The Wild Beyond the Witchlight

Poster Map

The adventure lets you know when it's safe to show your players either side of the double-sided poster map.

One side of the poster map shows the Witchlight Carnival and a Time Tracker, to help you track the passage of time as the characters explore the carnival. Certain carnival events occur only when the Time Tracker reaches a certain point. Though it's not necessary, your group can place tokens or miniatures on the map to keep track of where the characters are in the carnival at any given time.

The reverse side of the poster map shows the Feywild domain of Prismeer, now divided into three splinter-realms called Hither, Thither, and Yon. Lodged between them is the Palace of Heart's Desire—the home of Prismeer's archfey ruler, Zybilna. This side of the map is meant to be shared with the players once the characters reach the palace, from where they can look out over the whole domain. DM-friendly versions of this map appear in chapters 2, 3, and 4, to help you track the party's progress through Prismeer's splinter-realms.

Interior Maps

Maps that appear in this book are for your eyes only. As the characters explore locations on a given map, you can redraw portions of the map on graph paper, a wet-erase mat, or another surface to help your players visualize locations that might have unusual shapes or features. Your hand-drawn maps need not be faithful to the originals, and you can alter a map's features as you see fit. Nor do your maps need to be painstakingly rendered. You can omit details that are not readily visible (such as secret doors and other hidden features) until the characters are able to detect and interact with them.

Landmarks Not to Scale

The poster map of Prismeer and the interior maps of Hither, Thither, and Yon show important landmarks that are described in the text. These landmarks are not drawn to scale.

Unicorn Horn

A lost unicorn horn plays an important part in the adventure. Its location is determined randomly by rolling on the Unicorn Horn's Location table. Once you determine where the horn is, record its location on the Story Tracker.

The horn belongs to a unicorn named Elidon, who was captured and transformed into a rocking horse by the Hourglass Coven. For more information about Elidon, see x in chapter 3.

New Character Options

During character creation, you can allow your players to read the new backgrounds and race options that appear in this introduction, if you're comfortable with allowing these options in your game.

Magic Item Descriptions

When the characters acquire a new magic item and figure out what it does (see "Identifying a Magic Item" in the Dungeon Master's Guide), give that item's description to the players.

Statistics

Creature stat blocks should be kept hidden from the players until circumstances warrant otherwise, as discussed below.

Dice Rolls

Many DMs like to roll their dice in the open, for all the players to see, to maintain transparency. Other DMs prefer to roll dice behind a screen to maintain suspense. Either approach is fine.

Even DMs who conceal their dice rolls might divulge certain results. For example, when a creature scores a critical hit against a character, it's customary to let the player know that their character just took a particularly nasty hit before revealing how much damage was dealt.

It's okay to ask one of your players to make a die roll for you. For example, if you plan to use one of this adventure's random encounters, you can have a player roll to determine what the characters encounter, rather than making the roll yourself.

Story Information

Important information that doesn't appear in boxed text is usually communicated to players through roleplaying. As the DM, you roleplay all the creatures that the characters encounter in the adventure. Many of the DM-controlled creatures (also called nonplayer characters, or NPCs) in this adventure know information that the characters can learn through inquiry. The adventure outlines the most likely circumstances under which a creature will share what it knows.

The adventure describes important creatures in detail, while creatures of little consequence get no more than a passing reference. As such, you have enough information to bring important creatures to life, but not so much that it becomes a chore to remember all the details. The adventure seldom goes so far as to describe what a creature sounds like, nor does it reveal everything that a creature might say or do. You're expected to improvise and bring creatures to life as best you can. For example, the adventure describes Mister Light (one of the owners of the Witchlight Carnival) as a flamboyant figure, but you get to decide what his voice sounds like and how he reacts to a given situation, based on what the adventure says about him. You can also ignore what the text says and roleplay Mister Light or any other creature as you see fit.

Setting the Stage

After the players create their characters, use the following boxed text to kick off the adventure:

Work with the players to establish what connections, if any, the characters have with each other. For example, some or all of the characters might hail from a nearby village and have known each other for years.

Characters who have the Witchlight hand background would also know each other, since they worked together prior to the start of the adventure. They, too, are standing outside the carnival when the adventure begins.

If you haven't done so already, lay out the poster map of the Witchlight Carnival for the players to see.

Determining What Was Lost

Each character, having lost something precious as a child, is unable to gain inspiration (as described in the Player's Handbook) until they get back what was taken from them. A remove curse spell is not powerful enough to end this effect on a character, but a wish spell can. This might not seem like much of a drawback, as characters can cope just fine without ever gaining inspiration. Think of it more as a splinter under one's fingernail—a nagging, mildly painful annoyance that slightly diminishes one's happiness. (Hags, by their cruel actions, can spread aggravation and misery throughout the multiverse in all sorts of ways.)

The players don't know it yet, but the Witchlight Carnival operates under a peculiar set of rules. By entering the carnival without tickets as children, the characters inadvertently set themselves up to be robbed. Whatever thing was taken from each character as a child vanished suddenly while that character was distracted by the magic of the carnival. All such thefts can be traced back to the hags of Prismeer, who use thieves to acquire and collect all manner of strange things and to whom the carnival owners are beholden.

For each character in the adventuring party, roll a d8 and consult the Lost Things table to determine what was stolen from that character. If a player doesn't like their result, let them choose an option they prefer. You can swap out some of the entries on the Lost Things table with others that you or your players create, using the ones described below as models.

Use the adventure's Story Tracker to record what each character has lost.

The hags used each character's lost thing to craft a magic item. By interacting with the magic item in a specific way (as described below), the character regains what they lost. The magic item otherwise functions normally.

Keepers of Lost Things

Once you know what has been stolen from a character, roll on the Keepers of Lost Things table to determine which hag has the thing in question. Use the adventure's Story Tracker to record this information.

Minor Curses

At your discretion, each character who lost something as a child might carry a minor curse as well. Unlike the inability to gain inspiration, this minor curse can be lifted with a remove curse spell or similar magic. The nature of the minor curse affecting each character depends on which hag took what the character lost. After rolling on the Keepers of Lost Things table for each character, consult the Minor Curses table to determine what minor curse besets that character.

Use the adventure's Story Tracker to record this information, then ask each player to also be mindful of their character's minor curse.

Setting the Stage

Identify which players have chosen the Witchlight hand background for their characters, then separate those players from the rest of the group—for now. They will join the others once everyone has gathered at the Witchlight Carnival.

To kick off the adventure, read the following boxed text to the players whose characters aren't part of the carnival:

[image: Madryck Roslof]

The players will undoubtedly want to know more about the rewards Madryck is offering. See "x" later in this section for a summary. (If you allow your players to make wish lists of magic items for their characters, you can replace one or more of Madryck's magic item rewards with items from those lists.)

Madryck doesn't need to have a past relationship with any of the characters, but if the players want to tie Madryck more closely to their characters' back stories, allow it. Madryck is a mage (neutral good) who speaks Common, Sylvan, and two other languages of your choice. Although he has been out of touch with Zybilna for almost a year, he knows that time passes differently in parts of the Feywild, including Zybilna's realm of Prismeer. He can't predict how much time it will take for the characters to complete their quest; they might come back in a matter of days, or years could pass on the Material Plane before they return. Not wanting to alarm the characters, Madryck tries to steer the conversation away from issues involving the passage of time, if one or more characters mention something about it.

What Madryck Knows

If the characters request more information about the Witchlight Carnival, Madryck says that he hasn't visited the carnival in sixty-four years and admits that a lot can change in that time. He advises the characters to explore the carnival thoroughly on their own. He doesn't presume to know what form the fey crossing currently takes or how well hidden and protected it is. He does provide the following reliable information:

• Zybilna is a fairy godmother to mortals. She created the carnival as a means by which mortals could enter her realm and beseech her aid.
• When Madryck last visited the carnival, it was run by a pair of shadar-kai (elves native to the Shadowfell) named Mister Witch and Mister Light. He assumes they're still in charge.
• Madryck dimly recalls that Witch and Light acquired the carnival more than a hundred years ago from an eladrin (an elf native to the Feywild). The eladrin's name escapes him.

If the characters request more information about Zybilna and Prismeer, Madryck offers the following descriptions, based on firsthand knowledge that is somewhat out of date:

• Prismeer is a domain of delight ruled by Zybilna, who dwells in the Palace of Heart's Desire, a magnificent structure in the heart of the domain.
• Zybilna can assume many forms and is brilliant, secretive, and wise. (Madryck doesn't know Zybilna's secret identity, as revealed in chapter 5.)
• When she presents herself to mortals, Zybilna usually assumes the form of a statuesque woman with long white hair and a small tattoo shaped like a chicken's foot below one eye.

Each character who hears Madryck's description of Zybilna suddenly recalls a forgotten childhood memory of her, which you can determine by having that character's player roll on the Childhood Memories table.

[image: Madryck Roslof's Pumpkin Farm]

To the Carnival

Characters who accept Madryck's quest can make the uneventful trek to the carnival, which is located not too far from a settlement of your choosing. The characters arrive shortly before twilight. When they arrive, lay out the poster map of the carnival for the players to see.

After revealing the map, read the following boxed text to any players whose characters have the Witchlight hand background (or skip it if no character meets this criterion):

Allow the characters who have the Witchlight hand background to interact as they see fit with the characters who met with Madryck Roslof. These interactions can occur before or after the carnival opens its gates to visitors.

Madryck's Treasure

Madryck keeps the treasure from his adventuring days in a locked wooden chest that is buried in a secret location far from his modest dwelling. He carries the chest's only key, the head of which is made of stained glass and shaped like a violet faerie dragon.

If the characters accept the quest and return with proof that Zybilna is alive and well, Madryck gives them his key and directions to the buried chest, which contains the following treasure:

• A bag of beans
• A cloak of displacement
• A suit of +2 leather armor
• A +2 wand of the war mage
• A silk bag containing eight 500 gp gemstones
• Three folded letters (described below)