Feywild/Shadowfell Campaign Settings

[Jack99]

Hero's Handbook: Eladrin isn't a full fey campaign setting - many of its 96 pages are devoted to character-focused info like feats and paragon paths - but it'll sure serve as a great appetizer to your appetite for a Feywild campaign. There's lots of evocative detail about cities in the fey realm, the different seasonal ruling houses of the eladrin court, monsters and NPCs native to the realm, etc., etc.

I plug it without shame because, although I did some work on the book, my contributions were all mechanics; I didn't write any of the background info and so can call it freakin' awesome without fear of bias. I can say, though, that it was really fun to get descriptions of cool paragon paths and monsters and be challenged to come up with mechanics to support that flavor; kind of like sudoku for the 4E designer!

If it's at par with the dragonborn handbook, it will indeed be awesome!

 

[Mokona]

Helll yes! I'd easily enjoy a campaign set entirely in the Feywild but it wouldn't be too different from a really fantastic campaign set in a Homebrew World. The fantastic locations of Forgotten Realms could confuse you as to were you in the World or the Feywild. But I'm in favor of full campaign settings in the Feywild with a heavy emphasis on the Pointy Ear War. Might have a stranger in a strange land feel for non-Elf, non-Eladrin PCs.

The Shadowfell would be even better in that it would be the most unique. I see the Feywild as the World at the dawn of time and the Shadowfell as the World after the end of time. So you could make a truly new type of campaign world that players could understand set entirely in the Shadowfell. Perhaps steal a little bit of ideas from Wraith: the Oblivion.

 

[Phaezen]

Manual of the Planes II-IV. Mark my words.

And you would not see me complaining.

Phaezen

 

[SKyOdin]

I don't think that turning the Feywild and Shadowfell into campaign settings in their own right would really work. They are parallel planes after all, which means that they mirror the geography of the material world. So, you can't make any kind of specific map for them without creating a specific material world. I think adding too much detail to the planes would do more harm than good as well.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing more supplements that dealt with them in the future. The Shadowfell in particular got a pretty limited entry in the Manual of the Planes.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Just a thought that occured to me. What would you think of Feywild and/or the Shadowfell being fleshed out into full campaign settings. Something that could be used to run games completely set in those places, not unlike the FRCG. Even if you didn't want to use them as full settings it would great supplemental material.

I prefer the idea of a "Manual of the Planes II" over Shadowfell or Feywild as their own setting. If they are the main setting, there is less plane-hopping, and that reduces the appeal of either.

What might be interesting would be a series of modules that deals a lot with the Feywild or the Shadowfell - not exclusively, but something about the machinations in the Fey Courts, a power struggle between Feys that "bleeds" out into our world, or vice versa.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

While I would be interested in buying books with extended treatments of these planes, I think they work better as they are now - alien, alternate realms of reality threatening to invade the "normalcy" of the material plane. The fantastic aspects of the Feywild and the gloomy atmosphere of the Shadowfell need something more neutral to contrast with, or else they become less effective as a story device.


Going off on a tangent, I just had an interesting idea for a campaign premise: What if one or both of these mirror planes were to begin "absorbing" the material plane? Merged regions would effectively be part of both planes at once, and if you try to leave them, you need to leave them at particular times to reach a particular plane. For example, if you want to leave a merged Shadowfell/Material Plane region, you have to leave it during the day if you want to reach the Material Plane, and during the night if you want to reach the Shadowfell. For the Feywild, the reverse might be true.

And the merged regions are being deliberately spread by the inhabitants of the mirror planes - leaving ordinary mortals at their mercy once they become part of the merged zones. The job of the PCs is to find out how these regions are spread, and then put a stop to it so that mortals are safe from them.

 

[Aexalon]

And you would not see me complaining.

In case there was confusion about this, I fully endorse the yearly returning books. Though it does reduce the likelyhood of seeing books like the environmental series or the race series in the first four years or so (unless there are series that have not yet been revealed).

 

[Oni]

I don't think that turning the Feywild and Shadowfell into campaign settings in their own right would really work. They are parallel planes after all, which means that they mirror the geography of the material world. So, you can't make any kind of specific map for them without creating a specific material world. I think adding too much detail to the planes would do more harm than good as well.

However, I wouldn't mind seeing more supplements that dealt with them in the future. The Shadowfell in particular got a pretty limited entry in the Manual of the Planes.

You wouldn't necessarily have to map out everything like a more traditional setting. Just have all the major groups regions and allow them to be arranged to fit whatever world you want to attach them to.

I just kind of feel like they actually feel more like they could be full worlds than a lot of what's been done with planes in the past.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Whichever book would give us a core Illusionist class with actual trickery based control powers, rather than blasty ones with shadow descriptors.

 

[Ktulu]

Eww...Didn't have the answer I wanted.

No, I don't want a full setting, but books that deal with specific portions of the planes would be awesome.

I.e. Open Grave is mostly about undead, but contains a lot of stuff useful for the Shadowfell. They can continue to expand on that with more books of similar nature

I'd love to see a Fey Crossings - detailing fey creatures native to the shadowfell, or Spelljamming, a guide to the Astral sea (and just have it full of encounters and creatures you'd find in the Astral sea).

I'd love it.