As Dungeons & Dragons sometimes mimics the real world's literary fantasies, it was only a matter of time before the Feywild was introduced for players to explore. Reminiscent of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Feywild is a plane parallel to the Prime Material and existing within the same space. Some have often described this mystical realm as the Prime Material Plane's dream reflection, a mirror that glamorizes the glow of the light and intensifies the shadows of the darkness.
Powerful in its arcane nature, the Feywild is as mystical and cunning as it is dark and terrible. It has been known to lure mortals into its depths like spiders drawing flies into their webs, and some who enter never leave again. Its beauty and charm have been known to draw unsuspecting mortals into an endless dance, foregoing food, water and rest as they wile away their days until they become little more than a layer of skin draped over creaking bones.
The Feywild is a land of eternal twilight with a colorful sky always on the verge of sunset. It never does set, nor does it rise, the sun always hovering near the horizon in a world where time is all but stopped for those who pass into the Faerie plane. Those lucky enough to escape discover that time passes differently in the Feywild, seemingly never changing or passing at all while they are there.
Those who make the Feywild their home are driven by the need for tantalizing new experiences and adventures. They long to endure, enjoy and see things never before experienced and delight in even the darkest explorations of such things in ways that would provoke horror in other beings.
One prime example of this occurred in Critical Role's campaign, while Vox Machina was bargaining with a powerful Archfey named Artagan to alter the passage of time in the Feywild so they could take a much-needed rest. In exchange for this feat, Artagan wanted them to one day create a door to the Material Plane he could pass through at his whim, and he wanted to be able to strangle the party's temporarily un-killable rogue/paladin and watch him die.
Many of the creatures who dwell there are sylvan in nature, including a variety of Eladrin, fey, elves, dryads, satyrs, sprites, unicorns, hags and other magical creatures. While each of them has their own nature, role and agenda, all answer to the whims of the Seelie and Unseelie courts, whose queens are locked in an eternal battle for dominance.
Ruled over by a beautiful Eladrin named Titania, the Summer Queen, and her consort Oberon, the Seelie are often viewed as good-natured faeries. However, when it comes to the fey, the line between good and evil is as fine as the twilight between day and night. The Seelie Court is its own planar realm, and it travels between the Upper Planes at the whim of its members. Often in a state of moonlight controlled by Titania, she can also make it bright and sunny as she sees fit, for she is the embodiment of light.
Titania's eternal rival, the Queen of Air and Darkness, has no physical form, though she has been known to appear as a dark but terrible fey with black hair and jet black eyes. The Queen of Air and Darkness was said to have once been Titania's sister, but when a group of dwarves brought a black diamond to the Seelie Court as a gift for the queen, Titania was away and it fell instead into the hands of her sister.
In time, the black diamond began to corrupt her very nature, and one day she simply left the Seelie Court in a chariot of smoke, carrying the diamond and various other treasures away with her. She established herself as ruler of the Unseelie Court and became her sister's greatest opposition, the pair forever battling between the light and darkness, summer and winter, life and death.
To enter the Feywild, one must either have Fey connections willing to transport them, a tuning fork attuned to the Feywild and the ability to cast Planeshift or happen upon a Fey Crossing. Fey Crossings' nature is changeable and infrequent, often contingent upon certain phenomena, like a full moon, for example. This makes them incredibly dangerous to unwary mortals who accidentally stumble upon them and pass into the Feywild without even realizing their mistake. The nature of the time a mortal spends there is malleable, with it either passing incredibly fast or ridiculously slow for those in the Prime Material Plane who've lost a friend, party member or loved one to the Feywild.
Despite its infinite dangers, however, there are many adventurers who long to explore its magical depths and learn from the unique nature of the beings there. Its proximity and similarity to the Prime Material Plane make it as enticing as it is terrifying to visit, but those brave enough to dare are promised excitement and adventure the likes of which they've never dreamed.