D&D 5E (2024) Feywild technically doesn't mention the Seelie and Unseelie Court

[Kobold Avenger]

The 2024 DMG mentions the Gloaming Court which is the Unseelie Court stand-in and the Summer Court which is the Seelie Court stand-in.

5e Feywild is a mixture of elements from all previous editions, with some of it's own things like Domains of Delight. I remember that 2e Monster Mythology had Titania the Faerie Queen from William Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream as the Seelie Court Ruler and the Queen of Air and Darkness as the Unseelie Court ruler. They are indeed back in 5e, with Titania also being called the Summer Queen, after not being that present in 4e at least, along with the strongly 4e Prince of Frost.

I guess it's a way of also avoiding the Seelie=Good and Unseelie=Evil simplification that most people tend to use, and leaving room for more non-Celtic ideas of the Fey in D&D.

 

[Corinnguard]

I guess it's a way of also avoiding the Seelie=Good and Unseelie=Evil simplification that most people tend to use, and leaving room for more non-Celtic ideas of the Fey in D&D.

The Seelie merely have a better Public Relations department than the Unseelie do.

 

[SkidAce]

The Seelie merely have a better Public Relations department than the Unseelie do.

They are both tricksy vindictive manipulative dirtywords!

 

[Corinnguard]

They are both tricksy vindictive manipulative dirtywords!

They'll probably thank you for that. "We're better than those manipulative, infernal lawyers from the Nine Hells! Woot!"

 

[Charlaquin]

I’ve long been a fan of the interpretation that Unseelie believe non-fey that end up in the feywild should be held to the local laws. What comes across to mortals as the Unseelie being hostile is just them holding you to the same standards as they would each other, not viewing your ignorance of their Byzantine laws and alien taboos as an excuse for breaking them. Whereas the Seelie believe exceptions should be made for outsiders, as they can’t be expected to follow laws they have no familiarity with.

 

[Reynard]

I’ve long been a fan of the interpretation that Unseelie believe non-fey that end up in the feywild should be held to the local laws. What comes across to mortals as the Unseelie being hostile is just them holding you to the same standards as they would each other, not viewing your ignorance of their Byzantine laws and alien taboos as an excuse for breaking them. Whereas the Seelie believe exceptions should be made for outsiders, as they can’t be expected to follow laws they have no familiarity with.

That is a pretty cool interpretation -- especially in light of the fact that faerie law must be absolutely bonkers from a mortal perspective.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The 2024 DMG mentions the Gloaming Court which is the Unseelie Court stand-in and the Summer Court which is the Seelie Court stand-in.

5e Feywild is a mixture of elements from all previous editions, with some of it's own things like Domains of Delight. I remember that 2e Monster Mythology had Titania the Faerie Queen from William Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream as the Seelie Court Ruler and the Queen of Air and Darkness as the Unseelie Court ruler. They are indeed back in 5e, with Titania also being called the Summer Queen, after not being that present in 4e at least, along with the strongly 4e Prince of Frost.

I guess it's a way of also avoiding the Seelie=Good and Unseelie=Evil simplification that most people tend to use, and leaving room for more non-Celtic ideas of the Fey in D&D.

I mean it’s mostly a Scottish categorization, the term Seelie is more loosely defined outside that context.

And personally, I’d rather have summer and winter, light and dark, or some weird arrangement that doesn’t seem like it makes sense at first glance.

I did a game where faerie was divided like a rough clock. The Sunward Courts, the Twilight Courts, and The Wild Courts, 3 of each.

Day has Dawn, Highsun, and an afternoon word I cant recall.
Twilight has Dusk, Vesper, and Nocturne.
The Wild was The Court of Llyr (seafarers, sirens, and the like), The Wild Hunt (goblins and redcaps and beings of the hunt), and The Wooded Court (dark and mysterious foresty stuff. Ruled by an ancient tree guy like the Green Knight in the semi-recent film)

It was fun, with Queen (even Oberon, Mananan, Woodking, and Oberon, hold the title “Great Queen of XYZ Court”), Lady, and Jack, for each court and for most lesser courts under the Nine Great Courts, and the PCs were ladies or jacks, sent on a mission to investigate a terrible blight leeching the chaos and magic from the lands of Day and spreading toward Dusk.

 

[Charlaquin]

That is a pretty cool interpretation -- especially in light of the fact that faerie law must be absolutely bonkers from a mortal perspective.

Thanks! Yeah, that’s the idea. In my mind, fey should really be categorized as lawful in D&D alignment terms, but end up getting viewed as chaotic because their laws seem chaotic and random from our perspective.

 

[Corinnguard]

Thanks! Yeah, that’s the idea. In my mind, fey should really be categorized as lawful in D&D alignment terms, but end up getting viewed as chaotic because their laws seem chaotic and random from our perspective.

It is possible that the Fey's sense of morality is so foreign to non-fey that the latter's traditional concepts of right and wrong do not apply to them. TV Tropes calls this form of morality, Blue and Orange Morality.

From a human's point of view, the fey appear unpredictable, surreal, even morally chaotic. But to another fey, their actions are consistent and rational.

 

[Yaarel]

The 2024 DMG mentions the Gloaming Court which is the Unseelie Court stand-in and the Summer Court which is the Seelie Court stand-in.

5e Feywild is a mixture of elements from all previous editions, with some of it's own things like Domains of Delight. I remember that 2e Monster Mythology had Titania the Faerie Queen from William Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream as the Seelie Court Ruler and the Queen of Air and Darkness as the Unseelie Court ruler. They are indeed back in 5e, with Titania also being called the Summer Queen, after not being that present in 4e at least, along with the strongly 4e Prince of Frost.

I guess it's a way of also avoiding the Seelie=Good and Unseelie=Evil simplification that most people tend to use, and leaving room for more non-Celtic ideas of the Fey in D&D.

Yeah.

5e emphasized seasonal themes for the Eladrin elves, whence seasons are central to Feywild generally. (4e Eladrin and Feywild felt different, a bit more magitech urban, rather than seasonal weather patterns.)

Because all of the 5e Fey seasons are natural, and are of Any ethical alignment, pretty much all four seasonal courts are "seelie", namely the aspects of nature that can be helpful to human settlements.

For this reason, I use Shadowfell for the "unseelie" court, especially the Shadarkai and the Raven Queen herself. These Undead Fey sotospeak are also of Any alignment, but feel more "unseelie" as the death of the natural world.

Importantly, there are very many Fey courts in my setting. Every Fey local government is its own autonomous Fey court. Each court has its own form of government, whether direct democracy or monarchy, or so on, depending on local traditions. Some local courts are fully sovereign, and some have made treaties to join up to send delegates to a wider regional court government. Summer, Autumn, and Winter are the largest of these regional Fey courts, but there are other regional courts as well.

In 5e 2024, the Feywild and Shadowfell are alternate material planes elsewhere. In these alternate universes the Fey beings are most prominent, rather than Material humans.

So, the nature beings of various animisms populate the Border Ethereal, being the ethereal souls that project from various natural phenomena. The Ethereal Plane is exactly the "spirit world". Among these animistic beings there are elves, who form courts in the Border Ethereal of fertile forests and the sunny upper atmosphere.