Come one, come all, to one of my favourite official D&D 5th Edition modules, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight! In which case I mean that I actually purchased this book and ran the adventure! I'm not a big carnival theme fan, but two-thirds of the adventure takes place in the Feywild and I've always felt like D&D's 5th Edition has a severe dearth of Feywild and Far Realm stuff. Lots of coverage of D&D's other aspects, but two of my all-time favourite aspects of world-building never really got much shine... until now! I really like the vibe of Witchlight, I really love that the adventure is technically doable without having to engage in any combat against the major NPCs (technically, not likely) and I just love the 'twisted children's fantasy' vibe of the whole thing.
______________________________________
Which is why I'm also announcing a bit of a huge revamp on my D&D material. It's something I alluded to when talking about Spelljammer, but also quite prescient with the new 2024-revised 5th Edition rules. With 'remixes' of the three main bestiaries -- Monster Manual, Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes -- I believe it's high time I just crack my fingers and just... redo my work for these books. Probably won't take too much time, although I think I might have to add one or two extra posts just for formatting's sake.
That brings us to other modules, and... while I'm happy with some of them, I do think I should take a blowtorch to a bunch of them and consolidate them all into a couple of articles. I think I was so obsessed with making a comprehensive index of all stat blocks that a lot of them (which is particularly bad for a lot of the crossover or jokey content) are just redundant and sometimes kind of messy to read. Life's a bit busy and most of my energy's going to go towards the 2024 Monster Manual rewrite first, but be aware that that's going to happen!
But at least for now, I'll talk about the short bestiary at the back of Wild Beyond the Witchlight.
Note that the statblocks for Boggles, Korreds, Redcaps and Quicklings are reprinted here, with them all previously appearing in Volo's Guide to Monsters.
- Click here for the previous part, covering Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer.
- Click here for the next part
- Click here for the index.
_________________________________________________________________
Fairy
- Small Fey; any alignment
So for most of Dungeons & Dragons' life, the term 'fairy' is just used for a wider classification of... well, all fey creatures. And even if 'fairy' is used, older editions tend to make sure to know that it can mean a lot of things from sprites to pixies to the more seldom-reprinted grixies and nixies and brownies and atopies. I think 5th Edition has reduced a lot of these same-y 'tiny guy with wings' into just sprites and pixies.
Come Wild Beyond the Witchlight, they decided to give us a couple of extra player character options, one of which is just... 'Fairy'. It's just a bunch of honestly quite generic balanced abilities, with the most important differentiators being that fairies are small, they are fey, and most importantly, they are capable of flight. D&D has been very careful about giving flight to any playable character (and that's the major reason why Dragonborns don't have wings, and why Aasimar flight is so limited) but if you're small I guess it's a lot more believable!
We don't really get any particularly interesting lore here for the fairies, but I do think that the vibe is that it's meant to be a catch-all for any kind of pixie or sprite or more obscure fey sub-types you want. I like that the official art showcases two Fairy characters with very different wings -- one having a colourful moth wing, and another with the distinctive two-part wings of a beetle. And honestly, the fact that it's so hard to classify the fey actually makes a fair amount of sense, doesn't it? I've always found the Fey to be particularly interesting because while they do play by some rules (which is why I don't like interpretations of D&D fey as being 'lol me so random'), they don't play by our rules. So yeah, what makes a pixie and a sprite different might be obvious to fairies themselves, but to other humanoids, not so much. And the general visual customization for a lot of these non-standard player characters have always been one of the most charming elements, and being able to pick what bug wings to slap on your fairy guy is absolutely one of them.
_________________________________________________________________
Harengon
- Medium humanoid; Any alignment; CR 1/8 (Brigand), 1/4 (Sniper)
The other new race introduced in Witchlight is the brand-new-to-DND Harengon, which are bunny-people! They are rabbit-folk that are native to the Feywild, sometimes migrate to the Material Plane, and is always moving from one place to another. Interestingly, whether in the playable character section or their enemy variants (the Harengon Brigand and Harengon Sniper) they are consistently referred to as merely humanoids instead of being fey. I guess they just stay in the Feywild without any of the fancy wacky magic?
The Harengon's gimmick is that they can jump really far, and they are very lucky -- a cute pun with the 'rabbit's foot', eh? Even their name is a rather bad pun on 'here and gone'. The adventure features a sequence where a bandit band of Harengons harangue our heroes, but they're otherwise just... just bunny people. They're cute! A lot of their culture describes their wanderlust and them absorbing culture and personalities like a sponge, which is... honestly just makes them regular people, aren't they?
They're charming enough, I suppose! I don't really have much to say here beyond 'cute bunny people', but I definitely appreciate the additional playable race, and I'm happy that it's not just another elf subtype.
_________________________________________________________________
Brigganock
- Tiny fey; neutral good; CR 1/8
Moving on to the actual new monsters... look at these guys, they're just little guys! The art doesn't really show it properly, but these guys are like, the size of little mice, enough for them to hide in your pocket. Brigganocks are another type of fey that live in the Feywild, and I'm quite happy that Witchlight expands on a bit more of the Fey races beyond just the same old ones from the Monster Manual. Resembling World of Warcraft's take on the Kobolds somewhat, I like these guys. They're little green mice-men with bushy beards and pickaxes. That little blue ball of light behind it is its soul, however, which stays outside its body and doubles as a candle as it scurries around tunnels. And in a nod to old-school stories about brownies and whatnot, Brigganocks can accelerate time around itself to specifically 'accomplish hour-long tasks in a matter of seconds'.
Brigganocks run around in mines, which in and of itself isn't the most novel. What the mine for, on the other hand, is what's interesting -- they mine for wishes. And this is tied specifically to the strange nature of the Feywild! Any time a person makes a wish in the Material Plane, like a birthday wish or something, an 'echo' of that wish manifests in the Feywild. Brigganocks mine for these wishes, which they then refine into gemstones, but also filter out 'wishes of ill intent'. The gemstones are then traded to other Fey. This is the kind of weird, whimsical metaphysical dream-scape stuff that I like from my Fey creatures, which fits so much in the 'it's chaotic but there are some rules that we mortals don't quite understand' vibe of the Fey, I feel!
_________________________________________________________________
Bullywug Knight / Bullywug Royal
- Medium humanoid; lawful good (Knight), any (Royal); CR 3 (Knight/Royal)
The book also features a lot of returning Feywild creatures from previous books, where they have been underutilized due to a lot of settings not really featuring Feywild elements other than maybe Hags. We've got a bunch of Faerie Dragons, Korreds, Quicklings, Redcaps, Darklings and a bunch of others, but the coolest expansion are to the Bullywugs. With the introduction of the Grung and their instant addition as playable races back in Tomb of Annihilation, the Bullywugs kind of became redundant. Both tribes were smallish frog-people who live in tribes in swamps, and are comedic... and... uh... that's it. The Bullywugs are technically fey but don't do much with it, and the Grung are kind of poisonous, and like many overlapping aspects in D&D they don't really do as much to differentiate them. Throw in the much more iconic Slaadi, and the Bullywugs kind of have the short end of the stick as far as humanoid frog-men goes.
Until now! With a gigantic Bullywug swamp being the centerpiece of a huge chunk of the adventure, we get to see Bullywugs be fleshed out a lot more as whimsical toad-people whose idea of 'royalty' is completely different -- seen from the eyes of a frog, basically. The artwork for the statted Bullywug Knights and Bullywug Royal is absolutely adorable. I actually think the knight looks quite smashing, doesn't he? With his suit of armour and his rose and those curled boots?
The royal wears a delightfully puffy outfit, and the many royals described in the book have so much character as they are obsessed with their fight over the Soggy Court, and giving themselves titles like 'the Baron of Muckstump' or something along those lines. It's a glorious wacky mockery of typical royalty tropes, which doesn't only help to build a nice sense of Fey-flavoured hijinks but also helps to rescue Bullywugs from being the most boring of the froggies!
_________________________________________________________________
Campestri
- Tiny plant/Medium swarm of tiny plants; unaligned; CR 0 (Campestri), CR 1 (Swarm)
I am surprised to find out that the Campestri came from 2nd Edition, and was brought back and adapted for 5th Edition in Wild Beyond the Witchlight! Very happy to see older monsters be given some love. I would like to say that I like the snaggly, shit-eating faces and the rougher caps of 2E Campestri... but that's not the flavour we're going for here, no.
5E's Campestri has them as being happy-go-lucky sentient toadstools whose entire point of living is that they really, really like music. It's just that being mushrooms (and not even the ones shaped like an ear) they can't actually tell if a music being played is good or bad. And honestly... fair enough, if you like it, you like it, y'know? But Campestris will always sing along whenever someone plays an instrument or sings nearby, in "an obnoxiously nasal falsetto", and with enough repetitions they will perfectly memorize it. But they're just having a good time! They're just like that one drunk friend of yours in karaoke night!
Campestris can also move, and the book even describes encountering a swarm of Campestri, all of which just trying to adorably headbutt you. As shown in the 5E art, Campestris can actually move along like weird cartoon worms, though the book describes it as 'manipulating the mycelium of its stem'. The way they consume minerals from soil also makes them unpleasant to most creatures since they're super-salty, though this just makes them a delicacy to the Bullywugs... and honestly, it's just a matter of preparation, isn't it? Preparation and the fact that these are cute singing sentient beings.
_________________________________________________________________
Displacer Beast Kitten
- Small monstrosity; unaligned; CR 1/8
KITTY! The Displacer Beast Kitten is part of a small 'side-quest' where your heroes find its parent earlier in the adventure, and have to go forth and rescue the cute baby kitty. It's a cute baby kitty! The fact that it's statted means that either your players are psychotic enough to kill a harmless little itty-bitty kitty, or the DM is going to try his/her best to put the kitty in danger of the other monsters in the game.
_________________________________________________________________
Giant Dragonfly
- Large beast; unaligned; CR 1/2
I did say that I'll try to avoid a lot of the redundant monster entries, but I can't not talk about giant bugs! I mean, it does make sense that a location in the Feywild would have oversized insects, right? Particularly those already associated with fairies in traditional mythology? Honestly, giant insects (or giant whatever-is-not-supposed-to-be-giant) is a fun bit of monster to toss at your adventuring party at any point anyway. The first leg of Witchlight takes place in a moving carnival, and the dragonflies are domesticated by the staff there as mounts. I like that in the stat-blocks, they added the ability 'uncanny dodge' to them since dragonflies are quite well-known for their ability to sense movement coming at them.
_________________________________________________________________
Giant Snail
- Large beast; unaligned; CR 1/4
Not flail snails, to my great disappointment. These are just big gastropods, the size of horses. The aforementioned carnival uses them as, well, an equivalent to a horse race. And the snails have a somewhat respectable speed, although not as fast as a running human. I do like, again, that the designers felt that it was important to spend a chunk of its statblock detailing the snail's weakness to salt, and it would take necrotic damage from salt.
_________________________________________________________________
Glasswork Golem
- Medium construct; unaligned; CR 2
Not actually listed among the bestiary at the back of the book (and many of the 5th Edition adventures do this) is the Glasswork Golem. Which I thought was a bit too cool to not mention. It's also very similar to an earlier monster from 2nd Edition, the Stained Glass Golem, except the Glasswork Golem is a lot cooler-looking. On one hand, there is just something special about the fact that the Stained Glass Golem just peels off from that church fresco and attacks you as a two-dimensional image. On the other hand, the Glasswork Golem still retains a fair bit of whimsy even though it's a more 'serious' design of a slightly-disembodied-and-disconnected humanoid form made up of broken glass. I just really enjoy the art in general.
Being made up of glass, and potentially shattering glass, the Glasswork Golem will actually regenerate its health every turn, presumably by doing something similar to the artwork by having its broken pieces float up around itself... but it loses this ability when hit by thunder or bludgeoning damage -- the ways you would shatter glass. That's neat! In addition to typical golem stuff, the Glasswork Golem can also use its body as a prism to shoot light attacks. I like this!
_________________________________________________________________
Jabberwock
- Huge dragon; chaotic evil; CR 13
Based on the creature of a very similar name (the Jabberwocky) from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the Jabberwock is shown to be a temperamental evil dragon that haunts the Feywild. Or rather, it's a type of dragons since it's not noted to be a singular being. As a nod to the original poem it's based on, people who have met the jabberwocks are confused on what it looks like, retaining a confused impression of its parts caused by the Jabberwock's "confusing burble", which is also useful in combat where it forces the Jabberwock's enemies to run in random directions or attack its enemies.
I like the 5E's interpretation of the Jabberwock as a particularly sickly green dragon, with arms and legs that look a bit too humanoid and a gloriously weird head with bright white orbs for eyes and a disturbingly human mouth. Instead of a traditional dragon's breath weapon, it has eye beams that it launches from those blind-looking eyeballs. I did feel like it could've been weirder, though I suppose it does fit into the theme of the original poem.
An additional aspect of the Jabberwocks is that they are also extremely great tracker, being able to track any creature it's wounded and hunting them down with an unerring obsession which is always a nice plot hook. Also, rather interestingly, Jabberwocks don't reproduce normally -- if it's slain, another one appears a couple of decades later, materializing near the site of the older one's death fully formed without going through adolescence. It's just weird Feywild stuff, I suppose. I kind of like it, although I kind of feel like, again, they really could've gone a lot weirder with this one.
_________________________________________________________________
Living Doll
- Tiny construct; neutral evil; CR 2
Okay, yeah, we've got just an evil doll here. One of the main antagonists of the adventure is themed around twisted toys, and the Living Dolls are littered in her domain. They're basically what you expect from one of these things -- it disguises itself as an inanimate object before attacking you, and then tries to latch on to you and damage you mentally with psychic cackling. Pretty horrifying, isn't it?
Also, trapped within each doll is a mean spirit that encourages those around it -- most likely children -- to behave badly towards others. And failing to find children as targets, it's just as likely to torment the guilt-ridden and despondent, driving them to paranoia. It's a nice little plot hook for what could've been a simple humanoid fight, and the idea that this tiny evil doll being an evil little manipulator is a creepy one. I like it!
_________________________________________________________________
Tin Soldier
- Small construct; unaligned; CR 1
This is a shorter bestiary for the adventure due to the fact that a lot of the enemies actually are described in the adventure itself, with a note saying 'please use X stat for this'. Which I feel is particularly good when it's meant to represent like, just a goblin with a pumpkin head or something! Tin Soldiers, for example, make use of the 'Animated Armour' stat block from the Monster Manual, only they're small. They serve as the toy soldiers of the toy-themed hag, and I love their goofy mustachioed painted faces.
_________________________________________________________________
The Hag Coven
- Medium fey (hag); neutral evil; CR 7 (Bavlorna), CR 8 (Skabatha), CR 6 (Endelyn)
The book actually features a good dozen or so statted characters who are just NPCs you meet along the way. There's a pair of twins, the circus ringmasters, a group of evil adventurers, a group of nice adventurers, the ruler of the fey realms you're trying to free... and I think I'll make it a point in all my D&D reviews to not cover them. It's a monster review, after all, and I think I've tried and failed to describe 'it's a cool knight'.
But! But NPCs that also happen to be monsters, or at least unique takes on monsters? They are fair game. So these are the three sisters -- a nice showcase of the three-hag covens described in Monster Manual and Volo's Guide to Monsters -- that took over the plane of Prismeer from their sister, the arch-fey who rules it rightfully, and corrupted three parts of it into 'Hither, Thither and Yon', giving us three thematic fey-themed 'levels' to go through.
The first one you meet is Bavlorna Blighstraw, who's the first one here. Riding a lily-pad sofa with vines and roots that scuttle below her, Slack-Jawed Lorna rules over a swamp of Bullywugs, and herself looks like a toadish old lady. She is attended by little frog-shaped minions called 'Lornlings' (reskinned versions of the Quicklings) and in the spirit of being gross and nasty, she's always covered by a cloud of flies and if she fails to take a bath to moisturize herself with slime, she'll seize up. In a nice bit of fey whimsy, Bavlorna is allergic to people running counterclockwise in circles, which would literally cause her to burst into sneezing fits.
The second one you'll meet is the oldest, Skabatha Nightshade. She's the toy-themed hag, and has imprisoned a lot of kids to work in her workshop. The magic of Prismeer has caused children to be unable to be harmed, but Skabatha found a loophole in making them work for her. Skabatha herself looks like a particularly creepy toy and is described as 'part toy', and under the makeup toy paint she has flesh 'like rotten bark and infested with wood lice and fungus. She also has a wind-up key on her back. She also hides in a little dollhouse in her otherwise regular-sized child-labour factory, shrinking herself into a doll to sleep.
The three Hourglass Coven hags additionally have a theme of past, present and future, with Lorna getting 'present' and Skabatha representing 'past'. This has more to do with the kinds of deals they prefer, but Skabatha has a nice little quirk where she will forget and be completely unable to perceive the first thing she sees after waking up.
Our final sister is Endelyn Moongrave, the coolest one of the three and the one representing 'future'. Her realm is a massive theater stage built into the side of a stormy mountain, but Creeping Lyn herself is a very awesome gothic-looking hag wearing an outfit fashioned like a fancy funerary dress... clearly the most fashionable one of her family! She's got a skeleton face underneath that veil, and four arms that play with marionettes on her... dress? These being hags, I wouldn't surprise if Endelyn's entire abdomen is actually thin air and the whole torso-and-head just floats over it creepily. Her lower body is one of those fancy giant dresses, except it's scuttling along like a crab or spider. Absolutely metal design.
Being the hag of the future, Creeping Lyn is able to tell the future (for an unfair price, of course) but is herself tormented by visions of her own demise 'during a solar eclipse'. This actually makes her the most difficult of the hags to deal with since she's essentially unkillable unless there's a solar eclipse. The idea, of course, is that your characters need to engineer a solar eclipse, even if they have to make a symbolic one using a pair of NPCs that are acting as the sun and moon.
That is, if. This module is quite interestingly unique that you can actually progress without ever doing a single piece of combat, using negotiations, problem-solving or stealth to evade every single threat in your way. That also extends to the three main hag antagonists, whose status as hags actually makes them pliable to making deals with you... you just have to make sure to word them properly while you search for a way to get what you need from their domains.
_________________________________________________________________
But with that, we're done with The Wild Beyond the Witchlight! What's next? Again, even now I'm working on the new 2024 5E Monster Manual, but I'm also slowly going through the other books. Out of the other newer books, Glory of the Giants and Planescape might be the ones most likely for me to go through, since those actually do have proper, long bestiary content. No promises on which will come out first, though!
No comments:
Post a Comment