An Intro to the Feywild and Shadowfell for new 4E Players and DMs

First let me warn you that the information i provide here may not be 100% accurate as only recently did i figure out exactly what was going on. Pretty sad considering my campaign is now 11th level.

Also i am a horrible reader of most d&d books, i skim over stuff over the period of years and add my own twist to things. This really isn't a problem as my players enjoy the games just the same.

The best way for me to explain this is by using "Legend of Zelda:A Link to the Past" as an example. Now if your too young to know this game or told old to have played it then i fell sad, go play it.

In legend of Zelda there were two parts to the game, a light world and a dark world where you were able to teleport back and forth if you knew how. The layout was the same except the dark world was twisted.

The Feywild and Shadowfell work along the same lines. You have the regular world, a parallel world known as the Feywild and a parallel world known as the Shadowfell.

Unlike the game, there is no duplicates for creatures or people. However like the game the worlds are identical except twisted in its theme.

I see the world like this

Shadowfell <|> World <|> Feywild

Again each realm twists reality to its own cause, the Feywild being about nature and life, while the Shadowfell is more of the undead, the opposite of nature and life. Its pretty much the goth realm if i may be so bold.

Now what this means for you as a DM in a 4e game is a lot more room to explore even if you have a small home brew campaign.

Imagine if you will a player dies, and for whatever reason the raise dead scroll isn't working. The only thing for the other players to do is to travel to the Shadowfell and try and speak to the spirit of the dead player. In this idea your deviating from the rules to have a interesting adventure on bringing the player back to life.

Another idea is having a dungeon exist in the same location on each realm, twisted by the realities and at the end a piece of a powerful magic item. The players need to explore each dungeon to retrieve the piece.

For me fourth edition is all about options, and this is true with the Shadowfell and Feywild. I highly recommend reading the Manual of the Planes to find out more information on each.

Feywild

This area is of nature, a sapling in the real world might be a ancient tree taking roots in the Feywild. The Feywild is home of Eladrin Fomorians, Firbolgs, gnomes, goblins and pretty much any fey creature. Portals to the Feywild are an emerald green and work any way the DM wants them to, similar in other editions



Shadowfell

This area is that of undead, and decay. It seems familiar to Ravenloft in way where great evil can poses its own domain and creatures may become trapped there. Creatures in the Shadowfell are often crazy cultists, the un/dead, shadar-kai, dark-ones, and anything with the shadow keyword. Portals to the Shadowfell are black. Where a stream from a mountain might exist in the real world, in the Shadowfell it could be a sulfurius spring or even dried up.

There you go, now you have enough information to run a adventure that utilizes these realms in your game. I recommend that you read the Manual of the Planes as early on in the book you will find a chapter dedicated to each location