Feywild

A duality to the Material Plane is the less accessible Feywild, home to the fey, outsiders that are known for their cunning, eccentric nature, and powerful magic. The fey are infamously able to traverse and manipulate the space around them with the powerful magic they wield.

The Feywild is like that of the Material Plane geographically, but the surrounding area (and therefore travel) is manipulated by the thoughts, emotions, and powerful magic of its residents, transforming landscapes to become emphasised. Mountains become breath-taking skyscrapers that pierce the clouds, forests become overgrown with fauna and lush colours, and deserts become endless bounds of sand and heat.

The Fey Courts
The Feywild is lorded over by four courts, each represented by a season: Autumn, Spring, Summer, Winter. Time is merely a construct in the Feywild, and as such lands are bound to the seasons and their respective courts, not the other way around as in the Material Plane. Each season exhibits a spectrum of emotions, varying wildly between them with their own laws, traditions, allies, and conflicts. The weather within a season's realm is always what one would expect for that season.

Each of the courts and their season are allied with one another according to a spectrum, from the season of Summer on the Material Plane transitioning to Winter, in order of Summer to Autumn to Winter to Spring. As a result, the courts of Summer and Spring are often allied with one another, as Spring turns to Summer, and the courts of Winter and Autumn are often allied with one another, as Autumn turns to Winter.

Summer
Fey in the Summer court are known for their passionate personalities, their emotions are the fire that sets their land within the Feywild alight with heat and impulses. Summer fey often indulge in hedonistic playfulness, eating, drinking, and making merry, even if it would result in detriment to mortals. They often love to indulge and party endlessly, living life quickly and dangerously.

But, for every gentle wave of love and joy comes a torrent of anger and fury. Summer fey are notoriously prone to anger, their adoration quickly changing to disgust at a single slight against them, lasting between minutes to lifetimes, and this anger is neither subtle nor reasonable.

The lands of Summer typically take the form of lush grasslands, dense jungles, warm beaches and open bodies of water, or endless deserts.

Many Summer fey may also pay homage to Gali, whose domain includes the season of summer.

Spring
Fey in the Spring court are known for their exotic beauty, reflective of the growth and blooming of the season. As a result, they have a fascination with anything that can be considered beautiful, taking time to appreciate and even covet beauty wherever it is found; even to an obsession, to the point that anything perceived as ugly (to the standards of an immaculate fey) is frowned upon. Spring fey love the world around them, singing songs of love and sharing uplifting tales or experiences to share the joys of life with all. Some Spring fey even partake in an array of practical jokes, each more daring than the last to experience the happiness of living.

Spring fey have much love, joy, and happiness in their hearts, but can also embody deep vanity and jealousy of others, a sign the bitter chill of Winter is still upon them. Many seek to steal or gain beauty through some way or another or wanting other's joy all for themselves.

The lands of Spring typically take the form of blossoming fields of flowers and trees, of monumental size, vibrant colour, and vivid smell. A gorgeous landscape is never left wanting in Spring.

Like most fey, most Spring fey pay specific homage to Eni, whose domain includes the season of spring.

Winter
Fey in the Winter court are known for their enjoyment of contemplation and serenity, but this solitude is also reflective of their tendency to embody the deep sadness, regret, and loneliness of winter. As a result, they are often described as bleak, distant, or apathetic but this is not necessarily true.

Many Winter fey prefer to be left alone to contemplate or congregate in groups to enjoy in subtle pleasures and enjoyments, such as hunting, making art, or playing practical jokes. However, these often have a sadistic twist to them, drawing out the sadness the fey or their victim feels, empowering the lands of Winter. These subtle pleasures can quickly grow discordant as Winter fey look for things to engage their activities with, such as hunting uglier creatures because of their incompatibility with their art or forcing unsuspecting mortals into their plays for having a particular trait (such as beauty). A simple practical joke from a Winter fey could range from dropping mud at a creature more beautiful than themselves, or crashing a party being held by another group for sake of seeing others upset.

The lands of Winter typically take the form of snow-covered plains and forests, with lakes of chilling water and ice, and lands devoid of plant life. Snowstorms are frequent, and often settle comfortably. Food and water are hard to come by, making survival in the wilderness very difficult.

Many Winter fey may also pay homage to Arcti, whose domain includes the season of winter.

Autumn
Fey in the Autumn court are known for their love of giving and enjoy the spread of goodwill with others, reflective of Autumn as the season to harvest crops and share bounties. However, as the time to reap crops, it is also the time to hoard food for the winter, and thus many Autumn fey may also be very unwilling to share without receiving something else in return, making them especially precarious to deal with given the fey's penchant for trickery and punishment against those who would break an agreement; especially if a gift is left ungiven.

Autumn is also a time of honouring the dead, and on the Material Plane is often a celebrated time for goodwill and practical jokes. But, as many things are in the Feywild, emotions are twisted and expanded upon wildly, with this dark theme and jokes drawing in monsters and hags out into the lands of Autumn, terrifying whomever they can - often leaving trails of pumpkins with twisted faces and signs of ill omen in their wake. As always, the prospect of gifts and goodwill can garner a traveller safe passage.

The lands of Autumn typically take the form of warmly coloured forests and hills covered in fallen leaves. Berries and mushrooms often grow in abundance in these areas, some even to abnormal sizes. Forests of giant mushrooms and thick crop fields are not uncommon.

Many Autumn fey may also pay homage to Bonti, whose domain includes the season of autumn. A minority also pay homage to Pali, and even the Shadowbound for their domains of death and trickery, respectively.

Seelie and Unseelie Courts
Those foreign to the Feywild pair each of the seasonal courts into two distinct and powerful courts that ally themselves depending on their perspectives on life and emotions. These are the Seelie Court and Unseelie Court.

The term "Seelie" refers to the union of the Summer and Spring courts, the word originating from the archaic term for something that is blessed, lucky, or positive in nature. Conversely, the term "Unseelie" refers to the union of the Winter and Autumn courts, the word originating from a term for detrimental, and deathly.

It is important to note that these terms are merely used by the perceptions of ancient bards and storytellers. Neither court is more morally good nor depraved than the other, only that they behave in manners that are more hospitable to the average traveller from the Material Plane. One would find more fortune to survive a dance with an Eladrin from the Seelie court as opposed to a brutal hunt from a band of Unseelie redcaps. Likewise, it is just as likely that said Seelie Eladrin would run the traveller ragged, killing them from exhaustion, as it is for the redcaps to capture the traveller unharmed on the behest of their lord or lady, who may have taken a liking to the traveller.

Courtless Fey
Not all fey belong to a particular court. Hags often do not belong to a court, due to their ugliness and duplicitous nature. Courtless fey often hide in their own regions they claim within land that would be unnoticed by the courts.

Fey Crossings
Few ever enter the Feywild on purpose, with fewer able to control traversal at all due to the volatile nature of locations where the Feywild may bleed onto the Material Plane, known as fey crossings. Fey crossings are often subtle and seemingly innocuous, taking a break in a lush glade clearing in a dense forest or stepping through an archway of boulders, resulting in their surroundings becoming more vibrant and magical, and onlookers may see that individual suddenly disappears (or appears in the case of an onlooker in the Feywild).

There is very little logic or reason for when or where a fey crossing may appear, and often are only vaguely understood by local folklore and legend, such as a child vanishing into the woods on a full moon, only to return as an adult, or a baby born when the first flowers of spring bloomed by a parted waterfall, the baby being awakening with the power of Wild Magic by the midwife who was secretly a hag.

Time Warp
Additionally, Time Warp is a common occurrence when one’s perception of time is relative to the Material Plane as time moves differently in the Feywild; just as matter and space can be manipulated by thought and magic, so can time. Where time appears to pass normally in the Feywild, the amount of time that has passed on the Material Plane can be substantially greater or less than normal.

It is theorised time travel is possible with the Time Warp in effect, with theorists believing that to reduce the amount of perceived time (such as days to minutes) the individual affected might be shunted backwards in time. The amount of time that passes relative to other planes of reality is believed to be mediated by Eni, who most Fey recognise as their sovereign deity. The deity often neutralises the Time Warp and foils attempts to travel backwards in time on behalf of Hori, the Goddess of time. However, Eni is a playful deity, and may sometimes overlook these time distortions for the sake of some amusement or grander scheme.

A Part of Eni's Divine Plane
The Feywild is also known to be Eni's divine realm, directly connecting His heavenly plane to the Feywild, just as the Material Plane is connected to the Feywild.

Unlike the Material Plane, crossings into Eni's plane are even more subtle and numerous, and often under similarly fabled scenarios. In fact, the planar portals and random displacement effects that cause travel between the two planes are so frequent, that they are often grouped together as the same plane. This can be detrimental to those attempting to traverse the Feywild for an exit, as they may stumble even deeper into the layers of wilderness to find themselves in the home of the God of life and His divine courts.

It is even rumoured that the deity often disguises Himself to mingle amongst the fey, spirits, and celestials alike as a common joke or prank, even occasionally as a test of loyalty and or a gesture of goodwill. Some rumours even claim that aspects of Eni's divinity and mind act as the rulers or powerful influencers of the Feywild's courts (the Archfey), reflective of His ever-mercurial desire for dissimilitude and ensuring life in the Feywild is lived to its fullest.

Eni's plane reflects the Feywild's geography, twisted and distorted to become freer and idealised for each court and less of a reflection of the Material Plane.