In 4th Edition, eladrin and gnomes resided deep within the Feywild as often neutral entities between the two courts. Titania, the Summer Queen is the ruler of the Summer court of good faerie and the Queen of Air and Darkness rules over the Gloaming court of traditionally evil faerie. In the current 5th Edition ruleset, it is a two-court system between the Summer Court and the Gloaming Court. Non-godly portrayals of Oberon, Titania and "Puck", an analogue to Squelaiche, appeared in Dragon Magazine #263, whilst an alternative "Fairy Queen" goddess named Rhiannon is presented in Dragon Magazine #155. The Planewalker fansite for Planescape created its own, modified version of the Faerie Pantheon as part of its unofficial 3e update, most notably portraying Titania and the Queen of Air & Darkness as different sides of the same fey deity, Queen Mab. They further organize themselves into various factions based on certain shared themes. This eclectic group meets at random intervals to form the Court of Stars, which is sort of like the United Nations of the Feywild. The Archfey themselves are an eclectic array of beings, ranging from elemental-like spirits of natural phenomena to ascended eladrin to elder fey beasts to extraordinarily powerful individuals of the various fey races. Thus, the Feywild came to be, and the Archfey were given a complete makeover.įirst appearing in the 4e version of the Manual of the Planes, the archfey are described as the godlike rulers of the Feywild, beings that originated from its innate magic and ascended to rule over it, strengthening the fey's nature as being as much powerful extraplanar beings as angels, fiends or elementals. When 4th edition came out, one of its design statements, declared as early as "Worlds and Monsters", was this: Make the Fey Interesting. Skerrit would receive an update to a 3e patron god in "Complete Divine", whilst The Queen of Air and Darkness would reappear only in brief as one of the Forgotten Faiths in the back of Dragon Magazine #359. Most notably, the Plane of Faerie was presented as an optional co-terminous Outer Plane (Mildly Neutral Aligned, Enhanced Magic, Flowing Time (1 day Faerie = 1 week Prime), Light Gravity, Infinite Size, Alterable Morphic, No Elemental or Energy Traits) in the 3e Manual of the Planes, with the Seelie & Unseelie Fey being presented as fey creatures with the Celestial or Fiendish template respectively. The archfey of the Great Wheel faded into obscurity with the coming of 3rd edition. They would receive some minor expansion in 1996's "On Hallowed Ground", in the form of a clear-cut table denoting their areas of concern, holy symbols, and places of residence in the cosmological setting of Planescape. These gods first appeared in the 1992 sourcebook "Monster Mythology", which looked at the gods of the various non-human races. Then 5e rolled around, and all the Fae got lumped together into a single inner plane called the Feywild, which filled roughly the same cosmological niche as the Positive Energy Plane did in prior editions (emphasis on "roughly", since the Positive Energy Plane is still around, it's just been moved to "outside" of the Great Wheel rather than being part of the Inner Planes). In comparison, the Unseelie Court was located in Pandemonium, where it served as the underlings of the outcast fey goddess known as the Queen of Air and Darkness. They inhabited a wandering demiplane that shifts between the Upper Planes as it sees fit, mostly wandering between the Beastlands, Ysgard and Arborea. In the Great Wheel, the archfey were first introduced as the Seelie Court, a cluster of deities united by their shared patronage of various fey races. Part 1: Historical uses of the Archfey in D&D
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