The Feywild is a vast, dangerous plane brimming with wild magic, clever creatures, and untouched wilderness. All of these aspects make it a wonderful setting for D&D's forthcoming adventure, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. But you don't need to wait for the book's release before you take your player characters to the Feywild. Here are two short adventures set in the Plane of Faeries: "Pixie Trouble" and "A Bargain With a Hag."
Pixie Trouble
This adventure can be used to introduce a party of four 1st- to 3rd-level player characters to the creatures and mechanics of the Feywild. The adventure assumes the party is traveling outside of any major settlement. Read the following to kick things off:
After a long day's travel, you crest a hill and spot a simple town of a couple dozen wooden houses with straw roofs. They line the main road as it makes its way westward toward the Eldergrove Forest.
As you draw near, you find that the road is devoid of people and carriages. The windows of the ramshackle houses have been haphazardly boarded up. It is silent here, except for the clinking of charms that hang at the front door of most of the houses.
The townspeople are distressed because their children have been going missing from their beds. On each of the last five nights, one child has disappeared without a trace.
The party can gather this information from a townsperson that can be found hastily boarding up a window on the side of their house, or from the town's barkeeper, a male dwarf named Rowan, at The Wandering Fellow’s Inn. Rowan also explains to any adventurers that there is a 25 gp reward for each child that is safely returned to town.
Whoever fills the party in on the situation will inform them that they have seen flickering lights coming from the Eldergrove Forest. However, no one has gone off the trail in the forest in recent days and returned, except for Arveene, a female half-elf scout who lives in town.
What’s going on?
While in the Eldergrove Forest, Arveene unwittingly passed through a fey crossing into the Feywild and discovered a glade where a curious iridescent flower grows. She plucked it and — without issue — returned home with it. She now keeps the flower in a vase on a table by her front door. The act of vandalism upset a group of pixies that reside in the glade. They followed Arveene back to town and have now taken to luring children to the Feywild as revenge.
The pixies are generally good-natured and have bonded with the children they have taken. They play hide and seek, eat the delicious fruit of the Feywild, and enjoy each other’s company. Unfortunately for their parents, the pixies don’t have a strong grasp on the passage of time in the Material Plane. If the children are not rescued, they could be in the Feywild for what will be years or decades on the Material Plane.
Tracking the tiny tricksters
If the players go to Arveene’s house, they will find she is not there and that the front door is locked. She is out in the forest looking for the children.
The pixies can be tracked back to the feywild crossing in a number of ways, including:
- A player who makes a successful DC 10 Wisdom (Survival) check can trace the pixies’ path back to the fey crossing.
- A player who makes a successful DC 10 Intelligence (Nature) check can see signs of a feywild crossing nearby. The crossing can be found with 1d4 hours of searching.
- A Horizon Walker ranger can magically sense the fey crossing with the 3rd-level Detect Portal feature.
If the player characters fail these checks, roll a d100 for a random forest encounter. After the encounter, the player characters are approached by Arveene, who overheard them while searching for the missing children. She is appreciative to learn that others are helping search for the children and will lend her aid. Any ability checks made to track the pixies or discover the fey crossing are made with advantage.
The pixies’ glade
Once the party manages to find the fey crossing, read the following, adjusting as needed based on how the characters found it:
The trail you follow leads you deep into the Eldergrove Forest, far off from any man-made paths. It ends just before two ancient trees that have grown into one another, creating a circle with their trunks.
A successful DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana or Nature) check will reveal that this is likely a crossing to the Feywild. A detect magic spell will reveal that the area around the trees’ trunks are magical. Upon passing through the trunks, read:
You feel a subtle shift in the air accompanied with vertigo. Looking around, you notice that the colors of the forest appear different than before. The greens of leaves and blues of wildflowers stand out more boldly than they did just a moment ago. You can also hear faint sounds of rustling and giggling that was not perceptible before.
Now that the party has entered the Feywild, they can hear the pixies and children playing. A successful DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check will reveal a human female child behind a nearby tree. She appears to be in good spirits and motions for the party to quietly approach.
If the party decides to be aggressive with the pixies, 2d4+2 sprites fly out of the woods to defend the pixies as they flee. This aggression toward the fey is a slight against the Seelie Court and the party will need to destroy the fey crossing by chopping down the trees to avoid further repercussions against the town.
If the party is diplomatic, the pixies will tell the party that they want the flower Arveene stole returned. Once the situation has been righted, the fey will return the children and no longer bother the inhabitants of the town.
Returning from the Feywild
Time flows strangely in the Feywild. (See "Time Warp" in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.) When the party returns to town, they learn that 12 hours have passed, no matter how much time they have spent in the Feywild.
The children also forget the experiences they had with the pixies after passing through the fey crossing (See "Memory Loss"). The townsfolk won’t believe the stories the party tells about pixies and the Feywild, believing that they are trying to bolster their reputation with tall tales. They graciously pay the reward of 25 gp per child, however.
A Bargain With a Hag
This encounter is intended for a party of four 5th- to 7th-level player characters who are seeking a particular piece of information. This information could be the location of an exotic component needed to craft a magic item, a secret that could bring down a high-ranking official, or something else. In their search for it, they learn that a crone in a nearby swamp has the information they are looking for and that she will part with it for a price.
How long it takes for the party to arrive at the crone’s hut is up to you. For ideas of creatures that the party might encounter on their journey to the hut, roll a d100 and consult this swamp encounters table, ignoring any encounters that involve a green hag.
Once the party arrives, read:
Among the pools of stinking, stagnant water and brambly shrubs sits a small, dilapidated hut on a set of stilts. A steep, narrow staircase leads up to the hut’s front door and a flickering, green light emanates from the window.
Auntie Agnes Greenteeth
The hut belongs to Auntie Agnes Greenteeth, a hag who is disguised as an old human woman. As people are typically quiet about their dealings with hags, whoever told the party about Auntie Agnes will leave out the fact that she is not as she appears.
Auntie Agnes uses the statistics of a green hag with the following changes:
Innate Spellcasting. The hag’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 13). She can innately cast the following spells:
1st level (4 slots): identify, ray of sickness
2nd level (3 slots): hold person, locate object
3rd level (3 slots): bestow curse, counterspell, stinking cloud
Auntie Agnes, like other hags, is a vile creature that wants to drain the happiness out of other creatures for her own enjoyment. She will not offer a deal unless it benefits her or negatively impacts the other party in some way.
When bargaining for information, hags will often trade for valuable magical artifacts, powerful pieces of secret information, or tasks they want carried out. Auntie Agnes has a task she would like completed in exchange for the information the party seeks, but she would also be willing to trade for an item that is very rare or rarer.
If the party is aggressive toward the hag, she will not make a deal with them. If they attempt to attack her, she will cast stinking cloud and then sneak away using her Invisible Passage ability. Angering a hag comes with ramifications. If the party gets on her bad side, Auntie Agnes will trail the party and make their lives miserable.
The hag’s bargain
Auntie Agnes wants the party to sneak into a nearby fey crossing, enter a glade protected by dryads, and steal water from their sacred spring. She tells the party that the spring water is a good base for her potions. She provides a flask that allows the party to bring the water back to the Material Plane.
What she doesn’t tell the party is that the flask is actually a modified bag of holding that will absorb all of the water from the spring. The fey forest surrounding the spring relies on the water's magic to remain healthy and will begin to die if the spring is drained. Once the flask has been filled, it can’t absorb any more water and can only be emptied by Auntie Agnes.
Entering the dryads' grove
Getting to the dryads' grove is easily accomplished by following these instructions provided by Auntie Agnes:
"An hourlong journey west of here will bring you to a copse of trees. Wait for midnight and then pass through the trees to enter the dryads' grove.”
As the player characters travel through the swamp, roll again on the swamp encounters table. Once the party arrives at the trees and follows the hag’s instructions, read:
As you step through the skinny, leafless trees, you are greeted with the smell of clean air for the first time since you entered the swamp. Looking around, you find yourselves in a dark, quiet forest. A pale beam of moonlight ahead reveals a pool of calm water, its surface so smooth you can see the stars reflected from the sky.
Around the pool are a group of five humanoid-looking creatures with leaves for hair and bark for skin. They sit at the pool’s edge, singing softly. Their sweet song, though quiet, reverberates around the clearing as the trees sway softly to the melody.
The party can now choose how to proceed. They can attempt to lure the dryads out of the clearing with a distraction, sneak up to the pool while they aren’t looking, or attack them to drive them away. If the party members bargain or attempt to be stealthy, the flask absorbing all of the water in the pool will draw the dryads' attention and make them furious.
If the party decides to hand the flask over to the dryads, the fey ascertain the flask's properties and kindly ask the party to leave. The dryads have encountered a hag on more than one occasion and believe the flask belongs to one.
When the party is ready to leave, they can do so by walking back to the point where they first entered through the fey crossing.
Concluding the adventure
If the party successfully brings the flask back to the hag, she will provide them the information they seek. Unfortunately, the cost of their actions stretches far beyond the anger of the spring's dryads. The pool they drained was protecting the forest from the evil influence of the hag. With its power destroyed, Auntie Agnes can inflict her will upon the forest and turn it into a vast, stinking swamp.
Once the fey forest has been turned into Auntie Agnes’ domain, its malicious energy starts to spill over into the Material Plane. Over the next year, settlements in the area around Auntie Agnes’ swamp are devastated by disease, poisonous gas, and bloodthirsty creatures.
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is D&D's next big adventure storyline and is now available for preorder on D&D Beyond! It brings the wicked whimsy of the Feywild to fifth edition for the first time and offers new characters, monsters, mechanics, and story hooks suitable for players of all ages and experience levels! Master-tier subscribers can share their books and other compendium content with friends in their campaigns!
Mike Bernier (@arcane_eye) is the founder of Arcane Eye, a site focused on providing useful tips and tricks to all those involved in the world of D&D. Outside of writing for Arcane Eye, Mike spends most of his time playing games, hiking with his girlfriend, and tending the veritable jungle of houseplants that have invaded his house.
Thanks for the ideas.
No encounter with a hag is a good encounter. Even if the party unwittingly entered an agreement with a hag, they've already lost.
It's a great start for a campaign, honestly! I'll use this to teach some friends how to play.
Question: Are there going to be any more Mike Bernier articles now that the Feywild series is over? (Please say yes)
Thank you Mike!
I second this! Would love more encounters as inspiration :)
It really depends on what you are trading for. Some things are too valuable for players to just be able to get that information from a friendly npc.
Instead having to live with the consequences or clean up their mess is the price of what they asked for. Besides there is always the obvious solution of killing the hag after getting what ever you need for them. After all the negative effects start to occur over a year, so they could have a training montage and come back swoll to kick some old lady arse in a few months time with little to no consequences.
That is the point of hag deals. They are the only ones who can give you what you want, but making a deal with them always ends badly.
Actually, it is correct. The Mind Flayer Psion works the same way. It is uncommon, though.
I would be really nice if free adventures like these could be found at a later date under some "free materials" tab.
I´m afraid I could be missing out on things like these, if they are only accessible through articles like these.
WOW! these are really cool! I especially like the "Bargain With a Hag" one!
'No win' setups? In 2021? Like the last 30 years developments in RPGs never happened?
Garbage as usual.
Don't really understand the contempt for players.
No contempt, just people who want the players actions to have consequences and not have a 99% percent victory rate.
I agree, unless the party attacks her and allows her to trail them until they defeat her. But I guess they'd still be "miserable" for a little while.
This isn't a no win setup. Perhaps they work with the Dryads to take down the Hag since she's trying to take over the whole forest? Maybe the party finds that the water of the Dryad's grove is a weakness to the hag? When the party realizes what has happened the set out on an epic quest of redemption to save the grove after all? Perhaps the party decides to kill the dryads and take over the magical grove for themselves?
This is only a no win situation if you can't DM it otherwise. Remember, these are frameworks for creativity - not gospel set in stone.
I wasn't sure about these to start with (although I am a huge fan of the Encounters of the Week content on the site) - but have actually just had a returning player want to test-drive a Satyr / Fey Wanderer Ranger and so what better realm to test him in than a Feywild excursion? Alongside a pre-existing Eladrin Eldritch Knight (played by they player's wife, one of our key players), the two of them are going to strike up a deal with Agnes Greenteeth for information... but whether they renege on it when they discover what they'll end up doing to the Dryads, we shall see!
Thanks for the content, Mike!
I ran the "Pixie Trouble" adventure with two level two characters (Sorcerer and Rogue) as a mini-adventure during the downtime between Candlekeep Mystery adventures. I framed the adventure as them having to "solve a fairy-tale" in order to escape a book in Candlekeep and kept it ambiguous as to if things were real or in a book, with sparse details about the world outside the isolated village and the forest, which added a level of creepiness ala Brothers Grimm. No combat was had since they intuited that the flower was the key quite easily after picking the lock on Arveene's house and examining the inside. Both players had fun and enjoyed the diplomatic option. We completed the adventure in about 2 hours along with the framing story.
Really nice intro to the Feywild for my newbie group (including me!). The sorcerer in particular wants to find a unicorn next, which will be a funny callback if/when we manage to get to "Lore of Lurue".
Well, now we know the price of children. I get the trope but man it seems a little weird. Thanks for some fun flavor encounters—these can easily be dropped in any campaign!
Regarding the "no-win scenario" that is the bargain with the hag, I can think of at least one other way for the party to get the info they need. I'd imagine if you could pin the hag down and drop her health low enough, she might be willing to trade an answer for her life; although she'd still probably try to work a sting into it for spite and bear a major grudge that could come back to haunt the party. Also, I'd also have an alternative source of the information prepped if the party is after plot-critical information unless this is a serious grimdark campaign where the players knew what they were in for. I'd still make the alternative something at least as challenging, maybe with a relatively fixed but manageable cost for their level instead of favor-for-a-favor, but a little more palatable.
If it's not critical to the progression of the campaign it's more open-ended; maybe this was a case of "being good sucks" for the party and they don't get a tangible reward for having done the right thing (although this seems like a nice way for them to make a good impression with certain elements in the Feywild). I might mark down something about "good karma" associated with that grove dryads and this region as a prompt to smooth the way a little if they do more adventuring in this area or with certain Fey in the future so it still pays off eventually. Probably not a good point to completely kill off a thread on, especially if you have a mostly good-aligned party, but it could represent a temporary setback if your table is open to story beats like that.
I want to give a big THANK YOU to Mike Bernier for this content!
When I first saw the article, I wasn't sure I'd need low-level intro-content for the Feywild. Lo and behold one of my old players wants to return to our campaign table at the same time our main campaign discovers that sometime in the future they'll need to head into the Feywild! This content was the perfect introduction for the returning player's new character, a Satyr Ranger (named Grey Znee), as I took the second part - the bargain with a hag - and sent two players on their way (with level 7 characters) to ask Old Agnes Greenteeth for information, which she offered in trade for the water of the dryad's pool... and the adventure began!
I've subsequently stitched this introduction to the Encounter of the Week: April Showers and Foul Flowers, by James Haeck, for more feywild fun! All of this got the players warmed up nicely just in time for the new book (The Wild beyond the Witchlight) to come out, and so there are plenty of options going forward!
Articles and encounters like these offer a great 'grab bag' of ideas, especially for DMs that are homebrewing, or if a table needs a fun single-session encounter or even an introduction to D&D. Please keep them coming!
My daughter has managed to convince a few friends to try D&D (they are like 11 & 12). And the pixie short sounds perfect. However, I have never been a DM. When would you recommend they level up? Is there any ways I could flesh it out a little if they wanted to play more (incase they get through this quite quickly)? Any other tips for me? I'm hoping if they enjoy it we can do either the starter or essentials campaign unless anyone else has any better ideas? My daughter has watched me play a few times, so has some idea. The other 2 have heard of D&D but no experience of it. Thanks in advance!