Thinking about Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness, it could be that they're representing two sides of nature: Day and Night. Their clash in directives could be the reason why the Feywild is stuck in twilight, literally day clashing against night. While Titania can be perceived - at least from our human understanding - as a beautiful and elegant archfey based on the beauty of the day, I like having the Queen as the same thing but with the night. The Queen isn't a terrible creature from the darkness that is going to kill you and take your soul, instead being someone who is captivated by the beauty of the night, and that's why she's so passive. The night is still.

I had a player draw and play the Rogue card from the Deck of Many Things, and a dice roll lead to Oberon being her nemesis, placing the party in the crosshairs of the Wild Hunt. In our last session, the party was informed of this and transported to a briar thicket, awakening to their senses as rabbits fleeing packs of hell hounds, devil dogs, and blink dogs. They rolled for a table of what type of rabbit esque creature they would be, and a percentile for where on the labyrinth of thorns they would be placed. Amazing session of running and diving through small gaps in the thicket with all but one party member evading the hunt. They woke back in their fairy house as if from a shared nightmare, one of them with the distinct memory of being devoured by a blink dog. It was a pretty intense session and everyone seemed to have a blast being so thoroughly out of element and having to react and heed their instincts and senses.

She's goth. She an evil, powerful goth archfey queen. I'm all in

One idea I'm really proud of is that every dream that happens in all the realms also happen in the Feywild and Shadowfell. Gods, Demons and Devils included

I like the way the Dresden Files handles Summer and Winter (a theme that will come up, if you recognize me across many videos on fae topics). Winter is actually far more powerful than Summer, but all its power is directed outward, to defend the boundaries of reality from Lovecraftian horrors. Summer exists mainly to prevent Winter from destroying the world while trying to defend it. Neither one is necessarily evil, because they exist to defend us, on some level. Neither is necessarily good, because they're inhuman beings that don't care all that much about humans or human morality. Summer is a bit friendlier, because they're more proximate, but that doesn’t make them good or safe.

Odin, you say? That sort of clicked the concept into place for me 👍 Everything about stories of tWHnt screamed to me that they were angry Fae, but the details made that pretty clear not so. "Ghostly" fits most of those characteristics in that place. Grimnir (Odin) as a sort of dominator god, sometimes even oppressor had those often unexplored dark sides, and his daughter Hel and the Valkyrie, and his great hall of warriors, the wraith-like ghostly ghosties. From that we can get a sense of the motivation of tWH, when where and who they hunt.

One of the things they is touched on in the material around the Unseelie Fey template is that the Seelie are very puritan. Only pure fey are allowed while the Unseelie embrace the freedom to love whomever you please, hence why they have a template that can be applied to any living thing. If you are wanting to make the Unseelie less of a clear cut enemy, you could use that as a leveraging point since the Seelie would likely be unfriendly to any sorcerers, fey heritage bards, or half-breeds of any flavor. There is also the matter of what happens to half-elves when they die as the elven gods refuse to say whether they are in their domains or not. Given that the Feywild is the avenue for souls to be born and reincarnated, it is entirely possible that the Unseelie could be providing sanctuary, enslaving, or doing any other number of things to the half-elven souls as another potential plot hook.

Whenever I hear about the Queen of Air and Darkness I always think about the goddess Eris (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer) from the Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas animated movie.

Perhaps the unseelie queen’s motivation is that of a sibling rivalry. She just wants to prove somehow, maybe even just to herself and her people, that they are just as worthy of existence as their “beautiful” kin However I really like the idea of them being just this terrifying, uncaring and ruthless force to be avoided or their induced maladies remedied

My new character is a fey on her first wild hunt, and she's introduced when the hunt goes through an area and she is pitched from her Nightmare.

One of my players loves the Faewild and Shadowfell, I've got a nasty plot twist set up for her there and I love your videos. They're very informative and send the idea sparks flying

Also recently started playing the videogame Destiny 2 and there's a villainess by the name Savathun that makes for great inspiration. A creature of darkness that covets the light.

In my campaign the queen tried to get more power by playing the party, but it did not work as intended. Therefore she had to negotiate, why she was delaying the tithe to the lord of Nessus... but you do not mess with him, so he had commissioned the party to deliver a gift to her... the black diamond, which functioned as a trap. Surely, she will never show such behavior towards him again. However, the party had to deal with some unfriendly missives from the the queen, e. g. the frost veil. But I think they will encounter the hunt someday, too.. Subbed for the tip 😉

So I just found your channel, and I am rather enjoying the content. As a ravenloft player, one thing that is neat is that the Unseelie court, and the Seeelie court both exist in Ravenloft in the feywild-ish land of the Shadowrift(3rd edition ravenloft was before the feywild proper came out IIRC). In regards to the Unseelie court, instead of it being ruled by the Queen of Air and Darkness, it is ruled by Loht, the Prince of Shadows, the Crippled King who is lawful evil instead of chaotic evil. Aside from his goals of wishing to be the ruler of the fey like his father the Erlking did and to restore his crippled body, he wants to destroy Gwydion(an eldtrich being), and if this means destroying the obsidian gate and bringing about destruction to mortals, he doesn't regard non fey lives that highly. Even if you wished to keep the Queen as the ruler of the Unseelie, Loht would work IMO as a nice NPC. There are different fey types that tend towards each court. Such as the battle loving Muryan, the sinisterly elegant sith, the tricky and murderous proweies, and the feral tegs are in the Unseelie court. could easily have them in the normal feywild unseelie court. The wild Hunt also exists in Ravenloft too, though it is afaik not tied to the Fey courts of the shadow Rift. It is more tied to the domain of Forlorn; which is a scottish themed domain with haunted castles and locales as one might expect for Ravenloft. Anyways the Wild hunt in Ravenloft is not controlled by the Unseelie court but a wild phenomenon that you can encounter. It is possible to become the hunted where you have to survive being chased by the hunt for a time. Also if you hear the horn then you very well might find yourself riding along with the hunt. both options would be great plot hooks of different types. There is also the fact that a faction of druids want to use the wild hunt to go after the darklord of Forlorn, by finding a magical hunting horn; unknown to the druids the hunt doesn't go after darklords, but that could also be a fun plot hook.

I love these. I've never been really interested in the feywild before, the rules and attention to detail on what you say and or promise always made me shy away, but these videos really do make it sound like a fascinating place to explore. Keep it up!

Idea of the Week could be "dwarf with the crystal"

some stories say the wild hunt goes after evil people, what if it is looknig for someone the group is trying to contact? like you have to save the evil wizard becasue she has somethnig you need

i swear i remember or heard something like seasonal fey courts or am i thinking of something elce

The gloaming court 🤔 in elden ring, there is a reference to the “gloam-eyed queen”, I wonder if they correlate

Great video. In comment of previous video, i forgot to recommend series of videos abot Fey and Feywild by Timor Sol. He gives a lot of information about wordbuilding in general but not about exact characters in Forgotten Realms. It complements your work nicely, i think, check it out.