Session 8 -- Into the Feywild

The Feywild is a parallel plane of existence. It's an unseen world of wild magic laid over the world you know. Rifts between the material plane and the Feywild were the origin for most of the demihumans and magic (and some of the monsters) that invaded the Earth at the time of the Magiclysm. It is the realm of the fey folk. Few who travel there -- or who are taken there -- ever return. As the party realized that they will need to enter the Feywild if they want to have any hope of recovering the missing children, they also realize that they have no idea how to get there.

At almost the same time that thought registered with the PCs, they became aware that they were not alone. Standing nearby, as if patiently waiting to speak to them, was a woman of remarkable appearance. She was wearing shimmering white robes with a bright red sash -- together they made almost as striking a contrast as her pearl-white skin and the jet black hair that tumbled in loose curls down to her waist. Once the PCs attention was directed at her and their conversation ceased, she spoke:

"Hello. You have performed a remarkable feat in rescuing the children from the faeries. Not many are capable of tangling with the fey and living to tell the tale. You will now need to travel to the Feywild, but how? I will tell you, for I want to see the children retrieved as much as any here. They are in grave danger -- far graver danger than even their worried parents and loved ones fear."

The woman introduced herself as Lily. She told the party that the faeries were handing over the children to be taken into the Feywild as a form of tribute. The children are be handed over to someone else far more dangerous than the faeries themselves, a dark entity known as Malak. The PCs will have to locate a Faerie Ring in the forest of the Glen of Aherlow. The faeries produce the rings when they travel. The rings look like a circle of mushrooms between five and ten feet in diameter. The ring only lasts for a day, and there is only ever one produced in the forest at one time (all faeries traveling to and from the Feywild will use the same ring until the next day). They connect to fixed locations (shrines) in the Feywild which can then be used to come back to Earth.

Once the PCs locate a ring, they must stand in it, close their eyes, and spin around three times. When they open their eyes, you will be in the Feywild. It is very important that they only do this while the sun is up, as doing it by moonlight will instead take you to the Shadowfell. Like the Feywild, the Shadowfell is an unseen world laid over the material plane. Unlike the Feywild, which can be dangerous enough, it is a world of darkness, death, and monstrosities. That said, just as the Feywild and Shadowfell are each connected to the Earth, they are also connected to each other.

After some combats in a hex crawl, the party found a ring and went to the Feywild.  They started bumbling around the forest for a bit, fought a wyvern and some ogres, and you spotted some blink dogs. Eventually, they stumbled upon a field hospital run by the Centaurs for Disease Control, a centaur faction of healing clerics formed in the wake of the Magiclysm (it messed up the Feywild, too, by causing a magical plague). The chief doctor told the PCs that Queen Titania of the Summer Court and the faeries of the Gloomspring Court have been abducting the children for Malak. They are not happy about the arrangement, but he is demanding tribute from them to keep the Feywild safe. The doctor has offered to take the PCs to meet Queen Titania, and he indicated the general directions and relative positions of several factions and settlements (revealed on the map).