D&D General The Shay: Eladrin of the Moonshae Isles

[JPL]

So I'm pretty sure that the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook is where we first encountered the LeShay. They were a race of extremely powerful immortal albino elves, aloof and mysterious and possibly the surviving original elves from back when elves were a new thing. I don't recall that the concept got any traction.

Now in the new Forgotten Realms books, the shay are a group of eladrin living in what's left of the forest kingdom of Sarifal. Unlike everyone else in the area, they are poor sailors but get around by using the fairy trods (leyline teleportation routes). They are said to specialize in circle magic and high magic. Sounds like they may constitute a class of nobles within the kingdom, which is threatened by the inclusion of evil fey and by Shadowfell corruption spreading across the forest.

Anyway, the whole thing screams "fey pact warlock" to me, and I've been looking for a good setup for an "Age of X" type kingdom where the good guys and the bad guys end up working together.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I will have to read up on that section of the book again, but thwt sounds like a rad campaign or character seed.

Maybe even playing a half-elf or even a gnome, whose ancestry is tied to the LeShay but they dont know exactly how or something. Maybe they have a family heirloom tied to their level 1 invication that seems to be the source of their power until they learn that it is actually their lineage, etc.

Damn i wanna play a fey warlock now. I wonder if there is a mod for bg3 that swaps the feylock for tge 2024 version...

 

[Marandahir]

So I'm pretty sure that the 3rd edition Epic Level Handbook is where we first encountered the LeShay. They were a race of extremely powerful immortal albino elves, aloof and mysterious and possibly the surviving original elves from back when elves were a new thing. I don't recall that the concept got any traction.

Now in the new Forgotten Realms books, the shay are a group of eladrin living in what's left of the forest kingdom of Sarifal. Unlike everyone else in the area, they are poor sailors but get around by using the fairy trods (leyline teleportation routes). They are said to specialize in circle magic and high magic. Sounds like they may constitute a class of nobles within the kingdom, which is threatened by the inclusion of evil fey and by Shadowfell corruption spreading across the forest.

Anyway, the whole thing screams "fey pact warlock" to me, and I've been looking for a good setup for an "Age of X" type kingdom where the good guys and the bad guys end up working together.

This is also just a fun reference to 4e's Eladrin in Sarifal – Llewyrr Elves were an ancestry of Eladrin, rather than of Elf, because Eladrin had killed the High Elf and taken its stuff (it got better).

See Dragon No. 376 "Realmslore: Sarifal" (June 2009); see also Dragon No. 405 "Character Themes: Heroes of the Moonshaes" and Dungeon No. 196 "Backdrop: Moonshae Isles" (both Nov 2011).

These two new FR books throw a lot of 4E easter eggs out there so that 4E players aren't left out entirely in the cold with the corpse of the 4E Eladrin (now that the High Elf is Back).