Café de Nuit

I've been searching around on the forums and to my dismay, I have found no information regarding the Shadow Rift, the Seelie and Unseelie courts, the Plane of Faerie, etc... My main interest is in regards to how the Shadow Rift came to be; (I have little interest in what or who is Gwydion and it seems that was addressed in a different post) What became of Titania, the faerie queen/ruler of the Seelie Court, which later appears to have been replaced by Maeve in the Shadow Rift module? Titania appears in the Monster Mythology handbook as well as Oberon, king of the faeries, and Queen of the Air and Darkness, the ruler of the Unseelie Court. Also, what happen to the Unseelie court of Pandemonium? and how did it end up in Ravenloft? Also, how did the Plane/demiplane of Shadow become associated with the Seelie and Unseelie court? (I do apologize if this has been addressed in another post that I was unable to find)

*Ahem* Gaz V *ahem*

[quote="Desdichado"]*Ahem* Gaz V *ahem*[/quote]

Good source. One problem: It doesn't even make a coherent connection (actually, no connection) with Planescape at all. Also, it doesn't explain anything about how Maeve came to replace Titania nor does it even touch on to the issue of how the Faerie courts (the Seelie and Unseelie) came to exist in the Shadow Rift. Thank you for the suggestion though.

As far as I know, there's no crossover between the Planescape Fae Courts and the Ravenloft ones. They're two different bunches of fae with the same titles, both claiming to be genuine. You could make up a lot of "Dark Powers steal identity" type stuff, in the same way as there is still a material plane version of Barovia out there, but it would likely be more bother than it's worth.

The reason Gaz V doesn't cover all your questions is that WW aren't allowed to directly refer to other D&D sourcebooks or worlds.

Bloody Morgan

There are no connections between the Shadow Rift and the Planescape campaign setting. All fey within the Rift are Shadow Fey, a unique, twisted race of faeries from the Shadow Plane. Once in Ravenloft, these beings have formed their own Seelie and Unseelie courts.

IMC, though, I've made a connection between sidhe of 7thSea and feys of ravenloft.
The original sidhe were outsiders. Incapable of feeling true emotions, just fascinated with humans. And immortal. Nothing sort of cold iron could kill them.
The shadow fey were a mockery of the original fey. They do have some sentiments, they can feel anger, frustration, hatred, compassion (some rare times) etc. Not in a human way, but they are not as incomprehensible and incoherent as the original sidhe. They are much less powerful though. And all this came because Gwydion tortured the original fey (is Gwydion a Syrneth? An interesting question, but probably not).

So... what comes when Theah (the 7thSea world) and the Core combine under the Mists? (That's one of the main points of the campaign). Of course someone could travel from the faerie Bryn Bresail land in Theah to the Shadow rift easily. And of course, at least Maeve is still almost one of the original fey (IMC she's just an aspect of the Queen of the Sky).

It gets even more complicated to combine the legends of the RV Lady of the Lake, with the 7thSea legend. (I did it, but anyway).

In a somewhat similar way - actually with very few changes, one could combine the Planescape Fey court to Ravenloft. The main problem is that, while Theah could easily be under the mists (it resembles Ravenloft), bringing a faerie realm of the outer planes to ravenloft is... just... difficult...

Igor the Henchman wrote:There are no connections between the Shadow Rift and the Planescape campaign setting. All fey within the Rift are Shadow Fey, a unique, twisted race of faeries from the Shadow Plane. Once in Ravenloft, these beings have formed their own Seelie and Unseelie courts.

Didn't they originate from outside the Plane of Shadow, but were drawn/tricked to enter it by Gwydion and infused with the plane's essence over time?

Malus is correct. Gwydion brought the race that would become the shadow fey from their homeworld to the Plane of Shadow and twisted/changed them over the eons.

However, to answer the question, as Igor and Bloody Morgan stated, the Seelie/Unseelie courts of Planescape are entirely separate entities than the Seelie/Unseelie courts of the Shadow Rift, they just share the same name.

So, would it be best to assume (since most of the other realms in ravenloft correspond to outside campaign settings) that the fey courts of ravenloft correspond with those of planescape? I.E. fey of the planescape courts taken by the mists would end up in the Shadow Rift ... or is that going to far?

L.E. fey of the planescape courts taken by the mists would end up in the Shadow Rift ... or is that going to far?

The courts of Ravenloft fey only roughly mirror those of the Planescape fey; which leads to the notion that the Ravenloft courts are, in many ways, independent of the courts of other fey in the DnD multiverse.

Doesn't it make sense that Fey stolen by Gwydion from [Planescape] would attempt to recreate the Seelie and Unseelie courts they were familiar with? Of course, having been twisted by Gwydion, their courts wouldn't be quite the same, so you'd get the Shadow Fey Seelie and Unseelie Courts you've got now - so you could link the Ravenloft ones' origins to Planescape if you wanted, just indirectly, as their warped attempt to recreate what they were familiar with.

I.E. fey of the planescape courts taken by the mists would end up in the Shadow Rift ... or is that going to far?

I don't know if I quite follow the logic there. Even if you draw the connection between the planescape fey and Ravenloft fey, that's a little like saying "Any elf from Krynn who gets taken by the mists would end up in Sithicus." Just because there's a specific domain in RL where you would fit in best certainly doesn't mean that's where the Mists are gonna put you. In fact, that might be the last place they put you...

According to the Shadow Rift, weren't the Arak originally normal elves? Then Gwydion twisted them into their present forms, infusing them with shadow essence, making them fey.

Both Planescape and Ravenloft are stealing from old mythology and folk tales and probably and liberal sprinkling from Shakespeare.
There is no official connection between the two anymore than there is a direct connection between Barovia and Romania.

That said, if you want to make-up some elaborate explination for use in your game word or just to occupy those long winter nights then feel free to write away and post your ideas and suggestions here.

Drinnik Shoehorn wrote:According to the Shadow Rift, weren't the Arak originally normal elves? Then Gwydion twisted them into their present forms, infusing them with shadow essence, making them fey.

The Arak were never elves. Plenty of Ravenloft natives confuse elves with the fey, but that's due to ignorance, not a genuine connection.

It's likely that the Arak weren't even that closely related to conventional species of D&D's fey creatures, to begin with. There are weird quirks to Arak nature -- like how an Arak whose personality deviates from its type will actually change "breed" over time to something more suitable; that's how Loht and his sister can be of different breeds -- that haven't (AFAIK) been ascribed to "standard" D&D fey. Given the effective immortality of both Gwydion and his captives, and what that potentially means for the time-frames involved, it may be that the Araks' ancestors were first taken to the Plane of Shadow millions of years ago ... so long ago, none of the (standard) fey he abducted had yet differentiated into the distinct, true-breeding types with which adventurers in other game-settings are familiar! Back-date their subjugation far enough, and you might even argue that the Arak are the original fey "species" (however affected by their exile on the Shadow plane) -- hence, inventors of the terms "Seelie" and "Unseelie Court" -- and the numerous races of fey which currently exist outside of Ravenloft have all evolved since then.