves remained in the Feywild. I intended to keep relations between the 2 cultures open, if somewhat strained due to their differences, but therein lies the problem...

Basing myself on the time warp rules for the Feywild listed in the DMG, I'd opted for a fixed ratio of 1 day on the Feywild = 1 week on the Material Plane. However, this ratio effectively means that 1 year (F) = 7 years (M), and therefore 100 years (F) = 700 years (M). So what I'm trying to figure out, is how are these 2 groups supposed to maintain any meaningful relations when a wood elf's entire lifespan on the Material Plane amounts to the same time it takes a high elf to reach maturity in the Feywild. I love the Feywild, and the idea of the time warp is too good to not use it, but I'm currently at a loss to figure out how exactly I can resolve the logistics involved.

If anyone has any ideas or advice to offer me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Sebastrd]

Perhaps that's where the tension lies? A single high elf leader spends his lifetime dealing with a number of successive generations of wood elf leaders and their changing priorities.

Or, you could decide that the wood elves make visits to the Feywild often enough that the age discrepancy, at least among leadership, is less extreme.

 

[pukunui]

Or you could say that the time warp doesn't apply to anyone with the Fey Ancestry trait.

 

[Rabbitbait]

Or that the timewarp ratio changes based on narrative need. The first time one day=1 week, the second time 1 day equals a year, the third time one day equals 2 days. There is no rhyme nor reason to it. How can it possibly make sense? It can't and that's OK.

 

[Nevvur]

Not sure if this helps, but my approach to time warp in the feywild is to use localized bubbles rather than a pervasive, planar effect. Some bubbles go fast, some go slow. They pop up and disappear randomly, so they can't be mapped. The strength of the time warp is stronger toward the center than the rim, so you won't realize when you've entered one; for instance, the guy walking 30 feet ahead of you won't suddenly start moving 7x faster once he crosses the threshold of a day-to-week bubble.

Feywild natives can sense them, and avoid or exploit them accordingly. Outsiders better find a guide they can trust (ha!)

I think this would solve your logistics problem, but if you need a pervasive, planar effect for other purposes, this clearly won't work.

 

[Mecheon]

The Feywild works on fairy tale logic. Trying to apply a single structure to a world that, by its very nature, defies structure, is pointless.

Some parts of the Feywild are completely in tune with the Material. Other parts go quicker: What seems like a few days there, is a thousand years in the Material, think of those legends where someone spends time with elves and then comes back a hundred years later. And other places? Other places, a hundred years can pass in the blink of an eye on the Material

Elves just know the spots that don't mess with time all that badly

 

[aco175]

Time warps at the speed of plot. If you need to advance the plot a month or a year go for it. The returning PCs think they spent a few days in the Feywild, but come back to a kingdom changed and the BBEG has nearly taken over. The people think the PCs have forsaken them. Good thing they found the McGruffin to save the day.

 

[Malken]

Thanks everyone for your replies. Your suggestions have definitely been helpful and have given me a lot to think about.

Or you could say that the time warp doesn't apply to anyone with the Fey Ancestry trait.

That is such a simple and obvious solution, that I'm facedesking right now for not thinking of it myself.

The Feywild works on fairy tale logic. Trying to apply a single structure to a world that, by its very nature, defies structure, is pointless.

Some parts of the Feywild are completely in tune with the Material. Other parts go quicker: What seems like a few days there, is a thousand years in the Material, think of those legends where someone spends time with elves and then comes back a hundred years later. And other places? Other places, a hundred years can pass in the blink of an eye on the Material

Elves just know the spots that don't mess with time all that badly

This brings everything back into focus, because my initial plan was definitely to approach the Feywild from a classic mythology perspective, in order to make it feel unusual and otherworldy. That's why I also intended to adapt the Entrapping trait from 3rd edition, so that it would add to the plane's supernatural vibe.

Not sure if this helps, but my approach to time warp in the feywild is to use localized bubbles rather than a pervasive, planar effect. Some bubbles go fast, some go slow. They pop up and disappear randomly, so they can't be mapped. The strength of the time warp is stronger toward the center than the rim, so you won't realize when you've entered one; for instance, the guy walking 30 feet ahead of you won't suddenly start moving 7x faster once he crosses the threshold of a day-to-week bubble.

Feywild natives can sense them, and avoid or exploit them accordingly. Outsiders better find a guide they can trust (ha!)

I think this would solve your logistics problem, but if you need a pervasive, planar effect for other purposes, this clearly won't work.

This got my mind racing (in a good way), because up to this point, I did only think about it from a pervasive planar effect standpoint. That's precisely why I initially rejected the DMG's table and opted instead for a fixed time ratio, but looking at it now from a thematic point of view, it's so obvious how your suggestion totally plays into the wild and unpredictable nature associated with the Fey of classic myths.

This is all good stuff, and I'm going to have to look into it a bit more to make sure it meshes well with the stuff I had already developed for my setting, but at first glance it all looks very promising.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

So what I'm trying to figure out, is how are these 2 groups supposed to maintain any meaningful relations when a wood elf's entire lifespan on the Material Plane amounts to the same time it takes a high elf to reach maturity in the Feywild. I love the Feywild, and the idea of the time warp is too good to not use it, but I'm currently at a loss to figure out how exactly I can resolve the logistics involved.

If anyone has any ideas or advice to offer me, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Stop thinking of the problem from the perspective of you. What I mean by "you" is this: human. You're trying to apply human "logic and expectations" to a non-human race that lives for hundreds if not thousands of years. Don't do that.

You may be surprised to know that the whole 'time thing' was the default in 1e AD&D. How I tackled it was to stop thinking like a human and start thinking like an elf (as I imagined them back in 1983'ish when I started playing/DMing AD&D). In *my* view of elves, they don't look at the individual with regards to handling administrative tasks. To an elf, if they make a deal with Mayor Smythe, the human from Ellesbrook, to rid the area of a goblin menaece in return for free food and lodging for life, and then 20 years later they come back to Ellesbrook. Well, they meet with the new Mayor Jhonson and, from the elf's perspective, the elf should recieve free food and lodging. The fact that the elf made the 'deal' with a particular Mayor, and that particular Mayor is no longer alive/there is irrelivent to the elf. It's the "office of the Mayor" that the elf made the deal, as far as he's concerned.

I just take that basic principle and apply it to the elven race as a whole. To an elf, when Clan Treegrower snubs Clan Swifthunt at an important social function (the marrying of two elves, for example)...it doesn't matter that 2000 years later there are no orriginal memebers of either clan left alive; the Clan name is the important thing.

This way, when elves deal with anyone on the prime material plane, they don't much care one way or the other for the actual person...they are interested in what/who that person represents. This falls into the stereotype that "elves are aloof and seem to look down on other races"; not really, its just that they see a persons family, guild, clan, etc as the defining characteristic...so they don't care if they are talking to Henry the first, Henry the third, or Henry the fourteenth. They'd just refer to him as "Human King" because they don't care *what* this particular king is like...they care what his ancestors did and promised.

Once you start thinking of races from a non-human perspective it becomes significantly easier to adjudicate these little "idiosyncrasies".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Malken]

Stop thinking of the problem from the perspective of you. What I mean by "you" is this: human. You're trying to apply human "logic and expectations" to a non-human race that lives for hundreds if not thousands of years. Don't do that.

Thanks for your input, but I think you're misunderstanding what I meant in that OP. It wasn't so much a question of how they view or act toward others (which, as you've described, is easy enough to extrapolate), but rather of how they can manage to work within the restrictions caused by the time warp. Politics and negotiations take a lot of time under the best of circumstances, so how much more difficult would it be to get anything done if the delegates on one side kept dying of old age between meetings and the same talking points had to be covered over and over again with each passing successors. Like Sebastrd had mentioned, that would definitely become a source of frustration.