I fixed Wild Beyond the Witchlight
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- Опубліковано 3 лис 2024
- Upgrading the Witchlight Carnival and scrapping the palace for something so much better.
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I love this change. Sly Flourish ran Witchlight and added in Intrusions of Dread. Basically, the archfey's absence is causing planar convergences between the Feywild and Shadowfell, and he used random encounters based on the various Domains of Dread. I think this new ending would pair really well with these intrusions. Thanks for sharing!
great ideas!! i love when the end shows the importance of the beginning. revealing the significance of a story's elements should mirror how the audience of the story gains a better understand themselves as a result of going on that ride. isn't that the whole point of fiction? and also putting the spookiest part at the end = iconic hero's journey.
You get it
I'm running Witchlight at the moment and I'm so glad the party is still on Chapter 1. I can still implement these amazing ideas!
Whatever you use, tell me how it goes!
This is brilliant, it truly adds a twist on the adventure and having its end mirror its beginning is genius. Will definitely work to implement.
I am so doing this! Fantastic idea. My next campaign is Witchlight. One of my players wants to play an Eladrin. I'm thinking Isolde could be her mother, unknown to the player aka "Luke, I am your father!" Thanks for the perfect finale to Witchlight!
Very very good video!
I run my WbtWL campaign very similarly, just maybe with a slight change to give the plot more drama. Following the "Dreadful Incursion" concept from Sly Flourish, Zybilna, as Archfey of Prismeer, maintains the barrier between Feywild and Shadowfell. As long as she is frozen in time, the barrier between the two planes becomes thinner and thinner and Dreadful Incursions occur - places where the Shadowfell bleeds through into the Feywild (in the game, these are small oneshots that can take place in different Domains of Dread).
One of the main players in this plan is Isolde, who has been informed of Zybilna's machinations by the Hourglass Coven (and in the bigger picture of my campaign, the Unseelie Court). The Carnival is one (if not the only) Traveling Domain of Dread. So Isolde has the unique opportunity to reach holes in the barriers between the Planes at various points and tries to find her way into the Palace of Hearths Desire over the course of the campaign. The Hourglass Coven (which, to be honest, is not very active in the original campaign, and tries to keep Prismeer in check) supports Isolde - driven by hatred - in her quest for revenge.
This (hopefully) leaves my players with more of a feeling of "We have to save the world".
Love the bookend concept. I too ran the campaign ‘as written’ with heavy customization for PC backstory. Also the Witchlight Carnival felt lacking in tie-ins to the world of Prismeer, so I slipped in foreshadowing rides & games.
This is also how I ran WBTW. My party decided their motivation for helping Witch and Light get out from under their deal with the Hags was an ownership stake in the carnival. The owners agreed to the deal and sent them to find their silent patron who had the power to enact such a bargain. But yes, I’d have loved to bookend it with a surprise drop-in at the other carnival.
I converted the entire book using the Mystara setting as its source. Replaced the mundane fantasy creatures like goblins with more traditional ones like brownies. Switched Iggwilv with Ilyana Penhaligon from module B12, everybody thought they were rescuing her but she wasn't a nice person to begin with. The fey queen in the sword was just way more than she could handle. Used fey creatures from older editions to fill in the blanks left by 5e
I do find myself looking up the older fey creatures from previous editions. For a Feywild campaign, there's a surprising lack of fey creatures scattered throughout it!
@feywildfiend That's because there's a depressing lack of fey in 5e. They've got a 64 page BECMI from decades ago with as many as they have now in this edition only those are playable races. Why they decided to focus on Tasha is a bit baffling as well. The obsession with her over a few books seemed almost fetish level
I love this idea. I'm currently running a ravenloft campaign, and then I'm going to do a witchlight one with the same group. They've seen the dark carnival before. It'll be awesome to bring things back to it.
If you do borrow any of these ideas, please please please come back and let me know how it goes!
@@feywildfiend I will, but it will probably be a couple months before we get to it. Need to finish the current story arc in Ravenloft first.
Very clever. The finish at Isolde’s dark circus is clever! Thank you
I landed on this video looking for Sly Flourish’s guide(which I love) to rehash some stuff I wanted to do now that my party is in Hither…
I absolutely love your ideas… ending with the Shadowfell carnival gives me so many ideas compared to what I consider a bit of an anticlimax of an ending… or at least an off themed one. I’m definitely going to be re-writing the end to take place at a wickedly evil carnival… one that, despite it’s new owners well-wishes, keeps going evil. Personally, I think I’ll be aiming for somewhere between Tim Burton-esque and craziness from Stephen King’s From a Buick 8 or Insomnia…
Thanks so much! This one video alone got a new subscriber! 😀 I look forward to exploring your other content!
I love these ideas!! I'm about to start Witchlight with my group it's going to be their first full campaign and these changes sound both right up our alleys!!
Yes and...
I would have the weather play a part, almost a character in itself. As you enter the carnival, the sky above is clear but there are storm clouds building on the horizon. And they slowly rumble forward with peaks. Then as they work their way through the adventure it storms where fights are. Lightning can point the players to a clue they might have missed. And the boss fight clashing under the storm, wind whipping here and there, thunder rumbling. And when they succeed, or possibly if they don't, a new day dawns
Okay, I actually really like this take on the weather
This video has inspired me. I was already toying with the idea of changing the end as the palace ending seemed a bit weak to me. After the video I know what my end will be: Transportation to Barovia!
The fact that fans have to constantly fix 5e official adventures is why many DMs are leaving (or have already left) 5e for other systems like DCC or OSE.
Frankly i found wbtw not to need any fixing at all. Some ppl just dont "like" this kind of storytelling tone I guess, but the consistent 5 star rating means its more liked than disliked. I myself have no interest anymore in much of the darker type of stories (its done to death in ttrpgs) so Im.glad we finally have some diversity.
Honestly, any dungeon master, who has to complain about changing things to fit their own story is a bad dungeon master in my opinion. I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with 5e modules but I like changing things so that I can tell my own story. If you can’t handle being creative as a dungeon master, that’s not wizards of the coasts problem that’s your problem. So many people just want their handheld when it comes to being a dungeon master that if you don’t do every little thing to make it easy, they’ll just throw a tantrum and run on home.
I just found your page! Finally, someone who focuses strictly on the Fey and Shadow Realms! I am working on these realms. I will be reading and following your page to absorb all this!!!! Thank you!!!!
Im so glad i found this. Im just finishing up Curse of Strahd with players and might implement these ideas as a prologue, the dark carnival rolls in as the mists of Barovia clear...
YESSSSS! So, so, SO good! Brilliant ideas here!
That was a beautiful take on the Wild Beyond the Witchlight !!!!
I wish I had seen this video before running the campaign 😅
I ended up not using the League of Malevolent at all, because its just felt out of place for me.
Next time I run the campaign, im surely coming back to your video for inspiration! Thank you!
I absolutely love your ideas, and they are brilliant for helping with solving the dilemma I had, too, so I am stealing them.
I played through the campaign and am now getting ready to run it myself.
So here are my plans:
My idea was that the two Carnivals have met up once more, and the swap will happen after one last week of performance in Viktal, the village where I am starting my story.
The heroes will see that in the day the delights of Witchlight are open and then at nightfall, the Dark Carnival opens its tents.
The heroes will go through the Witchlight events, go to the Feywild, and have their adventures in Hither, Thither, and Yon. BUT the lore I found in VRGtR mentioned that the Dark Carnival was owned by someone called "The Puppetmaster" before Witch and Light got it. That sounded far too much like Endelyn Moongrave to me. More so, Endelyn is far too scary to just be one of the Hourglass Coven members. No. My big change is that Iggwylv =/= Tasha =/= Zybilna.
Instead, Zybilna is Iggwylv's mother, an Archfey, also known as "Mother" to the Dread Domain of Tepest. As I mentioned, I am beginning my players in the village of Viktal in Tepest, where Mother, (their deity/Elder/Dread Lord) has been missing for some time and no new children have been born for the last year. All the young children in Viktal are so excited for the Carnivals' arrival and the parents in the little village want them all to have a joyous time as they fear this might be the last generation of children for a long time without Mother to grant them more.
One of the village Elders tells the heroes that Mother is absent and something is wrong and Mother always loved the Carnival, and they ask the heroes to be on the lookout for clues about what happened to Mother.
So I replaced the Hag in Yon with Iggwylv, who is enjoying her theatrics and holding a Masquerade Ball before the big play performance in the hopes that it will draw out The Caller. Who I will reveal is secretly Iggwylv's and Graz'zt's son, Luzaine. Iggwylv has been hunting him for ages, and her mother Zybilna has the power to always know the location of any one of her bloodline in the Fey or Shadowfell. But The Caller, through his trickery, has bound his fairy grandmother Zybilna against speaking of his location in her waking hours by casting a spell using the tongue of the first Bullywug King who had been cursed by Bavlorna to never reveal a secret while awake.
So to get her mother to reveal her grandson's location, Iggwylv has used her coven's cauldron, with the help of a potion of sleep brewed by Bavlorna, a magical wind-up Cuckoo Clock made by Scabitha to freeze time, a charm made by Graz'zt of joyous debauchery to make the dreams pleasant, a spell of Synaptic Static to ensure Zybilna fails her checks, all anchored to a piece of Baba Yaga's walking hut, and magical puppet strings made by a Dread Lord version of The Puppetmaster aka Endelyn, to force Zybilna into permanent sleep in stopped time, thus extending her chances of overhearing The Caller's true location from her mother's sleepy mumblings.
Thus Endelyn is my BBEG who is a Dread Lord without a Domain and wishes to take over Tepest from Mother. Why does Mother/Zybilna control Prismeer *and Tepest? Because the domains are one and the same. A central hub upon which the Courts of the Feywild and the Domains of Dread turn. This is why it even exists outside of the Summer and Winter courts to pin it all together.
So our heroes will leave Yon after thwarting but not destroying Tasha/Iggwylv who will retreat to The Palace of Hearts Desire as getting the location of The Caller from her mother's lips is now Tasha's only chance at ever finding her scheming son.
But when our heroes leave Yon they will learn that the only way to even *get* to the Palace is to free the Jabberwock. So they find themselves needing to travel back to Viktal to find the Jabberwock imprisoned by Isolde under Tasha's orders. Isolde works for Tasha as she hates Zybilna and The Caller. But to free the Jabberwock they need to steal Nepenthe aka Snickersnack from Isolde. Thus they will need to find allies within the Dark Carnival and defeat Isolde to steal the sword, cut the chains holding the Jabberwock. In doing so the Jabberwock will immediately fly back to the Palace of Heart's Desire with the heroes on its back.
But there they will encounter Endelyn Moongrave and her League of Malevolence as well as Tasha herself! They will discover while battling them that The Caller is actually a member of the Dark Carnival and has not only been living under the nose of Isolde, posing as a Changeling named Question Mark whose sideshow act the heroes will have taken part in. Even worse they will discover that Mark has been Isolde's lover for some time now and it was all am attempt by Luzaine to get Isolde to ultimately forgive him and love him. But he needed both Nepenthe and the Jabberwock gone from the Carnival in order for Isolde's eyes to see him clearly and without the red vengeance which Nepenthe had visited upon her mind. Thus, this will free Isolde from the Dark Carnival and Witch and Light will be forced to take back the Dark Carnival. But a newly freed Mother Zybilna will then grant Isolde, Witch, and Light a wish they must agree upon. They decide that they wish to combine the Carnivals into one to be run by Witch and Light and to free Isolde to become Zybilna's Champion once more. Together with the reformed Snickersnack, our heroes will battle Endelyn Moongrave to cut the strings she has carefully woven around all of Tepest and Prismeer with Snickersnack, revisiting key locations along the way.
This sounds perfect for a darker, more cemetrical version 😍
Yes, the mirror carnivals is just too cool of a thing to leave in the backstory, this is idea is dope AF.
The only thing I'll contend is that I tried running a beefed up Witchlight for a pretty experienced party who was well versed in Shadarkai lore and thus they did not trust Witch & Light an inch. Them actually being innocent fun loving guys was a nice subversion for my party and a challenge to stereotyping. (Aaand I purposely seeded some of their overheard convos to misinterpret owing people to the hags (particularly Endelynn, who loves tragedy) as owing them to the Raven Queen (also loves tragedy and subsumes people)).
That and all our other adventures are about war, crime and murder - it was nice to have 2 sessions dedicated to euphoric goofing and oggling pretty magic for a change. Also with the proposed ending change it would offer a greater foil to the dark carnival later instead of risking too much overlap. But if you insist on more darkness at the start, just amp up interference from the hag's minions - they're already there.
Bottom line: I love the hags using Isolde as the distraction better than the LoM. And freeing Zybinla at the dark carnival. But my players (And I think most players) really felt like reaching the castle was the goal of the story. I think if you’re sending them to the Shadowfell, it has to be through the palace. I think the cleanest way to do this is to change the courtyard of the Palace so that time never stopped outside the building. And the inside of the building is shrouded in Shadowfell Mist, until you go through it enough to discover the interior is now its own domain of dread, or pocket dimension in the shadowfell. There’d be a lot to work out from there. Big changes to monsters and lore drops. But I do think you’d end up with a much more satisfying adventure and story than what we had in the published version.
Omg this is perfect. Ive been thinking about a way to incorporate Isolde and her carnival in, but i had planned to have them encounter the carnvial on the way to the palace. This is WAY better. I'm going to have them go to the palace first to let them search for Zybilna, only to find clues into her true nature.
Woah. This is a pretty good idea. I just started this adventure. Made them start in Mordent (Ravenloft Domain!). So, looping in the Dark Carnival to finish kind of where they started sounds really good. I need to think about this!
This is great storytelling in action.
Absolutely great points here! I’m running domains of dread now and couldn’t agree with this more.
Ohhhh my party just arrived in hither at the end of last session, and i did indulge them into the history of isolde and mr. witch and mr. light. I am soooo gonna make that change to the ending! it sounds very very satisfying and it gives the players more agency!
I have run Isolde's carnival before in a nice little module called Widow's Peak, but i think i'll make some changes >:}
If i remember this video in like one and a half years for now i'll report back with my review of the ending!
Just. Love. This channel. I'm planning to run this campaign and it is very inspiring thank you. I agree : the dark side of the feywild needs to be more present.
this is so cool! Thank you for sharing!
I love this idea so much! I'm one session in and my players are already suspicious of the carnival despite me doing everything I can to make it seem welcoming. Maybe I'll switch it up and feed into that suspicion with this concept! I had no idea about the dark carnival and the connection is to solid to pass up! If they think this carnival is suspicious wait till they get to the new ending 😈 Great video and great change to the book! Thanks for the ideas!
"Isolde" is a German name, e.g., from the play Tristan and Isolde. It has three syllables as the "e" is not silent but more of the sound of an "a". So, "I-SOL-da" is the correct pronunciation.
I speak German fluently and I remember enough Russian to get slapped.
As you may know, Jabberwock and a Vorpal blade that goes snicker snack are from Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky". You might borrow from that poem a Jubjub Bird and a Bandersnatch as additional dangers. Have a brillig day!
It's not that simple, Tristan & Isolde is a story with no clear origin and many influences, most old german versions call her Isolt, not Isolde which would be the french spelling. I have no idea where you get the "-da" from, Isolde's german pronouncation would be "-de" with the german de not the english de pronounciation of course, while in the french pronouncation, the e would be silent. Greetings from a German in Germany ;)
…then, of course, it can be Iseult…
When I was in Germany, some words were pronounced differently on one side of town than on the other. So "de" could be da, dee, deh, you name it. France and Germany do not exist in D&D the last time i checked, so I guess anyone can pronounce any name anyway they want. When I point out to a UA-camr that Cixin Liu is actually pronounced Lyo Shershin, I usually just get a "Thank you".
Zybilna will most certainly be the bbeg of my campaign once we start running.
for one, since she (as Tasha) had returned to the Feywild in flight from her many, many enemies (of the demonic variety), I have it so that she didn’t so much create Prismeer as seduce and beguile her way into an existing archfey’s domain. Not only because it fits her MO as Tasha, but it's another layer of how she really aint trying to change her shit up.
She played the long game and she took a while to move her entourage into key places, including the coven, which, she didn’t want to use at all given they are entirely untrustworthy but in this period of time she couldn’t be picky about who her friends are. And the ousted archfey, tho normally not so incompetent was having a personal crisis (which she certainly-albeit secretly-fomented). Archfey went to sort out his shit and that fast she took over, locked down the joint and summoned her fave huntsman (i changed this too from The Caller is a succubus as i understand it, and i didn't want to dabble in potential SA / consent issues until i know this table better and my own capacity as a dm) to take out the relatively unawares and somewhat vulnerable archfey. Then she took over the realm but not before she convinced the dupe to rename the realm w her so it all kinda looked legit.
But as the party looks for their own lost things they will be given a web of info by which they can piece together just who they might be dealing with after the hags (i think of breaking bad when, after Walter took over the meth empire it turned to shit so fast and suddenly white supremacist hillbillies had the show). They can still free her if they want because having no archfey here is not better than her crooked ways. But if they want to fight her they might have to get Isolde or do some other shit about town so to speak cuz she's no joke.
I’m weaving it w character backstories as they'll need chase down a web of interconnected situations kind of all sprung from Zybilna’s return to the fey and how it wittingly or unwittingly upset the delicate balance in what serves for the continent of the Feywild Prismeer is located in.
they will certainly have the option to fetch Isolde, right a whole bunch of wrongs, got to a a whole lot of crazy places, encounter a whole lot of demons that need to die, and most importantly, hold Zybilna accountable. She can't rightly act like some benevolent being while also not owning her shit. it can happen peacefully or not. but probably not ha
But the arc of the story, i'm hoping anyway, that the characters will get their lost shit, and no matter how they feel about her, have to free Zybilna in order for them to leave Prismeer. They'll have plenty of moral complications and obligations to try fix for an extended campaign. but if the players are done, they at least get their shit and bounce, knowing tho they've opened a can of worms
I've also got whole other factions of my own making. which are involved. The nod to the 80s characters is cool and all, but they don't serve much purpose at all and i'm not attached to them in any way
But i do like your idea of mirroring the beginning and the end with a carnival and i'm gonna see how i can make that work
Just gonna copy paste all of this into my campaign notes...
I, too, connected the two carnivals, but you did a much better version. Thank You for these ideas.
Wish I had these videos when I ran the Witchlight campaign. This was my first attempt at running an official module… and was not a good experience.
If I ever decide to run it again, there is so much I’m going to change!
Glad I stumbled across your videos 😁
I hated this idea when you first mentioned it, but as you went through it. Connecting the carnivals and bringing the story full circle like that is kinda genius.
Amazing. I'm going to work on implementing this. I was also throwing around a homebrew campaign about ending the domains of dread so this may feed into it.
Oooh I love this idea, I’ve only run one session of our wbtwl campaign so far, and my players are already a little i’ll at ease with the Carnival in its vanilla form, I do think there are some dark undertones already present with the hag deals occurring, and characters like Diana (who had a deep and tragic conversation with one of my PCs while the rest of the party rode the carousel) so I think leaning into that, adding more shadowfell and dark fey vibes would be great, and also pretty easy to do in an area like the small stalls, or you somewhat reskinning some of the other attractions! The ending sounds awesome and I might have to absolutely steal some of these ideas! The players being transported to the Shadowfell carnival and finding the Jabberwok guarding Zybilna/ her cauldron is super cool, maybe all set up as part of a big top performance, with a fancy set and fictional premise around it. It also really nicely mirrors the opening chapter, and gives a really good moment for the PCs to reflect on their character growth and how they’ve changed! Can honestly say I didn’t know much at all about Ravenloft before this, now i’m really interested in looking into it! Maybe I’ll run it as a follow on for out wbtwl campaign if the PCs make it there! Great video!!
I like this idea, i'm preparing to run this campaing probably next year, I'll consider heavy this ending, I like it a lot
These are great ideas. I wish I had seen your video earlier. At the moment I am running the original campagin at my school club. It is an unexpierenced group of kids aged 13, but they really enjoy it. I will definetly rework the campagin using your ideas for our adult group. I am a big fan of Ravenloft and connecting the two carnevals will be great fun and entertaining. Who knows, depending on how the players decide, we might and up in the Ravenloft plane. Maybe leading to Curse of Strahd.
Your ideas are 100% better 💜💜
Looove the Isolde idea and ending at the Dark Carnival. I'm running this campaign later in the year and will probably use this!!
This was my biggest gripe with the adventure as well. There are some fun and cool elements to the palace, but it doesn't quite gel together as a climactic finish. If I hadn't just finished running Wild Beyond the Witchlight, I would definitely be implementing these ideas!
Yes! I love all things Fey... carnivals is not the first thing I think of when I think of the Fey realm
The whole group should watch "Something wicked, this way comes" As a shop called "Needful Things" plays a role much like the Fae, and the Market.
Ooooh, I love these ideas! I'm definitely going to have to revisit this the next time I run WBTW!
Please do!
Carnival is one of the fun domains. One of the things I would recommend is the 2nd edition book called well Carnival. It goes into so much more detail about the carnival domain and all the characters. There are far more than what Van Richten's guide provides, and opitonal characters to add due to the twisting. It also has some fun plots to include as well. And while the rules there are for 2nd edition aD&D, it is mostly just fluff and system agnostic.
In regard to Isolde, one thing to note is that in earlier editions Eladrin were outsiders, so basically an angel and she was chasing to destroy an incbus known as the Gentleman Caller. Isolde also didn't have an evil sword in 2nd edition. Isolde also looked to be more human like in 2nd edition, as older ravenloft was far more human centric then even current ravenloft.
One of the things about outsiders though is that they tend to have a reality wrinkle that warps the rules around itself and allows them to effectively travel the domains freely even if a dark lord closed the borders. For Isolde this manifests as the Twisting, where the longer one is in the Carnival, the more one is twisted and slowly becomes a carnival freak, and thus joins the carnival, with it reversing when they leave the land.
Interesting twist - I like the incorporation of the two Carnivals, but a few challenges:
1) Why would Zybilna target Isolde so terribly? Fey capriciousness or even Tasha's - is generally not without provocation
2) Getting into Ravenloft is one thing, getting out is another... (highly unlikely the hags could move so freely between the Mists without consequence or the attention of the Dark Powers).
The ideas has legs but needs work:
- Zybilna's motivations for targeting Isolde
- Alternatively, who is to say Zybilna had nothing to do with Isolde's situation and it was the hags all along - or they simply lied to Isolde to inspire hatred against Zybilna?
- I am not across the particulars expand on how or why the other Carnival was absorbed into Ravenloft but the Carnivals were both travelling realms freely prior to that event.
Hey, i love the use of Isolde as the keeper of Zybilna. I wish i had such great idea for adding Graz'zt in the campaign too.
Maybe as an Dark Patron for the group who wish to have Zybilna back. He could have send Luz, both of their son, to prismeer and can become a useful NPC through out the campaign.
I ran witchlight when it first came out for my kids. I made a ton of changes but not to the palace part. Soooo wish I could have ran this ending. The palace just did not do it for my girls. It felt half baked and tacked on. Love the connections in your idea. I will use it if I run witchlight again.
I'm currently reading the campaign book, this will be my first campaign as a DM! Your changes sound very interesting, I'll definitely consider using them ☺️ I'll let you know if I do and how it goes!
While I love your ideas I gonna admit that as a first time DM that is fairly new to DND as a whole I probably gonna stick to the campaign as much as possible. I like the idea of changing the sparkly-ness of the carnival in the beginning and I would love to run the ending like you proposed but I am too scared of preparing stuff outside of the book ^^"
That is actually what I did! Witchlight was my first full campaign, so I didn't want to change much. We still had SO much fun, even if I had different ideas later for how I could've run it.
Some very cool ideas.
The League of M and Valor's Call serve to continue the theme of other adventuring parties. This thene dawned on me when I was trying to figure out what Elliwick is doing in the Carnival and then I realize both Elliwick and Kettlesteam don't fit. I think that is because Elliwick and Kettlesteam are remnants of an adventuring group that disolved.
Later, you have other adventuring parties like the one formed by the dandelion, the oil can, the toy man, and the bumblebee queen.
Or the adventuring party of the Bullywogs who helped the Fairydragon escape.
Wow, I'd never read the Carnival from Ravenloft, which paints a rather dark picture of Zybilna, hey! I love your suggestions here. Being able to give the players a moral dlilemma, aka agency to pick a side, right at the very end of an adventure like this would be very cool.
Riveting - Well argued and inventive. I do like your idea of boomeranging PCs back into the Carnival, and it seems like a nice way to introduce PCs into Ravenloft. I always think of a faerie story as political - an ongoing intrigue between faerie courts, co I wonder if there would be a way to interject that - like, is there another Archfey Isolde is beholden to, or is an Archfey monitoring the PCs and ready to swoop in and take over Prismeer? The way the adventure revolves around Baba Yaga, I wish there was a way to more directly involve her.
For my own campaign, the ending centered on the PCs retrieving the Demonomicon from Zybilna’s library, and then finding out who Iggwliv had trapped in the tome…
See, I kinda like Valor's Call and the League of Malevolence's place in the story as nod to or commentary on the alignment system/good and evil as a whole. They, as characters, are good and evil personified from an older edition of dnd. Good or evil to a fault. Valor's Call would (try to) strike down Zybilna in a heartbeat because Iggwilv = Bad. But then we look at Zybilna who is incredibly complex and there are arguments to be made either way on whether to save her and let her work towards redemption or punish her for her crimes.
And this is also down to the DM's personal rendition of Zybilna. My personal Zybilna, after spending so much time with Isolde and the positive influence of the feywild came to regret her actions. And perhaps the party can help her take the next steps toward growing into the benevolent archfey she's been trying to become.
I do think Isolde needs more time to shine in the adventure. And I'm sad there's not much in the book that keys players and not just the DM into Isolde's history. (Or really Witch and Light's backstory either).
After Witchlight, I plan on running Kobold Press' Courts of the Shadowfey which takes place mostly in a fey court in what is essentially the shadowfell. And the dark Carnival coming to town is how I plan on starting off that adventure. (Also gonna incorporate The Caller into that story a bit. One of the pcs is one of his children unbeknownst to the pc.)
I want to do this now!
I'm sad that I saw this video after I had finished the Witchlight campaign. But, if I will ever run the campaign again, I will use this change. I'm going to run Curse of Strahd next, and I'm thinking leaving my players some easter eggs about Witchlight and Shadow Carnevals, because they were confused who the heck is Isolde
You gave me some great ideas to upgrade my current Spelljammer/asteroid amusement park game. The PCs haven't reached the park proper yet, so I can still rework it.
My campaign reached the Feywild from SpellJammer too. Mostly because I was off put by the limitations of 5e Spelljammer.
These ideas are excellent. I'm building a Feywild campaign using WBTW as the basis and looking for as many alternate adventure possibilities to give my party choice in which direction to go. The idea of using Isolde to transition them into the Shadow Carnival is excellent. I'm curious what other offshoot stories have you found that tie into WBTW?
I like most of the changes. If I run it again, I may use them. The only nitpick I'll make is given the levels of the adventure, is that it doesn't make sense to have Zyblina as the BBEG. Given who she is in lore, her past, and history (and supposed changes in WByW, but, can always rewrite that) - she would be beyond level 8 characters to challenge.
I actually played Wild Beyond the Witchlight a while back, though the DM changed a lot of stuff and I haven't read the original, so I don't particularly know what the problem is or the ending. It was kind of lacking, though, I did feel that. I almost ate one of the hags. And Zybilna kidnapped me as a child and turned me into a rabbit because "I had more fun this way" and my character just shrugged and said "you got me there".
My problem with TWBtW:
5e D&D is frequently such a carnival anyway. PCs are powerful early and regularly defy reality. No one lives in a baseline ordinary enough to make the usual carnival tropes work well. Even small villages in 'The Realms' are home to second tier NPCs and there are magic shops in every small town nowadays, with everyday streets populated by tabaxi, tortles and tieflings. Elves and dwarves are quotidian and spotting the human can be an interesting mini-game.
As a fan of Coogar & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show ('Something Wicked This Way Comes'), I really loved the idea of TWBtW when it came out. Trouble is, when Bradbury wrote about the coming storm and Tom Fury heralding the approaching carnival, the train arrived in a small town where a stranger from the closest city could seem exciting and exotic (and instantly worrisome and untrustworthy). A carnival could be a once in a generation experience. The innocence of the boys and the skin-deep dignity and powerlessness of the townsfolk - with their small town fears and buttoned-up-tight desires made the whole thing sing.
Put the carnival in a place of goblins where a dragon sighting is a thing that (however infrequently) just happens, then the travelling show has to fly in from the sky and be constantly exploding with excesses and new new new curiosities. Even if you can sell the exoticism (frequently expressed in the module as costumes, appearances and trappings), these too can become unimpressive and tired quickly.
With rules for magic, PCs aren't enchanted or scared - they're trying to work out if it's divine or arcane and how to get it into their spellbook.
Saying (all) that, I did enjoy your video and think your identification of plotting and NPC motivational issues is excellent. I totally agree: there are real and far more sensible stakes for the central conflict just under the surface of the actual plot without needing to drop in extra unnecessary enemies.
Great solution!
Thanks
Describing D&D as a carnival is often pretty accurate. Of COURSE this doesn't go for all campaigns, characters, etc., but much of what I see online leans toward the silly. Silly can be fun, it can still leave room for heart, many people love it, and for good reason! It's an escape. It's delightful. If that's what makes a game fun for people, then that's wonderful.
I find myself personally leaning towards darker and more grounded narratives lately, though. Gothic tales, medieval oral tales, the kind where evil's impact truly threatens the world around it in a deep way. These stories can especially be so satisfying for players. Their powers and abilities would be truly unique in worlds that don't see many adventurers (those are the stuff of legend). They could bring real hope to places that have lost theirs.
I could write a whole essay about it. Thanks for this comment!
Wild beyond the Witchlight is a pretty solid adventure module, but like most modules, it does need a little fixing. As an adherent to the "emergent storytelling" philosophy of RPGs, my solution was to simply throw out the entire plot and just use it as a sandbox. I still need to do a good once-over and put a fresh coat of paint on it, but I should be ready to run it this summer.
BTW kudos for using Ravenloft properly. I cannot comprehend why anyone would want to use Ravenloft as a setting to run games in. It is not a real setting. Each "domain" is just a basic dungeon with a big bad and a surrounding wilderness. The whole "mists" thing is just a way to stitch all these mini-settings into a marketable product line. It comes off as contrived, lazy, and very corporate. However, it is perfect to steal ideas from. It is the best way to utilize a bad product line. The only way...
I definitely wish I'd run it as a sandbox. Its forced narrative structure feels just that: forced. And I've LOVED Ravenloft as an inspiration book, it's never felt like something I could run any more than a one-shot from.
My group is currently about half way through Witchlight - and it has gone completely off the rails. I've homebrewed with 3rd party products and my own ideas on the fey to the point where it is unrecognizable at this point. I love your ideas though and will be incorporating some of them into my game. As others have pointed out, there aren't near enough fey in WotC's current version of the Feywild, so I've been using some truly excellent 3rd party bestiaries - some of which exclusively focus on fey creatures. I also take influence of course from things like The Dresden Files, Shakespeare, Brian Froud's interpretation of Fey/Fae/Faerie... Outside of gothic horror, fey themed settings are my favorite, likely because they are themselves so horror adjacent. All of that whimsical niceness that you mentioned generally comes with a downside, and I want to capture that in my campaign.
I wrote a similar thing but Isolde turns her revenge to Zybilne, and I lean zybilna into her trying to get away from her former time as iggwilv, where she allied with demons instead of fey, demons among which Isolde may have slain, so theres more complex politics going on in the background. And the meeting of Isolde and learning the history happens AFTER freeing zybilna, so you find out later the hags were kind of right, but also wrong because zybilna was also seeking justice for former allies falling victim to Isolde. In the process, she may even gift the Nepenthe to the PC's, for helping her find the true cause of her predicament.
tasha as BBEG for wild beyond the witchlight 2024 I'm so happy others are jumping on the bandwagon too haha. Your ending is better than what I was planning, I love the idea of the party finding their way to the dark carnival. My only wish is to find a way to include mr witch and light in the ending somehow. Maybe theres a way to unite the two carnivals so that theyre not dysfunctional. (my witchlight carnival was dark and tainted, to the players it felt like something was wrong). Maybe the best ending could include both carnivals finding harmony
If you really wanted to amp up the drama, maybe the characters arrive right when the two carnivals are meeting again! If the hags are defeated, there's no longer powerful magic preventing that trade off. The implications would lead to some intense situations.
Every time I hear zybilna's names I cry at the fact that I can't read fast enough to fully understand the whole book before running it. I'm two sessions in, probably one more session of the carnival left, and I wish I could have a good enough understanding of all the parts of the campaign so that I could add stuff like this without unknowingly breaking something down the line 😅
Have you seen the TV adaptation of Johnathon Strange and Mr. Norrell? Recommended. Also, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
The old Disney movie of 'Something Wicked…' was wonderful. Injected all kinds of little fears into my dreams as a child, sparked imagination and made me pick up Bradbury's books wherever I could find them!
Now, if the storm brought that carousel, I can't say I wouldn't be tempted to go back a few years 😱
4:55 I understand your point but I actually like that quest so I’ll just run it like Mister Witch & Light were too cheap to get a proper audit, therefore they task the adventurers with monitoring the fun and overall mood of the park as they want to be sure the new (devious shadow like) attractions they’ve put in since ownership are promoting sales/enjoyment. After all it’s as you say, what is fun to a shadow elf? How would they under the fey demographic? I’d opt for putting the task on hard mode as I like how it forces the characters to explore the fair grounds.
I haven’t DM’d IRL yet, but I think my campaigns might be kinda punishing. 😅😅😅
I really hate the Zybilna connection and use of characters from a terrible cartoon. But I love parts of this campaign. I made major changes and have run it successfully. I may add some of your ideas to the campaign next time I run it.
I have the Witchlight book, and I think that I'll use these ideas when I run it! Bookmark time! Thank you!
You nailed on the head why I'm not interested in WotC products anymore, especially in their DnD line.
I call it the lack of the "Heavy Metal factor", the idea that if a concept/idea doesn't belong to the cover of a heavy metal album, then there's something wrong with it, which, ultimately, is a way of saying that something lacks narrative tension.
Where are my Glorfindels? Where are my Feys you definitely *do not* want to mess with? Where are my anti-heros? Where are my antagonists that you love to hate because, deep down, you know you'd do something they would and you don't like that?
Love them🎉
In 1st edition I had a circus designed to draw people to the big top to be pulled up in a tornado to be enslaved by Cloud Giants. Could I somehow recreate this with the idea that Giants may be tied closer to Fey than thought?
I don’t see why not!
So you’re familiar with the pathfinder adventure that inspired that book?
hay have you looked into pathfinders first world im running a pathfinder adventure and they will be traveling through a fey wood i wanted to get some ideas for encounters when i ran into your stuff and one of players is a worshiper of the Count Ranalc and wanted to see if your take on it.
From a player perspective, I fully agree with your critiques and love the ideas for your changes. The lack of skin in the game for the two NPC adventuring parties you meet makes their encounter in the final arc at the castle kind of fall flat to me, and while the whimsy of the campaign is fun, outside of the hag sisters it really lacks the element of malevolence that make fey in folklore so frightening. The hag sisters stealing an archfey's power for themselves just because that's how they are and they want to do it is...fine, I mean it's good enough, but it also kind of makes them feel like cardboard cutouts. You can't really relate to them. Adding Isolde as a relatable grey-area co-conspirator, making the dark carnival the final arc, and foreshadowing it from the beginning with the Shadowfell influence on the Witchlight carnival really elegantly ties up so many shortcomings. I love bringing it full circle like that. I will definitely use these ideas if I run this campaign in the future. Great video.
Biggest problem for me was the poor setup for the LJN characters. New players won't be familiar with them and the most famous of them don't appear until the very end with no build up
Exactly. One of the League name dropped earlier in the campaign, and my players vaguely recognized one of them, but it wasn't the big moment or reveal that I think the writers imagined it would be
@feywildfiend Outside of Warduke, even older players don't remember the characters. Pop culture references have expiration dates
I want to incorporate Baba Yaga as the neutral quest line. The group comes across her hut, she info dumps zyblna's/the hags'/ isolde's true nature, then employs them to return the cauldron to her. Located in the dark carnival. With or without zyblna.
first
Just the basic description of this adventure, makes it sound like the worst one ever made. Sadly, knowing Wizards of the Coast, this is not at all ture.