Wednesday, September 22, 2021

First Impression: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

I'm a sucker for the Feywild.  While others might prefer the more grounded, "King Arthur meets Lord of the Rings" campaigns, I tend to favor the fairy tale aspects of RPGs.  I don't always buy campaign books, but I knew "The Wild Beyond the Witchlight: A Feywild Adventure" was going to be mine as soon as it was announced

So what's in this book?  It's mostly an adventure set in the Feywild, with a few pages of Feywild-related character options.  

The introduction includes a chart of 100 Feywild-related trinkets, followed by two new backgrounds: Feylost and Witchlight Hand.  Feylost are people who spent a few years of their youth lost in the Feywild.  Witchlight Hands are people who work at the carnival where this module's adventure begins.

Next we have two new races:  Fairy and Harengon (Rabbitfolk).  These races are slightly updated from their previous appearance in Unearthed Arcana.  Most of the changes are just wording, though the fairy did lose its "Fey Passage" ability from the UA.  This book does not include the Owlfolk or Hobgoblin races from the same UA.

The adventure is designed to take characters from level 1 to level 8, though you can start at level 3 for an easier campaign.  I haven't read through the entire adventure yet, but supposedly every combat has a non-violent option, in case you want to make a pacifist run.  However, only clever players will be able to find ways around every combat.

The story begins at the Witchlight Carnival, a traveling fair that visits many dimensions.  It only visits this plane every eight years, so there is some pressure to accept the quest before it packs up and leaves.  While the theme is similar to the Carnival domain in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, they aren't related as far as I can tell (Edit: Turns out they do share a connection, but they are not the same carnival).  So apparently there's more than one dimension-hopping carnival in the D&D universe.

There are two possible plot hooks.  One involves the PCs looking for something they lost at the Carnival in their youth, such as their ability to smile or their sense of direction.  In the other hook, a retired warlock hires you to find his missing patron.  If you pick the first hook, the locations of the lost items are determined randomly (similar to the Tarokka reading in Curse of Strahd), giving the adventure more replay value.

While exploring the Carnival, the PCs eventually find a Fey Crossing that takes them to the Feywild Domain of Prismeer.  Prismeer is divided into three lands: Hither, Thither, and Yon.  The adventure culminates in the centrally-located "Palace of Heart's Desire".  

After the adventure, there is a section on new magic items.  Of note, there is a "Pole of Collapsing" that reminds me of Diana's weapon in the 80s cartoon.  Then we have a section on factions of Prismeer, which describes important members of each faction.  This includes some familiar faces from classic D&D, such as Kelek, Warduke, and Strongheart.  I used to have some of their action figures, and I can't wait to see how they figure into the adventure.

Next we have a section on monsters used in the adventure.  It's nice to see the Campestri (happy singing mushrooms) again.  It appears this book is full of classic D&D references, and I'm probably not even catching half of them.  

Then we have some roleplaying cards and story trackers meant to make running the campaign easier.  It looks like you're meant to photocopy these pages, so you can cut out the cards and write on the trackers.  At least I hope people aren't cutting up their books and writing in them.

Finally there is a fold-out map, meant to show to the players.  One side is a layout of the carnival, and the other side is a general map of Prismeer.  I'm not crazy about the maps, as they aren't really detailed enough to be useful, and including maps only hurts the resale value of the book when the maps inevitably get damaged or lost.  Even tearing out the map leaves a sort of torn mess at the back of the book, but leaving the map in makes the pages turn funny... look, I'm just not a fan of removable maps.

While I can't really comment on the adventure itself yet, I like what I've read so far.  I do wish they had included more playable races, but it is meant to be a campaign book, not a sourcebook.  Overall, I think the book is worth the money.

No comments:

Post a Comment